Chapter 361 I Don’t Write About the City
Very different from the mystery novel signing scene, the enthusiasm of readers of "Nangong Youth" was more than ten times higher.

Even in online romance, it is easy to fall in love with a fantasy created by yourself, let alone "chasing stars"?
Although we know that online avatars are all fake, we can’t help but identify ourselves with them during the chat even if they are anime characters.

Sometimes online romances fail in the open not because the reality is too bad, but because there is too big a gap between the reality and the fantasy of love.

Readers gradually go from liking a work to liking the author, and the only channel for them to understand the author is the text itself.

What the author looks like, what his actual personality is like, and what his charisma is are all unknown.

The author who makes your middle school soul burn may actually be a shy little fat boy who is so introverted that he dares not show up.

An author who writes words so beautiful that they move people to tears may actually be a burly man who always says "fuck your mother".

There is a wall between the author and the reader.

The more readers love the book, the easier it is for them to create an image of a perfect author.

It’s even worse for those who are serious about chasing stars.

The so-called character setting is nothing more than this. The collapse of a character setting is often just a manifestation of one's human nature.

During the period when Li Yan was updating "Nangong Boy", many readers were speculating "what kind of person the author is".

The more recognized portrait is that of a handsome guy with a very literary and artistic style.

Some people think that the text has a youthful air and should be written by a handsome young man.

Some people think that it is written very maturely and there is a profound background between the lines, and it must be written by a young scholar with a wealth of knowledge.

Others think that the novel has a very ancient style and an extremely sophisticated rhythm, and it should be about a middle-aged scholar who lives in seclusion in the city.

Regardless of whether he is young or middle-aged, he is a handsome, fair-skinned man with sharp eyes.

It turns out that he is not only that, but also a talented person in various fields, making writing novels as easy as playing a game.

The true image of Li Yan exceeded readers' expectations.

This is very rare, just like the basketball star you love is not only the face of the NBA, but also publishes several top papers after playing basketball and holds a concert.

"I was damn sure!"

A variation of the "showing off for others" mentality.

When Li Yan used to follow basketball games and cheer for individual stars, her mother Chen Fengling once said, "Even if he wins the championship, he won't give you a penny in bonus, so why be excited?"

Li Yan said he could gain strength from it.

I used to think that this kind of power was just motivation, but now it seems that there is something more subtle as well.

A sense of superiority is not poison; on the contrary, it sometimes has the power to shatter nihilism.

This group of fanatical readers are drawing power from the fact that "my favorite author is really awesome."

They are content with that.

Coupled with a group of readers who already love this book deeply, their purchasing power has exploded.

This left Huaxin Publishing House, which had only prepared 600 copies, dumbfounded.

Directly from overconfidence to hunger marketing.

The proportion of male readers who came to the scene was very high. These guys were really honest. They said they would sign books if you bought a set of books, and they really only brought books for Li Yan to sign.

They are good at making fun of others. Some people shouted "Master Li Yan" and then knelt down to ask Li Yan to bless them to get good grades in the final exam; some people hugged the book tightly after signing it and said they would pray for their brother to be admitted to Hua University; some people went on stage and performed a set of boxing and asked Li Yan if it was suitable to be written into the novel...

It was amazing, and Li Yan watched it with great interest.

Human observation moment.

Mr. Zhou from Huaxin urgently dispatched a batch of books, including the sixty sets of books that were previously supplied to the Shangjing Library. In the end, three or four hundred people still returned empty-handed.

But at least Li Yan took the initiative to sign the notebooks and gave them to the people who were queuing behind her but didn't buy the books. She didn't finish signing the 200 books that Mr. Zhou had prepared until she felt tired and the matter was over.

After a long day, Li Yan was still very tired, so she followed Mr. Zhou's advice and went to the library conference room to rest.

While shaking his right hand that was sore from writing, he recalled the question that a boy—no, a high school student, older than Li Yan—had asked:
"Yan Da, when are you going to start writing your next book?"

This question is not easy to answer. To be honest, the answer is “go with the flow”.

Given Li Yan's current abilities and development, it would probably be difficult for her to have the motivation to touch upon online literature, a field she has already tried and achieved success in.

But she couldn't disappoint the fans at the scene, and Li Yan didn't want to give them expectations that couldn't be fulfilled.

Finally, he said, "You can't force it. I'll take a rest first."

Everyone thought of the fact that Li Yan was making a mobile phone, and they all said "mobile phones are important", "kill the pineapples", "kill America", and then no one mentioned it again.

Suddenly, Li Yan shuddered at the wonderful touch coming from his right hand.

He instantly returned to reality from his distracted state, and with an exaggerated gesture, he pulled away his right hand that was wrapped by an unknown object.

Looking closely, I found that she was a tall beauty in an OL professional suit.

