"Four Seas Recommendation next Thursday, hope you won't miss updates."
Secretly giving Zhang Huiping a helping hand put Huang Yifan in an excellent mood.
After going home, he followed his usual routine and wrote two chapters. Just then, his editor, Wuyue, sent him a message.
"Oh, thanks so much for looking out for me, Brother Wuyue. I definitely won't miss updates."
"Alright then, I won't disturb you while you write. I'm off."
Editors and authors communicated through instant messaging. With just two short lines, Wuyue had already logged off.
However, right after ending the chat with Wuyue, a friend request notification suddenly flashed.
"Hello, I'm Thirty-Two, an author from Lingdian Chinese Web. I'd really like to be friends with you."
Seeing the message in the friend request, Huang Yifan felt a bit puzzled.
Since coming to this world, this was the first time a fellow author had added him as a friend. That alone wasn't what surprised him. What puzzled him was that Huang Yifan had never told anyone his TT number. He didn't know this Thirty-Two either. So how did he get his TT number?
Although he found it strange, since they were both authors, Huang Yifan clicked accept.
"Hello, I'm Thirty-Two from Lingdian Chinese Web. We've crossed paths before."
"Hello. Crossed paths before?"
"Yes, don't you remember? I posted an apology thread on the Feilong forum."
Hearing that, Huang Yifan recalled it a bit.
Back then, his novel had been heavily criticized on the Feilong forum for being noob-style. Under editor Wuyue's advice, Huang Yifan wrote a statement titled 'When the World Bullies Me'. The impact of that statement had been enormous. Many Feilong authors with a sense of justice opened threads apologizing to Huang Yifan. Among them, Thirty-Two was the first to post an apology.
It was just that Huang Yifan had been quite busy lately and didn't frequent Feilong much, so he had forgotten.
"Oh, I know who you are now. We did cross paths. Thanks again for standing up for me last time."
"Not at all, not at all. Honestly, I still feel a bit ashamed about it."
"You're too polite. But how did you find my TT number? I haven't even added any fellow authors."
"No wonder."
Thirty-Two sent a sweating emoji. "I asked several authors, and none of them knew your TT number. In the end, I had no choice but to ask an editor. After asking around in many places, I finally found it. Oh, right, I almost forgot the main reason. I added you this time partly because I want to be friends with you, and partly to invite you to join a group I created called the Striving Authors Group. But I should tell you in advance, even though I created the group, most of the members are from the Feilong forum, and quite a few of them are active there. It's even possible that some group members might have cursed you before."
"OK, pull me in."
Without any hesitation, Huang Yifan agreed immediately.
"Ah, you're not going to think about it?"
Seeing Huang Yifan agree so readily, Thirty-Two was a bit surprised.
He had prepared a whole bunch of lines, but before he could say them, Huang Yifan had already agreed.
"Hehe, what's there to think about? You invited me so sincerely. If I refused, wouldn't that just make you feel bad?"
"Haha, whether I feel bad isn't the point. I mainly didn't want the attacks against you last time to affect your mood. Of course, I can say this. Maybe there are still some people in the Striving Authors Group who have prejudices against you, but most people are pretty friendly. Especially that line you wrote, 'When the world bullies me', a lot of people in our group practically treat you like an idol."
"You flatter me. Pull me in, just based on the group name alone, I already really like it. Striving Authors Group. I think everyone in this group must be companions striving for their dreams. And don't worry, I've already forgotten what happened on Feilong before. Come to think of it, quite a few people on Feilong actually have good taste. They could tell at a glance that I write noob-style novels."
"That's great. I'll pull you in right now."
Huang Yifan's words hit Thirty-Two right in the heart.
While admiring Huang Yifan's broad-mindedness, he quickly operated and directly pulled Huang Yifan into the group.
"Everyone, everyone, I've got good news for you all."
As soon as he pulled Huang Yifan into the group, Thirty-Two wanted to announce the good news right away.
But before he could finish, the group was already filled with flowers.
"Thirty-Two, no need to say it. We saw the notification that you pulled someone in."
"Welcome, The Number One White Under Heaven, to our Striving Authors Group."
"Welcome."
"Warm welcome."
"The Number One White Under Heaven, I'm your hardcore fan."
"Please accept my kneel."
"The Number One White Under Heaven, please let me cling to your thigh."
"Great master, take me to show off, take me to fly! Please bestow upon me another legendary, show-off line like before."
The Striving Authors Group instantly became lively. Almost all the online members sent Huang Yifan messages of welcome.
Even those authors who had been lurking for ages surfaced at this moment to welcome Huang Yifan.
This kind of reception was practically on the level of a platinum author arriving.
Even though they all knew that The Number One White Under Heaven was just a newcomer. Forget being a platinum author, he hadn't even reached Level 1 yet.
But Huang Yifan's performance on Feilong before, especially that line 'When the world bullies me', had completely conquered them.
"Thanks for the warm welcome. Does this mean I've found my organization?"
Huang Yifan really had almost forgotten what happened on Feilong last time.
Besides, after he posted 'When the world bullies me', many Feilong authors had already apologized to him. Especially Thirty-Two, which made Huang Yifan feel that Feilong wasn't actually such a bad place. Although there were many trolls there, aside from those trolls, there were also many fellow authors with a strong sense of justice.
How could Huang Yifan possibly reject such companions?
So after entering the group, Huang Yifan sent a slightly teasing message to close the distance.
When the other authors saw it, their favor toward him rose sharply, and they all started talking again.
"Of course. Our Striving Authors Group is Big White's organization. From now on, if anyone on Feilong dares to bully you, we'll curse them to death together."
"Yeah. I'm saying this now. If I ever see anyone on Feilong daring to attack The Number One White Under Heaven, I'll be the first to wipe them out."
"Count me in."
"Add me too."
After another round of welcoming messages, the group atmosphere reached its peak.
"Brother White, your name is too long and flashy. I'll shorten it and call you Brother White. How many bookmarks does your novel have now?"
At this moment, an author named 'South of Jiang City' sent a message in the group.
"Not many, just 23.000 bookmarks."
South of Jiang City: "Damn, 23K and you call that not many. I need to go find a block of tofu and smash my head on it."
Bean Paste Bun: "Brother White, this is just insane. I only have 10K bookmarks after going premium. How long have you been publishing? You already have twenty-three thousand. By the way, how many recommendations have you had?"
"Seems like only two. One secondary page news recommendation, and one homepage news recommendation."
"God…"
"My god…"
"Heavens…"
"Only two recommendations, and it has already gained over 20k bookmarks. If this book doesn't blow up, I'll livestream eating crap."
Generally speaking, under normal circumstances, a novel can go premium with just over ten thousand bookmarks from signing to launch.
Some better-performing novels can reach twenty thousand.
Or exceptionally good ones might reach thirty thousand.
But whether it's 10K, 20K, or 30K bookmarks at launch, these numbers aren't achieved overnight. Popularity requires accumulation. Authors need to go through a series of recommendations and spend as long as two months to reach such bookmark counts.
But now, Huang Yifan's novel had shattered their understanding of web novels.
Everyone in the Striving Authors Group was a fellow writer. They were all authors. How could they not understand what such bookmark numbers represented? This meant that Huang Yifan had surpassed the popularity most authors accumulated over two months in just two weeks. And this level of popularity was something only platinum authors could achieve.
Platinum authors were at the very top of the web fiction pyramid, existences countless authors looked up to.
Didn't this mean that the newcomer author, The Number One White Under Heaven, already possessed the strength to contend for platinum status?
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