Rebirth of the Godly Prodigal

Xinhai Weipo, which had the most number of online users in the country.

Penghui Films Lin Hao: “I’m very sorry to inform all of the audiences that because of some special reason, The Gale Flash will be going under a remake. At the same time, the name of the film is still in discussion. We predict that the time of release will be delayed and hope that all of the film lovers will forgive us.”

After this message was released online, Lin Hao secretly laughed to himself.Hehe, now that I said this, those film lovers will definitely be curious. Then, I shall just post a few of the new scenes. That will definitely blow off their minds, won’t it?

Indeed, after his message was posted for less than ten minutes, many film lovers saw it, and some of them scolded him, while others curiously asked for the reason. Whatever the case, this topic had been hyped up. The number of people forwarding the message and discussing it increased crazily. Just an hour or so later, there were already 300,000 plus forwards, and it was still on the rise.

Spectator one: “Director Lin, what was the reason for the delay? My girlfriend and I were waiting just for this film.”

Spectator two: “Director Lin, you have to hold yourself to your words. What do you mean now by bouncing on your check?”

Spectator three: “Everyone, relax, I believe that Director Lin will definitely give us an answer. Just wait for it.”

Spectator four to Spectator N: “Everyone, don’t fret, we believe that Director Lin will give us a reason!”

As for Lin Hao, he was seated on his chair, eating snacks and looking at the replies on Weipo. Seeing that this topic had already entered the ranks of Weipo’s list of hottest topics, he had already held them in suspense for long enough. Now, it was time to throw in the bomb. “Everyone, don’t fret. The reason for the delay was because of the guide from a mystery man. He caused me to open up my mind, and I am now preparing a new script. Also, the fighting scenes are undergoing a remake too.”

Once this message was posted, the spectators’ curiosity was raised even more. A lot of people asked—

Spectator one: “Mystery man? Who? He can actually guide you?”

Spectator two: “Exactly. Director Lin, you’re already one of the most famous big directors in the country, who would dare to say he can teach you?”

This types of questions rushed in like a tsunami, everyone’s curiosity was aroused and had only one question: “What kind of man can actually still teach and guide this big director? It’s more likely that Lin Hao is the one who can guide others, isn’t it?”

Now, this topic rocketed up the list to number four, only an inch’s distance from number three. Just at this moment, Lin Hao posted his third message. “You guys might not believe me, but the person who guided me was the producer of Unexpectedly! . Because of privacy reasons, I’m unable to reveal his name. I can only say that there are always higher mountains and smarter people out there. I had always thought too highly of myself in the past. This time, he didn’t just bring about a few changes in the plot but also changes in the fighting scenes. Only today have I realized how small my horizons were in the past. Now, please watch the video below—” Lastly, Lin Hao posted the video of the fight between Geezer Wang and Mu Zixiao that was taken by a crew member through his phone.

Then, it was as if a stone was thrown in the water, causing thousands of ripples. The entire Weipo totally erupted!

Spectator one: “What the heck! The producer from Unexpectedly! went to your crew? I must watch this video then!”

Spectator two: “My God, this… this is real kungfu! Director Lin, you’re using real kungfu for this movie? The fighting scene is really great! This is really spectacular!”

Spectator three: “This must be the first martial arts film in the history of our kungfu that uses real kungfu, right? Director Lin, I love you!”

Spectator four: “The producer from Unexpectedly! actually had such big means. I’m his most devoted follower now!”

Spectator five: “This is my kneecap for a year. Director Lin, please keep it!”

Two hours later, this post skyrocketed up the list of Weipo’s hottest topics to number one, and the distance between it and number two was getting larger and larger, from tens of thousands at first to twenty thousand, thirty thousand, and even more!

Lin Hao, who was seated, drinking, and eating his snacks, laughed cheekily and said, “Young Master is really awesome, he is indeed invincible! In the past, if I wanted to create such a hot topic, I would have to spend at least a hundred thousand on hiring the Internet Water Army—how much snacks can I buy with that money!”

…

Chenhui Building, level eight, Zhong Dian website.

Zhang Wenyang: “What are the statistics for those few books?”

The secretary: “Sir, the number of bookmarks for these books are rising faster and faster. They have already exceeded the 80,000 mark.”

Zhang Wenyang: “What about the number of clicks and the recommendationtickets ¹ ?”

The secretary: “They’re also increasing rapidly. However, there are quite a number of people who didn’t like them. There are a lot of people quarreling over it under the reviews section every day. Do you want to do something about it?”

Zhang Wenyang: “What’s there to do about it. It’s just because the other authors are jealous of their results. The readers aren’t blind—whether a book is good or not isn’t something that can be affected just because someone scolded about it, right? A good book isn’t afraid of scoldings, and bad books don’t have scoldings. We don’t have to care about this. How much did we spend on advertisements last time?”

The secretary: “We already used 700,000, the result was obvious. What should we do next?”

Zhang Wenyang: “Now is the time when we should put in even more effort. But it won’t be very meaningful now just to promote the books. Oh right, what was the name of those five people that Young Master had his eyes on?”

The secretary: “Dark Dragon of the Universe, Battle Change, Drunk Venom, Ultimate Sky Limit and Treasure Slayer.”

Zhang Wenyang: “What are their daily upload rate?”

The secretary: “Battle Change, Ultimate Sky Limit, and Treasure Slayer upload about 9,000 words per day. Dark Dragon of the Universe and Drunk Venom are slightly better, they upload about 12,000 words a day. This speed is already the limit—any faster, and it will affect the quality of their works.”

