Rebirth of the Godly Prodigal

On Zhong Dian website.

Overnight, on the book review sections of countless authors, such a post appeared as shown below—

[Review] Still need to work harder

The book is not bad. It can be read. Why are the results of this book so pathetic? Keep going. I’m waiting to see how things go. Add me as a friend.

[Review] ^_^**

A unique story setting, join the group to gather our thoughts and improve together.

[Review] Book is not bad

Turkey [***.***.**], support your friend, come and let’s support and communicate with each other.

The usually experienced authors would naturally not fall into the trap of these posts that were obviously meant for poaching people over, but there would always be many new authors who would be fooled. After which, after adding the Turkey number of the other party and being promised to receive various benefits, it would be easy for those less experienced to be poached over. Especially since this time, Ko Gohon had indeed thrown in much money into this. The remunerations and benefits were indeed very attractive.

…

Chenghui Building, eighth floor, Zhong Dian website.

The extremely sloppily dressed manager of Zhong Dian website, Zhang Wenyang, knocked on his office desk and slowly said, “These few days, many online posts to poach people over have suddenly appeared at once in many book review sections for authors. Are these done by the people from Feng Yun website?”

The secretary replied, “Director, our men have secretly gotten some authors to carry out investigations, and it’s indeed the people from their side.”

During this period of time, Zhang Wenyang had brought the sales of the entire Zhong Dian website to increasingly greater heights. Now, the secretary was already quite respectful by talking with him in this way.

After all, capable people would be respected wherever they go.

Zhang Wenyang nodded and asked, “This Feng Yun website suddenly rose overnight and merged five big online novel websites together. There was previously no news about this, which proves it does have some ability. Have you found out who is their backer? Ordinary people wouldn’t be able to invest such a huge amount of money, right?”

The secretary said, “Not yet. The other party has quite a secretive backing. At the moment, it’s only known that the person backing them up has invested a capital fund of 200 million USD. But recently, I heard news that the person backing them up is most probably the scion of Toyoda Conglomerate, Ko Gohon, who is currently fighting against Young Master. Now, that side is currently widely poaching authors and inviting nouveau riche readers over there. Fortunately, apart from Young Master’s classmates, the other main members of our website are the absolutely loyal fans of our Great Gods. It’s not possible for them to leave.”

“Ko Gohon? Don’t care about him!” Zhang Wenyang thought for a while and slowly said, “Remember, every reader is precious. Try your best to put an end to this. Oh right, currently, how many authors are planning to leave?”

The secretary looked a little dispirited. “Some of them have already left. The benefits given to authors at Feng Yun website are better than ours, so many people have already gone over there.”

Zhang Wenyang smiled and said, “This group of fence sitters. But it’s understandable. People have to make a living. Mm, oh right, since Feng Yun website is poaching our people over like that, we can’t spoil them too much. Are our five Great Gods still with us?”

The secretary nodded and said, “Dark Dragon of the Universe, Battle Change, Drunk Venom, Ultimate Sky Limit and Treasure Slayer. These five people are firmly on Young Master’s side. I’ve already contacted them, they’ll definitely not leave.”

“Mm, not bad.” Zhang Wenyang said, “We must keep these few authors. Later, go and get the technical department to separately put up an advertisement on the website, called ‘God Creator Plan’. Raise the fame of Dark Dragon of the Universe and the others to a position of a Supreme God, then nurture the authors from the most bottom level to become the new Great Gods. Increase the flat fees of Dark Dragon of the Universe and the others by 50%.”

“OK.” The secretary responded. “I understand. Oh right, Director Zhang, the opinions of Young Master’s side…”

“Young Master’s side hasn’t given any opinions about this issue. Recently, he busies himself in the laboratory on the fourth floor till late at night every day, and I don’t know what he’s up to…” Zhang Wenyang walked a few rounds around his office room, then said, “We don’t need to worry about Young Master’s side. With Young Master’s ability, it would be easy for him to make this Feng Yun website close down. He’s very busy recently, and I don’t want to disturb him as well. Oh right, increase the investments for me and increase the special benefits to a suitable amount. Mm, it’s just carrying out activities and increasing the fan points further after they subscribe. Oh right, do a 10% discount on the money required to read books.”

The secretary stumbled and almost fell, as he violently wiped his cold sweat off and said, “Director, if we do it, we’d suffer a huge loss. Judging by the current liquid funds of the website, 10% would be at least a few million lost…”

“Damn! Do you understand what it means that danger cannot be overcome by not taking risks?” Zhang Wenyang harshly said, “Feng Yun website is attacking so ferociously. If we don’t put up a good fight against them, by then, we might even lose out to them, and that would have a huge impact on our popularity.”

The secretary: “O… OK…” He paused for a while before asking again, “Oh right, Director, there is something else. About that mysterious plan that Young Master’s side is executing now, should we advertise it? I think it’d have a very good impact on our morale!”

