Chapter 65: The Heart Flutters

On Sunday afternoon, Jiang Miao’s team had a debate match.

As the only cheerleader for the team, he had to be present.

Carrying his laptop, he went to the farthest corner of the Law School’s small courtroom. This time, he chose a spot far away from where he had sat before.

There was no other reason. It was just that he had some psychological trauma about that spot.

Su Huaizhou was in front of the classroom, giving the team a final pep talk before the match.

After the moderator announced the start of the match and the participants entered, she found Jiang Miao and sat down in the empty seat beside him.

This was the second match of the group stage.

After the experience of the match last week, the performance of both teams was noticeably better.

But in comparison, the girls in Jiang Miao’s team had clearly improved more and maintained the upper hand in the debate.

Judging from the performance before the free debate, the results of this match were almost certain.

So at 2 p.m., Su Huaizhou and Jiang Miao placed all their attention on the recommendation spots on the Xidian website.

“Is it the Six Categories Recommendations this week?” Su Huaizhou asked, leaning over to look at Jiang Miao’s laptop.

“Yes, it’s the Six Categories Recommendations on the website and Editors’ Choice on the mobile app’s light novel category.”

As Jiang Miao spoke, he opened the Xidian website and easily found the location of the Six Categories Recommendations at the bottom of the homepage rankings.

In fact, the Six Categories Recommendations wasn’t the official name of this recommendation spot. It was officially called the Homepage Category Recommendations.

In the early days, the site only had six categories, and there was a dedicated spot on the homepage for recommending new novels in each category.

Novels that made it onto the Homepage Category Recommendations were all reserves for the best recommendation during the new novel period, the Galaxy Recommendations.

Because there had been six categories, this list became known as the Six Categories Recommendations.

Now, Jiang Miao’s novel My Girlfriend Is a Content Creator was on a total of 25,000 reading lists.

Last week alone, it had gained 15,000, ranking first among the new novels during the same period.

Even the previously glorious Soul Fight: Starting from Inheriting the Martial Soul Palace was overshadowed.

The big shots in the authors’ group chat were constantly making noise about it.

They were saying things like ‘it’s going to be a high-quality novel,’ ‘100,000 subscriptions is within reach,’ ‘a Great God contract is just around the corner,’ and ‘Platinum status is in sight’…

In the end, Jiang Miao had to temporarily mute Xidian’s official light novel authors’ group chat to prevent himself from getting carried away by the praise, fearing that the cruelty of reality would hit him hard later.

“Amazing,” Su Huaizhou exclaimed while looking at the data. “How many reading lists was your last book on before it went premium?”

“… 2,400.”

“So it’s ten times more than the last book during the same period?”

“No, the last book already had over 225,000 words when it went premium,” Jiang Miao said. “The new book is only 100,000 now.” S~eaʀᴄh the nôvel_Fire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“That’s a huge improvement!” Su Huaizhou looked even happier than Jiang Miao.

In fact, there were novels that were doing much better than Jiang Miao’s.

For example, The Pirate King Starts From Impel Down, which was currently only at 75,000 words, soared to 50,000 reading lists as though it were on steroids, with its recommendation spot only at the Category Spotlight.

Meanwhile, Eternal History Is in My Hands, also at 100,000 words and on the Galaxy Recommendations, was on 60,000 reading lists. After it went premium, it would very likely directly break through to the 10,000 subscriptions realm.

There were also two other big shot authors. One’s novel had just gone premium last week, and the first day of subscriptions had already exceeded 10,000. The other’s had received a splash screen recommendation right after it was released, and the reading list count soared.

In short, their success far surpassed Jiang Miao’s.

But for Su Huaizhou, those big shot authors were just figures to look at online.

The author right next to her, who was once a struggling, small-time author, now seemed poised to reach top-notch performance with his new novel and achieve the excellent result of 3,000 average subscriptions.

Reaching this result could already place him among the big shots of web novel authors.



