Senior Sister, Shut Up!

September 28th, Sunday evening, 8 p.m.

In the small courtroom on the second floor of the Law School, the moderator announced that the Uninformed Team had won the debate.

The four girls tried their best to contain their excitement as they politely walked over to shake hands with the other team.

In the past half a month, they had won three matches, and making the semifinals was already set in stone.

But their leader, Su Huaizhou, didn’t seem to share their joy.

Sitting in the audience, she looked at her phone from time to time and sighed.

She had thought that after Thursday night, Junior Brother would be more proactive.

But two days had passed without any signs of action.

This morning, Su Huaizhou had been unable to hold back and used her Congee Boss identity to ask about the situation.

[Peach Jam]: Boss, how are my follow-up reads?

[Editor Night’s Rest]: Currently at 2,400. You’ll be on the Galaxy Recommendations next week. Maintain the plot’s quality. If things go well when it goes premium, it might have a shot at being a high-quality work.

[Peach Jam]: Okay.

[Editor Night’s Rest]: It’s very difficult to make slice-of-life stories long. Once your novel goes premium, I’ll try to get you another recommendation as soon as possible and see if we can boost it quickly.

[Peach Jam]: Thanks!

[Editor Night’s Rest]: Try to keep things stable during this period. As long as the plot doesn’t collapse, you’ll be fine.

[Peach Jam]: Got it~

This was their chat log from Friday morning.

Since then, Jiang Miao seemed to be on steroids. Other than going to class and eating, he spent the rest of his time in his dorm room.

Su Huaizhou didn’t say anything else, though she felt a bit disappointed. She wanted to find Junior Brother, but she was afraid of disturbing him from writing.

So apart from casually chatting on WeChat, they had no other interactions over the past few days.

This made Su Huaizhou, who had recently developed ‘feeling uncomfortable without holding hands or hugging syndrome’, a little uncomfortable.

But having just won the debate match, she quickly adjusted her mood and stood up with a smile to take a photo with her teammates.

“Let’s go. I’ll take you guys to celebrate.” Seeing that they had packed up, Su Huaizhou picked up her bag and led the way.

There was a well-known egg pancake shop in Jinde Commons, not far from the school.

Many people liked to choose this spot for small gatherings.

Foldable tables and plastic stools had been set up outside the shop. After sitting down around a table, it had the casual and light vibe of a street food stall.

“Senior Sister, why isn’t Jiang Miao here today?” Ding Ning asked curiously. “It’s thanks to the arguments he provided that we won today.”

“Hmm.” Su Huaizhou was a little absent-minded. “He had something to do today, so he asked for leave.”

The girls didn’t think much of it and continued chatting about the debate match. They grew excited again when they recalled how brilliantly they had performed.

Afterwards, they moved on to other topics, such as studies, life, and love. The girls lost their sharpness from the debate and returned to their usual selves.

Most of the time, Su Huaizhou just listened and occasionally responded with a few words. Her attention was focused on her phone.

She had sent a WeChat message after the debate ended.

[Zhouzhou Loves Congee]: The match is over. We won~

Jiang Miao still hadn’t replied, probably still engrossed in writing.

For some reason, Su Huaizhou began to feel resentful and aggrieved.

She knew that these feelings were unreasonable, but she couldn’t help it.

She missed Junior Brother a little… just a tiny bit…

Lost in her thoughts, Su Huaizhou suddenly realized that she had finished her egg pancake.

“Senior Sister, it’s almost nine. We should return to the dorms.”

Snapping out of her daze, Su Huaizhou nodded and stood up. Then she thought of something and said, “You guys go ahead. I’ll bring some egg pancakes back for my roommates.”

After seeing off the four girls, she went back to the egg pancake shop and ordered a single serving before hurrying back to Xiuye Commons.

The evening breeze swept through her hair, and her heart was thumping with shyness and anticipation.

…

Meanwhile, in Room 412 of Building 31, Jiang Miao had just organized the outline for his following chapters and was idly chatting in the authors’ group chat.

[I Am the Emperor Immortal]: I’m done for!

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]: Sure enough, Xidian isn’t the right place for me!

[Peach Jam]: What happened? Immortal, didn’t you pass the review?

[Cat in the Snow]: He got a trial recommendation last week, but his novel only gained a dozen reading lists over the entire week, so the site stopped the recommendation this week.

Getting the recommendation stopped meant failing to advance.

Unless the author had great perseverance, could keep a steady mindset, and continue releasing, there was only a slim chance of making a comeback.

For most authors, losing their trial recommendation meant dropping their novel.

