Chapter 42: The Premiere

Returning to the dormitory, Xu Ze tidied up the music score and sent it to Liu Yifei. Liu Yifei quickly replied with a string of grateful emojis and asked if Xu Ze would have time to listen to her performance. Xu Ze said he might be a bit busy and would see how things went.

Xu Ze then glanced at Liu Yifei’s social media feed, discovering that it was all about piano or studying. It seemed her life revolved entirely around academics and piano playing. If nothing unexpected happened, it appeared that in this world, she would not take the path of acting.

Speaking of which, in his previous life, Xu Ze had never read the script for "Legend of Sword and Fairy"; he only remembered the plot from the television drama. Still, he knew that a complete script was essential for proper filming. He wondered if the system would eventually reward him with a script. If not, after he finished writing "Zhu Xian," he could adapt it into a drama and invite Liu the Fairy to star in it.

"Sigh, I’ll think about it later. Filming a TV series isn’t that easy—it takes a lot of money." For now, he was still penniless. He had just topped up his meal card with two hundred yuan, leaving only five hundred yuan in his wallet.

Xu Ze opened his laptop and logged into the backend of Shengshi Chinese Web. He found that as of now, his collection count had increased by two hundred thousand today. Such a number was truly astonishing. Many master authors might not reach this total even by the time their books conclude, and "Zhu Xian" hadn’t even been officially launched yet.

Calculating the time, there were still five hours left until the recommendation period ended. The peak traffic would be in the evening, so he might gain another hundred thousand collections. With his previous numbers, "Zhu Xian" was about to break through the half-million mark.

Xu Ze eagerly wondered how many fans this collection count would translate to. The system’s task required five million fans, and he had already achieved about three million. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he completed the task.

"Time to write!" And so, Xu Ze began to write and publish in real time. Every ten thousand characters written, he would post them. By nearly midnight, he had uploaded sixty thousand characters in total for the day.

His editor was so shocked that they sent him countless messages on QQ throughout the night, begging him to stop updating and to control himself. Xu Ze verbally agreed, but kept on updating as usual.

The tone in the comment section for "Zhu Xian" was unlike any other book. Readers for other books typically commented, "Author, are you done resting? If so, get back to writing!" or, "Is this it? Is this all? You’d think I despised the book." "Who are you trying to satisfy with such little content?"

But the comments for "Zhu Xian" were all, "Please, author, take a break, stop updating, I’m scared." "Is the author a human-shaped typing machine? No need to think, just type." "So much content, truly satisfying, probably the only one on the whole site."

In the author’s forum, posts about "Zhu Xian" still dominated the homepage. "Honestly, I’m becoming a fan of Xiao Yan. He updated sixty thousand characters today, and it seems he’s writing and posting in real time." "Terrifying, is this a tentacled monster?" "The sheer volume isn’t the point; I sometimes have bursts as well, but the key is that I read today’s updates and the quality hasn’t dropped at all. The climax of the Seven Veins Martial Competition was exhilarating. That’s what’s truly frightening." "How many collections will 'Zhu Xian' gain today? Will it reach two hundred thousand?" "I just checked the data site—earlier, his collections had already increased by two hundred thousand. When the recommendation ends, the total might reach five hundred thousand." "Half a million? My god, I don’t even have a tenth of that."

After a while, midnight finally arrived, and the opening screen recommendation for "Zhu Xian" ended. Someone cried out, "Look, 'Zhu Xian’s’ information just updated—the collections just broke half a million!" "Oh my, terrifying!" "Absolutely frightening!" "Are we about to witness the rise of a new legend?" "Not necessarily. Remember last year? There was a book that exploded before launch, but after it went live, the numbers were dismal." "I recall that, too. It was hyped with endless recommendations, but the launch data didn’t even match a fraction of its collections. After another hundred thousand words, the author disappeared." "Yes, I heard the editor who recommended it resigned because of that." "That serious?" "I know that editor—apparently, he made promises to upper management, so he had no choice but to quit."

"So do you think 'Zhu Xian' might just be thunder with no rain?" "Who knows? No one can say for sure. The market data will tell the story—wait for launch day and we’ll see..."

After seeing his collections break half a million, Xu Ze contentedly put away his keyboard and went to bed.

A few days later.

The second round of the recorded competition for "I Am a Singer-Songwriter" would begin airing at eight o’clock tonight. This round would be split into two episodes. Tonight’s was the first part, and the next would air the following week.

Since Xu Ze performed early in the lineup, tonight’s episode would feature him. Both Mango TV and Penguin TV released trailers, and although the entire program had been broadcast live, few had watched it. Many viewers missed the live stream or caught only part of it, and even those who watched live tended to watch the recorded version again.

At this moment, Penguin TV's homepage banner had already changed to the show’s promotional image, with Xu Ze in the center position. The platform also released numerous short video clips of Xu Ze, mostly ten seconds or so.

Many viewers tuning in for Xu Ze were left in suspense. Meanwhile, viewers on Mango TV noticed that although the platform had released promotional images and contestant videos, most featured Huang Minghao and Zhu Zhengting, with occasional appearances from other contestants.

But Xu Ze’s videos were nowhere to be seen, nor was he present on the promotional posters.

"What’s going on?" In theory, Mango TV should promote Xu Ze just as heavily as Penguin TV. Given that Xu Ze was synonymous with traffic now, what video platform would pass up such a valuable draw?

Many viewers rushed to the official Mango TV social media to leave messages and inquire. But even as the show began at eight that evening, Mango TV had yet to offer any explanation.