Back to 1997, I became the originator of online literature

Chapter 25: A copycat
Two days later, Saturday.

Cao Sheng went to the commercial street in the morning to find out about the current market conditions for assembled computers.

He went into three computer stores in succession.

After asking the price, he fell silent.

The price was far beyond his expectations.

The 15-inch monitor cost more than 17 yuan, and he didn't even ask the price of the -inch monitor.

An ordinary motherboard costs more than a thousand.

The CPU also costs more than a thousand.

Memory cards, hard drives, sound cards, graphics cards, etc., each costs several hundred dollars.

In addition, there are computer cases, optical drives, floppy drives, etc., and the prices are much higher than he estimated.

Just a rough calculation, the total price of a computer is at least seven or eight thousand.

If you want a better configuration, the price will be tens of thousands.

This is just an assembled machine. If it is a finished product, the price will be more expensive.

On the bus on the way back, Cao Sheng looked at the scenery outside the window with a self-deprecating smile on his face. In the original time and space, he bought his first computer in 2007.

That year, the Shenzhou laptop came out of nowhere, and the news said that the Shenzhou laptop brought down the inflated prices of laptops.

He didn't feel anything at the time because what he bought was a Shenzhou laptop, which cost a little over four thousand yuan.

When he bought the computer, he heard people say that assembled computers were very cheap and one could be assembled for around two thousand yuan.

So, when he wanted to buy a computer recently, he thought that his budget was 3000, and buying an assembled computer that could just type and didn't have high requirements for performance should be enough.

After all, in this day and age, many rural families simply cannot afford 3000 yuan.

98 yuan in 3000 should be comparable to 2024 yuan in 30000.
However, he still underestimated the expensiveness of computers in this era.

No wonder it costs 5 yuan to use the Internet for an hour in an Internet cafe.

He can't afford such an expensive computer.

Even if I could afford it, I don't think it's worth it.

That square display, pitifully small memory, and a hard drive capacity of only a few GB...

Even the best computers today are outdated in his eyes.

Such a rubbish configuration makes him spend seven or eight thousand, or even tens of thousands of dollars to buy it. Not to mention that he doesn't have that much money now, even if he did, he wouldn't buy it.

Because his memories before his rebirth told him that computers were updated and replaced very quickly, with each passing year changing.

The parameters of various accessories will continue to rise, but the prices will continue to fall.

Just like the Internet access fee in Internet cafes, it is five yuan an hour now, but in a few years, it will be one yuan an hour. If you become a member, it will only cost 70 or 80 cents an hour.

Of course, the bottom line is that he currently has too little money.

If he already has hundreds of thousands or even more cash, and is asked to take out ten thousand to buy a computer to make it easier for himself to type, he will probably still buy it.

It has to be said that this time when he inquired about the price of the computer, he once again realized his poverty, and his motivation to make money was stronger than before.

……

As the days go by, May is getting closer, the weather is getting warmer, and everyone's clothes are getting thinner.

Cao Sheng's life seemed to have not changed much.

I still get up early every day to run in the playground, then have breakfast and go to class... In my spare time, I basically write in the adult education building.

In addition, he would take time out to go to the Internet cafe every two days, mainly to update "Living with the Air Hostess".

On Friday and Saturday nights, he would go to the Internet cafe and stay up all night converting his handwritten manuscripts into electronic documents.

During this period, there were two biggest changes in his life.

First, his food was obviously much better, at least there was meat at every meal.

Now that I have enough food in my stomach, I no longer feel hungry before mealtime.

The second change is his "Living with the Air Hostess", which was completed a long time ago but is currently being serialized under the Banyan Tree.

Anyone who has written online literature knows that the most difficult time for a novel to gain popularity is in the early stages.

Because the data growth in the early stage will be very slow (except for the great ones).

Just like his book "Living with a Flight Attendant", when it was first published on Under the Banyan Tree, it only had dozens of reads and a few new book reviews every day.

But as more and more readers and book reviews appear, its data will grow faster and faster, just like a snowball.