Not to mention anything else, just from royalties alone, accomplished authors with 3,000 average subscriptions could earn over 10,000 yuan a month even if they only wrote 3,000 words a day.

A monthly income of over 10,000 yuan might not be anything to true big shots.

But for Jiang Miao, an ordinary first-year student, it was quite an impressive achievement.

For context, Su Huaizhou herself only made around 2,000 to 3,000 yuan a month from freelance illustration work.

If Jiang Miao’s novel could really become a high-quality work, it could significantly improve his college life.

Moreover, this was completely different from a 10,000 yuan monthly allowance for a rich kid.

Of course, it was still too early to say all of this.

Many novels faltered after going premium, so Jiang Miao couldn’t afford to relax just yet.

“Senior Sister, can I discuss something with you?” he asked quietly after looking at the recommendation spots and data.

“Hmm? What is it?”

“My novel is going premium on October 3rd, so there’s less than two weeks left,” Jiang Miao said seriously. “I want to focus on writing during this time. Can I put the debate team on hold for now?”

“You weren’t going on stage anyway.” Su Huaizhou looked puzzled. “It’s just the breaks on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus the match on Sunday.”

“Uhh…” Jiang Miao looked a little embarrassed. “I have a basketball game for our class. I thought we’d get eliminated last week, but I didn’t expect my teammates to be so awesome, and we advanced.”

“Oh, so basketball is fine, but debate isn’t?” Su Huaizhou looked at him with wide eyes, clearly displeased. “Junior Brother, you’re being a bit biased.”

“Including me, there are only five people in the class who can play basketball, so I have to go even if I don’t want to,” Jiang Miao said with a resigned expression. “If we get eliminated next Tuesday, I’ll go watch the mock debate on Thursday.”

“What about Sunday?”

“Well… if we win on Tuesday and Thursday, the finals will be on Sunday afternoon…” Jiang Miao said quietly. “Of course, this is the worst-case scenario. We shouldn’t be able to make it to the finals…”

“Alright, just focus on preparing for your basketball games next week,” Su Huaizhou said generously, letting him off the hook. “But the main thing is still your writing. I helped you gather material all day yesterday, so there should be some results, right?”

“Ahem… I’ll do my best…” Jiang Miao avoided Senior Sister’s gaze guiltily, and his eyes subconsciously landed on her small hand resting on the edge of the chair. He felt an urge to reach out and hold it.

He looked at Senior Sister’s side profile, the exquisite contours of her face, her delicate nose bridge, and soft, rosy lips. Every feature radiated an irresistible charm.

Back when he first met her, he could still muster some resistance against the beautiful Senior Sister.

But after their date yesterday, Jiang Miao found it difficult to go back to the way things were.

Even though she often teased him and said she was now his pretend girlfriend, he couldn’t really treat her as a girlfriend and hold her hand casually.

After all, yesterday had been a proper date, and Senior Sister had taken the initiative to help him, so there was no way he could reject her.

But it was different now.

It was still too difficult for him to take the initiative to hold her hand.

But just as he was lost in his thoughts, he felt Senior Sister’s small hand sneak into his palm.

Su Huaizhou feigned interest in the debate and whispered, “Keep up the good work.”

Jiang Miao: “…”

Feeling the warmth and smoothness of her soft hand in his palm, Jiang Miao looked around nervously, his heart pounding.

When Su Huaizhou withdrew her hand, he felt a sense of emptiness.

After the debate ended, Jiang Miao returned to his dormitory, still reminiscing about the feeling.



Lying in bed, he tossed and turned, sometimes frowning in deep thought, other times smiling foolishly. Suddenly, he sat up and seemed to understand something.

After hesitating for a long time on Senior Sister’s profile picture, Jiang Miao retracted his finger and instead opened QQ.

[Peach Jam]: Boss, if you had someone you liked, what would you do?

===

Hello, I’d like to thank Derrick for being my first patron.