Guide to Becoming a Tyrant in Online Novels

He looked down at the ground for a long time, his mind replaying the string of numbers on the page.

He picked up the phone, opened the screen, and repeatedly counted the six-digit number starting with 6...

He never even dared to dream of having so much money.

He took a screenshot of the text message and sent it to his mother.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

My mom's voice was so loud it almost shattered the phone speaker: "What's with that text message? Is it a scam message?"

He paused for a while before saying no, but he didn't know how to explain it, because it was beyond his comprehension.

In just a few minutes, he went from a security guard earning five or six thousand a month to a tycoon with five or six hundred thousand.

Is he crazy, or is the world crazy?

My mother was silent for a long time before finally asking, "When are you going to get your eyes checked?"

He suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, which causes narrowed visual field and blurred vision at night, affecting even his work and locking in the upper limit of his life.

Born into a poor family, she suffers from a "rich man's disease" that current medicine cannot cure, which is my mother's biggest worry.

But the appearance of this money was different; it was like a stick poking into a pool of water, gently stirring it, and life had hope again.

Yao Guang said he'd keep the royalties card at home and put it away carefully. He said he could consider adding a third floor to the house during this time, and also decorate every corner of the house beautifully. He'd take time off to visit various hospitals; even if it couldn't cure the problem completely, it would be good if it could improve his condition.

My mother's voice choked with emotion: "I couldn't save you, but now you can save yourself. There's nothing in the house that needs money. Writing books can make money, but you also need to be careful with your eyes."

He didn't complain about his mother's nagging as usual; he simply replied "I know" and hung up.

He opened the taboo book and turned to a sentence.

[Original text: Every day I had to read and memorize those esoteric Taoist books, and practice physical exercises. My grandfather, usually so kind, became very strict with me. I felt exhausted and ran into my grandmother's arms, complaining that I didn't want to study anymore. My grandmother neither scolded nor indulged me; she simply told me to walk to the front gate and then to the edge of the field. I didn't know why, but I did as she said. When I returned, my grandmother smiled and said to me, "You see, doing things and living life are like walking; as long as you're willing to walk, you'll always reach the end."]

This was something his grandmother told him when he was little, and he remembered it and wrote it into his novel.

This passage, which received over 99 likes, is considered by countless readers to be one of the most insightful and powerful quotes that broke taboos.

He stared at that sentence for a long time, then looked at the cover of "Breaking Taboo," his fingers gently stroking the eyes that represented his own inability to find light, and murmured to this work, which he had infused with the core of redemption: "You broke my taboo."

He opened the backstage area and channeled this complex emotion into his writing, striving to live up to the manuscript fee that held the expectations of countless readers.

Meanwhile, in the white-net editorial department, Lin Ke was so busy she was practically fuming.

Breaking the taboo's great success also brought her a huge bonus. Her colleagues congratulated her and expressed their envy, whether genuinely or not. Normally, she would have been overjoyed, but now she had no interest in it.

Because she discovered that the industry had abandoned its strategy of encircling and suppressing Po Ji, and instead changed its tactics to launch a soft encirclement and suppression against Yao Guang.

She didn't tell Yao Guang about this. Yao Guang only needed to create, while her job was to keep all these troubles out. So she ran back and forth between the editor-in-chief, the marketing department, and the public relations department. Finally, the editor-in-chief stopped her and told her to trust the leaders. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.

She had assumed those platforms were treating Yaoguang as a disposable weapon, something to be used and discarded, which caused her anxiety and unease. Now she knew that the higher-ups weren't standing idly by, but had their own strategies.

She opened her chat window with Yaoguang, wrote and deleted messages repeatedly, over and over again, until finally she sighed and sent a message: "Are you happy?"

An hour later, Yao Guang replied: "Very happy."

She put down her phone, ordered milk tea for herself and her colleagues, and hummed a little tune as she plunged into the sea of ​​submissions.

The effect of breaking taboos continues, but no matter what kind of work it is, the popularity will eventually fade. The comedians and joke writers have been attracted to other trending topics, and industry insiders have realized that they can't deal with the taboos, so they stop trying and go back to their own business.

Aside from the suspenseful genre still relegated to the shadow of the epicenter and its core readership, the spotlight has thinned considerably. As the peak subsided, revenue saw the expected decline, but this was offset by a surge in IP collaborations, even resulting in some increase.

The top executives of various networks felt they were making a fool of themselves. No matter how much hype they put in, Yao Guang, this transparent figure without even a public media account, remained completely silent from beginning to end. The White Network also acted as if they hadn't seen anything. It was like punching cotton. Feeling bored, they abandoned their encirclement plan. While still determined to dig into Yao Guang, they continued to accelerate their research and replication of Po Ji's architecture.

Breaking the taboo for more than three months, the word count reached 600,000. This high-intensity writing also triggered a backlash.

Yao Guang's eyesight was already poor, and he was writing while working. He was fine when he had free time, but when he had a lot of things to do, he had to squeeze in his rest time after work to update. He also had to update more during his vacation, which made his condition worse and worse, and he made more and more mistakes at work.

Since they were in the same class and shared the same dormitory, Da Tang was the first to notice. He stopped teasing and instead earnestly advised, "Don't push yourself so hard with your writing. Look at how dark your eyes are! Don't you even realize you walk like you're sleepwalking?"

Yao Guang didn't reveal how much money she had earned, only saying she would keep an eye on it. Da Tang didn't press further, only saying, "You don't need to go on patrol tonight, I'll go. You can catch up on some sleep in the monitoring room; I'm really worried you'll collapse from exhaustion."

The second person to discover this was the supervisor. During a meeting, the supervisor severely criticized Yaoguang, telling him to do what he could, or to leave if he couldn't. After the meeting, when Yaoguang took over the monitoring room, the supervisor went down to ask him what was wrong with him lately and if he was feeling unwell.

Yao Guang didn't say anything, he just nodded. The supervisor didn't ask any more questions, gave him two days off, and told him to go to the hospital if he really couldn't make it.

In her author's note, Yao Guang mentioned that she had been a bit tired lately, made a lot of mistakes at work, and wanted to take a break. Readers weren't dissatisfied; instead, they said they could wait. The fan base includes many new creators who understand that updating 200,000 words every three months is already very stressful for a working professional.

He asked Lin Ke for two days off, and she agreed. He then slept like a log for a whole day. In his dream, he found himself in a hospital. When he woke up, the world was spinning around him, and he felt completely drained.

He sat on the bed, patting his forehead.

This can't go on any longer.