“Yup, I know. Help me calculate, a hundred yuan for a thousand words… using 10,000 words per day, that would mean 30,000 yuan in just a month. One year will be 360,000 yuan, close to 400,000 yuan…” Zhang Wenyang walked around in circles for a while and then said, “These are my instructions! These five people, increase the price for their pay to 200 yuan per 1,000 words! Then make an advertisement that says: ‘The five Gods of Zhong Dian are already earning a million per year! Also, if any author writes well, we will promote him to become the new Great God of Zhong Dian! That’s a Great God! Who doesn’t wants to be a Great God!’”

The secretary stumbled, almost falling over. He furiously wiped off his cold sweat and said, “Director, this idea is not bad, but… but… raising the price on your own accords, that’s not very nice, right? We can’t make too much of a loss…”

Zhang Wenyang said, “What’s not nice about this? Once their net worth increases, other authors will be willing to come over to our website. The more authors there are, the more readers there are. The more readers there are, the more authors there will be. This will snowball, do you understand? Oh right, release another news saying that our Zhong Dian website has twenty God-level nouveau riche. As long as they like what the authors write, that author will become the next Great God!”

The secretary: “All… alright…” He paused before asking again, “Oh right. Director, there’s another matter. Now, there are quite a number of companies that want to post their advertisements on our website. And the price isn’t low, either. Director Yang was asking whether we should accept them?”

“Reject them!” Zhang Wenyang decided without a second thought. “Reject all of them. Young Master has carefully instructed me before that we’re only allowed to spend money but not earn it!”

“All… alright…”

…

Turkey Bookstore, big conference room.

“Director Zheng, these few days Young Master Mingcheng seem to be down on his spirits, shouldn’t we think of something to boost our performance to help him cheer up?” A man wearing glasses asked. “These few days, quite a number of companies wanted to put their advertisements on Zhong Dian website but were rejected. Now, they have all come over to us, should we accept them?”

Director Zheng, who had a Mediterranean hairstyle, said, “Those fools, they even push away money. Haha, accept them, why shouldn’t we? Accept all of them! Have you counted how much these advertisements will earn us?”

Now that Director Zheng had spoken, the rest all nodded in agreement.

The cost of advertisements wasn’t small. The money was already sent to their doorsteps, yet they still pushed them away… their brains must have really been sandwiched by the door before.

The man with glasses said, “Currently, there are about 20 plus companies. They saw that the literary network is doing very well now. Therefore, the prices they offered are all quite high. Some are paying two cents per click, while others pay three cents per click. There are even those offering five cents per click.”

Hearing this amount, Director Zheng’s eyes lit up. He laughed and said, “This is great! How much IP do we have currently?”

The man with glasses said, “The daily IP is about 1,200,000.”

“OK, 1,200,000.” Director Zheng smiled and said, “Even if the probability is one to every hundred, in one day there will be 12,000 clicks. Even if it’s fewer, there will be around 10,000 clicks. Those advertisements with fewer clicks will have around 200, and those with more will be around 500 clicks. There are about 20 or so companies. Taking a round number, let’s just say 20 companies. One day will be at least 5,000 yuan, one month that will be 150,000, one year 1,800,000. This is acceptable, definitely acceptable!” Having calculated these numbers, Director Zheng immediately decided: “Accept all of them! Then, inform Young Master Mingcheng, let him be happy too!”

An advertisement fee of 150,000 per month wasn’t a small number.

The man with glasses recorded down his instructions and said, “Then, I shall go and inform the technical branch to add in the advertisements now.”

…

One hour later.

A reader was reading a novel, but just as he went to the next page— PAPAPA —popped out three new windows. He was instantly alarmed. “What the heck, has my computer gotten some virus or something!? Why are there so many advertisements?”

He hurriedly closed the windows and started checking for the virus. After a long while, the reader said, “There isn’t any virus, but how come there are so many advertisements?”

When he opened Turkey Bookstore again, another three advertisements popped up. “What the heck, what is this? Why are there so many advertisements? This can’t do, I need to ask around.”

Inside the readers’ group.

Reader one: “Hey, do your computers have advertisements popping up when you open the webpage? How come I get three every time? Also, the main page is also full of advertisements!”

Reader two: “What the heck, you too? I thought my computer had gotten a virus or something. I just cleaned the virus, but it was still the same.”

Reader three: “Damn it, how are we supposed to read our novels now? There are even more advertisements than novels now, damn it!”

Reader four: “Forget it, there are so many online sites available, why must we stick to this one. I heard that there are five Great Gods over at Zhong Dian website, each of them earning a million yuan a year. Their novels are awesome and fabulous. I shall go and take a look!”

Reader five: “I have seen their books, they’re really quite well written. I shall just read novels over there from now on.”

…

Two hours later.

Zhong Dian website, Director’s office.

The secretary: “Director Yang, our website had quite a number of new individual IPs coming in today. There’s about 10 to 20 thousand of them, and it’s still increasing. Added to the increase in IPs from before, we have about 30 to 40 increase in IPs every day for this period.”

Director Yang: “Have you checked the reason behind the sudden increase?”

The secretary gulped down his saliva and said, “The technical branch secretly asked a few of those new accounts, and after careful asking… it was because they couldn’t stand the advertisements in Turkey Bookstore, coupled with the fact that they liked the books from the five Great Gods that Young Master liked. So, they came over. Quite a number of them have already charged up their account and gave rewards, and the rest is also preparing to read the legal VIP chapters.”

Director Yang rested his whole body on the sofa. “I’m convinced of Young Master’s tactics now, I’m really convinced. Even this kind of tactic also works…”