Chapter 173: Chapter 111: Shen Xiyu, the Dog-headed Military Advisor, and Xia Zhijin, the Love-struck Brain (Please Subscribe)

Little Fish was very proud of Li Yuan, her “boyfriend.” In front of her roommates, she boldly hugged his arm, giving them a triumphant look before speaking mysteriously.

“Xia Hua’s books are extremely popular. It’s currently the number one divine novel online. I’ll tell you the name, and you’ll know as soon as you search for it.”

Li Qingqing quickly urged, “Zhiyu, hurry and tell us. I’m desperate to know right now.”

Xie Ping asked curiously, “The number one divine novel online? Is it that amazing?”

Li Yuan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Little Fish’s mention of the “number one divine novel online.” That was very high praise indeed.

Although “Fight Break” was quite good, considered a pioneering work of the “grandpa-in-the-pocket, breaking-off-an-engagement” genre, calling it the number one divine novel online was a bit of an exaggeration.

Zhang Ruoxue quietly took out her phone and searched for the name “Xia Hua.” The top result was a news headline.

[Breaking News: The author of “Battle Starry Sky,” Life Like Summer Flowers, has been confirmed to be a university freshman earning over a million per month…]

Life Like Summer Flowers… the Xia Hua that Little Fish mentioned? They must be the same person. And with the web novel “Battle Starry Sky”… it all adds up.

Zhang Ruoxue murmured to herself, her eyes suddenly lighting up as she felt everything fall into place.

The way she looked at Li Yuan changed once again. Zhiyu’s boyfriend really is incredibly talented. He can not only write beautiful songs like “Love Confession Balloon” and “Natural Beauty,” but he can also write an explosively popular web novel… This kind of immensely talented, rich second-generation heir is the ideal boyfriend for high-achieving female students from a Project 985 university like us. Moreover, Li Yuan himself is tall and well-built, with a great sense of style, which gives a girl a complete sense of security.

The more she looked, the more Zhang Ruoxue felt Li Yuan was the perfect boyfriend: multi-talented, tall and handsome, and earning over a million a month…

Zhiyu really has good taste. Qin Luo himself isn’t bad, but comparisons are revealing. Next to Li Yuan, he’s nothing, Zhang Ruoxue thought, her eyes glinting with a strange light as she looked at Li Yuan. I want a perfect boyfriend like that, too.

“Zhiyu, the novel Li Yuan wrote is ’Battle Starry Sky,’ right?” Zhang Ruoxue said. “It really is very popular. I just searched on my phone, and it’s flooded with news about Talented Li.”

Jiang Zhiyu’s bright eyes twinkled as she nodded with a happy grin.

“Ruoxue, you’re so smart! Hehe, that book, ’Battle Starry Sky,’ was written by Xia Hua. It’s incredibly fun and a great read—the best novel I’ve ever read! In fact, calling it the number one divine novel online is an understatement. I think it’s even better than the wuxia novels by Jin Yong and Gu Long, and it’s comparable to classics like ’Journey to the West’ and ’Romance of the Three Kingdoms’! You all should check it out too.”

Li Yuan quickly interrupted, “Little Fish, you’re exaggerating. It’s not as good as you say. It’s just a simple web novel, that’s all.”

Li Yuan felt deeply embarrassed listening to Jiang Zhiyu praise “Battle Starry Sky” as if it blew Jin Yong and Gu Long out of the water and could rival Huaxia’s Four Great Classical Novels.

Never mind that my “Battle Starry Sky” is just a heavily modified, high-quality fanfiction of “Fight Break,” with a quality that might not even match the original. Even if Potato himself had written the original, it couldn’t possibly have received such high praise. While it’s true that in terms of revenue—from online subscriptions, physical sales, and IP rights—’Fight Break’s’ income was on par with any other novel, web novels are still worlds apart from traditional literature in terms of literary merit. It’s not that I’m biased toward the classics. Web novels are essentially fast-food literature, and the gap between them and traditional literature is immense. Putting other aspects aside, just look at the update volume. Web novel authors churn out thousands, even tens of thousands, of words daily. In traditional literature, a book of a few hundred thousand words might take years to write. The difference in literary depth is obvious. They are simply not comparable because they aren’t even in the same race. What’s the point of comparing them?

“Since your boyfriend wrote it, Zhiyu, I’ll have to check it out when I’m free and appreciate Talented Li’s masterpiece,” Zhang Ruoxue said with a look of interest. “Back in high school, I also wrote short stories. I submitted one to ’Youth Digest’ and even got paid 600 yuan for it.”

She was a high-achieving student from a Project 985 university majoring in Chinese Literature, so she had a keen interest in literary works. However, web literature was only just beginning to explode and hadn’t yet entered its golden age. It wasn’t accepted by the gatekeepers of the traditional literary world, who had formed their own academic fiefdoms.

In a few more years, once the web novel consumer market became enormous, generating astronomical revenues and consistently dominating author ranking lists, the impact on traditional literature would be immense, and the situation would be completely different…

Li Qingqing also asked curiously, “Li Yuan, you’re only a freshman this year, and school just started. You wrote this book back in high school? That’s incredible.”

Little Fish nodded repeatedly, explaining proudly, “Of course Xia Hua is the best! With this book, he’s on track to be named a Great Writer this year and join the Huaxia Writers Association.”

“Hehe, I also heard that a game company offered over twenty million yuan to buy the rights to ’Battle Starry Sky’…”

Li Yuan gave Little Fish a skeptical glance. His editor had only asked him about this the night before last, yet Little Fish already knew today.

“Ahem, Little Fish, the matter of the rights hasn’t been settled yet,” Li Yuan interjected.

Twenty million to buy all the rights to “Battle Starry Sky”? Impossible.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep