Guide to Becoming a Tyrant in Online Novels

The next morning, the editor-in-chief of the romance section at Qidian.com arrived at work still half asleep. She sat at her desk, yawning, and turned on her computer to check the ranking data and filter recommended spots as usual.

Mechanically scrolling the mouse wheel, then stopping after three seconds.

She frowned and leaned closer to the screen, only to be startled to see a strange book at number 30 on the romance novel chart.

"Breaking Taboo? What's that? Romance novels have such weird titles?" She clicked on the information and frowned even more deeply: "Suspense? Male-oriented? Am I still asleep?"

She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes hard. When she looked again, the 30th place was no longer the taboo number; it had become the 29th.

She yelled, "Where's the operations manager?! There's a bug in the data!"

A little while later, all the editors in the romance fiction section were in an uproar.

"Breaking the taboo? How did a suspense book end up on our romance novel chart?"

"There must be something wrong with the transportation management department again. It's okay, it'll be fine after the repairs."

"Oh no, those bastards in the authors' group are starting to go berserk."

The atmosphere in various romance novel author groups has reached an all-time high.

"What the hell is this taboo?! How did a male-oriented novel about ghosts manage to push me out of the top spot?!"

"A male-oriented suspense novel actually made it onto the romance list? Ha, how ironic! Male-oriented novels can write romance? Get out!"

"Family members, who understands this?! Why should a suspense book try to steal our business?! This underhanded operation is too obvious!"

"@Editor, please explain!"

……

The editors' accounts were buzzing with activity, the romance novel section was in chaos, and the editor in charge yelled at the editor-in-chief: "The authors suspect we're causing trouble! If we don't do something soon, this is going to be a huge problem!"

Meanwhile, early risers noticed this scene, and the comment section instantly exploded with comments.

"I came here to see the domineering CEOs' romance, Breaking Taboos? What's this? Something's not right, let me see... Oh my god! Why is this a weird book?! But the comments section seems interesting..."

"This is amazing! Sisters, let's put it at number one and show those writers who write 'industrial saccharin' what real romance is!"

"Shocking! Headline: Suspense Teaches Romance Writing"

"Why are so many naive and innocent girls showing up here again?! Can you please stop coming?! This is a suspense book!"

"cannot!"

……

Suspense authors also noticed this phenomenon, and the usually quiet group chat erupted in chaos.

"Breaking the taboo, we're on the romance novel chart! And at number 29! Holy crap! Those romance novelists who said we couldn't write romance, what a slap in the face! It hurts so much!"

"What are you all so happy about? Not only does Broken Taboo ruin romance novels, but it's also taken over our own territory, sucking up all the data! It's a monster! Hurry up and get on the bestseller list, stop ruining our new book charts!"

"Don't come! The bestseller list can't handle this black hole!"

"What did I say before? This beast is starting to bare its teeth, isn't it?"

"I was wrong, Master! But you saw it coming all along, so why didn't you take action?"

"Action? Against a new book? I'm not going to lower the price that much, and it doesn't deserve it."

……

The data operations department urgently investigated whether there was data manipulation or a bug. After careful inspection, the staff exclaimed, "Boss! There's no error!"

The operations manager retorted incredulously, "Impossible! How can something so unusual not have gone wrong?"

The staff member said, "Its data is all real. Many female readers are brought in by word of mouth and they label the works as romance. The algorithm has captured this and put the works in the romance category."

The operations manager was stunned for a long time: "Good heavens! I've been doing this for ten years and I've never seen a ghost story make it onto the romance list. Why? Because it's about falling in love with ghosts?"

After receiving the reply from the operations management department, the romance novel editor's face turned completely dark. She broke the taboo and wanted to see what kind of magic this male-oriented ghost book had.

As she looked, her brows furrowed deeper and deeper.

Putting aside the suspense and supernatural elements, the characters are indeed very vividly portrayed, and the bonds of fate are unique. Moreover, because it is based on folklore, it is written very realistically, and the romance storylines are definitely better than those on the new romance book charts.

But that won't work either!

How can a romance novel ranking be ruined by a suspense book!

Inside the suspense team, everything was calm and everyone was busy with their own tasks, completely unaware of the raging storm outside.

The suspense editor was leisurely sipping tea when the door was suddenly pushed open, and the romance editor stormed in, yelling, "Mind your own business! A suspense book has somehow made it onto our romance bestseller list!"

The suspense editor was completely bewildered, not understanding at all: "What do you mean?"

The romance novel editor showed him the list. He pushed up his glasses, looked at it clearly, and exclaimed "Holy crap!" He quickly opened the backend to check the data and found that while all of Po Ji's data had skyrocketed, the percentage of female readers had also increased to 48%!

He yelled that this was outrageous and quickly called Lin Ke in, but his colleague said Lin Ke was off work that day. He then tried to contact the operations team to fix the bug, but the romance editor said that the algorithm was working correctly and that the data was real.

The suspense editor paused, then looked at the romance editor: "Wait, since the data is normal, why did you come to me?"

"This is your book! Who else should I talk to if not you!" The romance novel editor was even angrier. "This book barged in and messed up our data! Are you even going to do anything about this?!"

Upon hearing this naive request, the editor-in-chief of the suspense series was utterly bewildered: "It's grown legs and run away on its own, and the algorithm is dragging it along with it. How am I supposed to manage it? Should I tell the readers to stop reading, or should I take the book off the shelves?"

The romance editor paused, then softened his tone: "Then you can at least remove it from the romance list, right?"

The suspense editor said, "Beautiful lady, how could I possibly have the authority to manage your romance novel rankings? Besides, this isn't the book's fault. First, it's genuinely good, and second, the new books on your channel are indeed... cough cough, you'll have to talk to the editor-in-chief about this, but I think the editor-in-chief will not only not remove it, but will actually promote it even more."

Romance Editor: ...

Meanwhile, at the factory, a fire drill was being conducted. Yao Guang was busy maintaining order and coordinating operations, completely unaware that while he was putting out a fire with a fire extinguisher, his own book was spontaneously combusting online.

At that moment, Lin Ke, who was still half asleep, was woken up by a series of phone calls. She rejected the calls a couple of times, but the phone kept ringing. Frustrated, she sat up, scratched her messy hair, and muttered that she couldn't even get a good night's sleep. She answered the phone irritably, "Feeding?"

After a few words were spoken on the other end of the phone, her half-open eyes suddenly widened!

She quickly jumped out of bed, turned on her computer, and opened the website. When she saw what was in front of her, she felt completely numb.

Yesterday, when Cai Cai said she had signed a monster, she didn't think much of it, just taking it as a compliment. After all, with this momentum, reaching 10,000 subscriptions for a premium product was a sure thing. But unexpectedly, just one night later, this monster bared its fangs and went to wreak havoc on others!

She quickly opened her phone, ignoring the constant stream of messages, and went straight to the pinned chat window with "Yaoguang": "Yaoguang-sama, our book has made it onto the romance novel charts!"

I waited for a long time but still didn't receive a reply.

Looking at the inquiries from authors and editors, she felt an intense itch on her scalp for the first time, as if she were growing a second brain.

This chaos attracted the attention of other types of channels. Editors, colleagues, and readers all flocked to watch, and comedians and joke writers listed it as the biggest scandal of the year on Qidian.

But little did they know, an even bigger scandal was yet to come.