“Don’t!” Zhang Wenyang didn’t hesitate as he said, “Remember, don’t make your own decisions on things that Young Master hasn’t instructed about! The impact of this mysterious plan is huge. This time, we’ll just see exactly how many authors are fence sitters. Humph humph, this Feng Yun website is going against us. For the online novel aspect, unless the writers don’t write anything anymore, else they are our enemies! There’s definitely not a third standpoint on this. After this matter ends, do a ranking of the authors. Increase the levels of authors currently at our website to level two. Add 100 yuan when they update chapters constantly every month and increase the subscription dividends by 5%.

“Those who want to come back after leaving will start from level one again. Unless they change their usernames, else they won’t have a share in the increase in remunerations this time. Heh heh, they have to pay a price for being fence sitters. If they’re not super loyal to us, then cut their recommendation slots by half in the future! I don’t want to painstakingly nurture a Great God and then let them go over to the competitor’s side to fight for readers with us!”

“O… OK, I got it!”

…

In the Zhong Dian website group chat for readers—

Reader one: “What the heck, why do the authors of the books that I’m reading suddenly stop writing, what happened?”

Reader two: “The book I’m reading has also stopped halfway. I’m not sure what exactly has happened, does anyone know? I heard that these few days, many books have stopped updating halfway! And it all happened very suddenly, quite a lot of books that I’ve been following have been cut off just within one or two days.”

Reader three: “I heard some news that a Feng Yun website has suddenly appeared locally, and it’s now poaching authors all over. Haven’t you realized that it’s all advertisements in the book review section?”

Reader four: “Let me take a look… It’s true! Why didn’t the editors and programmers of this Zhong Dian website handle this issue?”

Reader three: “How can they handle it? There are just too many users poaching people. Needless to say, it’s definitely done by them.”

Reader four: “What the heck, why do they suddenly go poaching people all of a sudden! I’d just read half of the book and the story was still exciting, and suddenly, there’s no more of it! How can I live like that! Damn it, I’ll definitely forever blacklist all the authors who have left!”

Reader two: “What use is there blacklisting him. My book has stopped updating too. We can’t do anything about it, let it be. We can’t meddle with this anyway. You can’t ask them not to earn money, right?”

Reader four: “Even if that’s the case, they still can’t just leave like that! At least give an ending, even if it’s a lousy one! At least let me know what happens to the male and female lead in the end. The part where he stopped writing the book was exactly when the female lead had been captured by the bad guy, damn it!”

Reader three: “We can’t do anything about it. It’s a battle between the websites, and aren’t we, the readers, still the ones who eventually lose out? If the author has been poached away, it’s inevitable that they’d stop writing the book.”

Reader five: “True, this is like the fight between the immortals which implicates the readers. I heard that Feng Yun website gives good remunerations, and they’re offering a high flat fee to purchase the book chapters. Currently, many good writers have been poached from the Zhong Dian side. According to insider news, the lowest fee is 20 yuan per 1,000 words, and the high ones can go up to 40 or 50 yuan per 1,000 words. At least 100 to 200 authors have stopped writing their books these few days. And they are the ones with stronger ability.”

Reader one: “Damn it, I’ll forever blacklist those that just stopped writing their books and left, and not read their books for my entire life! I won’t read them no matter how well they write!”

Reader four: “Of course! I definitely support that!”

…

Imperial Hotel, in the VIP room.

“Young Master, the progress of the Feng Yun website is delightful.” Ko Gohon’s male bodyguard reported with an extremely delighted expression. “Currently, more than 100 capable writers have been poached from Zhong Dian website. This group of writers are all very good at writing and have a lot of potential.”

“Good!” Ko Gohon sniggered and said, “Not bad, continue doing things this way and poach more people from their side. Oh right, have you managed to poach those five Great Gods that you previously mentioned about?”

“At the moment, these five haven’t been successfully poached yet.” Speaking of this, the bodyguard was rather disappointed. “They are extremely loyal to Hong Dali. We’ve increased the price by a lot, yet they’re still not planning to leave.”

“Humph, loyalty, what a joke.” Ko Gohon thought for a while, then condescendingly said, “If it really can’t work out, we’ll create gods ourselves. Tell them that all the benefits in the future are theirs. Find some professional planning and technical personnel! We have to redo the website, and remove all the advertisements!”

The bodyguard nodded and said, “OK, Young Master, I got it. Oh right, do we need to carry out other business service expansions? For instance, publishing or film aspects?”

Ko Gohon thought for a while and then said, “Get some professionals to see what you can do about those. Online novels are currently not very popular in our Jaban empire. Anyway, I only have one requirement, which is to do it better than Hong Dali! It must be better than his!”

“Yes!” The bodyguard stood at attention. “I understand.”

…

Chenhui Building, the laboratory on the fourth floor.

“Dali, you’re not ready yet? Hurry up!” Tang Muxin’s voice sounded. “Today is the first day of filming ‘Where Are We Going, Dad’, you have to be there!”

“Coming, coming!” Hong Dali, who had oil stains all over his body and didn’t even change his clothes, ran out eagerly. “Then let’s go now. The first stop, Tianjing City Water Spirit Village!”