It is not difficult to judge from her posture that she just held Li Yan's right hand with both of her own hands.

"You too, providing good service is a good thing, but you should also give a reminder!" Mr. Zhou scolded.

The beautiful woman looked aggrieved and pitiful. "I said that. When Mr. Li didn't respond, I thought he acquiesced."

Oh...Li Yan finally reacted. His hand-shaking action was seen by the sister, who took the initiative to help him massage.

Woman, you are overstepping your authority!
The woman who was still speaking in a coquettish tone felt the chill coming from Li Yan, so she shut up decisively and took two steps back.

Fortunately, I didn’t see Li Yan wiping her hands with wet wipes in the conference room, otherwise I would have doubted my life for at least a month.

This matter became the starting point for everyone to chat after they sat down.

Of course, it was initiated by Mr. Zhou’s “self-examination”. This woman was a member of the third-party service team he brought with him.

"It seems that the great writer Li is so charming that even our Xiaoyu can't help herself."

Kaiyuan, who was in the conference room, gave Li Yan a look that said "you understand".

Kai Yuan was actually present at the launch event, but he was just involved in the logistical preparations. When Li Yan arrived, there were already six or seven hundred people in the audience, and it was not a good idea for him to show up at this time, so he had to wait until the signing was over before going on stage. After all, this was Huaxin Publishing's venue, and had little to do with his Qiyuan Chinese website.

"This has nothing to do with charm." Li Yan looked a little unhappy. "This is impolite. I don't like physical contact."

"Well, Mr. Li, don't get me wrong, don't get me wrong. This was indeed Xiaoyu's spontaneous behavior. She didn't do it right and crossed the line. It was definitely not our instruction."

"That's not what I meant." Li Yan waved her hand.

Well, this kid, who is only fifteen years old, is so oppressive?

Mr. Zhou narrowed his eyes, but at the moment he was very excited. As a publisher, the more popular the book was and the more money it made, the happier they would be.

The current sales potential of the physical book "Nangong Youth" far exceeds his expectations, and now the more he looks at Li Yan, the more he likes it.

Then it was as usual, he wanted to take Li Yan out for dinner, but Li Yan refused.

The reason is "I have to go to school tomorrow and catch a plane."

It's an irresistible reason.

However, Li Yan got into Kaiyuan's car directly. Kaiyuan understood what he meant and drove straight to the airport road.

"What are you doing Yuanda?"

"Don't you have a plane to catch?"

"I haven't bought my ticket yet, so it's no problem to buy one for nine or ten. It's just after six o'clock now, let's go have dinner."

Wow, special treatment, it seems Li Yan treats him as a friend.

Kaiyuan was very satisfied and kept talking about how authentic and old-school the store he was going to was.

"Where are you from?"

"…I am from Luxi."

"It's okay, it's only more than 2,000 kilometers away from Shangjing." "You have a powerful mouth."

Li Yan had no idea whether the food was authentic or not.

The so-called meal was just an extra. You had to fill your stomach when the time came. It just so happened that Li Yan hadn't seen Kaiyuan for a while, so he just thought about chatting with him before leaving.

The first topic was as expected: "Li Yan, are you planning to start a new book?"

It is indeed what the editor cares about most.

"Not ready yet, I'm busy."

"Strike while the iron is hot, we should be able to make a lot of money." Kaiyuan looked much more excited than Li Yan.

"Hmm..." Li Yan pondered.

"Oh... you don't need this money, right?" Kaiyuan laughed. "I heard that you are making mobile phones, and the initial capital will be 30 million."

"That's not my money."

"The physical book is more popular than expected this time. I think it will sell quite a lot online. The royalties will be very substantial."

"How impressive?"

"That's hard to say. I think it's several million. You hold the copyright in your own hands. You can sell the rights to comics and animations in the future, which will be another large sum." Kaiyuan smiled and said, "But you have seen people with 30 million, these can't excite you."

"If a mobile phone is developed, these will be small amounts of money."

"Yes..." Kaiyuan suddenly became absent-minded, shook his head and drank a sip of tea.

"Then why are you asking me to continue writing books? There's no motivation, Yuanda."

Kai Yuan repeatedly shook his head and sighed, "I just think it's a pity. Your experience is completely a cool urban novel! You are the protagonist of a cool urban novel. If you were to write an urban novel, don't mention anything else, just write about your growth experience. The sense of substitution would be so explosive!"

Li Yan did not show any excitement.

"Look at what happened just now. That beautiful lady took the initiative to rub your hands. What kind of treatment is that?"

"I'm not happy. I've never touched a girl's hand." Li Yan curled her lips.

"If this is about a female character being pinched on the hand by a male waiter, that would definitely not work, but since you are the male protagonist, no one will care whether you have touched them before or not. Touching one more person is a good thing, and that's the fun part."