[White Rice Vinegar]: Immortal, stop howling. Hurry up and throw yourself into the arms of the world for fanfiction!

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]: Damn you, Jealous Dog! This failure was due to my mistake. I will definitely kill you with my next book!

[Cat in the Snow]: (Screenshot: I Am the Immortal Emperor: Hmph, old thief White Vinegar, just you wait. Once I go premium, I’ll cut off your head!)

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]: Fuck! When the hell did you take the screenshot?

[Cat in the Snow]: I just wanted to leave some evidence for your future bragging. I didn’t expect that you wouldn’t even last until going premium.

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]:

[White Rice Vinegar]: Peach Jam, how are your follow-up reads? Your novel should be able to reach the initial subscriptions for a high-quality work, right?

[Peach Jam]: 2,400 follow-up reads. It depends on how the Galaxy Recommendations next week go.

[White Rice Vinegar]: Reading lists?

[Peach Jam]: Just reached 35,000.

[White Rice Vinegar]: Nice, steady progress.

[White Rice Vinegar]: The Galaxy Recommendations should boost your reading lists by at least 10 to 20 thousand, and reaching 3,000 follow-up reads shouldn’t be a problem.

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]: Boohoo! Is the gap between people this big?

[Ao 10K]: Daily 10,000 Word Count Taskmaster invites you to the Orange Melon Word Sprint. Target: 15,000 words. Room: Worlds Apart.

[Ao 10K]: The ride starts in 10 minutes. Get in quickly.

[I Am the Immortal Emperor]: Damn it! Even the room name is mocking me!

Jiang Miao chuckled as he opened the writing software, entered the room, and joined the sprint session.

But as he looked at the writing interface, he sighed.

The closer his novel was about to go premium, the more anxious and uneasy he became.

As he faced the uncertainty of his novel’s results, it was easy to become overly worried.

Although Jiang Miao had been diligently working in his dorm room these past few days, he had only managed to write around 3,000 words a day.

The rest of his time had been spent mulling over the outline and refining the storyline.

However, the more meticulous his pursuit was, the more anxious he became. He could only somewhat distract himself by chatting in the authors’ group chat.

Just as he was staring at the screen in a daze, there was a knock on the room door.

In an instant, Jiang Miao quickly closed his laptop, thinking that one of his roommates had returned.

But the door didn’t open. Instead, there was more knocking.

Knock, knock, knock.

Jiang Miao found it odd. Could someone have forgotten their key?

He got up, opened the door, and looked outside.

The next second, he froze on the spot. “Senior Sister?!”

“Can I come in?” Su Huaizhou asked with a smile, hands clasped behind her back, sneaking a few glances inside.

“Okay…” There was nothing embarrassing in the room, so Jiang Miao moved aside and let her in.

Su Huaizhou walked in and looked around the room curiously. “Your room is so clean.”

“It’s mainly thanks to Wang Xin,” Jiang Miao said honestly. He asked curiously, “Senior Sister, why did you find me here?”

“You haven’t been replying to my messages.” Su Huaizhou looked around, quickly found Jiang Miao’s loft bed, and sat on his chair.

Jiang Miao took out his phone and found that he had several unread messages from Senior Sister.

“Here.” Su Huaizhou handed over the egg pancake in her hand with a smile. “You didn’t attend today’s celebration meal, so I brought it to you.”

“Thank you, Senior Sister.” Jiang Miao took the egg pancake, pulled out Xun Liang’s chair, and sat down. Without standing on ceremony, he dived right into the food.

Chen Haoshang was still out delivering food, Wang Xin was still in the library, and Xun Liang was with his girlfriend.

So Jiang Miao was the only one in the room.

It was Su Huaizhou’s first time in a boy’s dorm room, so she curiously examined the arrangements on Jiang Miao’s desk.

Power strip, water bottle, laptop, books on the shelf… Most things were no different from what was in a girl’s dorm room.

However, items like a razor, something only guys would use, caught her eye and added a sense of novelty.

“Are you feeling anxious these past few days?” Su Huaizhou asked after looking around. She turned around to lean against the chair’s backrest and asked with concern, “It’s going premium on Friday.”

“Yeah… a bit.” Jiang Miao scratched his head. “It’s my first time having such good results during the new novel period. It still feels like a dream.”

His novel had reached 35,000 reading lists, which was 10,000 more than when his last book of over 600,000 words ended.

This kind of improvement was too great for a struggling author.

But with this success came tremendous pressure.

Not only was there pressure from his results, but there was also pressure from himself and his readers.

The surge in reading lists meant a flood of new readers, which brought a daily influx of comments.

