The next day…
Early in the morning, countless readers habitually turned on the QQ Read app to check the rankings.
When they saw the novel that was placed first, they were mildly surprised, then met with acceptance.
First place on monthly rankings: Celestial Bane!
First place on sales rankings: Celestial Bane!
Both rankings were updated live, and they carried great authority. It represented the novel’s results over the internet.
Although they were surprised that Celestial Bane placed first, it was within reason.
However, when their gaze went to the second place, that gave them quite a scare!
It was 3Logs’ Under the Heavens.
Even though it was placed second, it was heaven and earth when compared to Celestial Bane!
On the monthly rankings, Celestial Bane’s votes were over 60 thousand, while Under the Heavens did not even reach 10 thousand.
The sales ranking was even worse.
The sales ranking was capped at 10,000. If a novel’s results were good, then the sales of other novels would drop.
Placing first was Celestial Bane at 9999, while the second-place sales were only at slightly over a thousand!
That was a 10 times difference!
It was the most contrasting record in history. It stunned many eyeballs, and some even suspected that it was due to system error.
A lot of authors looked at the sales ranking and could not help but laugh bitterly. Those who scored in the hundreds to thousands in sales records were now left in the double-digit ranks. They could only blame it on Celestial Bane being out of this world!
Celestial Bane’s results not only gave the readers and authors a surprise, but it also shook the entire online novel community.
It could be said to have led online novels to a new peak. Most importantly, that novel was of the unpopular xianxia genre! It created a legend!
Celestial Bane’s publication fully established itself as the number one novel, reigning over the online novel community for a long period of time, creating an era of its own!
[F*ck! Although I knew that Celestial Bane was amazing, this is too much. How will the other authors survive?]
[The gap between them looks quite bad. This novel should not have existed. It’s throwing things out of balance.]
[I’m curious about Celestial Bane’s initial subscriptions. Breaking the record is as good as confirmed. I wonder what the numbers will be?]
[Such results are weighing heavily onto 3Logs. I wonder what’s the surface area of 3Log’s mental state now[1]?]
[Why isn’t 3Logs responding to tags? Did he lose his ability to talk from the crushing defeat?]
[That loss is just too horrible. Today I finally know what it means to be annihilated. Celestial Bane is really like a god slayer!]
…
[What a bunch of retards. How can you believe Celestial Bane’s results? How is this result possible? It’s definitely bought!] 3Logs finally made his response in full force. “Such results that people wouldn’t even dare dream about all after all this time. What qualifications does Celestial Bane have to achieve them? It’s illogical. It must be faked!]
His words immediately allowed his fans to find a talking point, barking along like mad dogs.
[Great author 3Logs is spot on. Celestial Bane is just a cheater!]
[As expected of a big shot. Such rational analysis. Those bootlickers are just stupid!]
[I strongly urge the website to investigate Celestial Bane’s statistics. Such cheaters should have their novel banned!]
[That’s right! I strongly urge the website to check on Celestial Bane’s statistics. We’re not convinced!]
…
Under 3Logs’ lead, the call for investigating Celestial Bane’s statistics grew stronger with time. That forced the higher-ups of Yuewen to place a higher priority on the issue.
However, after investigation, Yuewen announced that Celestial Bane’s statistics were all legitimate, without any hint of cheating. Instead, it was 3Logs’ Under the Heavens that was found to have purchased over 2000 monthly votes and was later retracted by the website.
With that, his ranking dropped from second place to eighth place.
The sudden turn of events doused out the burning passion of 3Logs and his fans, turning them into laughing stocks.
Ye Lingchen naturally could not be bothered to follow the bickering online, nor did he have the time to take part.
However, when he saw his novel being flooded by gifts, he was caught by surprise. At the same time, he received a congratulatory message from Yogurt informing him that Celestial Bane’s results were going down in history.
In just one night, he collected around 3.4 million. Taking away the website’s portion, he was left with roughly 1.2 million.
Giving it a rough count, Ye Lingchen gave himself a scare.
F*ck!
So scary!
It should be impossible for someone to break such a record now. After all, its appearance was just like a dream.
At the same time, Ye Lingchen took a look at his popularity points in the system. With the recent livestream and novel writing steadily bringing him popularity, he went from roughly 890,000 popularity points to 956,798 popularity points. He only needed a little bit more to reach a million popularity points!
He went through his morning routine as usual.
Ye Lingchen first received a phone call from Lu Hao.
“Grandmaster Ye, are you ready? We’ll be coming over to pick you up,” Lu Hao said with a respectful voice that carried a hint of anticipation in it.
One month ago, Lu Hao made an appointment with Ye Lingchen to have him participate in a gambling competition in Las Vegas. That was the day of the appointment.
“Sure, just come over.”
This trip to Las Vegas, Ye Lingchen was prepared to make a killing.
Panda Streaming’s operations cost a lot. He was far from having enough resources to expand the streaming platform and fight with Huyu Streaming. Furthermore, he planned to harvest more popularity points in filming, and that would burn through a lot of money!
All in all, in some regards, money was equivalent to popularity points. Ye Lingchen naturally would not complain about having too much of it.
Just as he ended his call, Li Tai’s call came through.
“Young Master Ye, our movie will be screening today at midnight,” Li Tai said with a hoarse voice. From the sound of it, things were not looking good.
Ye Lingchen knew the movie would hit the screens on National Day. He could not help but ask, “Mm, what’s wrong?”
“Things aren’t looking too good,” Li Tai took a deep breath, his voice carried a hint of defiance. “Our movie had no superstars, lacks hype, and the part where too many big-name movies are being screened on National Day, our screening allocations are extremely limited!”
Ye Lingchen frowned. “Extremely limited? How much?”
“Six movies being aired during National Day, and our screening allocation is only at five percent!” Li Tai blurted out bitterly.
“Five percent?!” Ye Lingchen’s expression turned ugly. The screening allocation would directly impact the box office sales. After all, without any screening, viewers couldn’t purchase a ticket. How then would they have ticket sales?
“I believe it’s because of Wu Han that the cinemas lowered our screening allocation. This is just a different approach to snuff us out.” Li Tai let out a sigh, then continued, “Wu Han’s I am Hero has a 30 percent screening allocation. Also the trending comedy by Xiao Chenling, Abduction, has a 25 percent allocation. The other three movies are all allocated with at least 10 percent or more. Only our movie has the lowest allocation!”
…
[1] In raw it’s described as pressing heavily onto 3Logs. We suspect that the author is trying to joke about how the heavy pressure would flatten 3Logs’ heart by posing a question to ask for the surface area of a flattened object.
