Back in the office, Chu Li was like a plague-stricken ghost. He had no interest in work and just wanted to find someone to vent his grievances to.
The person who was in charge of watching and listening was naturally Mr. L. Since he was an outsider, Chu Li told him everything that happened in the morning, and emphasized that he was just one step away from a number that he had agreed with Lao Miao, which led to his failure in becoming deputy editor-in-chief...
She let her imagination run wild and imagined some unknown dirty deal between Lao Miao and the head of the marketing department: This is not impossible. If you think about it carefully, when the subscription letter for "Luohe Divine Book" was just sent out, the marketing department notified Chu Li of the subscription quantity at the first time, and Lao Miao seemed to know the result at the same time.
This means he has someone in the marketing department.
Chu Li frowned and rubbed her head in pain, watching Mr. L speak to her nonchalantly, "It's normal. It's ridiculous to give the deputy editor-in-chief position to a newcomer like you. Maybe it's because of your bet that the first print run is 'just' short of 10,000 or 20,000 copies."
Tsk, that does make sense.
[The Monkey's hired Marines: Anyway, today is really unlucky. It feels like nothing good has happened.]
[The Disappearing Mr. L: Ever since you joined Yuanyue Society, haven’t you been so unlucky every day? ]
[The missing Mr. L: The online pre-sale of Chu Chuan is a great success, you should be happy. Yuanyue Publishing House should praise you and give you a standing ovation - how many years has it been since they set the first print run so high? ]
[The water army hired by Monkey: Yes, Yu Yao just told me that my move not only sold a book, but also made those old-fashioned and unwilling to use their brains marketing department finally see the big fat piece of meat in network marketing. It is revolutionary - in short, I can look forward to a salary increase and year-end bonus... Maybe the year-end outstanding employee award will also be mine. Xiaoniao's expression at that time was quite interesting, after all, she joined the company before me. ]
[The water army hired by Monkey: But I am still in a bad mood. Ah Gui’s book number cannot be approved. I don’t know how to tell her now. I promised to publish her book. ]
[The Monkey's hired navy: She didn't say it, but I know she must be very disappointed.]
After Chu Li finished speaking, he closed the conversation box with Mr. L in annoyance, sat in front of the computer and thought for a while, then stood up and pulled Yu Yao into the small meeting room of the editorial department.
As expected, after a conversation, we found out that Yu Yao actually felt it was a pity that "Hearing" could not be published, and his implicit meaning was that he also hoped to compensate Ah Gui.
"How to compensate?"
"We can discuss this later. By the way, Suo Heng's old series is about to end. Have you decided on the subject of the new series?"
"...I have an appointment with her to hand in the question this week. I will ask about the progress later."
Chu Li didn't know what to say after receiving such an ambiguous answer from Yu Yao... After leaving the conference room, he sat back in front of the computer and first left a message to Suo Heng to remind her to submit the topic. Then he mustered up the courage to open the conversation box with Ah Gui and told her that the content of "Hearing" had not passed the review and the book number could not be approved.
[The ghost behind you: ...Shit! Is there no chance for the baby to win the flower award? They only accept official publications, right? How about I send a copy of my magazine to the judging panel?]
Chu Li had never expected Ah Gui to react like this, and was immediately at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
[The Monkey’s hired navy: Can you please stop worrying about the squid award…]
[The Ghost Behind You: A person without dreams is no different from a salted fish, but now I really don’t miss it anymore… I’m very sad that “Hearing” failed to pass the censorship. ]
Staring at the three words "very sad", Chu Li was as frustrated as a defeated rooster.
[The navy hired by the monkey: ...I'm sorry. ]
【The Ghost Behind You: It’s okay. To be honest, I’m not particularly sad. I think it was expected. I didn’t have much hope in the first place. I was surprised that a BL novel could make it to the stage of review at Yuanyue Publishing House. We can’t expect the domestic literary community to go from “nothing” to “skyrocketing” in one step. Everything has to be done slowly.】
[The ghost behind you: Did your editor-in-chief promise to compensate me? ]
[The ghost behind you: What compensation? I need concrete details. Don’t just talk about it. I’m sensitive.]
