Chapter 10: Giving the Editor Some Face

At eight-thirty the next morning, at the Xianxia Editorial Department of Shengshi Literature Network.

A petite young woman in her early twenties sat at her desk, sending messages on her phone.

“Mom, I’ll talk to you later, I have to get to work now.”

“Kuku, if you’re short of money, let me know, and remember to eat well.”

“I know, Mom. I still have enough money, and payday is just around the corner.”

Kuku, twenty-two, had just graduated from university. As an intern editor, she had joined the Xianxia Editorial Department at Shengshi Literature Network.

Although the Xianxia channel was rather weak—there were only three people in the entire department, including the team leader—she firmly believed that the Xianxia channel would flourish one day.

Just last week, thanks to the team leader’s relentless efforts, they had finally secured the Xianxia Star Program for their channel.

Rumor had it the team leader had made a solemn pledge before the higher-ups, vowing to see a work with over ten thousand subscriptions emerge from the Xianxia channel.

Over the years, as the website developed, almost every other channel had produced several works with tens of thousands of subscribers. Only their Xianxia channel had yet to see such success.

At that moment, a middle-aged man carrying a black briefcase walked into the office.

Kuku greeted him promptly, “Good morning, Mr. Li.”

“Morning,” he replied indifferently.

He was the other editor in the Xianxia Department. Usually, the manuscript reviewing was handled by him and Kuku together.

After making herself a cup of coffee, Kuku started reviewing the latest submissions in the backend. If she came across a promising new novel, she would send an invitation for a contract.

An hour later, Kuku sighed. Since the launch of the Xianxia Star Program, submissions had increased noticeably.

But so far, she still hadn’t found anything that truly excited her.

Since the program started, she’d only signed three barely passable works, and it was still uncertain whether they would pan out.

Having finished reviewing today’s submissions, she decided to browse the discard pool in the backend.

The discard pool usually contained works that either she or Mr. Li had eliminated during the first round of review.

Half an hour later—

“Huh?” Kuku exclaimed in surprise.

There was a novel titled “The Immortal Executioner,” only forty thousand words in, but it already had quite a few comments.

According to the backend notes, Mr. Li had been the one to eliminate it.

Curious, she clicked in.

Twenty minutes later, upon seeing the words “You have caught up to the latest chapter,” she realized with a start that she had finished all forty thousand words without even noticing.

Editors usually only read the first three chapters of a manuscript; with so many submissions, they simply couldn’t read everything in full.

But this novel’s plot was so compelling that she had unconsciously read it all.

Yet why had Mr. Li eliminated this book? Was there an issue?

Kuku read it again and found that, at least in the early chapters, both the plot and character development were quite good.

After hesitating for a while, she finally asked Mr. Li, “Mr. Li, I found a novel in the discard pool called ‘The Immortal Executioner.’ It’s pretty well-written. Can I sign it?”

“The discard pool?” Mr. Li didn’t even look up. “Sign it if you want.”

For an experienced editor like him, once a script was tossed into the discard pool, he had no intention of ever revisiting it. If this intern wanted to fish something out, she could do as she pleased.

If the editorial performance targets weren’t met, it wouldn’t be his problem anyway.

Their team leader hadn’t been in the office these days—she was busy recruiting veteran writers from other platforms, hoping to convince them to write Xianxia.

Mr. Li didn’t even need to think about it; he knew very few would come. The Xianxia market was what it was—everyone preferred to flock to popular genres. Who wanted to touch something niche?

Some said that if you excel in a niche genre, you could become a trailblazer. Mr. Li merely scoffed at that.

Could anyone become a trailblazer just because they wanted to?

After getting his approval, Kuku immediately sent a contract invitation to the author of “The Immortal Executioner.”

She didn’t know why Mr. Li had rejected the novel, but she had high hopes for it.

At that time, Xu Ze had just finished his first required class of the morning, taught by Professor Xu Qing.

Professor Xu Qing was one of the most popular teachers in their department—just over thirty, striking both in appearance and figure. Rumor had it she was single, and her fashion sense was impeccable; in Xu Ze’s memory, she never repeated an outfit in class.

Today, however, the dark circles under her eyes seemed heavier—no doubt, the demands of her latest research project were catching up to her.

Xu Ze checked Weibo again; his trending topics had already dropped to the bottom of the list.

That’s show business for you—there’s always fresh news to take over the headlines.

To dominate the trending list for twenty-four hours? Unless you were a top-tier celebrity—and even then, many failed.

After class, he returned to his dorm and opened his laptop.

He planned to finish today’s ten thousand words of updates before heading to the recording studio after his afternoon classes.

This time, he intended to record several songs, including the one he wrote last night.

When he logged into the author’s backend, he saw he’d received a contract invitation from the website.

“Congratulations! Your work, ‘The Immortal Executioner,’ has met the contract standard. Your editor is Kuku. Please add QQ 12138.”

He logged onto QQ and sent a friend request to his editor; she accepted almost instantly.

“Hello, Xiao Yan, I’m your editor Kuku. I’ve already submitted your work for contract approval. Please follow the prompts in the backend to complete the process.”

Xu Ze replied, “Got it.”

Then Kuku reminded him, “By the way, you’re still in your new book period. Updating around four thousand words a day is enough; no need to update ten thousand a day. I noticed you’ve been updating ten thousand daily.”

Xu Ze hesitated. With such a low update rate, how could his readers get enough?

After a moment’s thought, he decided to give his editor some leeway. “How about I update eight thousand a day? I can write really fast!”

Kuku was speechless. This author was clearly a hothead. “Alright, eight thousand it is. Just remember to save up some drafts.”

“No problem.”

Xu Ze calculated that his typing speed had reached about ten thousand words per hour; with time for correcting typos, it took at most an hour and a half.

When he wasn’t busy, he could stockpile more drafts. For him, writer’s block was simply not an issue.

Following the backend instructions, Xu Ze completed the contract process.

“The Immortal Executioner” changed from a free work to an A-level contracted novel.

The moment its status updated, it shot straight to tenth place on the New Releases chart for contracted authors.

Only new books contracted within the past month could make this list.

The author who was now bumped to eleventh place was stunned. He’d refreshed the page just a minute ago—he was in tenth, then suddenly eleventh.

And this new book that knocked him down—he’d never seen it before.

Normally, new books started well outside the top hundred and slowly climbed up.

But “The Immortal Executioner” had never appeared before and suddenly landed at number ten.

“Is this some superstar author with a built-in fanbase?”

He checked the author info—“Xiao Yan,” Author Level 1.

A total newcomer at level one pulling this off? Unbelievable!

Curiosity piqued, he dropped his own writing and started reading the novel.

Twenty minutes later, he fumed, “There’s no way this is a rookie author!”

...

After completing the contract, Xu Ze went into overdrive, transforming into a writing machine, churning out twenty thousand words in one go.

Heeding the editor’s advice, he only posted eight thousand words for now.