The literary websites in this world were quite different from those in Yang Yi's previous life. Before uploading their work to a site, authors had to click to confirm and sign a work agency agreement with the website, which invisibly reduced the steps of signing contracts and mailing them.
Afterward, when an author uploaded chapters, the website's backend had a tailored review program from the Copyright Association to identify issues. It was said to be supported by supercomputer calculations (the Copyright Association was indeed wealthy), so within seconds, it could analyze whether those chapters showed signs of plagiarism!
This review didn't just happen during the initial upload of a new book; the work of preventing piracy, plagiarism, and infringement actually ran throughout the entire novel's release period! This truly gave original authors peace of mind.
As for the website's editors, they no longer needed to double-check for these issues. Their job was simply to sift through the vast sea of books, pick out excellent original works, and place them on the website's dazzling array of recommendation slots.
Although their work seemed simple—just reading books constantly—it was actually far more important than people imagined!
After all, in a world where reading a book cost money (even if the unit price was very, very low), and there were no free chapters, with massive amounts of new works being added every moment, without editors' recommendations and lacking prior credentials, many outstanding works by newcomers might be buried in the enormous library.
Qiangzi was a member of the massive editorial team at Qiyue Literature Network. He had loved reading since childhood, with a wide range of interests, enjoying all sorts of miscellaneous books. Plus, he was quite the homebody, not used to communicating with strangers, so this job that let him read books for free became his happiest choice.
This week, he was on the night shift. After handing over with his colleagues, Qiangzi first went to the break room to brew himself a strong cup of black tea, then settled comfortably into his chair, clicked open his computer screen, and began browsing through the new books assigned to him by the system, one by one.
"The writing in this one is terrible! The sentences aren't even coherent—how can they have the nerve to upload it?" Sometimes, Qiangzi could be sharp-tongued, but that was just him muttering to himself. Following work requirements, he still opened a personal document, copied a pre-written comment he had saved, and sent it to the author, advising them to carefully refine their word choice and sentence structure.
"This one has no typos or misuse of words, but the plot is chaotic, and the logic has gone who knows where..."
"This one isn't bad, but the storyline is a bit dry. It needs more fleshing out in the conception; it might still become a passable work later..."
After reading through about a dozen new works from newcomers, Qiangzi felt a bit disappointed. None had truly caught his eye. But that was normal. In this era of mass creation, a flood of low-quality works mixed in, and finding a gem in the sand required a lot more patience.
His tea was finished, and Qiangzi was about to get up to brew another cup, but the next novel he casually clicked on caught his attention.
"Prologue... An ant crawls along the ant trail marked by the abdominal gland secretions of its scout ant lineage—this trail is as crucial to it as an iron cabinet is to a locomotive."
That metaphor was quite interesting!
The very first sentence of this novel made Qiangzi sit back down, unable to resist, and he scrolled down with the mouse wheel to read on.
"...But our ant is a soldier ant, of the brown variety. Regardless of color, soldier ants are like the soldiers of World War I in my imagination, spending their entire lives sealed in airtight, sunless boxcars, running on tracks that are supposedly safe but actually fraught with danger. The moment the doors open and they see daylight..."
The first few paragraphs were plain yet startling, and Qiangzi couldn't help but click on the homepage to check the book's title and synopsis.
*Soldier Assault*—was this a military novel? Qiangzi felt a surge of excitement. He loved these kinds of stirring, blood-pumping military stories!
Synopsis: "With iron horses and war drums, a man of fighting spirit, the soldier's inner world is rich and austere; an ordinary rural boy with character flaws, simple and persistent, tumbles and struggles in the world of soldiers. Because of his clumsiness, the whole company suffers; because of his earnestness, the whole company is moved; because of his persistence, the entire battalion's soldiers take pride in him.
Though his ancestral home is reduced to rubble in an explosion, it cannot stop his steadfast soldier's steps; kind compassion does not make him forget a soldier's duty, as he shoots drug traffickers... Through all kinds of hardships and trials, he is tempered into steel.
His name—Xu Sanduo!"
Wait, reading this synopsis, Qiangzi felt a strong sense of real-world impact. Was this a documentary-style novel?
Qiangzi hesitated for a moment. He knew this novel was submitted under the military category, but that category was still part of the online literature section!
Whether in Yang Yi's previous life or this one, online literature differed greatly from traditional literature!
Traditional literature was grounded in reality, deeply exposing real-world issues, while online literature either stood on reality but rose above it, or purely spread its wings of fantasy, roaming freely.
Just look at what kind of novels were under the military category in online fiction!
Either they were time-travel or rebirth stories, using memories to change failed war history!
Or the protagonist had special abilities, defying fate step by step to become a soldier king.
Could a novel with content this realistic actually win over readers?
If it were any other book, Qiangzi might have suggested the author switch to a different category. But with this one, after reading a few chapters, he found himself reluctant to let it go!
The author's writing was very delicate! For example, the "Prologue" chapter was about soldier ants, but Qiangzi wasn't shallow enough to think this book was literally about ants. Between the lines, it conveyed a tragic, heroic atmosphere of soldiers.
"The smell of steel, gunpowder, gasoline, and unnatural synthetic fabrics.
The smell of demons and doomsday.
The soldier ant weeps... No, the soldier ant does not weep."
Using soldier ants to depict the iron-blooded nature of soldiers—could a military novel be written with such literary flair? Qiangzi felt something soft inside him being touched!
The new author was very generous, updating nearly 50,000 words in one go. But the chapter breaks were a bit frustrating—the prologue was under 2,000 words, the first chapter over 5,000, the second chapter shot up to over 20,000, and the third shrank back to under 20,000...
Did he even have chapter breaks? Or was he just casually slapping chapter numbers on random paragraphs as a formality?
Even so, Qiangzi was utterly captivated, deeply drawn to the simple, hapless Xu Sanduo. He desperately wanted to know how this Xu Sanduo would become the pride of the entire company, as the synopsis promised.
But then the story stopped abruptly—the author had only updated to the third chapter.
No matter. Qiangzi had made up his mind. He added this "special" novel to the list for tomorrow's editor's strong recommendation!
This was the best recommendation slot a newcomer could get! An editor could only strongly recommend one novel per day, and even if it was just a text recommendation, the novel would still appear on the website's homepage!
Clearly, Qiangzi really loved this book.
"Profound in meaning, oppressive yet tinged with hope, I have a feeling this will be a masterpiece!" Qiangzi excitedly added a link to this book on his blog, along with a comment below.