The fluorescent light from the computer shone on Pi's face, and the pince-nez shone with the luster of an unknown metal.
It softened its movements, typing one letter at a time on the keyboard, for fear of disturbing other people's rest. The speed of typing could not keep up with the speed of thinking, which would inevitably slow down the progress of writing, but it could not be helped.
In the dead of night, even the sound of the laptop fan was particularly ear-piercing. Pi looked sideways in the direction of the bedroom from time to time, to see if it had disturbed Zhang Zian and the other elfins.
After Zhang Zian and Snowy Lionet messed around for a while, the room returned to silence. Richard, who was supposed to join in the fun at this time, regrettably could not participate due to its night blindness.
Old Time Tea had been sleeping soundly, with a calm expression that would not change even if Mount Tai collapsed on top of its head.
Xinghai just looked at it for a while, then closed its eyes again and lay peacefully in the crib, bathed in the soft moonlight.
Pi and Fina looked at each other, then quickly looked away.
Fina, who had slept enough during the day, was not sleepy at all at night. Its green eyes were majestically scanning the room.
Famous was also not asleep. It tossed and turned on the blanket, looking forward to the grand occasion when the movie was released. It had a small night light on, providing some dim light.
After coming to the pet shop, Pi had gradually gotten used to this kind of night. Almost every night before going to sleep, one of the elfins, usually Snowy Lionet or Richard, would toss and turn, as if it was some kind of sleeping ritual.
Pi tried not to pay attention to Fina's stern gaze, and focused on the screen in front of it, thinking about the next plot.
After a while, the time in the lower right corner of the screen became 23 o'clock.
Pi suddenly felt relieved, because it had almost finished writing today's chapter, and because Fina's gaze had disappeared.
Snowy Lionet began to smack its lips, and Old Time Tea occasionally snorted. Famous kicked its legs as if it had a nightmare, but did not wake up.
From then on, it was the real night in the pet shop.
As the only awake elfin on the second floor, Pi felt inexplicably comforted.
It yawned, took off the pince-nez, rubbed its sore eyes, and put it back on. The handwriting on the screen didn't change much because the glasses didn't have a prescription, and the only reason he wore them was to read the Untitled Book.
In fact, Pi didn't want to stay up late, but for some reason, its thoughts were always particularly smooth in the dead of night. The plot that it couldn't figure out during the day was instantly solved at night. Just like a famous saying, inspiration and ghosts always liked to appear at night.
When Pi yawned for the second time, it had finished writing the chapter for the day and uploaded it.
When he uploaded the new chapter, he inevitably saw the number of favorites of the novel — 58 people. The excitement from being immersed in the story of the past was instantly dampened.
Some authors liked to write a message at the end of a chapter to communicate with the readers, but Pi had never done so, because it didn't know if anyone was reading its novel. Although there were 58 collectors, it felt that these people had added the book to the bookshelf after seeing the title. The empty book review section was the best proof of that.
It moved the mouse to the "Publish" button, but didn't press it. As if it suddenly thought of something, it wrote in the "Author's Remarks" section at the end of the chapter: I don't know if anyone is reading this novel. Friends who see this line, can you say something in the book review section?
After writing it, it quickly pressed the "Publish" button, as if it was afraid that it would regret it.
Would anyone say something tomorrow?
It didn't have any hope for that. It always felt that its heart had become a cold stone, falling into the endless void.
Pi closed the Word document, turned off the computer, took off the pince-nez, put it on the Untitled Book, and jumped into the basket hammock chair.
Although it tried to be as light as possible, the basket hammock chair still made a slight squeaking sound, and slightly swayed back and forth. After all, this thing was designed this way.
Pi nervously held its breath, pricked up its ears, and listened to the sounds in the room.
Old Time Tea's snoring stopped for a moment, and then started again, but the sleep of the other elfins didn't seem to be affected.
Pi gently exhaled. Finally, it could close its eyes and sleep peacefully. At least it hoped that it could have a good dream in its sleep.
However, things didn't go as it wished.
As soon as it closed its eyes, the Word document and the plot it had written that day appeared in front of its eyes. The events that happened before it came to the pet shop were played one after another.