"I love warriors purely."

"That's right. After all, the little princess of Yili Group should be more pure in love."

"Ah?" Li Yan was shocked. "How did you know?!"

"What's so surprising?" Kai Yuan was puzzled. "Isn't your Weibo names and interactions basically equivalent to an official announcement? If you were not so young, I would have exploded right away."

"No, how do you know she is Wei Yili's daughter?"

"Is this a secret? We all talk about gossip when we study urban topics...but you guys in Linjiang treat it as a secret?"

...Li Yan was silent.

Seeing that he still didn't continue the topic of urban literature, Kaiyuan continued to ask:

"What's wrong? I thought it should be easy for you to write. Even with the difficulty of "Nangong Youth", you wrote it so quickly. Urban writing is like a diary. It must be 30,000 words a day?"

"It's not easy, Yuanda. I don't dare to write urban literature."

Don't dare?

This is the first time I heard this word from Li Yan.

What was right was something that Kaiyuan found easy to do.

Interesting and interesting.

"What?"

"Because I don't want to turn a light-hearted online article into a thesis." Li Yan spread his hands.

“No one asked you to write a paper!”

"As long as it involves content related to real life, there will always be people who jump out and bring it into their own lives, and then make all kinds of comments." Li Yan said, "At least when I was writing Nangong Shao Nian, few people argued with me about the authenticity of the male protagonist's skills."

"This is normal. Readers need to find a sense of existence."

"Not just readers," Li Yan picked up a piece of crispy double-crunch and chewed it crisply, "Isn't life a process of finding a sense of existence?"

If we lose interest in finding a sense of existence, nihilism will invade at any time.

"Life is boring" is basically the state after becoming free from desires.

"Then what are you worried about?"

"Because I'm tired." Li Yan sighed, "In fact, it's not that there are no readers of "Nangong Youth" who dig into the historical background, but at least my information base is the same as his. We all read history books. He always has a basis for his doubts, and I also have my own basis for what I write. The official history is there, and the historical research is there. Whoever is right should learn more. It's clear at a glance."

"Isn't it a city?"

Li Yan pointed at Kaiyuan and said, "Yuanda, you are playing dumb. How can you, as an editor, not understand?"

Kaiyuan just smiled and said he wanted to hear what Li Yan had to say.

"The city is actually the life of modern people. Everyone has lived there and everyone has their own experiences. Therefore, urban novels are naturally very immersive, which is an advantage; but at the same time, they are too easy to be sought after, which is a disadvantage for authors like me."

“An author like you?”

"I can't stand seeing some authors who question with poor logic, or who use their own life experience as the 'basis' of truth." Li Yan laughed at herself, "In short, it's the authors who are driven by trouble."

"You can just keep writing without caring about the readers."

"Then I'll just write it for my own amusement, and I don't have to worry about the review."

Kaiyuan licked his lips and was speechless.

"Everyone's life is different. The places where they grew up, their family situations, their subsequent studies, the circles around them, the industries they work in... they are all different." Li Yan picked up another piece of food with chopsticks. "The information gap is very serious. In a city like Lincheng where we live, there is not even a large library. How can my classmates understand the launch event I just held?"

Kaiyuan nodded.

"Or some second-generation rich people, whose pocket money has never been less than 10,000 yuan a month in their lives, how can they understand my joy when I received my first few thousand yuan in royalties? He might come and scold me for paying a high-tech talent 8,000 yuan a month, which is unreasonable."

"Really eight thousand?"

"It's really eight thousand."

“How high-tech?”

"It's OK, actually."

……

The two of them were immediately embarrassed.

"Look," Li Yan smiled bitterly, "Whether the so-called technology is good or not, this is also the information gap between you and me. Maybe you think that all technical people have skyrocketing salaries, but that's not the case. You don't understand this technology and think it's awesome, but I do, so I think it's okay. And I'm the demander, so naturally I can't offer too high a salary."

"You can care less about individual readers' opinions."

"I care." Li Yan responded immediately, suppressing Kai Yuan in an instant, "So I won't write it yet."

Kaiyuan saw that there was no hope of persuading him and could only sigh deeply.

"Yuanda, don't count on metropolitan writing. Even if I know everything, I still don't dare to write it. People have different perceptions. It's too difficult to write a novel that provides answers to hardcore industry knowledge. Besides, if I really write it like that, the novel will be meaningless." Li Yan laughed, "I might as well find a few reporters to interview me, and then write a documentary - "On How Li Yan Was Made"."

"Yes, I fully support it."

Before leaving, Kaiyuan suddenly winked at Li Yan and asked:
"From what you said, you haven't held hands with the little princess yet?"

“No premature love.”

Li Yan's words extinguished Kaiyuan's enthusiasm.

(End of this chapter)