After a whole day of work, it was time to sleep again.
Zhang Zian could barely keep his eyes open, but since he knew that elfins could live longer, his tiredness had been dispelled. However, he didn't tell Old Time Tea or the other elfins, because, as Pi said, it wasn't time yet. Hastily telling everyone this news gave everyone an extra sense of expectation. If one day their expectations were to be dashed, then it would be better to not have known about this from the beginning.
Even if elfins could live longer, it must be a very difficult process. Judging from Pi's solemn expression when reading the nameless book, it might be the biggest challenge and trial he had faced since he downloaded the game.
Even though he could not understand it, he was still very grateful for this nameless book. It did not matter if it was the Hyperwebster Dictionary, the Book of Sand, or the Book of Imagination from another civilization in the universe. Without it, he would not have received this reassuring piece of good news.
The elfins went to sleep one after another. Of course, there was a lot of work before they went to sleep. Richard was particularly active today, as if something good had happened. Zhang Zian had to hang it upside down before going to sleep to let it calm down.
After everyone went to bed, Pi was still sitting in front of the computer, focused on typing.
"Pi, did I wake you up?" Zhang Zian walked over and asked. He knew how annoying Richard and Snowy Lionet were.
Pi shook its head.
"Well, then we'll go to sleep first. You should go to sleep after you finish writing." Zhang Zian brought a small table lamp for it. The lamp's hood was facing the bedroom so that the light wouldn't affect everyone's sleep.
He also didn't plan to tell Pi what he was going to do later, because he didn't know if it would succeed. He didn't want Pi to experience disappointment after it had hope.
Pi grinned and nodded.
Zhang Zian glanced at the elfins again, making sure that every elfin was in its place, then turned off the ceiling lamp.
With the light from the small table lamp and night light, he lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to Pi's soft typing sound. He thought about the elfin's lifespan, and then about Uncle Li's snack bar. In short, he didn't let his mind rest, and tried to prevent himself from falling asleep.
After about an hour or so, he heard a light click. The room became darker, and the sound of the laptop fan disappeared. Then the hanging basket squeaked. Pi turned off the small lamp and climbed into the hanging basket to sleep.
Zhang Zian waited for a while, feeling sleepy. He almost fell asleep several times, but he woke himself up by pinching his thigh.
He looked up and guessed that Pi had fallen asleep. He took out his phone from under the pillow and opened the Qidian app.
He didn't stay idle while watching Pi type. He quietly surfed the Internet on his phone to see what the magical "book list" was.
After some research, he found out that the reading list was an important supplement to Qidian's official recommendation spot. The difference was that the reading list was created by the readers themselves. They could put their favorite books in the reading list and write some recommendations for other readers to choose from. If readers agreed with the taste of a particular list owner, they would pay attention to that list owner. It was similar to the UP Masters who reviewed digital products on video websites. Digital products recommended by the UP Masters would often receive more recognition. Some of the book list owners even had tens of thousands of followers, which was equivalent to Internet celebrities in the book list industry.
After careful screening, he found that the book list owners could be roughly divided into two types. One type had a long review and introduction for every book on the list, and the other type only had a brief introduction. The former received far more attention than the latter. After all, the former showed how much effort the book list owner put into the book list.
During the day, he silently memorized the ID of the long review list owner. Then, he went to take a look at their book review section. First, he eliminated the most popular list owners. Because their review section was full of self-recommendations from countless authors, or authors pretending to be readers. Even if these list owners read books 24 hours a day, they wouldn't be able to read all of them.
The comment section of a book list with too few followers was empty, so it was not cost-effective to advertise.
After some screening, he targeted a book list owner with the tenth most followers. The book list owner's ID was Morning Star Gorilla, which was the book list owner mentioned by the author of the book "The Diplomat of the Underworld."
This book list owner clearly stated the requirements: Do not copy and paste the advertisement, and do not have a female protagonist in the urban novel.
Zhang Zian breathed a sigh of relief when he saw this. He had three wives and four concubines. In addition, there were a lot of cute girls crying and asking to be his girlfriend. It was just that when Pi was writing the novel, it hid all of his wives and concubines, so it barely met the requirements … That's right, that's it. Tomorrow, he had to tell Pi that it was best not to play around in this aspect.
Advertising was roughly equivalent to sending a resume to HR. It was necessary to write the highlights of the novel as clearly as possible. What was the highlight of Pi's novel? Well, of course, it was not that it did not have a girlfriend!
