The few words "Chu Li" and the lighting of two candles were like a thunderclap out of the blue or a boulder falling into the water, which shattered the harmonious atmosphere in the WeChat group and directly blew out the boss who usually didn't say anything in the group and just sat on the mountain to watch the fight between tigers!
[Old He Family: What happened to the navy hired by Monkey? Wasn't this already taken down? Why was it suddenly given to Xindun Society?]
Before Chu Li could answer, Chief Editor Xia popped up. With his upright image and serious voice, he ignited the fuse of this criticism meeting.
【Lao Xia: I accompanied my wife to see a doctor today. The procedures were complicated and I was extremely busy. I didn’t have time to check my phone. At around 2pm, I received a call from Yu Yao, the editor-in-chief of Moonlight magazine, telling me that the marketing department had violated the event schedule published on Weibo and other platforms early in the morning and extended the "book purchase and photo taking" event. I never thought that such behavior was extremely disrespectful to the author and readers of Luohe Divine Book.】
【Lao Xia: On the first day of the “Voice” activity, the author personally called us and asked us to adjust our schedule. This was already very embarrassing - but in the end, we didn’t do it well even then!】
【Lao Xia: There are a lot of voices on Weibo against Yuanyueshe right now. Everyone says we are a very bad partner. If I were the author, I would not want to continue the cooperation.】
【Lao Xia: Lao Liang, come out @Conghuaweilangweixian, tell Mr. He what Zhaochuan told you at the beginning?】
【老何家: @蔥花味浪味仙, when you asked me to add a cosplayer photo session this afternoon, why didn’t you explain that the author of “Luohe Divine Book” disagreed? 】
【Lao Xia: “Voice” I didn’t pay attention for a moment, and that’s it… Oh.】
【Lao Xia: “Voice” Let’s not talk about whether the sales of the “Luohe Divine Book” that were sold less will be greater than the sales from the book purchase and photo-taking event. Now that Zhechuan is at its peak, it is very popular. Other publishing companies have tried their best to snatch the copyright of his book, but we have got it and we don’t know how to cherish it! 】
【Lao Xia: Even if “Yin Yin” only cared about the money, he gave “Huangquan Inn” to Xindun. How much money did he give away!】
Teacher Xia said everything that should and shouldn't be said this time. Chu Li finished speaking in front of Zhu Chuan and then hung up his phone: "It feels like Teacher Xia has aged ten years because of these marketing guys."
Zhuo Chuan held the steering wheel with one hand: "What are you doing? Are you trying to play the sympathy card with me?"
"The boss was so anxious that he directly called me and Teacher Xia into a small group and asked us if there was any other way to stabilize you..." Chu Li raised his head and looked at Zhe Chuan, "Is there any?"
"No." Zhuochuan had no expression on his face.
“No—no.” Chu Li lowered his head and typed.
"Lao Liang really went too far this time."
"This time - Lao Liang, you really - went too far," Chu Li lowered his head and continued typing, "Anything else?"
"Don't think that all authors in the world are as easy to deal with as Niannian or Suo Heng. Before you start working with them, clean your eyes and see clearly who is sitting opposite them: Since I, Zhachuan, debuted, who dares to ignore me like this, except for my father, Mr. Zha Guxuan?"
"………………Too many, too many, speak slower, do you think I am you? I type five times per second on my phone." Chu Li held up the phone, "Let me summarize it for you. In short, Teacher Zhuchuan is very dissatisfied and very angry... Mr. He said to let Teacher Xia ask your father if he can persuade you——"
“…”
"You don't have to answer this question. Let me answer it for you," Chu Li typed quickly, "Mr. He, if you force Teacher Zhu Guxuan to come, I'm afraid Zhu Chuan won't sign books for us again in his next book or even in his next life."
“I am very moved.”
"?"
"After eating and drinking for free at my house for so long, you seem to have finally figured out my temper. The rice I added was not wasted."
“…”
Sorry, teacher! I filled your rice jar with my own money. And, of course I know that Mr. Zhuo Guxuan is like the whiskers on the tiger's mouth to you. Others can't even look at him, let alone pull or touch him.
Chu Li was absentmindedly poking at the screen of her mobile phone, and as she was poking, she saw that after Teacher Xia tactfully expressed that the relationship between Zhechuan and his father was not so "traditional", the boss completely gave up the last glimmer of hope, and then returned to the group, beat up the marketing department headed by Liang Chonglang, and madly deducted a lot of the year-end bonus to save himself some money.
The scene was certainly not unpleasant.
...Although it's still painful to think that "Huangquan Inn" was signed by Xindun like this - Yu Yao also pointed this out in the subsequent private chat with Yu Yao.
