"Gimme a bottle of Xueli, and a pack of Red Fives!"
In Jiangcheng's XC District, inside the dimly lit Feilong Internet Café tucked away deep in an alley, Wang Pu slapped a ten-yuan note and his ID card down on the counter.
He looked around the smoke-filled room and spotted his usual seat still empty. Instantly, he relaxed and whistled flirtatiously at the girl behind the counter.
The counter girl shot him an annoyed glare, then tossed his cigarettes, drink, and ID card back at him.
"You've only got fifteen yuan left on your account. Want to top up?"
Wang Pu grabbed his stuff and grinned. "No rush. I'll recharge when I run out. It's not like there's any discount now."
The girl rolled her eyes and turned away, clearly done with him.
Wang Pu didn't care. He plopped down at his usual spot and booted up the old computer.
There were hundreds of internet cafés all over Jiangcheng, and Feilong was one of the least remarkable, old, cramped, and outdated. The computers were ancient, four or five years old at least, and practically ready for the junkyard.
The place was so small that if someone farted, half the café would smell it. Maybe that was why, even though a "No Smoking" sign hung on the wall, no one bothered enforcing it.
But most importantly, Feilong was cheap. Two yuan per hour, and sometimes they ran "Top up 100, get 100 free" promos. For a broke young guy like Wang Pu, scraping by on the lower rungs of city life, it was his little corner of affordable happiness.
The old machines took forever to boot, but Wang Pu wasn't in a hurry. He set down his drink and tore open his cigarette pack.
"Old Wang, gimme one," came a hoarse, raspy voice from beside him, a voice so rough it could give you chills.
"F*ck!"
Startled, Wang Pu turned his head and saw that the guy next to him just wanted a cigarette.
"Oh, it's you, Deity! You trying to scare me to death or what?"
Everyone at Feilong knew Deity; he was practically a legend there. He was about Wang Pu's age, but looked worse for wear: unkempt hair, thin as a stick, and perpetually sleep-deprived.
There were tons of stories about him. The most famous one was how he once played a newly released online game nonstop for seven days and nights, sleeping less than 24 hours in total, until the café owner almost called the police, afraid he'd drop dead at the keyboard.
But Deity was tougher than a cockroach. Wang Pu had been coming here for years, and the guy hadn't changed one bit.
The impressive thing about Deity was that he never worked a day job, he actually made enough playing games to pay for his café hours and his meals.
Unfazed by Wang Pu's complaint, Deity just stretched out a hand again. "C'mon, man, just one smoke."
"You're hopeless."
With a sigh, Wang Pu handed him half the pack. "Here, take half. See? I'm a generous brother."
Deity had once taught Wang Pu how to play an online game, so there was a bit of camaraderie between them.
But Deity just sneered. "Half a pack of Red Fives and you call that generous? Pathetic."
Wang Pu's face darkened, ready to snatch it back, but Deity was too quick. He stuffed the half-pack into his pocket and lit one on the spot.
"F*ck!" Wang Pu muttered, sulking as he turned back to his monitor. He gripped his mouse pad and opened the browser, logging into WeChat.
Ding ding ding!
His WeChat icon kept flashing with new messages. One by one, he opened them, blocking the scammers, the moochers, and the spammers, then replying briefly to a few friends before finally tapping into his favorite group chat: [Old Bai Group].
The Old Bai Group was massive, over a thousand members. The people inside came from all walks of life: professors, PhDs, factory hands, construction workers… the lot. The one thing they all had in common was their love for online web novels.
And they'd all been reading for years.
Wang Pu, twenty-five this year, had been reading web fiction for over a decade. Back in middle school, he used to rent pirated novels for fifty cents apiece, reading them over several days. Later he moved online, devouring everything he could find.
These days, web novels were his cheapest and greatest source of happiness. He actually read the official, paid versions, an honest-to-goodness VIP subscriber, something he took real pride in.
Of course, most of his subscription coins came from website promos and red packets gifted by generous "tycoon" readers.
Lately, however, Wang Pu had found that even this small slice of happiness was becoming harder and harder to come by. It wasn't about the money, he still had plenty of subscription credits in his accounts across several major reading platforms.
