Chapter Twenty Refusal to Sign

  The night after the art exam ended, Lu Li took the train back to Huaqing.

  The train arrived in Huaqing on the second day's afternoon, and after getting off the train, Lu Li first bought a return ticket to Huajing. Before long, universities would start classes, and at that time, there would be many people taking the train, although it was still far from the Spring Festival travel rush, but Lu Li didn't want to risk not being able to buy tickets at that time.

  After buying a good return train ticket back to Huajing, Lu Li took the bus back to that slum area.

  It was already past six o'clock, and Lu Yanxin had probably left for the construction site. Zhang Wenhui was naturally helping out at the restaurant and hadn't returned. Lu Li cooked himself a meal, took a bath, and then went to sleep.

  The next day, Lu Li resumed his early morning exercise routine.

  "A Li, you're back! How was it? Did you pass the exam?" Zhang Wenhui asked as soon as Lu Li returned home the next day.

  "Mom, I passed the exam. In about ten days, I'll be going to school in Beijing." Lu Li replied to his mother's question.

  "Did you really get in? You've never studied music before, have you?" Zhang Wenhui was surprised to hear Lu Li's words. As his mother, she knew that Lu Li had never learned music before.

  "Oh, actually I've secretly studied it before." Lu Li heard his mom ask this and could only casually come up with a reason. He couldn't say, "Oh, my brain has a lot of stuff in it, passing an exam like this is easy."

  "Alright, since you've chosen this path, then walk it well. The road you've chosen, even if you have to crawl, must be walked to the end." Zhang Wenhui heard Lu Li's words and didn't ask any more questions, instead telling Lu Li to walk it well to the end.

  Lu Li was also shocked by these words, especially the sentence that even if he had to kneel down, he would have to finish it. Lu Li didn't know if he could smoothly walk the path he had envisioned for himself in the future, after all, no one can predict what will happen. But after hearing his mother's words, he felt that he definitely couldn't give up, otherwise, he really wouldn't be able to face the people of Jiangdong.

  "Okay, you take care of yourself and work hard, I'm going to the restaurant." Zhang Wenhui left for work after understanding Lu Li's situation.

  Lu Li returned to his own room and turned on his computer. He suddenly remembered that he hadn't updated "Fantasy City" for several days, so he hastily opened YY to check the situation online.

  Just as Lu Li logged onto YY, he received a friend request notification. The verification message from the other party was "Gu Feng, editor-in-chief of Web Eight Group". Lu Li took a look and agreed to the friend request.

  Actually, according to the usual procedure, Lu Li should have received the contract message and then actively added the editor as a friend, but Lu Li didn't respond for several days, so Gu Feng took the initiative to add Lu Li as a friend. It was also when Lu Li filled out the application information that he didn't leave his phone number, otherwise, Gu Feng would have been unable to resist calling Lu Li.

  After adding Lu Li, he didn't care anymore and logged into the YY novel website page.

  "Huh, there's new news. Could it be the contract?" Lu Li had just logged in when he was prompted that there was a new message. Lu Li opened this message and took a look, and indeed it was a contract notification.

  "Hello, your work has been submitted for signing by Editor Gu Yue of Group 8. Please add Signing Editor Xiao Tian (YY ID: 745***902) as a friend on YY to discuss the signing details..."

  Lu Li finished sending the contract message and added Xiao Tian according to the given QQ number, waiting for the other party's verification. However, at this time, the QQ suddenly made a "ding" sound, Lu Li opened it and found that it was an incoming message from Gu Feng, who he had previously added.

  "Wow, you're finally online."

  Lu Li looked at the tearful expression attached to his back and wondered what was wrong with himself, had he been waiting for a long time? Lu Li was puzzled.

  "Uh, I've had some things going on these past few days, so I haven't been online." Lu Li replied with a sweaty expression.

  "Oh, it's like that. Your 'Fantasy City' has already met the signing standards. Please contact the signing editor as soon as possible to go through the signing procedures." Gu Feng replied.

  "Uh, I didn't plan on signing this contract." Lu Li gave a helpless expression.

  "Why?" Gu Feng turned around with a big question mark.

  "'Fantasy City' only has over a million words, which is too short for an online novel. It doesn't even meet the standard for being put on shelves. Whether or not it gets signed doesn't matter," Lu Liru replied truthfully. He had never planned to have 'Fantasy City' signed anyway; this book was more suited to being published in print."

  "Oh, I see...". Gu Feng sat in the office, saw Lu Li's explanation and thought for a moment before responding: "Alright then, go to the book review section and explain the situation to the book friends. I'll also talk to Xiao Tian about it."

  "Uh, okay, but what happened? Do you need to explain the situation?" Lu Li saw Gu Feng's response and didn't know what was going on.

  "Sweat, go see for yourself." Gu Feng replied, with a look of disdain.

