Flop

To Qin Luming, the things that had most influenced his thinking, behavior, logic, and ability to handle problems all came from the texts he had studied during nine years of compulsory education and high school.

View people and events dialectically.

Take the essence and discard the dross.

Practice was the sole criterion for testing truth.

Reading comprehension.

All the basic methods for improving oneself, breaking through one's innate limitations, and raising one's starting line were in those texts.

For Qin Luming, the existing theories of natural science, hailed as the foundation of human progress and civilization, could no longer help him solve his current problem. Those patterns of thought and behavior, however, were still guiding him as he tried to unravel the mystery.

He wanted to know how a fictional character like Zhou Nan had crossed over into the modern world. Naturally, that could not be solved by typing a query into a search bar.

Nor could he ask on a Q&A social platform, "What is it like to cross over into the real world?"

Many things could not be solved through imagination alone. Only practice... and perhaps during that process, he would discover details he could never have understood or noticed through idle speculation.

He began trying to publish novels online, to see whether he could summon fictional characters he had created into the real world.

The possibility might be slim, but if he did not try, who could say? When many people gazed up at the sky, perhaps they had wondered whether an invisible ceiling existed there, distorting people's vision and preventing the curious from discovering the truth... Even if he had to be a headless fly, he would try to see whether he could smash through this barrier blocking both heart and eyes.

Qin Luming sat before his computer in high spirits. Beyond his intense curiosity about finding the truth, writing novels itself was a fascinating hobby.

He first logged onto Qilu Forum, an old forum gathering countless authors and readers. He checked out recent gossip from the webnovel scene, browsed other people's reading reviews, and lurked through several threads where book fans and haters were at war.

Then he opened a few author group chats and chatted with some rookie writers. They complained about no one reading their novels, being unable to get contracts, editors lacking taste, or not receiving recommendations. Feeling a deep sense of kinship, he joined the conversation with considerable interest.

An hour passed.

Two hours passed...

It was time to start writing. Qin Luming closed the webpages and group chats, set down his phone, and stared at the Word document whose word count had yet to increase.

He was a little thirsty.

Qin Luming glanced at the bar in his study. There were no drinks he wanted, so he went down to the living room, grabbed a bottle of water, and started drinking.

"Brother Qin, how many words have you written today?" Zuozuo turned to look at Qin Luming. As his left hand, she naturally knew that he was writing novels. Sometimes Qin Luming even asked her to gather information, buy reference books, or keep an eye out for unusual news events.

Caicai also helped with those things, but she was easily distracted by all sorts of random nonsense.

"I haven't started yet," Qin Luming said, a little embarrassed. After all, he had once boasted in front of Zuozuo that when he received his first month's royalties, he would treat the two of them to a meal.

By now, he knew that for webnovel writers, going three or five months without making a cent was nothing. Even after three or five years and several million words, earning nothing at all was perfectly normal.

Qin Luming had not lost confidence. Though every newcomer was confident, he felt that he had read plenty of novels. After reading so much, he had developed his own ideas and writing methods. Could it really be possible that no one would find what he wrote interesting?

Some novels looked like complete garbage, yet people still read them with great enthusiasm, didn't they?

He had also summed up many things to pay attention to in writing. Especially when reading novels, he would often find inspiration in other people's brilliant prose and clever concepts.

"Oh, take your time. It's not like we can't afford food," Caicai said as she ate from a box of Périgord truffle chocolates. What made many girls envy her was that Caicai could eat delicious truffle chocolate without restraint, pound after pound, without worrying about gaining weight.

As long as Qin Luming did not turn into a cute little fatty, neither would the two of them.

The moment she finished speaking, Caicai set down the large box of chocolates. Looking solemn, as though she had suddenly remembered something, she said, "Brother Luming, you're what readers often call a flop, right? Or a hopeless flop? A super, beyond-saving flop?"

"I think so," Zuozuo said after considering it. She turned to Qin Luming. "Nobody reads the novels you write, and you don't work hard. You may not even have talent. You spend all day pretending to write, but really you're just poking around at this and that, looking at all sorts of random things. You perfectly fit every characteristic of a flop."

"Caicai, yesterday I saw you wearing Zuozuo's dress, stuffing a pillow underneath it, twisting around in front of the mirror and saying you were chubby Zuozuo. You even recorded a video," Qin Luming said coldly.

"So that's why my dress was thrown on the floor yesterday!"

"I didn't do it! It wasn't me! It wasn't!"

"You're still denying it!"

"He's trying to drive a wedge between us! He's slandering me! I didn't do it!"

"I'm going to kill you! You fat vegetable!"

"You pig trotter that only likes eating meat!"

Seeing the two of them start fighting, Qin Luming felt a little hungry himself. He went to the kitchen and cooked a bowl of noodles, then sat beside the teppanyaki counter and finished them.