How interesting!
It closed its eyes and smiled. If only I could come earlier.
After a while, Pi didn't know exactly what time it was. It was probably around 11: 30. Pi, who was still awake, suddenly heard a faint rustling sound coming from the direction of the bedroom.
Was Snowy Lionet teasing Zhang Zian again? No matter what, it was too late. If they messed around again and woke Fina up, Fina would definitely be furious.
Pi opened its eyes and looked in that direction. Unexpectedly, it didn't see Snowy Lionet's big blue eyes, but the light from Zhang Zian's phone screen.
It was so late, and he was still awake? Or was he just looking at the time?
He did look at the time, then turned his neck, as if he was looking in the direction of the desk. Pi quickly retracted its head back into the basket hammock.
After a while, it quietly poked its head out again, and saw that Zhang Zian was still holding his phone. The phone screen had become the main source of light in the room, so he probably didn't notice that Pi was watching him in the dark.
Zhang Zian didn't fall asleep after lying down. On the one hand, he was guarding against Snowy Lionet's attack at night, and on the other hand, he wanted to sleep after Pi fell asleep. He heard the sound of the computer fan disappear. He wanted to sleep, but he didn't feel sleepy. After lying in bed for a while, he simply picked up his phone.
He opened the Qidian app and found some books with around 100,000 to 200,000 words, especially those with good scores. He quickly browsed through the beginning parts.
To be honest, he couldn't understand most of the books. They were very white and illogical. Maybe he had passed the age of reading such books. However, he knew that if he wanted to make progress and succeed, he had to focus on learning from other people's strengths, instead of criticizing other people's weaknesses. So he kept reading with great patience and perseverance.
The room was very quiet. He could hear the breathing of the elfins all around him, which made him feel at ease.
The sleepiness that he had lost before came back again while he was reading these books. Several times, he unconsciously dozed off. His hand holding the phone sank down, and then he suddenly woke up and continued reading.
Time passed slowly. It was already past one o 'clock at night.
He knew that he should sleep, or else he would be very sleepy the next day. He repeatedly told himself that he would sleep after finishing the next book, but he continued reading one after another …
He only read the first 100,000 words of each novel. The first 100,000 words were only 40 to 50 chapters, and he read them at a very fast speed. He didn't need to decipher the plot of the book. He just needed to find the highlights from other people's choice of words and sentences.
Compared to the main text, he actually preferred to read the words that the authors wrote inside and outside the chapters. Whether it was thanks or complaints, it was as if he had witnessed their mental journey during the writing process. Especially for those authors who were depressed, he seemed to feel a sense of empathy for them, even though he had never met them before.
After finishing one book, he was already too sleepy. He looked at the time on his phone. It was already past two o 'clock at night. There were only four hours left before he had to wake up. He would definitely be exhausted tomorrow … Should he sleep first?
However, there was only one book left on the bookshelf. He hesitated for half a second and decided to finish this book before going to sleep. It was probably because of his obsessive-compulsive disorder.
This was an urban novel called "Diplomat of the Underworld." The novel's tags were hilarious, rebirth, and ghosts. To be honest, this was completely different from the novel written by Pi. However, this novel was published half a month earlier than Pi. At present, it had less than 200,000 words, but it had nearly 10,000 bookmarks. This novel must have something special about it.
Anyway, there was only one book left, so he forced himself to stay awake and opened the novel.
The content of the novel was about the protagonist being reborn for some reason. Not only was he reborn, but he also had an additional system in his mind, which allowed him to deal with ghosts. The system gave him missions to reward him with equipment, and let him kill evil spirits and villains … In short, it was more or less the same.
The choice of words and sentences in this novel were a bit awkward, and there were many typos, but it was barely boring. He read chapter by chapter. When it was almost three o 'clock at night, he had already read 50 chapters of about 100,000 words. For other novels, he would have switched to the next one by the time he reached this number of words. However, at present, this was the only novel left. He decided to read ten more chapters because he had not found the highlight of this novel. If there was no highlight, how did it achieve success?
If he still could not find the highlight after reading ten more chapters, he would go to sleep. He made up his mind not to stay up late anymore.