[Yu Yao: If you injure one thousand enemies, you will lose eight hundred of your own.]
[The naval forces hired by Monkey: I don’t just want to take revenge on Lao Liang and Lao Miao. In fact, if there is a glimmer of hope, I will persuade Zhuo Chuan. You don’t know how calm and resolute he was when he told me that “the copyright was given to Xindun”—he said that if he continued to sign with Yuanyueshe, he would have no way to explain to the angry fans who were now being cheated. I think he makes sense.]
[Yu Yao: You completely stand in the author's shoes and consider his case.]
[The trolls hired by Monkey: That’s right, there must be an author before there can be an editor. If the author is abandoned by his own fans, then what good will the editor have…]
[The navy hired by Monkey: Also, the ones who suffered 1,000 damage were only Lao Liang and his gang. I still didn’t lose as much as 800 myself. I just hugged Chuan’s thigh and begged him to serialize my work in Moonlight…]
【Yu Yao: !!! 】
【Yu Yao: Why didn’t you tell Mr. He in the group? 】
[The monkey’s hired navy: I’ll tell you later.]
[The navy hired by Monkey: Let him concentrate on scolding Lao Liang for a while.]
【Yu Yao: ……】
[Yu Yao: When we first recruited you, you were still a simple little girl. What have you been through in the past six months to become what you are today... Today, when you were jumping up and down and throwing a tantrum, no one dared to approach you in the lounge as if there was a vicious dog inside. Poor Ah Xiang didn't even dare to go in to drink a sip of water. In the end, he bought a bottle of water from a vending machine.]
[The navy hired by the monkey: …]
After reading the above, Yu Yao was finally convinced by Chu Li.
At this point, the entire Yuanyue Publishing House, with Lao Liang and others being severely criticized and having their bonuses deducted, finally accepted the fact that it had lost the copyright to Xindun Publishing House due to the marketing department's mistakes and contempt for the author.
After this incident, Chu Li unexpectedly felt relieved for the next two months.
The main reason was that it was close to the end of the year and all projects had begun to enter a state of "reasonable slowdown". In addition, since Zhu Chuan's "Yellow Spring Inn" was no longer available, she had even less time.
What to do when she has free time? Of course, she will start her daily editing work, harassing the author, urging him to submit his manuscript, asking about the progress of the outline, etc. During working hours, apart from fiercely arguing with Joo Chuan on QQ about the selection of the next outline for the new series, Chu Li rejected two outlines sent by Joo Chuan in a short period of time, which made Joo Chuan slightly angry.
One of them is boring in content, and the other one is an outline... Based on the outline structure, it looks like it could be written into a million words!
[The water army hired by Monkey: Do you know what a million words means, teacher? If we count 20,000 words per issue, 600,000 words means 50 issues of the magazine, and 50 issues of the magazine means nearly four years and two months of serialization... four years and two months! In four years and two months, Yuanyueshe might even go bankrupt!!! You have to write for Yuanyueshe until we go bankrupt!!]
【Zhuchuan: So what? Isn’t it good to write 20,000 words a month and get some money to pay for water and electricity?】
[The navy hired by the monkey: …………………………]
[Zhu Chuan: I don’t even want to say such cruel words on New Year’s Day. Do you think the money you spend on taking a shower, turning on the lights, and using the washing machine comes from the sky?]
[The navy hired by the monkey: …]
[The monkey’s hired navy: Even this won’t work! Think of another one! ! ! ! ]
——This is Chu Chuan.
In addition to Zhuochuan, there was also a ghost who wanted to kill Chuli.
Since the book fair ended, Chu Li called Ah Gui every day to push forward her serial outline. Ah Gui had been selecting topics for more than half a month, and in the end, Chu Li was almost annoyed by her... One day, after finally sending away the one million-word outline of Zhu Chuan, Chu Li refused to waste time on these bastard authors, and slammed the table and decided on Ah Gui directly: "Isn't there a popular BL article about sailing? How about writing another one? Then maybe you can publish a series of articles based on the excitement, which would be great."
Ah Gui immediately said, "You have never stopped drawing big cakes since you joined Yuanyue Society. Publishing a series of articles is already the most reliable cake. I like this cake very much..."
So he agreed very casually without much hesitation, and the outline was quickly submitted. To put it simply, the son of a merchant fleet magnate, a rich second-generation, died at a young age, leaving a will for him to find the legendary "Leviathan", the fastest ship in the Mediterranean, to fulfill his father's regret when he was young... The second-generation magnate only knew how to play before, and had no idea what the fastest ship was or what the "Leviathan" was. He was confused, and then he remembered that there was a very powerful first mate on his father's fleet before his father died, so he had to endure the humiliation and ask the first mate for help...