Soon it will be too big to fit in one pot.

At the beginning of this month, the number of readers of this book was only more than 8. Now it is the end of the month, and in the past twenty days, he has only updated 12 chapters.

But the number of readers has grown to more than 55.

The second most read work "Under the Banyan Tree" was far behind, and the other work did not even have a fraction of his data.

It can be said that this book is already very popular, at least under the banyan tree, and it is undoubtedly the most popular, without a doubt.

Of course, this has something to do with the fact that it is currently the longest work of Under the Banyan Tree.

Currently, more than 90% of Under the Banyan Tree’s other works are short stories.

The remaining 10% of the works?
Perhaps influenced by his book "Living with a Flight Attendant", a number of serialized novels have appeared under the Banyan Tree recently.

Moreover, there are many well-written ones.

After all, in this era where writing novels is not profitable at all and is done with passion, most people would not even consider writing this kind of thing.

Those who really try to write are either confident in their writing skills or have very little time to spare.

What’s interesting is that Cao Sheng recently saw several copycat works under the banyan tree.

The book titles are very similar in style.

One of them is called "Living with the School Beauty", one is called "Living with the Bank Female Manager", and the other is "Living with My Cousin".

Not to mention, even though it’s just following the trend, the number of readers is still quite good.

Although the data is far less than that of Cao Sheng's book, the number of readers of these three books is obviously much higher than that of other works of Under the Banyan Tree.

The most popular one is "Living with a Bank Female Manager".

The book has been read by more than 3 people.

The reason why Cao Sheng noticed these three books is that readers have recently mentioned these three books in his book review section.

The content of the book review is as follows:

"This book is still the best. The hero in the book 'Living with the School Beauty' is too wretched. He doesn't have any manliness at all! He's just a gangster!"

"Author, can you update faster? While I was waiting for you to update, I finished reading the book "Living with My Cousin" today. Although her writing style is not as good as yours, she updates much faster than you, with a chapter every day! You should learn from her!"

"I suggest you read the book 'Living with a Bank Female Manager'. It's all about cohabitation. The book is so exciting. There are 8 chapters, 6 of which are sex scenes. But the female manager's moans sound fake."

……

Cao Sheng sees several book reviews like this every time he browses the book review section recently.

However, before he had the chance to read the book “Living with a Female Bank Manager”, the book was blocked on the website and could no longer be searched on the site.

In a blink of an eye, it was early May.

That evening, Cao Sheng came back from the cafeteria and was busy changing his bed sheets and quilt in the dormitory. Suddenly, a familiar voice came from the dormitory door: "Cao Sheng!"

Cao Sheng turned and looked.

"Hey, squad leader, why are you here?"

"Monitor?"

Pang Yunhai and Guan Zhi, who were in the same dormitory, were quite surprised and greeted the visitor.

Yes, the person who just called Cao Sheng at the door was their class monitor Geng Yong.

Cao Sheng was a little surprised that the monitor came to the dormitory to find him.

He immediately smiled and got down from the upper bunk, "What a rare guest! Squad leader! Come in and sit down!"

Geng Yong walked in with a smile on his face, holding a thick cowhide envelope in his hand. This envelope was much larger than the common envelopes, and judging from its bulging appearance, it seemed to be filled with something quite thick.

Geng Yong approached Cao Sheng and handed him the envelope in his hand. "Cao Sheng! I just went to the guard room and saw your registered letter in our class's mailbox. What's in it? It's so thick? It's quite heavy!"

Cao Sheng took the registered letter and felt the thickness of the letter. He guessed in his heart that this should be a sample book of the first volume of his new book.

A few days ago, he received an email from Chang Qingshu, in which Chang Qingshu told him that the first volume of "I Want to Become an Immortal" would be available at the end of April, and the five sample books promised to him had been sent to him, so he should pay attention to it.

So, even though he hadn't opened the registered letter yet, he had already guessed that it contained a sample copy of his new book.

At this moment, his heart was filled with joy.

(End of this chapter)