When he read chapter 57, Zhang Zian's fingers, which were constantly swiping through the pages, suddenly stopped.
At the end of chapter 57, the author complained about how he had been writing for a month, but the results were still dismal. In particular, there was one sentence that deeply touched Zhang Zian: "I have been preparing this book for a long time. To put it bluntly, I want to become a god. I can't accept that my own child can't get recognition or even a chance."
From this sentence, Zhang Zian could feel the resentment in the author's heart. At the same time, it also made him curious. When the author wrote chapter 57, the results were very dismal, but the current results were very good. What happened in between?
He continued to read.
The answer was only revealed after two chapters.
At the end of chapter 59, the author wrote in his speech: "How do I say this? My mood has been ups and downs today. To be exact, it started in the wee hours of yesterday. After talking with Morning Star Gorilla in the comment section, he added my book to his reading list. Because he has a lot of friends, there are also a lot of people who follow his reading list, so my book has been seen by more people … Thank you for the many reading list owners who added me to their reading lists."
What was going on?
Zhang Zian's heart skipped a beat. This was the second time he had seen the term "reading list." The first time was in the Wang Haige forum. At that time, someone had replied to the post that advertising in the comment section was useless, but advertising in the reading list was useful.
It only took him two chapters to go from being depressed to being high-spirited?
He was not in the mood to look at the plot that he was not interested in, so he quickly flipped to the next page. When he saw chapter 84, the book had already had 5,000 "favorites", and chapter 59 had less than 1,000.
In a short period of 25 chapters, the world had changed.
So that was how it was … Reading lists were really something that could turn something rotten into something magical. It could let more people read one's novel. But … if one wanted the owner of the reading list to pay attention to one's novel and add it to the reading list, one needed to first advertise in the reading list.
What was a reading list? Why did it have such strong magic?
This "Morning Star Gorilla" was probably a reading list owner?
Zhang Zian's brain was a bit messed up due to extreme sleepiness. He stared at the dark ceiling and thought for a while, but he still could not come up with a clue. It was better to study it properly after he woke up tomorrow.
He was afraid that he would forget when he woke up the next day, so he bookmarked chapter 59. Then he put the phone under his pillow, closed his eyes, and quickly fell asleep.
After the phone screen went off, the room was once again shrouded in darkness. The only artificial light source was the dim night light beside Famous.
Zhang Zian was very careful when reading. He thought that he did not make any noise and would not disturb the elfins' sleep. But in fact, some elfins had woken up, and some elfins had not slept.
For a few hours, Pi had been watching him in the dark. Its eyes were not like Galaxy, Fina, Old Time Tea, and Snowy Lionet's eyes, which shone in the dark because of the reflective film. It was also not like Richard, which was blind in the dark, so no one had noticed it.
Half of its head popped out from the side of the basket. It saw a few pairs of eyes shining and then going off. It saw Zhang Zian's eyebrows frowning and then relaxing under the light of the phone screen, and it saw the moonlight quietly changing angles in the room.
It was time to sleep. Previously, it had wanted to remind Zhang Zian many times that it was time for him to sleep. He had to wake up so early tomorrow, and after waking up, he had to do heavy cleaning work, go to the bank for loans, discuss with the construction team about the renovation of the shoe store, and deal with all kinds of tricky customers … If he did not get enough sleep, he would be very sleepy.
But it did not say it out loud, because it could not speak, and the computer was off, so it could not type … But more importantly, it needed to bite its own wrist to not cry out loud.
Why?
Wouldn't it be better to just say, "Give up"? Wouldn't that be simpler?
There were many more important things for him to worry about, such as Galaxy, who was still afraid of people, Fina, who was secretly worried, Old Time Tea, who was getting old, Snowy Lionet, who always liked to play tricks on him, Richard, who did not want to love anymore, and Famous, who was struggling in another world …
Why spend time on a novel that was destined to fail?
Why … do you still want to spend your time on me?
Pi's canines had already bitten four deep teeth marks on its arm. It retracted its head, pulled up the blanket to cover its body, and curled up in the basket like a baby in its mother's womb.
The basket made a very slight squeaking sound, and a few pairs of eyes lit up and then went off.
In the dead of night.
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