The whole story revolves around "a scheming first mate and a young captain with no status". It is the kind of gay and healthy story that Ah Gui is good at, and which Teacher Xia might find offensive when reviewing the manuscript.
After reading it, Chu Li thought it seemed good, so he sent Ah Gui to try to write a sample draft.
——This is Ah Gui.
After dealing with Ah Gui and Zhuo Chuan, Chu Li would still cross her legs and call Suo Heng during lunch break to discuss her new series "The Great Ruler" with her - unlike the other two little kids, Chu Li adopted the "love education" approach towards Suo Heng.
After the first chapter of "The Great Ruler" was released in the January issue of "Moonlight" magazine, although the reader votes have not yet been counted, the positive reviews are unexpectedly overwhelming: in the previous submission mailbox, there was basically no mention of Suo Heng, and when she was mentioned, it was just to ask her when she would leave and stop wasting time here, but since "The Great Ruler" was published, I have received comments such as "The familiar Suo Heng is back", "It's no exaggeration to say that the five-year old fans really cried when reading the magazine", "The Great Ruler is very good"...
——For authors, there is actually no need for too many comments. Just the word "good-looking" is their most precious spiritual food.
When Chu Li was giving Suo Heng feedback on the readers one by one on the phone, Suo Heng on the other end of the phone covered his hands and cried uncontrollably, so that in the end Chu Li was also affected by her and her eyes turned red.
Lao Miao was clicking his tongue beside him, not sure whether he was feeling jealous or what the reason was.
The Spring Festival is approaching and the new year is about to begin.
Except for the depressing first day of New Year's Day, everything seemed to be full of vitality and gradually moving in a positive direction.
…
Nothing interesting happened while we were waiting for the New Year holiday. The most interesting thing was that Gu Baizhi was really a person who knew how to have fun. From the day she got "Huangquan Inn", she spent two months to finish this short story of only 100,000 words. The day it was released was the annual meeting of Yuanyue Society.
That day, besides being called the "Yuanyue Society Annual Meeting", could also be called the "Marketing Department's Suffering Day", because it was said that thanks to the "Luohe Divine Book", "Huangquan Inn" was also selling very well. The advertisement put out by Xindun said "Sales exceeded 500,000 on the first day of listing". According to the international law of the industry that directly removes a zero or directly divides by three, the sales on the first day were probably over 100,000...
So at this annual meeting, Liang Chonglang was unfortunately brought up for the past. He was only given a Sunshine Award of 200 yuan in the annual meeting raffle, and was once again singled out for criticism by General Manager He.
Liang Chonglang was unlucky.
Chu Li was very lucky and won the first prize of iPhone 5S. He was so happy holding the iPhone 4S in his hand that he looked like a monkey.
Later, she found out that the year-end bonus was enough for her to buy five more iPhone 5S. At that moment, Chu Li almost forgot all her dissatisfaction with Yuanyue Society in the past six months... She was so excited that she almost wanted to take an oath under the national flag in front of hundreds of people in Yuanyue Society and declare her loyalty to Yuanyue Society!
Because we were so happy, we drank a lot of wine at the annual meeting that night.
Fortunately, she did not let Yu Yao take her directly to Zhuochuan's house, but asked her to take her to a place full of taxis. After watching Yu Yao leave, she jumped into a taxi and rushed back to her puppy's nest.
It was twelve o'clock when I got home, and the big dog and the little dog in the puppy house were still awake... Chu Li stood in the courtyard of the community, looking at the familiar house with orange lights from afar, and smiled foolishly to himself for a while: What could be happier than winning the first prize at the annual meeting, becoming a million-dollar household, drinking good wine, and then going home to find someone at home with the lights on, waiting for you?
no.
Chu Li stood in the yard, enjoying herself for a long time. If she hadn't suddenly received a call from Ah Gui, she might have stood in the community yard all night... She picked up the phone with her unsteady hands and said "Hello". It turned out that Ah Gui was stuck in typing and wanted to chat with someone.
"What?! Leviathan is a giant sea monster. Isn't Leviathan just a name? Does this monster really exist?"
After opening the door and standing in the hallway to change her shoes, Chu Li raised her head to look at the man who was sitting on the sofa with his legs crossed and typing on his computer. She kicked off her high heels and put on the plush house shoes he had just bought for her, feeling warm.
Chu Li walked into the house with a clattering sound. She sat down next to the man.
"...What do you mean I've been discussing the outline with you for so many days, my friend, you didn't tell me that you were going to write a fantasy sailing story that Hollywood wouldn't even consider the special effects expensive...so the Leviathan is both a ship and a monster?" Chu Li grabbed the phone, "Then why don't you just make it a trinity and let the sinister first mate be the Leviathan, wouldn't it be great to carry your cub on your back to find your cub - it turns out that the one I love is right next to me~ It's funny, the closer I get, the less I can see~"
As soon as they disagreed, they started singing.
