CHAPTER 51: CHAPTER 47: DO YOU WANT TO LISTEN?

Despite Chu Tian’s cursing being vile, the system seemed to automatically block it out, showing no reaction.

Finally, when he had run out of curses and grown tired, his vocabulary exhausted, he stopped.

Just as he had eaten a "Wisdom Fruit" to take a break, glanced at the time—realizing about half a month had passed—sipped a drop of "Sea Blue Essence" to moisten his throat, and was finally resigning himself to his fate, the system’s notification sounded without warning.

[DING, please explore on your own. Special tip: products from the Mall can greatly increase the Host’s efficiency.]

Chu Tian let the empty "Sea Blue Essence" bottle in his hand dissipate with the wind. His eyes glazed over as he stared at the line of text, his mind reeling with questions.

What does this mean? What’s this ’special tip’ all about? When did this thing even appear?

And what does it mean that Mall products can ’greatly increase efficiency’?

For some reason, he had a bad feeling about this.

To verify his suspicions, he opened the system Mall and started searching through the directory.

Finally, on the fourth page of the "Items" section, he found something that made his teeth itch with hate.

[Text Converter]: Converts text from novels and other works into actual data documents. 10,000 words/item/100,000 Reputation Points.

Chu Tian’s hands trembled uncontrollably—not because he was ill, but because he was infuriated.

"System, you son of a $!@#￥!￥!%!#￥...#!"

Anyone could tell Chu Tian’s cursing was vile, truly atrocious.

"Are you crazy? You won’t let me extract directly just so you can squeeze more Reputation Points out of me?"

"How is this any different from extracting the novel directly? You have the converter, so after I work hard to get a novel, I still have to pay Reputation Points again to use this thing?"

"And why didn’t you say so earlier? Why not earlier?!"

He thought about how he had worked so hard all afternoon, nearly breaking his fingers to type just 6,000 words. Then he discovered that the damn system had such an item! With just 100,000 Reputation Points, he could instantly convert 10,000 words into a real document. This realization made him livid.

Was this some kind of joke? Was the system insane?

Looking at the unresponsive system, Chu Tian took a deep breath, then another, and another...

He had to; he felt like his heart was about to burst.

This damn system was incredibly good at messing with people’s minds. It was as if it had been sent by an arch-enemy—a pure, unadulterated villain!

Finally calming down, Chu Tian repressed his anger. Screw you, he thought, then resignedly clicked "Exchange."

An icon of a piece of paper with an arrow on it immediately appeared in his item bar.

Reading the description, he saw that he simply had to drag the item onto the novel file he wanted to convert, then select the portion, with a limit of 10,000 words.

Following the instructions, he selected the very first segment. Just as he was about to confirm, he abruptly stopped.

Damn it! I was so angry I got confused and almost made a mistake!

In the instant before he clicked confirm, he suddenly remembered that he had painstakingly written 6,000 words already. If he confirmed now, it meant spending 100,000 Reputation Points to copy only 4,000 words, wasting an entire afternoon.

Luckily, he reacted just in time.

After re-selecting, he clicked confirm. Quickly, a USB drive appeared where the converter icon had been.

He chose to extract it and plugged the USB drive into his computer. A Word document was on it, which opened to reveal the content he had just copied.

"Isn’t this just taking off your pants to fart—making things overly complicated just to earn more of my Reputation Points? You’re more unscrupulous than Penguin, aren’t you? Damn system, is your dad Ma Huateng?!"

Although Chu Tian had a belly full of complaints, he forced them down.

What else could he do? The damn system was intangible and formless; he couldn’t very well smash his own head in and take it down with him, could he?

He merged the two documents. Looking at the total of 16,000 words, he ultimately chose to copy the 6,000 words he had written earlier onto the webpage and clicked "Publish."

According to the rules, only a submission of 6,000 words would be reviewed by the editors, and only if it passed would he be offered a contract.

To make an impact, he directly posted 6,000 words. Now all he could do was wait for news.

Once everything was set up, his curiosity piqued, he followed the link from his own work and entered the novel website called Cloud Summit Literature Network.

Looking at the top few works on the ranking list, he clicked on them curiously.

「...」

"Qingqiu, aren’t you curious about what kind of song is on there?"

Inside the office, after the earlier dispute, the atmosphere had finally calmed down. Now that the surveillance cameras were installed, there was no point in Li Chunhua arguing further.

The two of them had reluctantly reached a consensus. They were prepared for both scenarios. If Youmeng appeared, they would have an open conversation with her—any sort of collaboration or arrangement would do. There was no need for secrecy.

If she didn’t appear, or if negotiations failed, then they would see if they could find a suitable song from other sources.

But looking at the USB drive on the table, Li Chunhua felt an itch of curiosity, as if a cat were scratching at her heart.

Xu Qingqiu glanced at the USB drive in her hand and pursed her lips without speaking.

Curious? Of course, she was curious. After all, up until now, every piece produced by Youmeng had been extraordinary; virtually all of them were classic songs.

Yet, without knowing who Youmeng was, she wasn’t very keen on singing it, so she was also very conflicted internally.

Seeing this, Li Chunhua immediately sensed an opportunity and struck while the iron was hot, asking, "Want to take a look?"

"I’m not looking!" Xu Qingqiu haughtily turned her head away, trying hard to suppress the longing and curiosity in her heart.

But Sister Hua’s voice, like a devil’s whisper, kept tempting her.

"Just take a peek. It won’t hurt, will it?"

"If you don’t want to sing it, you could just listen to it once and then put it away, right?"

Xu Qingqiu shot her an annoyed look, pouted, and said, "Sister Hua, stop it! Do you really think I could resist after hearing it?"

"Why couldn’t you hold back? It’s just a song, not some forbidden substance. Can listening to it really be addictive?"

"But..."

"Oh, come on, just give it a listen! I don’t believe you aren’t curious!"

"..."

Xu Qingqiu took a deep, frustrated breath, her eyes fixed on the USB drive in Sister Hua’s hand. Ultimately, she couldn’t resist.

"Alright then... let’s just listen to it."

"HAHAHA!" Seeing her like this, Sister Hua couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

"Hey, Sister Hua, what are you laughing at? Weren’t you the one who wanted to listen?"

"Okay, okay, I want to listen. It’s all my fault; it has absolutely nothing to do with you," Li Chunhua, who had long seen through her little scheme, hastily said, though her tone was clearly teasing.

Her bluff called, Xu Qingqiu looked at Li Chunhua speechlessly before huffily plugging the USB drive into the computer. Then, she stared at the screen eagerly, all traces of her earlier pique gone.

She’d held out as long as she could since getting the USB drive. Waiting any longer might actually be bad for her health! Hmph! she thought.

As she thought this, Xu Qingqiu finally saw the contents of the USB drive.

"’So Proud’?"