February 8th, Wednesday …
Min Jingchao, Ye Zhizhou, and FV Club set off for Shanghai Airport. They flew straight to Los Angeles to make up for their vacation.
Before leaving, everyone seized the time to deal with all the work at hand.
Min Jingchao, in particular, had followed Boss Pei's instructions yesterday and quickly asked his designers to change the hero character of Mission and Choice and GOG from Qin Yi to 'Skylark'. It had changed from a specific character to a more symbolic and broad character.
On the other hand, Ye Zhizhou had worked with Wang Xiaobin to come up with a game design plan for the smart fitness drying rack at Shang Yang Games.
As the coach of DGE Club, Zhou Pengyuan had also assigned training tasks to the new batch of DGE team members before he left. The daily training competition and high-end RANK games had to continue. He had to check when he returned from Los Angeles. The team members who had not completed would have to train.
The others had also handed over their work to their colleagues to ensure that they could completely put down their work and take a vacation when they returned to Los Angeles.
Of course, the members of FV Club did not have much work to hand over. They were still immersed in the joy of winning the championship.
The popularity of FV Club and its players had skyrocketed. As the boss of the club, Wu Yue had been a little annoyed with the various live-stream contracts and commercial endorsements recently. It was a good opportunity for him to go to Los Angeles for a few days to change his mood.
The group left Jingzhou happily and headed to Shanghai.
The only one who did not fit in with everyone was Bao Xu.
He had just used up the five-day trip for the annual meeting's grand prize. It had only been a few hours since he returned to Jingzhou, and he had to pack his luggage and set off again.
On the high-speed rail to Shanghai, everyone was in high spirits as they discussed their trip to the United States. Only Bao Xu was slumped in his seat, looking at the scene outside the high-speed rail window with a blank expression.
…
At the same time, Cui Geng walked out of Jingzhou's high-speed rail station, hailed a taxi, and headed to Zhongdian Chinese Network's class.
Cui Geng sighed faintly as he looked at the familiar city scenery outside the window. He felt an inexplicable sense of melancholy.
"My life, how can I be full of vigor?"
Cui Geng asked this soul-piercing question.
At that moment, he actually had three identities: the second-generation heir, Zhongdian Chinese Network's top author, and Tengda Corporation's special observer.
All three identities had one thing in common, and that was that they severely weakened his motivation to fight. When the three identities overlapped, they kept him in a state of 'intermittently complacent, continuously eating and waiting for death'.
It was not easy for him to pull himself together and work seriously, but after two days, he would lose all his fighting spirit.
Cui Geng had been running back and forth between his hometown and Jingzhou.
It wasn't that he liked the life of a businessman, but he felt that if he stayed in the same environment for too long, it would be easy for him to slack off. A change of environment could motivate him to work hard again.
Even if it was only for three minutes, it was better than a pool of stagnant water.
But this had little effect.
To make matters worse, The Butterfly Game had been completed some time ago.
The good news was that the book was completed normally without a bad ending. Although the last part was written at a snail's pace, it still reached nearly three million words, giving an ending that most readers were satisfied with.
This was a historic breakthrough for Cui Geng. It was also an earth-shattering thing for the readers whom he had complained about countless times.
The bad news was that all the inspiration he had accumulated had basically been used up. He had written several beginnings for his new book, but he felt completely unsatisfied after reading them a few times. Thus, he deleted all of them and did not start a new book until today.
That made Cui Geng feel that his creation had fallen into a very awkward situation. His creative passion was deteriorating.
Of course, apart from being a second-generation heir and a web novel author, Cui Geng had another identity: Tengda Corporation's special observer.
This identity allowed him to collect a lot of material for The Butterfly Game. It also helped Wu Bin of the HR department organize the annotated version of the Tengda Spirit Handbook.
However, Cui Geng knew very well in his heart. He knew that he was just an ordinary web novel author. He did not understand business or management. That was why he only occasionally went to Tengda's various departments to collect materials. He had never guided an insider or influenced the work of Tengda's various departments.
Thus, his identity as a 'special observer' only gave him a pass to freely enter and exit the various departments of Tengda Corporation.
Some time ago, Cui Geng had been holding back in Zhongdian Chinese Network's study class for a long time. However, he did not manage to come up with anything. There was still no progress on his new book.
Thus, Cui Geng went home for a few days during the Spring Festival. He slept in and read every day, completely throwing the matter of the new book to the back of his mind.
In the end, Cui Geng received news from the editor-in-chief, Zhu Xingan, that Zhongdian Chinese Network was going to hold an 'inspiration class' a few days after the New Year.
What's more, he sent him a warm invitation and asked if he was willing to write a fixed-rate contract. He also said that Boss Pei was very concerned about this matter and specifically wanted to inform Cui Geng first.
Cui Geng was instinctively unhappy when he heard that he wanted to write a fixed-rate contract.
I'm a top author who doesn't lack money. I have my own goals when I write books!
At the moment, the online literature industry had developed for a certain period of time. The two forms of payment of royalties, fixed-rate contracts and splitting contracts, had always existed.
The authors had long come to a consensus: apart from a very small number of authors who could continue to write at a high standard and achieve a win-win situation, most authors who wrote fixed-rate contracts would either lose money or collapse.
These authors who wrote fixed-rate contracts might have written popular works, but the fixed-rate contract meant that other than fixed royalties, all income had nothing to do with them. It was a huge loss for the authors. On the other hand, some authors did not write with 100% of their strength in order to not lose money. As a result, they became more and more unable to keep up with the trend. Their writing collapsed and they became useless. No one would read them if they went back to write a split contract.
Thus, Cui Geng's first reaction was to reject when he heard that he was invited to write a fixed-rate contract.
However, after Zhu Xingan introduced it to him, Cui Geng realized that Zhongdian Chinese Network's fixed-rate contract seemed to be very different from other websites'. It was completely different.
The biggest difference was that the number of words was low and the price was high!
Take Cui Geng for example. If other websites poached him, they would at most earn a little more than his current royalties. After all, Cui Geng was already a top author of Zhongdian Chinese Network. His royalties were already very high. There was not much room for improvement. If they were to poach him forcefully, it would be too risky for those other websites. The gains would not make up for the losses.
However, Zhongdian Chinese Network required that it be between 100,000 to 500,000 words. It could not exceed 500,000 words. What's more, the remuneration for a thousand words was three times his original remuneration!
What's more, he could obtain the priority to experience the "inspiration class" after adopting this new fixed-rate contract.
Cui Geng did not know what the "inspiration class" was exactly, but the "study class" had indeed had an immediate effect on his creation. It helped him evolve from a coquettish spirit to a serious author who could finish a novel normally and write new ideas.
Could this "inspiration class" save his inspiration that was on the verge of drying up?
Cui Geng was very curious.
Cui Geng came to Jingzhou again because of this complicated mentality.
…
The taxi soon arrived at its destination.
This time, the "inspiration class" was in the same office building as the original "study class", but they were on different floors.
The previous "study class" had been very successful. It had been held for many periods, and its scale had gradually expanded. At first, there was only one room. Now, it had expanded to three rooms.
Even so, the authors of Zhongdian Chinese Network still enthusiastically participated. The number of people signing up every time was full, and the editors had to carefully select them.
There were even fewer spots for the "inspiration class". What's more, only the top authors of Zhongdian Chinese Network could participate.
When Cui Geng arrived at his destination, he placed his luggage in the hotel with ease and headed straight for the "inspiration class".
The "inspiration class" might only officially open tomorrow, but Cui Geng had been to the study class many times after all. He was familiar with the place and found it easily.
When he arrived at the floor where the "inspiration class" was located, Cui Geng saw a few familiar-looking editors packing up.
The editors were very familiar with Cui Geng. After greeting him, they allowed him to enter the "inspiration class" area to watch freely.
Cui Geng's first feeling was that the space was too big!
It might be the same office building, but the "study class" and the "inspiration class" were on different floors and occupied different areas.