  Ludie ended his conversation with Gu Feng and logged into the author's backend, entering his own work page. Just now he had only seen the signed message, and hadn't looked at anything else before chatting with Gu Feng.

  "When did it... accumulate so many? Lu Li was at a loss for words when he saw the number of collections on "Fantasy City".

  Ludie remembered that the collection data of "Fantasy City" had always been poor, although it had been growing steadily with the increase in word count, but not by much. Compared to the last time he checked, there were only a few hundred collections, and Ludie was already very satisfied.

  But now Lu Li saw that the number of collections was 32,087, and he was stunned for a moment. Later, Lu Li also saw that the recommendations had already reached tens of thousands, and while feeling unbelievable, he was also surprised at what had happened.

  Although Lu Li also knew that this book was quite wonderful, but without signing a contract and without any recommendations, he didn't even go to advertise it, so how could there be such high data? You have to know that he's just a tender new person on the internet.

  Ludie suddenly remembered the book review section of Gu Feng Editor, and continued scrolling down the webpage.

  "mosquito rewards 'Fantasy City' with 1 million yy coins. If you still don't resume updates, I'll keep rewarding until you do."

  "Spent 1 million yy coins on 'Fantasy City', hurry up and update, I'm out of money!"

  "Silence is golden, reward 'Fantasy City' with 1,000,000 yy coins."

  "This milk rewards 'Fantasy City' with 1,000,000 yy coins. Silence is indeed more dull, Sheng Cai Qing you cry less, be careful we beat the local tyrant, but Big Big hurry up and appear."

  ……

  Lu Li looked at the comments section filled with red envelopes, and flipped through several pages, all of which were large rewards from these few people. In between, there were some sporadic rewards, which were less than those given by the few people, but still quite a lot.

  And there were many book reviews calling for the author to update quickly and discussing plot posts. Lu Li didn't click on each post to read, just roughly looked at the title, and flipped through several pages. And behind that, there were even more book reviews, Lu Li didn't continue reading anymore.

  At this moment, Lu Li suddenly felt very sorry for these lovely book friends. From the words "we will support you" on the website, Lu Li felt the firm support of the book friends, and at the same time as feeling warm in her heart, she also felt more ashamed.

  He finally knew why the editor of Gu Feng was in such a hurry, and also knew why his data had risen so much. Because until today, due to several readers' generous rewards, he still lingered on the bestseller list.

  Watching the mosquito, body inch rice green, silence is fine, this milk and several other names that appear most frequently, as well as some recommendations and rewards from other book friends, Lu Li decided that no matter what happened to herself in the future, she could not stop updating.

  And Mosquito, Shen Cunmi and others did not expect that the decision on that day would create a web writer who was constantly updating, known as the conscience of the industry by many web writers and book friends.

  Luduo didn't think much more and started typing away. Of course, this time it wasn't about moving, but rather Luduo preparing to release a single chapter to explain things.

  "Hello everyone, I haven't been online for a few days so I didn't know what was happening on the internet. Here's a single chapter to explain a few things. First of all, I want to apologize to all my book friends who have been supporting me for not updating in time these past few days. My hiatus wasn't because the website and I had a contract dispute; actually, from the beginning, I never planned on having 《幻城》(Fantasy City) contracted with any website, since it only has less than 120,000 words, which isn't suitable for contracting. Fantasy City is more suited for publication, but as a newcomer, I thought it would be harder to get published, so I chose to release it online instead. If conditions permit in the future, Fantasy City will be published, and there will be surprises for everyone at that time.

  Secondly, these past few days, due to my negligence, I didn't update, but today I saw the rewards from Mosquito, Silent is Precise, Body Inch Blue, and so on... I'm touched to tears. Thank you all for your enthusiastic support! Of course, there are many other friends whom I've seen, but I couldn't list them out one by one, so if you didn't see your name, I apologize, and hope you can understand.

  Thirdly, my new book is already in preparation, with a larger word count than this time around, and the daily update amount will also increase, as a way to repay the support of all my book friends."

  Lu Li finished writing and immediately clicked the update button. After this chapter, Lu Li followed up with three more chapters of 10,000 words to express his apology for the previous hiatus.

  "Lu Li, is your new book ready?" Lu Li had just published a few chapters when Gu Feng editor sent him a message.

  "En, I've already prepared it. Once 'Fantasy City' is updated, I can upload it." Lu Li replied.

  "Alright, let me know when the time comes and I'll give you a signed copy." Gu Feng was slightly excited upon hearing this. He had also become one of Lu Li's book fans and was looking forward to his new book.

  "Okay."

  "Right, upload your bank card number and other information, and we can pay you the manuscript fee next month."

  "Oh, I see." Lu Li was somewhat excited, this was his first windfall since coming to this world.

  Ludie ended the chat and then filled in her bank card account number and other information in the author's background, and also filled in her almost useless mobile phone.

  But Gu Feng didn't say anything else, and he hadn't even had a chance to look yet.