Chapter 42: The Gradually Shaping Website

Saturday, a downpour hit Linchuan University washing away the heat of the past few days.

The auto-reply system made by Su Nai was already running on the website and the testing effect was quite good. The keyword triggering was very precise and the repetition rate of flattery wasn’t high either. It was already 60-70% like a real person.

Jiang Qin specially threw the URL to Cao Guangyu without telling him about the robot, just letting him try posting and experience it. As a result, this stupid currency felt more and more that he was a dragon among men the more he played.

“Old Jiang, this website you gave me is too interesting, it’s really fucking fun!”

Cao Guangyu was now facing his newly bought computer keyboard typing away snappily, delighted to the point of flying.

Jiang Qin turned around expressionlessly, “How is it interesting?”

“This is my first time pretending online and also the first time I’ve encountered so many people agreeing with me. There’s even a girl who says she admires me. Indeed gold will shine no matter what. But they have no idea, I’m just pretending lightly, I haven’t even used any effort!”

“????”

Jiang Qin secretly logged into the admin background and took a look, finding that this guy had created his own series of continuous posts called My Simple and Unadorned Rich Second-Generation Life, all kinds of pretentiousness.

Showing off his Nokia 5230 with the caption “real junk, no wonder it sold for only 3,000 yuan, it can’t even compare to my Vertu at all.”

Then he posted a web image of a BMW 5 Series, saying he was going to buy a car after the military training and was hesitating between BBC, his family told him to just go for a Porsche but he felt doing that was a bit too high-profile and worried his image wouldn’t be down-to-earth.

These few posts triggered a bunch of keywords, causing the reply robots to continuously spout flattery.

Things like “big brother is so handsome”, “so envious of big brother’s life”, “you sir have great literary talent, definitely a descendant of literary giants”. Cao Guangyu was hit by the flattery and couldn’t stop, continuously replying to the robots, triggering keywords again and getting a new round of flattery.

Just like this, a cycle later, Cao Guangyu felt like he had found the meaning of life.

Ren Ziqiang watched from the back with an envious face but this site currently only had a PC version he couldn’t play, feeling quite regretful.

“The people here speak so nicely. Old Jiang, when is the WAP version coming out? I want to play too.”

“Soon, in a day or two.”

Jiang Qin looked at these two goods thinking in his heart, to think that his small dorm room actually had both dragon and phoenix talents at the same time. They could chat so excitedly even with auto-replies truly invincible, really fucking invincible.

But this also proved his line of thinking was correct. Auto-replying could indeed create a certain degree of false prosperity and produce an excellent effect in the early stages when there were very few users.

At noon, the downpour continued, Linchuan University’s temperature plummeted, cool and comfortable.

Jiang Qin was rubbing his socks when he suddenly received an email from Yao Yanling of the Literature Club. Opening it revealed a novel called “Lonely City”, roughly about a girl with autism getting into a key university with the encouragement of her entire class.

In the first 10,000 words, senior Yao Yanling used an all-narration writing style to meticulously depict how lonely this girl was, even writing a line that her eyelashes exuded a scent of loneliness.

10 yuan per 1,000 words, so 10,000 words is 100 yuan.

You want to scam me out of 100 yuan with this?

Should I just call the police?!

This is fucking fraud!

“Senior, the book is indeed written quite well. Even an outsider like me can feel a kind of loneliness.”

“Thank you for junior’s praise. Then it’s settled, 10 yuan per 1,000 words. I’m giving you a discount.”

“But senior, this is a vulgar and low-level website of mine. It can’t include such high-end work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you change the subject matter? Don’t write inspirational literature, write some vulgar dog-blood stuff like love triangles, the third party, we love to read that.”

“Junior, you don’t understand literature at all. I misjudged you!”

Yao Yanling replied to him then her avatar turned gray, obviously going offline.

Jiang Qin felt it was of no importance. His site was the same as Weibo, taking the route of fragmented reading. Having novels to read was icing on the cake but it wasn’t a big deal if there weren’t any.

He was just a bit worried. Yao Yanling was after all the president of the Literature Club. If this matter affected the Literature Club’s manuscript supply, what would he do for website content? He couldn’t just rely on Cao Guangyu’s pretentious posts right?

But what he didn’t expect was that half an hour later, Dong Wenhao called him saying the first batch of manuscripts was out and wanted him to take a look to see if they were okay. So Jiang Qin changed his clothes and made his way to the east campus after some transfers.

“Accidentally crossed the line with my female bestie, what should I do?”

“Boyfriend graduated first, recording my journey from long-distance to breakup”

“The first time going to a hotel with my girlfriend, there are some things I don’t know whether to say or not”

“Ex-boyfriend caught a cold, I went to take care of him for a bit, current boyfriend wants to break up with me?”

“What’s it like dating the campus belle? Absolutely real!”

The Literature Club submitted a total of 20 manuscripts. After Jiang Qin’s careful review, only 8 were qualified.

Dong Wenhao felt his face couldn’t be kept and kept explaining. Everyone was handling this kind of writing task for the first time and wasn’t familiar enough. The pass rate would definitely get higher and higher later.

Jiang Qin waved his hand saying it was fine then took out 150 yuan from his wallet and handed it to Dong Wenhao.

“Weren’t there only 8 qualified pieces? 6 yuan each, 48 is enough.”

“First submission, good or bad I want them all. It’s to mobilize their enthusiasm a bit. Seeing money as soon as they reach out, they’ll feel I’m a generous boss. Your rallying power in the club will also be stronger, making it easier to get things done later.”

Dong Wenhao took the money, his expression a bit complex, “Little bro, your family is in business right?”

Jiang Qin stuffed his wallet into his pocket, “No, I’m just a very handsome guy with an ordinary background.”

“…”

Dong Wenhao put the money in his pocket. After hesitating for a while, he spoke again, “Senior Yanling has been frowning all day saying you don’t understand literature. Is there a problem with the novel?”

“There’s no big problem. The novel is written okay, all beautiful Chinese characters, but put together it’s just not nice to read. It’s really fucking strange.”

“So does your site still accept novels?”

“I want to but there are too few well-written ones. I’m doing business not charity.”

Dong Wenhao hesitated for a moment then took out another manuscript from his backpack, “Then what do you think of this? Can you accept it?”

Jiang Qin took it over with a suspicious look and glanced at it. The title was “You Are the Color of Fireworks”. After flipping through a few pages, his brows couldn’t help furrowing, “Some skill huh, very exciting, the taste hits you in the head. Who wrote this? Why did you hide it?”

“A former club member called Shi Miaomiao.”

“Former?”

“She was scolded out of the club by Senior Yanling, saying her writing had no soul and told her not to waste time here.”

“Seven per thousand words. Let her guarantee daily updates. The novel’s copyright is mine. If she agrees, I’ll take it.”

Just as they were talking, the door to the Literature Club activity room was suddenly pushed open. Yao Yanling walked in from outside. Seeing Jiang Qin, she froze for a moment then directly ignored him with a black face.

She previously had a very good impression of Jiang Qin but not anymore. In her eyes, Jiang Qin was just an ordinary mortal who didn’t understand literature.

Yao Yanling picked up a pair of colored flags from the right side of the activity room then walked out the door again without looking back.

“Don’t mind her. Senior is just like that, never allowing others to deny her work.” Dong Wenhao couldn’t help explaining for Yao Yanling.

Jiang Qin waved his hand, “Seniors with dreams like her are admirable, unlike me who only has a few stinking coins.”

“…”