Chapter Sixteen: The Illusory City's Abrupt End

  "Phantom City" has been updated by Lu Li at a rate of around 3,000 words per day, never more or less. The word count is also fixed at around 3,000 words. However, today Lu Li had an argument and didn't write any new content, nor did he update the stored draft online. In fact, "Phantom City" has already been completed, and Lu Li has been working on moving Jin Dashao's classic novel for days.

  "In the original work of "Fantasy City", some chapters have a large number of words, while others have very few. When writing, Lu Li divided the chapters according to 3,000 characters."

  Now "Fantasy City" has been updated for almost a month, with over 70,000 words. It's just the right time when the Western Guardian is about to appear. If Lu Li checks his data every day, he will find that this 70,000-word book has already exceeded 20,000 collections and 5 million clicks.

  Don't think that just because there's only one station with many readers, this click-through rate is nothing. Indeed, if all the people who like to read online are concentrated on a single website, the daily traffic would be unimaginable. However, we must also consider that in the world of web literature, there are many authors, and as a newcomer, a new book with only over 700,000 words has achieved such results, which is simply a miracle.

  Liu Xiaowen is a third-year high school student in Huahai City, who has been staying at home since the college entrance exam. The Liu family is extremely wealthy and influential not only in Huahai but also throughout China. As the apple of the Liu family's eye, Liu Xiaowen differs from other girls who like to go shopping, instead preferring to stay at home watching online shows, especially martial arts ones that boys usually enjoy.

  In fact, there are not many girls in this world who like to watch, but most of them only like to watch urban romance dramas. As for martial arts, apart from occasionally watching TV series, they basically don't touch it. It has to be said that Liu Xiaowen is one of the exceptions.

  Only a few days after the college entrance exam, Liu Xiaowen had already finished reading several books she was chasing, so she started looking for other books to read. By chance, Liu Xiaowen caught sight of "Fantasy City" and opened it to start reading.

  "Huh, this is actually written in first person?" Liu Xiaowen had noticed from the beginning that this book was written in first person and felt a bit curious. Because people who write in first person are extremely rare, unless they're extremely confident or newcomers who don't even know what third person is.

  With curiosity, book-lost Liu Xiaowen continued reading on.

  "Huh? Someone of this age has some meaning to it, and what's with this illusion?" More and more questions arose, hooking Liu Xiaowen into continuing.

  As it continued, the dream appeared, and vivid characters emerged, including Kaso, who longed for freedom but was bound by fate to be king; Sakuya, who loved his brother Kaso with burning passion so he could live freely; Riraku, whom Kaso liked; Mermaid Rinsha, who had deeply loved Kaso since childhood; and Seiju, the astrologer who was devotedly loyal to Kaso. Together, they protected Kaso as he explored the mystical Mt. Genshou, along with various companions and adversaries encountered on the mountain...

  And there is the dream that the person can leave after death, as well as a sentence that runs through: The red lotus is about to bloom, the twin stars will eventually gather, the wheel of fate has begun, please wait patiently...

  All these things had long since captivated Liu Xiaowan, and she couldn't extricate herself.

  Actually, "Fantasy City" was still circulating on Earth, plagiarizing other people's works, and Lu Li had also heard about it. However, in this world that Lu Li knew, except for China, the development process of other countries was similar to that of Earth, but their history and works were somewhat different. Even China was not the same after 1945.

  So here, Liu Xiaowen had never seen such a thoughtful one, especially those dreams, often moving people to tears.

  Liu Xiaowan has completely fallen.

  Of course, after finishing reading every day, Liu Xiaowen never forgets to recommend this slowly updated book to some familiar book friends. Ah, the days of chasing books are bitter, can't bear it alone, should have more people accompany themselves in bitterness. Liu Xiaowen reveals an extremely pure and true smile, starting to pull up one by one book friend to enjoy the torture of waiting for updates together.

  "Fantasy City" updates every day around 1-2 pm, it's always been like this. So after lunch, Liu Xiaowen would refresh the page of "Fantasy City" on the internet non-stop.

  But by two o'clock, "Fantasy City" had still not been updated, and Liu Xiaowen was getting anxious.

  But it was already three o'clock, and there was still no update or any explanation. Liu Xiaowen felt something was wrong. Moreover, at this time, the "Snow Blade City" YY book fan group established by Liu Xiaowen herself had begun to make a noise.

  Liu Xiaowen tried to contact the author of "Fantasy City" Lu Li, but often didn't get a response. So she posted in the book review section that she had set up this group, and at one time, fans who loved "Fantasy City" enthusiastically joined the group.

  Moreover, Liu Xiaowen's reputation on the internet is not ordinary, with several million-word contracts and generous rewards, so her reputation online is extremely large, even surpassing some top authors. When a reader reaches this point, it's enough to be proud of.