The problem was that there were fewer and fewer books he actually enjoyed.
That was the greatest sorrow of veteran readers like Wang Pu, the so-called "Old Bai" crowd. The more books they read, the higher their standards naturally became. They simply couldn't stomach the flood of formulaic, over-indulgent, and poorly written stories that now dominated the web-fiction sites.
Wang Pu could only sigh. He had even considered writing a novel himself. But after hammering out a few thousand words, he realized how tough it really was.
He clearly had a ton of ideas swirling in his head, yet the moment he tried to put them into words, everything came out awkward and stilted. Even he couldn't bear to read what he'd written. In the end, he gave up.
The book-shortage problem, it seemed, had no solution.
"Hey, anyone got some good grain-grass recs?" he called out in the group chat, a slang term meaning high-quality reads. "Preferably new ones! I've already read all the old stuff. There's nothing left!"
"Ten-thousand-ton copper balls!" someone replied, a group meme used to show agreement.
"Same here! I've been rereading the old classics lately. Man, those used to be amazing compared to the junk we get now."
"'Chronicles of Demon-Subduing Across Eight Desolations' isn't bad, highly recommended."
"I just read that one. Pretty solid for a Xianxia. Still ongoing!"
"I'm reading Midnight Gravekeeper right now, really creepy."
The group erupted into chatter, dozens of people throwing out titles left and right. But Wang Pu was disappointed. He had either already read every one of them, or they were genres he didn't like.
Wang Pu's tastes leaned toward fantasy, xianxia, and historical fiction.
Just as he was about to close the chat and start searching on his own, a member with the ID Old Bookworm posted a message:
"I'm reading The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. Pretty interesting, recommended!"
He even attached a link.
Wang Pu clicked it absentmindedly, opening the page for The Smiling, Proud Wanderer.
The Smiling, Proud Wanderer? Not a bad title, at least, not one of those overblown "God-King Dragon Emperor of the Heavens" type names. Maybe it'd be a pleasant surprise.
The Old Bai Group had thousands of members, and plenty of them, bored and desperate for something new, also clicked the link.
Everyone was book-starved, after all.
Soon, the complaints started rolling in:
"What the, Wuxia? Isn't that ancient history?"
"Bruh, only 70,000 words? How could anyone bear to crush such a tiny sapling?"
"It's not even signed yet, and the stats are pathetic. You sure it's worth reading?"
"Old Bookworm, this isn't a self-plug, right?"
"Self-plug +1!"
To be honest, Wang Pu also suspected Old Bookworm was either self-promoting or doing a favor for a friend. The book had no publishing contract, a pitiful word count, and abysmal stats, if it were truly good, wouldn't the editors at Langchao Reading have noticed?
A few hundred clicks, a few dozen favorites, in a massive platform like Langchao, that was basically rock bottom.
Wang Pu had hung around author groups before, so he knew a bit about how the online-fiction scene worked.
And honestly, Wuxia was as non-mainstream as it got.
Langchao Reading categorized works into the major genres: Xuanhuan (fantasy), Xianxia (immortal cultivation), urban life, history, gaming, sports, military, sci-fi, horror, and so on. There was also a "custom" category for niche or experimental works.
That "custom" label was where authors could tag their books with unique classifications, things like fantasy crossover, tragic romance, or super-science. Usually, those were for small-audience, brain-hole-heavy stories.
And sure enough, The Smiling, Proud Wanderer was filed under "custom." The author's chosen label: Wuxia.
In Wang Pu's mind, Wuxia was practically a fossilized genre. He vaguely remembered reading some old sword-hero novel as a kid, something by a Hong Kong author with "Divine Sword" in the title.
Would a genre like that really appeal to "Old Bai" veterans?
He instinctively gave The Smiling, Proud Wanderer a mental negative score.
Old Bookworm quickly clarified in the chat:
"Not self-promo, I swear. Just something I personally liked. You guys can check it out if you want."
Wang Pu shrugged. He didn't have anything better to read anyway. A few extra clicks wouldn't hurt; he'd just treat it as supporting a newcomer.
So he scrolled down and opened Chapter One.
(End of Chapter)
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