Once again, Zhao Youyue turned her attention to reality, to the cultural company she created under her own banner. She too had created a web novel site, which she then began to invest in, promoting and advertising whatever plagiarized work she could there.

  The real world was highly advanced, there was little room left in the market for new competitors. Undoubtedly, Qidian was the most famous website for web novels, and Zhao Youyue was a super tycoon on that website.

  Under normal circumstances, those insiders would think that Zhao Youyue’s effort in creating a web novel site and making it mobile-friendly was a waste of money.

  As the web novel market continued to grow, it was normal to see lesser imitations appear once in a while, before vanishing into wisps.

  For struggling authors, these small web novel sites might just be their lifeboats.

  Competition in Qidian was ridiculous. Unless an author produces something stellar, he would get buried in the dirt along with the others. For Qidian to upload a particular web novel, that author had to write at least 200,000 words. If an author’s work failed right after it was published on Qidian, that author’s two months worth of effort would have gone to waste……

  Under such circumstances, some authors would choose to sign contracts with the smaller web novel sites. On the other hand, those insignificant web novel sites also needed some content for their bare libraries. Of course, the big shots in Qidian couldn’t be bothered about these little islands.

  Just like any newly created website, Zhao Youyue’s “Source World” web novel site started off by blatantly promoting itself on the forums of its major competitors, leading with the tagline, “Gossip from all corners of the country.”


  There were many web novel authors in this particular forum, the highly talented ones included. Some well-known authors might act coy and claim disassociation with the major platforms, but they still paid close attention to this forum. Of course, a minority of authors would put on their sockpuppet identities to debate or fend for themselves whenever there was a negative review of themselves.

  Truly talented authors would spend their time writing new content, not waste time on this meaningless web forum.

  “Gossip from all corners of the country” took the forum by storm. Experienced readers soon vouched for the quality found there.

  Even though this web forum had a lot of foul-mouth users, the forum’s search function came in particularly handy. Whenever a particular web novel had a huge number of people debating over it, it would definitely be worth the read.

  Zhao Youyue’s “Source World” advertisement in this forum was nothing like the other web novel sites. Instead of attracting failing authors to contribute to her website, she just wanted more readers to know her website. She had no intention of begging for authors to join her website; it was entirely up to them.

  Zhao Youyue’s current “Source World” was flooded with plagiarists’ literary work, so as those authors harvested the profits of their ill-gotten stories, Zhao Youyue milked the bejeezus out of them. This was most probably the only use of that source world.

  As time went by, a number of authors finally realized that this web novel site was peculiar. As they waited for the “Source World” to take in their drafts, they had learned that surprisingly, this web novel site had no intention of buying off any literary work, it was only on a shared copyright basis!

  Soon, “Source World” became the biggest joke in this forum. Many of the experienced readers started mocking it—


  “This is my first time witnessing such an arrogant web novel site. It doesn’t even have a solid reader base, and it’s already thinking of sharing the rights? Only idiots would post their work on this website.”


  “What a stingy little website, it’s impossible to compete in the fierce competition of web novel sites. It would go bankrupt within three months!”


  “What’s with this ‘Source World” web novel site, I see no known authors, or editors even. There’s no way it would draw the attention of any readers — what a joke.”


  “This is probably the cheapest way to create a web novel website, just like those company with big names with no real content, is this actually a cover for illegal transactions……”
……

  Authors started making fun of this newly created website.

  When a web novel site made its debut, its founders would spend a lot of money to invite a talented author with a ton of fans, or an experienced editor; some would even settle for a less popular but talented author.

  But not the “Source World” web novel site, it appeared to set itself way up there, waiting authors to come on their own free will.

  As the biggest joke in the forum, everyone would check up on it.

  Zhou Zhipeng was an experienced reader, and an amateur writer. He was a senior in this web novel forum, and his pen name was “Garuda.” For some unknown reason, he was interested in this “Source World” web novel site. He did not expect much, he just wanted to see if anyone would actually walk up to start writing for it.

  Perhaps this web novel site was merely collecting pirated web novels to fill up their library. Without any authors, how could it be producing web novels?

  When he entered the website, he was drawn by the well-designed UI. It might be just a small website, but it certainly had its standards, unlike those massive pirate websites.

  He soon found that this website already had hundreds of on-going literary works!

  Zhou Zhipeng was most definitely curious. Hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery, he clicked on an interesting sounding title of the alternate history genre, which was a personal favorite of his and started reading, hoping that it would not wash out his eyes.