  Later, the popularity of "Fantasy City" continued to rise, and Liu Xiaowen had to open several more reader groups. Of course, they all used names from "Fantasy City" as group names, such as "Snowy Fog Forest", "Occupying Star Palace" and so on. The readers in "Blade Snow City" were some of the more famous online personalities, and they were all good friends with Liu Xiaowen on the internet.

  "Mosquito, 'Fantasy City' didn't update today, do you know what's going on?" said a netizen named Xin Cun Mi Qing. And Mosquito is Liu Xiao Wen's name on YY, which is also her username.

  "I don't know, I've been refreshing since lunchtime, but it really hasn't updated." Liu Xiaowen made a sulky face to express her dissatisfaction.

  "Hey, Mosquito, you recommended this book to us and now it's not updating. That's frustrating! You've got to take responsibility!" the milk tea said.

  "Exactly, exactly." This sentence of milk's got everyone's unanimous approval.

  Liu Xiaowen looked at these people's complaints and revealed a triumphant smile, humph, let you complain, fortunately I'm clever, the torture of waiting for updates will be shared with everyone, so my heart is also balanced.

  However, a frequent lurker, Silent is Precise, suddenly spoke up and said: "Everyone, hold on for a moment, I don't know if you've all discovered something."

  "Wow, Emperor Diving has emerged, strong onlookers are surrounding."

  "Move stools, occupy seats, and watch the diving emperor make bubbles."

  ……

  Liu Xiaowen looked at this group of boisterous book friends with a face full of black lines.

  "Silence is golden, what did you discover?" Liu Xiaowen couldn't help but ask.

  "The Phantom City" has already exceeded 70,000 words, but it still hasn't been signed. According to the usual practice of the web, works that catch the editor's eye are usually signed within 50,000 words. So I guess this author named Lu Li thinks there's no hope for signing and wants to start thinking about a new book. After all, without a contract, there's basically no income, and authors are human too, they need to eat. So the author probably can't help but abandon this work and start a new one.

  Just when everyone thought "Silent is Precise" had sunk to the bottom of the ocean, he suddenly spoke up with these words.

  "Cow, silence is golden, speaking is just a tune."

  "Silence is golden, but when spoken, it's earth-shattering; I concur."

  “+1。“

  "Silence is a precise guess, such a wonderful one, if it's going to be signed, it would have been signed long ago."

  "That's right, that's how it is." Gradually, this saying gained unanimous recognition from everyone, and they all thought that the author was going to be a monk because the book couldn't get signed.

  Liu Xiaowen also slowly acknowledged the speculation that silence is golden, and began to think of a way. Soon, Liu Xiaowen's face bloomed with a smile again, and her hands quickly tapped on the keyboard: "Everyone, we have to come up with a plan."

  "What can we do about it?"

  "Yes, mosquito, you tell us how to do it. Such a good book is being censored and it's such a pity."

  Liu Xiaowen ignored these people and came to the web. She opened Fantacity and chose to reward herself. After some thought, she directly rewarded herself with 10 million yy coins. The exchange rate between yy coins and RMB is 100:1, so 10 million yy coins are equivalent to 100,000 RMB.

  " Mosquito rewards 'Fantasy City' with 1 million yy coins. Such a good book deserves this reward. Can't sign a contract, mosquito will support you."

  Soon, a red post appeared in the book review section of Phantom City.

  Liu Xiaowen took a screenshot and sent it to the group without saying anything else.

  "Damn, mosquito, you're not loyal. The first million alliance was taken by you, and I'm going too." Seeing the screenshot, Shen Cunqian understood Liu Xiaowen's method and was also stimulated.

  Of course, it's not just Liu Xiaoming alone, actually, silence is the fastest speed, closely following behind Liu Xiaowan.

  "Silence is golden, rewarding 'Fantasy City' with 1 million yy coins, hoping it won't be too censored."

  "Damn, you're so despicable! Sneaking up to me with your sinister intentions. You spent 1 million yy coins on 'Fantasy City' and the web editor's vision is getting worse and worse. Such a great book wasn't even signed. No worries, we can't sign you, but we'll support you."

  Soon, the book review section of "Fantasy City" was completely red, and one after another million alliances dazzled many people's titanium alloy eyes.

  At this moment, the editorial department was even more bustling than usual, with many people loudly arguing.

  "Sign, why not sign? If web novels don't innovate, they will lose even more readers." Editor-in-Chief Gu Feng's face turned bright red as he said this. Lu Li was the author of this group, and "Fantasy City" had captivated him from start to finish. He had even applauded the reasoning plot and, of course, the innovative parts - dreams, illusions, and the various emotions that had moved him deeply.

  "What's with the signature? What's written in this book doesn't make sense, and it's even written in first person. I think a book like this has no future." Of course, there were also editors who thought so and opposed it.

  "Abnormal data appears in 'Phantom City', let's take a look." Suddenly, a middle-aged man with an eerie expression walked in.