He typed on his phone: Can I promote it myself? The title of the book was "Pet King." The protagonist, who ran a pet shop, downloaded a game that could capture elfins, and witnessed the growth of the pet shop with the elfins. No female protagonist.
After thinking about it, he added "for now" in front of the words "no female protagonist." Satisfied, he clicked send.
After sending it, he refreshed the comment section over and over again, anxiously waiting for the list owner's reply. It was like constantly refreshing the email after sending out a resume, waiting for a reply from HR. He had read the books recommended by the list owner. They were all of high quality, so it was very likely that the list owner would not like Pi's novel. However, he hoped that the list owner, who had read countless books, could at least give him a reason for not being selected, so that he could try to help Pi modify it. At this time, he was like a job seeker who was about to starve to death and desperately needed a job that could fill his stomach, no matter what job it was.
However, it was already late at night, and it was almost one o'clock. The list owner was probably asleep. Zhang Zian watched his comments being drowned by other self-recommended comments, and could not help but sigh disappointedly.
Maybe because the sigh was a little loud, he heard a squeak from the basket hammock chair. It seemed that Pi had turned over.
He turned off the phone screen and waited for a while. There were no more noises from the direction of the basket hammock chair, so he turned on the screen again.
What should I do?
He was already very sleepy. Should he wait for the list owner to wake up tomorrow and post the advertisement again?
No, Pi would be on the first small recommendation tomorrow. If the first recommendation could not be ranked in the top three or four, then it would probably never get the next recommendation.
Thinking of this, he decided to advertise for other books. Advertising was like begging. As long as you put down your pride for the first time, it would become thicker in the future.
This time, he decided not to be greedy. He shifted his attention from the big list owner, who had tens of thousands of followers, to the small list owners, who had thousands of followers. He hoped that they were still awake.
As he searched, he noticed that there was a list owner with the ID "Yang Chenkong", who had thousands of words of comments on every book on the list, and many of them were insightful. However, the problem was that the list owner only had three thousand followers. Would advertising be effective?
He opened the comment section with the mentality of a desperate situation, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the list owner was online, exchanging views on a certain book with his friends.
Zhang Zian had not read the book they were talking about, but from their words, it was as if he had seen the book and understood the success and failure of the book. It gave the onlooker a very professional feeling.
In addition, for some reason, the comment section of the list was very clean. There was not a single advertisement. Seeing this, Zhang Zian was secretly happy. He could use this rare window of time to advertise.
Even if he was advertising, he had to follow the basic rules. He couldn't just post it randomly like the dating ads in the toilet. Every list owner had different requirements for the advertisement. For example, the previous list owner had clearly requested for a single female protagonist or no female protagonist, but the current list owner seemed to have a more mixed taste. He didn't care about meat or vegetables, and he read everything except for supernatural literature.
Not having specific requirements was the most difficult, because he didn't know how to cater to the list owner's taste. Zhang Zian pondered for a while, then wrote the same format as before, but deleted the last "no female protagonist" and changed it to "You are welcome to try the poison, don't blame me if you die." He hoped that this self-deprecating tone would attract the list owner's attention.
After clicking send, he didn't repeatedly refresh the comment section like before, because he really couldn't take it anymore. He was too sleepy. It was almost half past one, and he still had to wake up early the next day.
Putting down his phone, he lay flat on the bed. After a while, he entered a hazy, half-awake state, and could completely fall asleep at any time.
In the dark, Pi had been watching him. Except for moving a little when its legs were numb, it didn't move at all.
It knew, it always knew, that it could see the fatigue in Zhang Zian's expression.
Since it was so tired, it wouldn't matter if he did it one day later, right?
It opened its mouth and silently mouthed, "Thank you."
Hmm?
Zhang Zian seemed to have heard something, as if someone was talking to him. He forced his eyes open, and the heavy sleepiness was like a mountain pressing on his eyelids.
He looked around and didn't find anything unusual. He turned on his phone screen and looked at the time. It was already past two o'clock in the night.
Before he could exit the Qidian app, he clicked on the second list owner's comment section, trying to find the list owner's comment on Pi's novel, but he couldn't find it. Even the advertisement that he had just posted was gone.
No wonder the comment section was so clean. It turned out that the list owner had deleted the advertisement … Zhang Zian worked for nothing again.
He really couldn't take it anymore, so he casually stuffed his phone under his pillow and fell asleep.
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