When he checked the time, it was already eleven-thirty... There was no helping it. Today was going to be another day without writing. Passing through the living room, Qin Luming saw the two little girls still watching television. Whenever they remembered something, they would start tussling again. He walked past without looking sideways and went upstairs to sleep.

When he woke the next morning and opened his eyes, dawn was just beginning to break. Qin Luming sat up, ran a hand through his hair, got out of bed, and walked to the window. The curtains opened automatically. The row of bamboo planted in the indoor courtyard when he had moved in had now grown lush and dense, proudly and straightly stretching its emerald leaves up to the window.

Qin Luming opened the window, plucked a bamboo leaf, and held it to his lips. Blowing the tune of "What a bright and sunny day, beautiful scenery everywhere," he went to brush his teeth.

As usual, he turned on the television in the mirror and watched the news feeds matching the keywords he had set. There was no news related to Ma Shilong, nor were there any unusual incidents that might have been caused by Zhou Nan.

What a pity that the crossover character discovered this time had been an overwhelmingly powerful figure like an imperial empress. If it had been the protagonist of one of those rebirth novels instead... the kind where the protagonist was merely reborn and used knowledge of the future to develop himself, gain wealth, power, status, and beautiful women as wish-fulfillment... then if such a protagonist came to reality, Qin Luming could communicate with him. After all, aside from memories from their rebirth, characters like that usually had no other superpowers. They were not very dangerous and had the ordinary-person qualities suitable for communication.

"According to NCN, a Zinc Factory in our city was recently discovered to have been stolen by criminals. This was an abandoned Zinc Factory well known to local residents. Due to industrial restructuring, environmental pollution, worker placement, and other issues, it had repeatedly ceased operations and resumed production from the 1980s onward, before finally going bankrupt in the mid-to-late 1990s. It has now been completely abandoned. However, no one expected the criminals to be so utterly deranged that they would transport away every building material and scrap metal item... According to reliable information, these criminals belong to the same criminal organization as the group that stole a concrete road and sold it for money last month..."

Qin Luming knew about that Zinc Factory. Long, long ago, it had been one of the city's leading industrial enterprises. Its grounds were enormous. What kind of criminal organization could steal an entire Zinc Factory?

Something was off. Qin Luming decided that after class today, he would go take a look around the Zinc Factory.

Qin Luming went downstairs and pushed open the door to Zuozuo and Caicai's room. The two little girls were hugging each other as they slept soundly, not yet awake.

Although they could argue for half the day over the tiniest matter and start fighting at the slightest disagreement, they shared an innate intimacy and incomparable understanding. Whenever they did things together, their coordination practically reached the level of telepathy... Just think of using both hands separately to control a mouse and keyboard while operating a game character.

The white duvet cover was decorated only with simple pink stripes. The two little girls slept so quietly that it seemed they had not moved at all since falling asleep. Their foreheads rested together, their breaths intertwined, and their moist lips were both pursed. From time to time, their lips parted as they muttered soundlessly, as though they were still arguing with each other even in their dreams.

Their eyelashes trembled faintly. They were beautiful like exquisite dolls displayed in a shop window. As Qin Luming moved around the bedroom, the curtains opened, and pale morning light fell upon their rosy cheeks, coating them with a soft, clean glow.

Qin Luming took out a pen and wrote down the things the two little girls needed to handle today on a memo pad.

First, they needed to buy groceries. Pork prices had soared recently. Aside from Zuozuo, no one in the household had any particular fondness for pork. He hoped she would buy less of it and not come home with half a pig just because the supermarket was selling one. Half a lamb was fine, though, as long as it was fresh.

At the same time, he needed to warn Caicai that buying ready-prepared jackfruit flesh was enough. It was fine if she liked hugging an entire jackfruit and slowly peeling out the flesh herself, but she must not have the supermarket deliver more than a dozen cracked-open durians again. No matter where they were placed in the house, their rotten sulfurous stench was unbearable. Caicai had done that before.

The water cabinet in the upstairs study needed replenishing, mainly with sparkling water. Qin Luming was not picky about drinking only one kind of water. Water from different sources varied in taste and composition, and switching things up now and then was healthier and more balanced. What he needed to remind them was not to buy all sorts of bizarre peach-flavored, cherry-flavored, cucumber-flavored, perilla-flavored, or even chili-flavored sodas and stuff them into the water cabinet in his study... Orange juice, however, would be nice.

After writing the memo, Qin Luming looked at his neat and calm handwriting with great satisfaction. With handwriting practice, if one was not pursuing the highest realm, the key was persistence. There was no need to work intensely for a few days and then slack off; writing a little every day was enough.

Qin Luming took a photo of the memo and sent it to the two little girls' phones, then crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it into the wastebasket... They might not notice something written on paper, but they would not miss a message sent to their phones... Wasn't most everyone like that?

Qin Luming went to the kitchen and pan-fried a steak. He had it with sweet wine mixed with egg and a plate of jackfruit flesh for breakfast, then left home after finishing. As for the kitchen... naturally, whoever woke up late would clean it.