Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 45 "Youth Like You" is completed
There are always people who are happy and people who are sad in this world.

Zhang Chao concentrates on novel writing. Zhu Yanling is happy, but Dongfang Xing is worried.

In early February, he had a phone call with Zhang Chao, who told him that by the end of February, the alternate-day serialization of "Young Like You" on "China Blog" would end.

"Blog China" was originally positioned as a blog platform for IT and high-tech information output, but now it is gradually becoming a social opinion and youth reading platform driven by "Midnight Tide". But obviously the latter can bring more traffic.

The business plan he submitted to major investment institutions received enthusiastic responses under this situation, and he also met with a round of investors.

But he soon discovered that investors seemed to be more interested in Zhang Chao. After he talked endlessly about the development prospects, business model, profit expectations, etc., the investors would always smile and ask a question that made him feel distressed:

"What you said is all very good... But can you guarantee that 'Midnight Tide' will always be on your platform? Do you have a cooperation agreement?"

Dongfang Xing was silent for a moment. Although he didn't want to equate "Blog China" with "Midnight Tide", the reality was so cruel.

Since last month, when there were no updates on "Young Like You", the traffic of "Blog China" dropped by nearly half.

Investors are not fools. How can they not see that the lifeline of "Blog China" is the account "Midnight Tide". Moreover, this account brings high-quality and long-term youth traffic.

Dongfang Xing did want to sign a cooperation agreement with Zhang Chao before, but as Zhang Chao’s public opinion grew, he felt embarrassed to send the agreement to Zhang Chao and thought about revising it again and again.

As a result, there were four revisions, and the fourth revision was only recently sent to Zhang Chao.

The originally drafted agreement also included some hard constraints on Zhang Chao, such as the number of words he had to publish each month and the average number of clicks he had to receive, which had to be at least a certain number of tens of thousands.

The final version sent to Zhang Chao had deleted all binding clauses on Zhang Chao, reducing it from "guiding work" to "strategic cooperation."

However, even after this agreement was sent to Zhang Chao, there was no movement for more than a week.

Dongfang Xing was extremely anxious, but Zhang Chao didn't have a cell phone, so he couldn't call him. So he decided to go all out and visit No. 3 Middle School in person.

Director Zhou of the office was so skilled in receiving the "big shots" who visited Zhang Chao that it was heartbreaking. A small meeting room, tea, and snacks were provided. He even felt a little dazed, thinking that he was not the office director of No. 3 Middle School, but the concierge for Zhang Chao.

Zhang Chao was a bit confused when he saw Dongfang Xing, because he really didn't know how to deal with the relationship with "Blog China".

On the one hand, he was grateful, after all, "Blog China" was his starting point; on the other hand, he felt regretful, because he knew that in another year or two, Xinlang, the leading portal, would launch its own blog platform, Xinlang Blog.

Once the heart waves, there is no more competition in the world.

Including former leaders like "Blog China", all of them were crushed to pieces by Xinlang Blog's strategy of piling up stars.

Although he knew the general historical process, he was not clear about the specific details. He even started using the website "Blog China" in this life. After all, when Zhang Chao was able to surf the Internet frequently in his previous life, China's blog platform had already been dominated by Xinlang.

So Zhang Chao really couldn't "coach" Dongfang Xing. Now he said to Dongfang Xing, "You have to spend money to invite celebrities to stay," "You have to spend money to create hot spots," "You have to..."

I was afraid that I would be treated as a fool. No matter how regretful I was, I could only watch helplessly. This might be the helplessness of a time traveler like him who had no ambition.

Although I have no intention of switching to Xinlang Blog in the future, why should I tie myself to a carriage that is destined to go nowhere?
Although Dongfang Xing brought a very tempting plan this time - as long as Zhang Chao could sign an agreement and guarantee to publish no less than 20 words of content on "Blog China" every year, he would give Zhang Chao a certain proportion of shares - as for the proportion, it was negotiable. But Zhang Chao still refused. Money is a good thing, but he also knew that taking such shares would mean taking on management responsibilities.

In this life, he doesn't want to take on any specific business operations or management work. He just wants to be a lone wanderer who lives a carefree life by writing.

However, he still signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Dongfang Xing with almost zero binding force, agreeing that most of his miscellaneous articles would still be published first on "Blog China".

Dongfang Xing could only leave with regret, but at least he brought back an agreement, so he did not return empty-handed.

At the end of February, it was with this agreement that "BlogChina" received a $100 million financing intention from Shengda Group and SoftBank, and received the money in March.

Dongfang Xing was no longer alone and began to recruit people. The team of "Blog China" quickly expanded to more than 40 people.

But this was not what Zhang Chao understood, and he didn't have the time to understand it.

Because just after February, in the warm spring breeze of early March, his most important task - the novel "Young Like You" was completed.

The creation of "Youth Like You" took nearly 50 days and was fixed at 201891 words. It is the work that he has created for the longest time in his past and present life - excluding online articles.

In between, I also wrote a 3-word article "Young Babylon" and several miscellaneous comments for "Blog China". I had to work at full capacity every day to barely keep up with the progress.

Fortunately, the school gave him the green light and exempted him from the evening self-study. In addition, Lan Ting lent him her notebook to keep him alive, so he was able to complete the task to the extreme.

After typing the last punctuation mark, Zhang Chao collapsed in his chair, unable to move. In his mind was the sentence that has been quoted countless times in the postscript of a novel by martial arts master Wen Ruian:

"I couldn't help being tired, I couldn't help being exhausted, I couldn't help crying, I couldn't help breaking the pen in my hand..."

Unfortunately, I don’t have a pen and the keyboard is school property and I can’t smash it.

Zhang Chao could only clench his fists, wave them vigorously in the air, and roared, "Done!" After checking it again, Zhang Chao copied the contents of the last two chapters of the novel separately into a new document, renamed it, and sent it to Zhu Yanling.

Since he sent every two chapters to Zhu Yanling for review, Zhu Yanling quickly read the last two chapters and replied to him with an email:
"Zhang Chao:
I have received your manuscript.

This is a great ending! Congratulations on completing an excellent work. We will complete the proofreading and typesetting work as soon as possible. The cover has been designed by a famous artist in the industry, and the communication with the distribution channel is also in full swing. Don't worry.

You can expect to get the sample book by the middle of this month.

If there are other manuscript revisions that require your cooperation, I will contact you in time.

......"

After reading the email, Zhang Chao simply replied "thank you" and turned off the computer.

For at least a week, he didn't want to touch the keyboard.

(End of this chapter)