Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 14 Recommended? A sign of popularity

But the next day when Cao Sheng came to the playground for a morning run, he didn't see Tan Lei. She didn't show up until he finished running one thousand meters today.

On the way back to the dormitory, Cao Sheng couldn't help laughing when he thought of Tan Lei finishing her run yesterday and nodding vigorously to indicate that she would come for a morning run today.

He had long known that Tan Lei had some interest in him during their college years.

I went jogging with him in the morning yesterday, probably intentionally wanting to get closer to him.

But maybe running a thousand meters every morning was too painful for her, so even though she said yesterday that she would come today, she didn't come today.

Maybe it was because after she went back yesterday, the more she thought about it, the more she felt that running a thousand meters every day just to be close to him was not worth it!
It is also possible that she wanted to get up this morning and run with him, but she was powerless. She lay in bed with her eyes open, thinking about getting up quickly, but her body remained motionless.

These are all possible.

Just like in the original time and space, he would occasionally have the idea of ​​getting up early to exercise, but almost every time it only remained at the thought stage, and his body always resisted action.

He felt that, ultimately, his charm was not enough to help Tan Lei overcome her inner laziness.

In response, Cao Sheng smiled self-deprecatingly.

……

In the following days, as long as he did not go to the Internet cafe all night, he would still go to the playground for a morning run.

In the blink of an eye, more than half a month passed, and Tan Lei never came to jog with him in the morning again.

During this more than half a month, he finally finished writing "Living with the Air Hostess".

He didn't know how many words there were in the whole text.

Because most of the manuscripts still exist only in his draft book and have not all been uploaded to the Internet, and it is difficult to count the specific number of words in the manuscripts on the draft paper.

He only knew this story and wrote 82 chapters.

Each chapter took about five or six pages of manuscript, and he estimated that each chapter had about three thousand words.

Therefore, he estimated that the total number of words was about 200,000, and should be less than 300,000.

This length of article was within his plan.

On the night when he finished writing the entire article, he took some of the saved manuscripts and went to the Internet cafe to spend the night, planning to upload about 10,000 words to his email inbox that night.

Next he planned to rest for two or three days, and then start writing the main text of "I Want to Become an Immortal".

When he arrived at the Starry Sky Internet Cafe tonight, it was almost 12 o'clock.

After paying the overnight fee and turning on the computer, he subconsciously logged into Under the Banyan Tree first to check the current data of his book "Living with the Air Hostess".

This book has been published on Under the Banyan Tree for more than a month, with an average of one chapter updated every three days. It has now been serialized to Chapter 11.

When he came to spend the night two days ago, he saw that the book had been read by more than 2500 people and had over 600 comments.

His mood was complicated at that time.

I am pleased and feel a sense of accomplishment because of the more than 600 comments. I feel that my book has touched the hearts of readers and aroused their desire to comment.

I was also disappointed because after more than a month of serialization, there were still only more than 2500 readers.

With more than 2500 readers, is it considered popular?

In his opinion, this number of readers was too small! It was not even as much as a fraction of any of his works before he traveled through time.

He began to doubt whether his book would ever become popular online.

Perhaps, after Pizi Cai’s "First Close Contact" becomes popular on the Internet, most netizens will still think that "First Close Contact" is the first online novel, just like the original time and space.

I didn't even know that there was a book called "Living with a Stewardess" that was published earlier than "First Intimate Contact". Just like a girl he dated before, he was obviously her first boyfriend, but after breaking up, she never admitted that he was her first love, just because when they were dating, only a handful of people knew about it.

but……

Tonight, when Cao Sheng logged into the author backend of Under the Banyan Tree, he suddenly found that his author backend had received an internal text message.

what's the situation?
With some curiosity, he clicked on the text message.

"Dear Zhongyuan Yidianhui, hello! In view of the fact that your work "The Days of Living with the Air Hostess" has been well received, this website has decided to recommend it. I hope you can continue to create. I wish you a happy mood and a spring of inspiration! - Under the Banyan Tree"

After reading this in-site message, Cao Sheng was stunned for a moment.

Three words popped into my mind: recommended position?
Originally, he was a contracted author of Qidian Chinese website. Every time he published a new book, he would get a recommended position after signing the contract.

Every time he is assigned a recommended position, his author background will receive a text message notification.

Logically speaking, he was already used to such text message notifications and shouldn't find it strange.

But it’s early 1998 now!
How many months has it been since Rongshuxia was established? Two months?

Moreover, he did not sign any contract with Rongshuxia. He could only be considered a resident writer and it was impossible for him to get any royalties from this website.

It's purely powered by love.

Under such circumstances, it was completely beyond his expectation that Under the Banyan Tree would give him a recommended seat.

But he knew it was definitely a good thing.

The publicity effects with and without recommended positions are absolutely different.

He suddenly saw hope that his book would become popular.

Yes!
There was no ready-made online literature readership these days, and Under the Banyan Tree, which had just been established not long ago, did not have many readers.

However, Under the Banyan Tree is the first Chinese literature website after all, and naturally attracts all Chinese literature lovers who access the Internet.

Moreover, there are too few things for people who go online to play these days.

Apart from playing games, watching movies and TV series or listening to music, there are not many forums to visit on the Internet.

There isn't even any chat software.

In his memory, many people who go online these days just wander around the Internet, looking for websites and forums of interest.

As the first literature website in China, Rongshuxia does not have too much traffic every day, but it is still possible to make a novel popular.

After all, his book "Living with a Flight Attendant" was his first online novel and had no competitors at all.

Cao Sheng suddenly remembered something, squinted his eyes and carefully looked at the date when the message was sent, and found that it was sent at around 4 pm the day before yesterday.

In other words, Under the Banyan Tree had probably recommended his book the day before yesterday afternoon.

Thinking of this possibility, Cao Sheng quickly clicked on the page of his book to check the current number of readers. He was surprised to find that the number of readers of this book has skyrocketed to 9766.
The number of comments also increased significantly, from more than 600 comments to 2332.

He took a quick look and saw several comments like this.

"Who wrote this? Why did the website give him such a prominent recommendation? Does anyone know who wrote this?"

"Is this a love story written to commemorate one's own life? Has the author broken up with Ran Jing now? Is Ran Jing a pseudonym?"

"Author! The website has promoted you so much, why are you still writing so slowly? Where's Chapter 12? Calculating the time, it should be published today, right?"

"Author, if Ran Jing is your real name, I suggest you change it! Even if someone breaks up with you, you still have to protect their privacy! You can't just publish their information online just because you can write articles. That's very immoral!"

(End of this chapter)