Chapter Ninety-Six: A Reader’s Plea for More Updates

“Very good!”

“Su Chen, you have truly changed my view of you!”

“In that case, I should like to see just how far you can go!”

“I...”

Before he could finish, the call on Su Chen’s end had already been cut off again.

Bang!

Zhao Hengyuan slammed his phone hard onto the desk.

His face was so dark it seemed water might drip from it.

Inside the office, the middle-level executives of Dynasty Entertainment all wore grim expressions.

“He refused?”

One of the men who looked like a supervisor could not help asking.

Zhao Hengyuan answered in a dull, muffled voice:

“Didn’t you just hear it yourself?”

Perhaps still stung from the earlier exchange, his tone was far from pleasant.

The middle-level executive who had been rebuffed looked even more unpleasant.

Damn it, I did hear it.

I was only saying that to ease the atmosphere.

Who would have thought your precious little idiot would not appreciate the gesture and would even snap back at me?

It was your rotten idea to contact Su Chen, not mine.

He forcibly suppressed the urge to erupt into an argument and abruptly changed the subject.

“What do we do next?”

“Should we expose what happened back then?”

Zhao Hengyuan was now the head of the artist division, the most senior among the middle ranks at Dynasty.

It was not easy for him to come into direct conflict with the other side.

“Better not!”

“This is the kind of move that injures the enemy by a thousand while costing us eight hundred.”

“And the one hurt most may very well still be us!”

“On the contrary, the damage to him might be negligible.”

“He did say one thing right: once this matter is dragged out into the open, even more will be pulled in, and we may end up inviting trouble for no reason!”

“So, let’s forget it!”

When Zhao Hengyuan finished, he paused, as if comforting himself.

“He is just a small fry! Maybe he only had luck on his side and happened to write two good songs.”

“I only wanted to see whether he could be brought over, to give the company a bit more possibility.”

“Since he does not appreciate it, then this matter ends here!”

The others nodded. They too felt what he said made sense, and so they said no more.

“As for his refusal, though I am angry...”

“it is still not worth the time it would take to deal with him.”

“Let’s watch and see for now.”

“If he keeps stirring up trouble and opposing us, I do not mind making things a little difficult for him.”

After the matter was settled, they each dispersed.

As for Su Chen, after hanging up, he was also exasperated into laughter.

Those people really had no shame.

They came asking him for songs, yet still carried themselves as though bestowing a favor.

As if working with Dynasty Entertainment was some immense grace they were granting him.

How could there be such shameless people in this world?

Still, this was precisely Dynasty Entertainment’s style.

Going by his estimate, they would probably not make any move against him next.

After all, at present, they still did not take him seriously.

That was for the best; he could continue developing for a while longer.

Besides, he still had Tang Guo’s account in the shadows to rely on.

Against ordinary little tricks, he truly had nothing to fear.

As for the hidden danger from that old incident, that was something to consider only after he made his debut in the future.

For now, it could not affect him at all.

It was merely a small episode.

Very soon, he put it out of mind.

He opened the computer and prepared to start writing.

Since uploading that novel, Immortal, he had typed for more than twenty straight days, writing over eighty chapters in one go, stopping only after Baguio’s death.

After that, because of the October rankings campaign, he had been running about, entertaining people and handling obligations.

After some time, he could no longer bring himself to pick up the pen.

Stopping serialization had only two outcomes: once, or countless times.

As expected.

After not writing for a while, his hand had grown rusty.

He staggered through two more chapters before stopping again.

After organizing the material, he prepared to upload it.

He opened the author backend of Qidian Chinese Network.

He had not logged in for many days, and the moment he did, a flood of messages came rushing at him.

The review section:

“It has been a long time since I read such a good novel. The premise is very fresh! Keep it up, author!”

“I read all the way through more than eighty chapters in one sitting. The prose is smooth, the emotions delicate—this is a rare and excellent book.”

“Will Zhang Xiaofan end up with Lu Xueqi or with Baguio? My suggestion is to take both! Can the author see this?”

“I have a feeling this book will create an entirely new school of writing. I may be witnessing the birth of a new master.”

At first, the comments were full of praise.

But after Baguio’s death, and then several days without updates, the atmosphere suddenly changed.

Coincidentally, Su Chen had chosen the pen name “The Number One Master of the Inner Palace.”

And so in the comments, people began calling him not “author” anymore, but “chief steward.”

“Ahhh! I hate you, author! Why did you kill off Baguio!”

“Will Baguio come back to life? Please, I beg you, just say one thing! Otherwise there is no point in keeping up with this book!”

“The plot was so good—why did you have to write Baguio to death? Are you planning to chop it off?”

“As expected, the author is planning to stop. You haven’t updated for days; you must have gone in for surgery!”

“Heh, no wonder your pen name is ‘The Number One Master of the Inner Palace.’ You’re really the chief steward, aren’t you?”

Slowly, the readers’ resentment grew and grew.

“The donkeys on the production team wouldn’t dare rest like this!”

“Chief steward, I really like your novel, but I very much dislike your update speed.”

“Once upon a time there was an author who loved to stop updating. Later, he went lame!”

“My advice to everyone: go have a child. By the time the child gets married, you’ll probably be able to start reading again!”

“I’m out. When my grandson grows up, I’ll have him buy the paper edition and burn it for me!”

“From this day on, you also have a new title: eunuch.”

Su Chen stared at the comments with a face full of black lines.

When he updated, they called him “author”; after a few days without an update, he became “chief steward”; if he dragged it out any longer, he would be called a eunuch.

Readers really were brutally realistic.

Still, he felt a little ashamed inside.

Aside from being busy with work, he had indeed grown somewhat lazy.

He hurriedly uploaded the two chapters he had just written, and only then did he feel a little more at ease.

Not long after the upload, a wave of comments came surging in.

“Wow, the author updated! Was the surgery just successfully reattached?”

“You won’t stop again, will you? If you do, there really won’t be much left!”

“It’s over. The local specialties I sent to the chief steward are already on the road, but then he updated—how am I supposed to call them back?”

Su Chen scrolled through the readers’ comments and found them both amusing and absurd.

Everyone here was a talent, and every line was delivered with wit.

Even he, a man from another world, was thoroughly entertained.

He closed the comments and opened the site messages.

One account instantly caught his attention.

All the other messages showed only one or two entries.

But this account displayed 999+ messages.

The account name was “Editor Qiuqiu.”

The most recent message had been sent fourteen minutes earlier.

“Author, at least give me a reply!”