[The water army hired by Monkey: I don’t know what the compensation is, I guess it’s to increase your manuscript fee if you are still willing to write for our scam magazine...]
[The Ghost Behind You: From 80 per thousand words to 120 per thousand words? Damn, that's fine, I accept it!]
[The monkey's hired navy: Can you stop being so optimistic? It makes me feel even worse.]
[The ghost behind you: Don't be sad. What can I do? Even if I can't sleep in the middle of the night and hate myself for not being Zhaochuan, the sun will still rise, right? How about you give me the proofread manuscript of "Hearing" so that I can publish a personal magazine... It's already been proofread, so don't waste it, right? It's a professional proofreader after all.]
[The monkey's hired navy: We won't give it to you either.]
[The ghost behind you: Ruthless. It seems that you are not really upset, and you don’t really feel guilty towards me. ]
[The navy hired by the monkey: ………You go. ]
Actually, Ah Gui was wrong.
Chu Li was really upset, her sadness was no less than watching a healthy and vibrant child with a bright future of getting into Peking University or Tsinghua University die in the womb - this was a project she had been promoting with the same enthusiasm as the "Luo River Divine Book" since she was three months pregnant, and now one child had been born with great success, while the other had collapsed one centimeter before the finish line.
Although it can be seen that Ah Gui has tried to comfort her calmly as the original author's biological mother, but...
As an editor, how could she not be sad about such a thing?
…
For the whole day, no one dared to provoke Chu Li. It should have been a joyous day, but she sat in her seat, looking "full of sadness"...
The ominous aura could be smelled from eight hundred miles away, and those who originally wanted to come up to her and say "Congratulations on the huge success of the Luohe Divine Book" were forced to hold back.
Chu Li continued to mourn until the end of his get off work day.
It was a rare day when I got home early. When I got home, Zhuchuan was not lying on the sofa and shaking his legs. The man was sitting in front of the computer, typing away... I don't know who he was chatting with.
Chu Li put down her bag and walked over. She stood behind the man. He didn't even turn around or anything. He showed Chu Li the chat history on the computer.
【Xindun-Baizhi: The editors of Yuanyueshe are really good. The online pre-sale this time surprised us all. We didn’t expect it to be this good… During the morning meeting, the boss used the weekend online sales of “Luohe Divine Book” as a case study and gave us a good beating.】
[Xindun-Baizhi: You still ask us, what could be more embarrassing than having marketing methods that are even more outdated than Yuanyueshe.]
【Xindun-Baizhi: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha I can't even lift my head up because of what you said. 】
【Zhuochuan: She is a new editor who just joined. 】
[Xindun-Baizhi: So you are holding a treasure? I said that if the deputy editor-in-chief Miao of Yuanyue Publishing House, plus the marketing department boss Liang, could come up with such a fresh idea, it would be like a red rain.]
[Xindun-Baizhi: How did this little thing end up in a place like Yuanyue Society where the elderly gather? ]
[Xindun-Baizhi: Yuanyue Society is rotten from the outside to the inside. My heart aches.]
【Zhuchuan: Ha, who knows why she wants to go there? She worships Yuanyue Society so much.】
New shield, take Angelica dahurica.
Chu Li had heard of this person before. He had occasionally mentioned her to Lao Miao and the author before. She was the gold medal editor of Xindun Publishing House. She climbed to the position of editor-in-chief at the young age of less than 30 years old. If you look through the youth reading materials and best-selling novels of Xinhua Bookstore in recent years, as long as they were published by Xindun, two-and-a-half thirds of the editor-in-chief names are hers.
The fact that Xindun Press is now able to compete with Yuanyue Press in the traditional paper media publishing industry is inseparable from the support of this gold medal editor.
At this moment, standing behind Zhuchuan, Chu Li stood with his hands on his hips, watching him and Gu Baizhi mocking Yuanyue Society. He was considering whether to pinch Zhuchuan's head off, when suddenly his eyelids jumped and he heard the following words coming from the opposite side -
【Xindun-Baizhi: Have you considered signing the "Huangquan Inn" on your Weibo to us?】
The silence lasted for a whole day, and the numb nerves seemed to be activated.
At that moment, I felt all the energy and blood rushing to my head.
