Chapter 33

【ps: Thank you, Nian, for the 100×7 reward~ I've noted down your cameo~】

"Network admin! Network admin! Come quick! Come quick!"

Tong Yan was in a panic! It was over eight hours of work, more than 15,000 words! For these 15,000 words, he had stayed out all night for the first time, the most outrageous thing he had ever done in his student life. If he were found out, the consequences would be severe. But now, the manuscript he had risked so much to complete had vanished.

"What's wrong? Can't you open it?" The network admin walked over lazily and asked.

"The computer is on, but the things I wrote before are gone. Can you help me find them?"

"How can I find them? The computers in the internet cafe are all set to restore to their original state after a reboot. You didn't know that?"

"How was I supposed to know? It's my first time at an internet cafe!"

"In that case, there's nothing I can do. Next time, remember to save important files in your email." The network admin, seeing Tong Yan's fierce expression, quickly offered a suggestion.

But Tong Yan didn't care about next time; he just wanted to know what to do now. "Bro, just help me find it. It's really important to me!"

"I'm telling you, it's not that I won't help you, but it's really gone. It's been restored, and it's not even in the recycle bin. You need to be more careful next time."

"You're saying I'm careless!"

"That's not what I mean. Why are you being so unreasonable?"

"How am I being unreasonable? You suddenly did this, and all my hard work from last night is wasted! What am I supposed to do?" Tong Yan was so angry. Why didn't he send the chapters to his cousin earlier!

"We can't do anything about a power outage!" The network admin didn't know what files the kid had lost, but he was clearly very upset.

"What's going on? What's going on?" At this moment, the owner, Zhan Hong, happened to come into the store. Seeing the network admin and the customer arguing, she hurried over to ask what was happening.

The network admin explained the situation to the owner, and only then did Tong Yan realize that the pretty woman who had given him the membership card was the owner. But he was still angry.

Zhan Hong smiled, "I thought it was something serious. How about this: the next time you come for an all-nighter, I'll let you in for free. How does that sound?" Normally, Zhan Hong wasn't so easy to talk to, but today her brother had been released, and she was in a good mood, so she didn't want to argue with Tong Yan. Otherwise, she wouldn't have made such an exception.

Seeing that the owner was reasonable, Tong Yan didn't want to continue the argument. "Alright, I'll come back in a few days."

"Welcome, welcome. I won't charge you next time."

Tong Yan sat down. He had no heart to write a novel now. It was almost impossible to rewrite the more than 10,000 words he had written before. He could only try to recreate it from memory later.

Thinking that he couldn't send the novel to his cousin today, Tong Yan logged into QQ and found his cousin's avatar gray. He told him what had happened and promised to send the novel by Thursday, as his cousin's backlog would run out by then.

Watermelon: Is Xiao Er there?

Just as Tong Yan finished explaining the situation to his cousin, the editor Watermelon's avatar lit up, and she sent him a message.

Thinking about what Watermelon had told him in the computer class, Tong Yan immediately replied, "I'm here, Sister Watermelon."

Watermelon: You're up early.

Tong Yan: You too.

Watermelon: Let's get to the point. I've discussed with the chief editor, and they agree to let you try.

Tong Yan: Wait, try what?

Watermelon: ? Didn't I tell you?

Tong Yan: The last time I asked, you didn't tell me.

Watermelon: Oh, I remember now. It seems that's what happened. Hahaha, I'll explain again.

Tong Yan stared at the screen seriously, waiting for her to continue.

Watermelon: You should know who the current owner of Qidian is, right?

Tong Yan: Yes, I do.

Watermelon: The owner is planning to use Qidian as a content provider to create a magazine called "Shanda Entertainment · Novels." This is the top priority for our editorial department. The magazine is expected to be ready by the end of September or early October. What we need to do now is to collect manuscripts from popular writers.

Tong Yan: I'm not a popular writer.

Watermelon: I know, but your writing is quite good, just lacking in overall control. I think you might be able to try writing a short story for this magazine.

Tong Yan: A short story?

Watermelon: Yes. We have already decided to invite Yan Yu Jiang Nan and Xue Hong, two of the most popular online writers, to write prequels for "Desecration" and "Rising Dragon Path." These are essentially short stories that don't affect the main plot of the original novels but are written using minor side plots.

Watermelon: This can help boost the magazine's sales by leveraging the popularity of these two novels. However, the prequels won't be very long, so we need other content to fill the magazine. Some ideas include serializing popular ongoing works from Qidian, creating a hot topic tracking section, and a novel PK hall where we compare and PK popular novels of the same genre. These are all special forms of recommendations. We also plan to strongly recommend one novel per issue, but that opportunity is reserved for established authors.

Watermelon: The chief editor requires the first issue to be content-rich. Just relying on these isn't enough, so we need a few original short stories as well. These must be submitted by well-known Qidian contracted authors to promote and publicize Qidian's contracted authors.

Watermelon: However, you know that the quality of Qidian's novels varies widely, and the magazine has high standards for writing. Many writers are excluded, and even those with good writing skills may not be good at writing short stories. So, this is your chance.

Watermelon: Your biggest weakness is that you're a newcomer, and the website and magazine won't invest too much support in you. But our editorial department really appreciates your versatile writing style. If you really need the money, you can try writing a short story and submitting it to me. I believe you have a good chance of being selected.

Watermelon: That's all I have to say. Do you want to give it a try?

Tong Yan turned off the computer. It was 7:20 now. He was still thinking about what Watermelon had said. He was hesitant. Writing over 20,000 words of a novel every week was already a headache, and now he had to submit a short story of at least 10,000 words by the 18th. It was really worrying!

He was worried because he had already agreed. This opportunity was too tempting. The manuscript fee was 80-100 yuan per 1,000 words, and the word count was 10,000-30,000. Even at the lowest fee and the minimum word count, that was 800 yuan! Tong Yan had to use three exclamation marks because this was equivalent to more than a month's living expenses. So, he had to do it!

As he walked out of Spider Internet Cafe, a girl on a bicycle passed by, leaving a trail of fragrance. Seeing her back and the swaying ponytail, Tong Yan immediately called out, "Ye Qingzhu!"

What a coincidence, meeting her again. Now he didn't have to walk.

The girl didn't stop, so Tong Yan called out again, "Ye Qingzhu!"

The bicycle finally stopped, and the girl turned around with a pure smile, tinged with a hint of mischief. "It's you?"

Tong Yan immediately turned his head away and firmly said, "It's not me!"

【ps: Unable to sign a contract, Bai Fuo is feeling lost. I'll update once a day on weekends. I want to go out for a walk~】

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