The "inspiration class" was only half the number of people in the "study class", but it occupied more than twice the area of the "study class"!
On a closer look, the equipment in the "inspiration class" was completely different from that of the "study class".
The "study class" was filled with standard computer tables and chairs. At first glance, it looked like the structure of an internet cafe or a computer room. However, in reality, the chairs were ergonomic chairs, and the height of the tables had been specially adjusted to allow the authors to have a more comfortable writing experience.
However, there were no ergonomic chairs in the "inspiration class". Instead, there was a single-person sofa from a famous foreign brand!
Compared to high-end single-person sofas, ergonomic chairs had something in common. They were ergonomic and would not get tired even if they sat for a long time. Compared to other chairs, it had less impact on one's health.
Of course, no matter how good the ergonomics were, one would still feel tired after sitting for a long time. One would need to get up and move around every once in a while. However, at least it was ergonomic and would reduce the burden on the body.
The difference between the two was that the ergonomic chair was used for office work, while the single-person sofa was used for leisure.
Many high-end VIP seats in cinemas used such high-end single-person sofas in order to give customers the best viewing experience. The chair could be adjusted electronically. It would be very comfortable whether one was sitting, half-lying, or cross-legged.
Since there were no more office chairs, there was no need for a desk. Opposite the single-person sofa was a television cabinet. Above it was a high-end OLED television with the best viewing height and viewing distance supported by a bracket.
OLED television was the latest technology in recent years. It was much smaller than traditional television, but its price was tens of thousands of yuan. The reason why it was so expensive was mainly because OLED television had an extremely low screen response time of about one millisecond. There was almost no screen drag, and it could achieve pixel-level light control. It was born with almost infinite contrast, so the HDR effect was better. At the same time, the colors were pure, and the color gamut was naturally high … In short, the image quality of most aspects completely surpassed traditional television. It could be used to watch movies and play games.
Of course, the refresh rate of the television would be much worse compared to those similarly expensive e-sports monitors. However, the television in the "inspiration class" was mainly used to watch movies and play console games. Therefore, the requirement for the refresh rate was not that high. The big screen was more important.
It might be smaller than traditional television, but everyone had one after all. It was close to them. Therefore, considering the overall size and image quality, it was the best choice for watching movies.
On the television cabinet, there were ROF consoles, game consoles, and various high-definition Blu-ray discs. The bookshelf that covered the front wall was also filled with various movies' Blu-ray discs and physical books.
Beside the single-person sofa, there were high-end headphones, mice, keyboards, and a small foldable table.
In addition, there was a reading light beside everyone's single-person sofa. They could choose whether to turn it on or not. They could also read books when they were tired from watching movies.
Cui Geng was a little surprised. He asked the editor, "Won't it be uncomfortable to write in this place?"
The single-person sofa might be very comfortable to sit on, and it was very suitable for watching movies and playing games, but it might not be suitable for writing.
After all, the sitting posture of the single-person sofa was not specially used for writing.
The editor explained, "Oh, that keyboard and mouse are for you in emergencies. For example, you will only use it when you type to search for movies or record inspiration at any time."
"If you really want to create, go to the work area over there."
Cui Geng turned around and realized that there was another office area next to him. There were standard desks, ergonomic chairs, and mechanical keyboards. It was completely separated from this area.
Obviously, the purpose of this area, be it the television, the single-person sofa, or the Blu-ray discs, was to let the authors focus on watching movies and collecting inspiration and materials.
Since this was already arranged, there would obviously be no 'small black room' or other programs that forced writing time every day.
The editor explained, "There's also a large video room over there. The entire room has been soundproofed. There are cinema-level projectors and sound equipment. You can order movies according to your needs and make reservations."
"If you want to achieve the best viewing effect and watch a complete movie, you can go over there. If you just want to collect materials and don't have high requirements for the image quality, or if you want to skip watching, you can just stay in your seat. "
Cui Geng could not help but be shocked as he listened to the editor's introduction.
Could this be … heaven?
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