While singing, her hands were indecently climbing onto the shoulders of the man next to her - he had probably taken a shower early, and was smelling nicely of lemon soap. Now, he was suddenly being touched by someone next to him, and he had to listen to her tuneless singing. The man paused his flying hands on the keyboard, and expressionlessly slapped away her hand on his shoulder.
"Take it away." The man said expressionlessly.
Chu Li retracted his claws with a wronged look on his face: "Oh, oh~ It's okay, it's not too late~ I believe that the future will be better than now--"
Zhuochuan threw the computer away and covered her mouth.
Chu Li widened her eyes slightly, then narrowed them, ignoring Ah Gui's question on the phone, "Why do I hear a man talking on your end?", and hung up the phone directly.
Then he threw away his precious iPhone 5S, grabbed Zhuchuan's hand and pulled it down, carefully held it in his palms, and asked seriously: "Teacher, where is my outline?"
Zhuchuan: “…”
Seeing her drunken look that made her almost unable to recognize her father, the man wordlessly reached out his hands to cover her eyes and pushed her onto the sofa, wanting her to fall asleep quickly so she could get some peace and quiet. However, Chu Li did not understand what he meant at all. She barked happily, opened her arms and hugged the man's neck, falling backwards, just like a dog playing catch with its owner.
There was a loud creaking sound.
The two of them quickly rolled into a ball on the sofa, and before the man got up, Chu Li smiled and kissed the tip of his tall nose.
The soft and slightly moist touch on the tip of her nose was gone in an instant. The man's eyes changed slightly. He kept one hand on top of her to stabilize her swaying body, and the other big hand fixed her chin. His voice was slightly hoarse and annoyed: "Don't move."
Chu Li was silent for three seconds.
In the fourth second, when the man's hand supporting her head loosened, his whole tall body slightly pressed down. Suddenly, Chu Li reached out and pressed his shoulder, smiling and said, "Outline, I'll go find it. I'll go to the study to find the outline. Teacher, wait a minute."
Then, with a little effort, she pushed away the man who was pressing on her, who had not exerted much effort to begin with. She used her hands and feet to roll and crawl over the sofa, and fell behind the sofa with a clang.
Zhuo Chuan leaned on the sofa, looking at her helplessly as she fell and was dazed. Finally, he couldn't bear it and reached out to pick her up: "Slow down..."
Chu Li ignored him and staggered towards the study without looking back. After entering the study, he slammed the door shut. His legs went soft and he slid down to sit down with his back against the door.
“…”
There's no heating in the study, so it's a little cool.
The cold air invaded her brain, and for a moment, her dark eyes, which had been in a daze for a moment, suddenly lit up with a trace of clarity and confusion: She felt that, just now, she seemed to be kissing Zhuchuan again.
I don't know if it was an illusion, but the flash in the man's eyes was clearly a "kiss" signal.
Fortunately, I ran fast.
But, why are you running?
With confusion and a hint of tension, expectation, and fear in her heart, Chu Li staggered to her feet in the dark study, holding on to the door handle. She turned on the light on the desk and looked around, wondering aimlessly whether she should just take out a random book with Zhuchuan's notes on it and pretend to be crazy and say it was an outline.
She rushed to the bookshelf, her legs and hands were weak, but she couldn't tell whether it was because of the alcohol or something else. She fumbled aimlessly on the bookshelf with her hands, scanning the books one by one.
Until I reached the corner of the bookshelf, stood on tiptoe and pulled out a book as if possessed by a ghost. As soon as I pulled it out, my hand slipped and the whole book fell down -
There were piles of manuscripts scattered all over her head.
Chu Li stood among the manuscript papers, her face full of confusion. She lowered her head and looked at the handwritten manuscript papers. The font was the familiar font of Zhuchuan, but it did not look as sloppy as the writings nowadays. It even had a hint of student-like neatness.
Chu Li bent down, picked up a piece of manuscript paper, squinted his eyes and didn't have time to read the content on it in the dim light... At this time, he heard Zhuo Chuan knocking on the door outside: "Are you still alive? What was that sound just now? Did you tear down my study or did you fall again? - Hey, Banana Man, are you still alive?"
Chu Li: "..."
Chu Li clenched the manuscript in her hand. Her woman's sixth sense told her that she might be in trouble.
Zhu Chuan, who was standing just behind the door, said: "If you don't say anything, I'll find the key to open the door. Hey, speak up!"
Chu Li: "Squeak!"