The website loaded but before he could even see the landing page the Lovely Writing System decided that it didn't want to wait for Su Yan to remember it.
[Congratulations, host! With the upload of your first story, you're now a published author. As a result, a new kind of statistics will be unlocked: Your publication stats. These will measure your success based on views, ratings, and reviews, as well as data concerning your followers.
The publication stats will be tied to a number of long-term tasks such as getting a certain number of reviews or maintaining a certain average rating in a set timeframe. These tasks are passive and don't require the host to do anything. He may try to influence the results through interacting with his readers or skillfully utilizing his publications though.]
Su Yan raised his brows. Oh? There actually were statistics for something like this? Did it work like the evaluations the system gave when he wrote a story? Then that wasn't too bad!
He clicked for the next thing the system had planned but it just took him back to the welcome page. He did find a new area though: Below the task of publishing the first part of his short story that was now checked, there was a list with new tasks.
[Get your first comment
Get one review
Have one follower]
Su Yan smiled when he saw the tasks. That didn't seem all that difficult. On his old account, he had had several hundred followers and even more reviews. How difficult could it be to get one follower and one review each? Wasn't this thing underestimating him too much?
Su Yan reached up to tug at Nie Chang's shirt but instead of the expected fabric, he touched naked skin. He looked up and was met with Nie Chang's piqued gaze. "Uh ... Sorry." Su Yan retracted his hand. "I ... kind of forgot you had ... uh ..."
"It's alright. What did you want to say?"
Su Yan's expression brightened again and he turned his phone around. "Look at this! The system gave me new tasks!"
Nie Chang took the phone. "Oh? That's good."
"Yeah. I just feel like it's ... I don't know. Shouldn't it expect more from me? I did a good job with writing the story, after all."
"Well, but these tasks don't really depend on you, right? Aren't they something only your readers can do? And you just published your first story in that genre. Maybe it just wants to give you a bit time to adapt."
"Mn. I hope a lot of people start reading and reviewing right away."
"They certainly will." Nie Chang gave the phone back and kissed Su Yan's temple.
"You're right! Eh, let's see if anyone has noticed the story already!"
Su Yan closed the interface of the system and went back to the website. His eyes bulged before he hurriedly closed them.
"What happened?" Nie Chang stroked his hair back and tried to take a look at Su Yan's face in the light from the phone screen. His eyes seemed alright though.
Su Yan rubbed them before cautiously blinking. The numbers he saw still looked strange. He frowned and tilted the screen a bit just in case he was holding it at a wrong angle and something was reflecting. The angle didn't change anything though. Maybe there had been an error while loading the page? He refreshed the page but after reloading it still looked the same.
Nie Chang furrowed his brows, too. His boyfriend was behaving strangely again. "What's the matter?"
The phone was put in front of his nose once more as a response. "What do you see?"
Nie Chang's brows lifted. "Your story?" Was this some kind of trick question?
"I'm talking about the numbers!"
Nie Chang took a closer look. He had secretly read everything Su Yan wrote so he knew his way around the website quite well. These numbers with the respective icons represented the views, favorites, and reviews the story had gotten. The numbers were ... far above what the system wanted Su Yan to achieve for now.
"Maybe a lot of people were online when you posted and immediately had a look at it?"
"How could that be? I've posted so many stories, even when I had a lot of followers and I never got so much ... stuff after such a short amount of time! Look at this, Ah Chang! That's a hundred favorites, a hundred! And ten reviews! And I only posted the first part of the story. That's unscientific!"
"How long did you normally need for that?"
"A few weeks!" Su Yan sat up, not caring that the blanket slipped down from his shoulders, revealing his naked upper body. "Something has to be wrong with the site. Maybe I should write them an email."
Nie Chang sat up, too, and pulled Su Yan into his embrace. "Don't be hasty. Take a look at your comments first. That should tell you whether or not a lot of people had a look already, shouldn't it? Maybe the genre is just incredibly popular."
"Wouldn't I have noticed it sooner, then?"
"Who knows? Just take a look." He handed the phone back.
Su Yan's thumb hovered over the [read] button but he didn't dare to click. "What if you're right?"
"Then wouldn't that be great?"
"And if you're wrong?"
"Then you can still contact the site and explain that something went wrong. They'll have a look at it tomorrow and then everything will be back to normal. Then you can just continue to post the other parts and slowly fulfill the tasks you get."
Su Yan nodded. "You're right. It's not a problem either way." He decisively clicked on the button and watched as the first chapter loaded.
Once again his eyes widened upon what he saw. This ... this couldn't be real! Where had all these comments come from? Maybe someone was spamming? It had to be. So most likely it had also been just one person who wrote the ten reviews. Ah, these publication stats were obviously broken!