It was impossible for a novel to please all the readers. Among these comments, there would inevitably be some negative feedback.

This greatly affected Jiang Miao’s mood.

It even began to impact his writing speed and the quality of his content.

In this regard, in addition to solid writing skills, psychological endurance was also a very important aspect for web novel authors.

“Relax. You’re already amazing,” Su Huaizhou comforted. “How many first-years are as exaggerated as you? After your novel goes premium, you’ll be financially free, right?”

“It’s not as exaggerated as you make it sound.” Jiang Miao laughed. “I still don’t know if it will be sustainable… I’ve been revising the outline for the past two days.”

“Is there a problem?” Su Huaizhou was puzzled and then added sheepishly, “I don’t really understand. I thought about writing online novels before, but I basically gave up after writing a few hundred words.”

“The main issue is probably expectations.” Jiang Miao sighed.

“For struggling authors, it’s very difficult to get through the first one hundred and fifty thousand words of a new novel and secure enough recommendation spots.

“So for newcomers, their stories must be explosive and captivating right from the start. Otherwise, without an existing reader base or recommendations from the website, you will have nothing.

“If it weren’t for this, I wouldn’t have chosen to have the female lead confess in the theater at the start and then have the male and female leads get together in the second chapter.

“But the price of having an exciting start is that the tension of the later parts of the story tends to decrease. It’s like trading potential for immediate impact.

“So my editor thinks this book probably won’t be very long, and it’s just a stepping stone for me.”

Su Huaizhou nodded in understanding. “I see. In other words, you might only be able to write one to two million words at most?”

“…” Jiang Miao, chewing on his egg pancake, had a helpless expression. “Senior Sister, you’re overestimating it. The meaning of not long is that it might not even reach a million words.”

“So short?!”

Jiang Miao’s face darkened as he argued, “So I’ve been revising the outline these past few days, trying to extend the story as long as possible, but it’s still lacking a lot in terms of expectations…”

“Actually, that’s still impressive.” Su Huaizhou quickly changed her tune. “If this book can establish itself as a high-quality work, won’t your next one’s debut be more secure?”

“Nobody can predict the success of their next book.” Jiang Miao shook his head. “Rather than placing my hopes on the next book, I’d rather spend more effort on this one and strive to make it as good as possible.”

“Yeah! Go, Peach Jam!” Su Huaizhou couldn’t offer much help in this aspect, so she could only encourage him with a fist pump.

When Jiang Miao heard the words ‘Peach Jam’, his eyelids clearly twitched. He rubbed his forehead and said, “Senior Sister, this is my dorm. Please keep your voice down.”

“Haha~” Su Huaizhou giggled. Glancing at the laptop on the desk, she asked curiously, “You usually write here. Haven’t your roommates noticed?”

“I only come down when there’s no one in the room,” Jiang Miao explained. “If there’s someone, I usually write in bed. I even bought a bed desk.”

“Oh~ I see.” Su Huaizhou remembered Jiang Miao mentioning this before. “Can I take a look?”

“Huh?” Jiang Miao was stunned.

“Your writing setup,” Su Huaizhou said, a bit excited. She stood up, approached the ladder, and placed one foot on the first rung. “Is it okay? I just want to take a look.”

“Uh… sure…” Jiang Miao said after jogging through his memory and confirming that there were no risky items on the bed. He didn’t mind if Senior Sister looked or not.

So Su Huaizhou eagerly climbed up the ladder, poked her head into the bed curtain, and looked at the arrangements inside curiously.

It was quite simple. There was a mattress pad, a pillow, a blanket, a folding desk against the wall, and a desk lamp.

There was a suspended shelf mounted on the bed’s edge for holding a power strip, tissues, and other miscellaneous items.

Su Huaizhou inhaled and caught a whiff of Jiang Miao’s distinct masculine scent, making her cheeks flush slightly.

Below, Jiang Miao watched Senior Sister examining his bed with her butt sticking out and felt an inexplicable strange feeling in his heart.

Su Huaizhou continued to climb in curiously until only her shoes were visible. She fiddled with the folding desk on Jiang Miao’s bed.

However, there was nothing unusual on his bed. After looking around casually, she was about to come out.

But suddenly…

The clicking of the dorm room’s lock sounded.

When Jiang Miao and Su Huaizhou heard this, their expressions changed.

For some inexplicable reason, Su Huaizhou didn’t immediately get off the bed. Instead, she retracted her feet and hid inside Jiang Miao’s bed curtain.

Jiang Miao: “???!!!”

Wait! Senior Sister, don’t cause trouble!