This was the last straw that broke the camel's back.
Chu Li's hand on the back of Chu Chuan's chair suddenly tightened. Just as the man put his hands on the keyboard and typed the four words "This is me", his whole hand was pressed directly on the keyboard by the claws that stretched out -
The man turned his head in slight surprise and was faced with a ferocious face!
Chu Li reached over the man's shoulder, stretched out her hand, and violently pulled the entire keyboard off the computer. Before the man could react to the two soft things pressing on his shoulders and the familiar breath that quickly passed through his nose, the person behind him quickly retreated with the keyboard in his arms, like a rabbit with its fur standing on end: "You said that Huangquan Inn is mine!!!"
Zhuochuan stood up, looking at Chuli behind him without reacting, then looked at the four words "This is me" and a bunch of garbled characters sent on QQ, and finally his eyes stopped at the keyboard that Chuli was holding in his arms...
Feeling the man's gaze, Chu Li took two steps back holding the keyboard!
"Put down the keyboard first..."
“I won’t!” Chu Li felt like he was facing a formidable enemy. He let out all the grievances he had suffered throughout the day. “You are all liars—you never keep your promises! Lao Miao colluded with the marketing department to limit the first print run of The Divine Book of Luo River to 340,000! Hearings, which had passed the first, second, and eighth reviews, could just say they didn’t want to give me a book number! The Yellow Spring Inn, which they promised to give me the night before, suddenly became a Xindun publication. Gold medal editors are so great! You are all liars!”
Chu Li's eyes quickly turned red.
She hummed loudly, then let out a loud sob, turned her head and jumped up to the attic holding the keyboard!
Zhuo Chuan was stunned for a moment, then he reacted and subconsciously ran after him. The two of them chased each other, and at this time Chu Li even lost her slippers. When she ran to the stairs and took two steps up, someone grabbed her clothes.
His foot slipped and he fell forward like a dog chewing shit, his knees hitting the stairs hard. As the pain pierced his heart, large drops of liquid in his eye sockets fell onto the back of his hand with a "click".
Chu Li threw away the keyboard in her hand, stood up shakily holding the handrail of the stairs and walked to her room in the attic. At this time, she felt the big hand holding her collar slightly pulling her back.
She leaned back.
Then someone grabbed her waist and carried her away from the stairs.
Behind her, the man's heavy breathing was right beside her ears, his chest rising and falling against her back. She struggled for a moment but was held down tightly. Finally, she was tired of struggling and her hands weakly grabbed the big hand that was holding her waist twice...
Then he dropped his head weakly and burst into tears.
Tears fell heavily on the back of his hands, which were covered with red marks.
"You all don't keep your word... Feelings, feelings, you're playing tricks on me... What do you mean by not approving a book number because it's too big a deal? What did you promise the author in the first place? Something went wrong, uh, you just don't care about it anymore. You just say you won't do it if the book number can't be approved, and let the editor-in-chief die? Also, if you can't afford to lose the first print run of 350,000, don't bet on it. If you're stuck at 340,000, who are you blaming... And, that crappy book on your Weibo, give it to whoever you want, just give it to Xindun. They have money, they're rich, they won't send away beggars, they'll give you a first print run of one million--"
Chu Li spoke intermittently, and after he had finished speaking for most of the time, he had a lot of curse words in his stomach that he didn't have time to swear out. They were all stuck in his throat. He couldn't say the last word. His grievances were like a flood that had been unloaded from a dam, rushing out all at once...
Behind her, the man who was holding her and squeezing at the attic staircase said nothing.
When she was crying till she couldn't catch her breath, he sighed, raised his hand, and rubbed her face randomly: "I haven't said anything yet."
Chu Li lowered her head and felt the man holding her loosen his hands and turned her around... The man half-bent over and rubbed her eyes with his dry, warm hands, saying helplessly, "You just don't trust me."
The first ceremony is to bow your head.
There is no sound.
I shed my tears silently, my tear glands are so developed that it's outrageous.
Zhuo Chuan looked at her wet face, with the mole at the corner of her eye particularly eye-catching. He thought to himself, this is a real way to cry. At least he had witnessed it with his own eyes.
Although it would be better if I hadn't seen it.