10 Trending: [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] (2)

Li Zhongbai was a student from the History Department of Peking University. He liked to visit the Tianya Forum when he was bored or free. Especially the 'Original Stories' section, it was a place he frequented, he loved finding new content to read especially when there were no updates from his other novels and today he saw a new novel in the section after he entered.

Li Zhongbai looked over at the strange author tag - Bright Moon and it drove him to open the post. The most conspicuous thing for him wasn't the headline: [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] but the red subtitle: "History should be fun to read".

"Hmmm let me check this out, Imperial Sword Emperor still hasn't been updated anyway!" Li Zhongbai thought as he scrolled down the page. As he began to read, he was drawn in and soon his gaze couldn't be separated from the screen. He had never read such a captivating novel.

"Is Bright Moon just one of the veterans but with a new name?" Li Zhongbai thought secretly, but as he ruled out all the suspects in his heart, he found that none of them would do such a thing. If that group of old guys could write such a beautiful history novel, they would have contacted the publishing house to discuss the matter, not post it online.

"Among all the professors only Professor Kong Qingdong has such a talent, but Professor Kong is studying martial arts, I haven't heard of him studying the Ming Dynasty!"

He glanced at the comments below to see if he could find a trace of information from the interactions between the author and the other readers.

"Author, please update! I'm dying from anxiousness!"

"Great start so far! I've never read such a history novel!"

"This is such a great story!"

...

The praise and reminders were almost all the same, and the popularity of [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] could be seen.

There were also a few posts below that specifically discussed and analyzed the historical events mentioned in [Stories About The Ming Dynasty]. Some agreed with the views in the book, while others disagree. They all gave a lot of examples to refute each other. Many examples were from the book. It seemed that the book had unconsciously affected people's impressions of Ming history.

Li Zhongbai happened to spot a post titled: [Zhu Yuanzhang - A Cruel Emperor], which cited many examples of how cruel Zhu Yuanzhang was, and how bad the impact of what he did, had on later generations.

The original poster used Zhu Yuanzhang's purge of Hu Weiyong and many of the heroes who helped him establish the Ming Dynasty as an example to completely deny his contributions to history. Li Zhongbai, who favored Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, couldn't help but argue with him. The debate lasted for several hours.

While posting and replying, Li Zhongbai said in his heart: "Damn, I've been drawn in as well!"

The author - Bright Moon seemed to have disappeared after posting the initial six chapters though. Most of the follow up threads and posts were just people requesting for updates.

But many smart people were able to see that the author had probably dipped off to sleep himself, so they didn't wait up any longer; while others still fascinated and irritable, stayed up in hope and discussed the plot with others on the forum.

The spark for [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] had quietly been struck.

.....

Early the next morning, Jiang Cheng got up, landed on the Tianya forum, and browsed through his post. He was stunned. In less than ten hours, there were already thousands of messages!

The moderators had even created a new post specifically to use as a table of contents and update board for [Stories About The Ming Dynasty], no one was allowed to post on it and it was pinned to the top. The number of hits on that alone had broken 19,000 almost reaching 20,000!

This was all in one night! In 2001 of all things as well, less than 3% of China currently had internet access, and the amount of people who surfed the Internet for novels was even far worse than that.

In a couple of years, Murong Xuecun would post his serialized online novel [Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu] on Tianya and it would gain more than 200,000 hits in a day, creating history in online literature. But now in less than ten hours, the total number of clicks on [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] had already broken 50,000!

Jiang Cheng was in a great mood and knowing that he had to capitalize on this momentum, he posted a couple more chapters, easing the readers thirst temporarily.

After roughly reviewing the replies below, Jiang Cheng found that most were debating the historical events mentioned in the book, and many of the novel ideas even benefited him.

Jiang Cheng was pleased to see such a situation, it indicated that his book was really liked and well received.

Satisfied enough to go offline, Jiang Cheng began writing his daily quota, after all [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] had more than 1.5 million words! After seeing everyone enjoying the book the more motivated he became!

In this way, Jiang Cheng steadily updated the book with 5-6 chapters (10,000 words) every day, all the while slowly completing the book at a rate of about 50,000 words per day.

As the plot of the book slowly expanded, the book was also slowly spreading on the Internet, it was no longer limited to the Tianya Forum, people had begun to repost it everywhere. Many had developed a stable habit of going online to read the daily updates as soon as they got home.

Gradually, the book spread.

Many parents suddenly found their kids asking about the Ming Dynasty and as they tried mumbling their way through an answer they hit a brick wall as their kids called them out.

...

"Dammit I thought you didn't like history before huh!"

"Look at the E you got in your end of year report card!"

"Why are you suddenly asking about the Ming Dynasty!

...

After investigating, they found out that their children were all reading a book called [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] on the Internet, which is what sparked their interest in history. So out of curiosity, parents also began to read the book one after another and soon they also fell in love with the book, even worse than their children!

Yan Yufei was one of them.

As a middle-aged man, he didn't expect that he would become so obsessed with a history book and it even reached the point of sleeplessness! As soon as he came home from work every day, he would turn on his computer and wait for the day's update. He even registered a Tianya account with the username [Great General Yufei] just so he could join the forums and join the disputes discussing the plot and historical events!

He swore that when the book was officially published, he would buy a set for collection, preferably a signed edition.

As for whether the book would be published, he never doubted it.

Such a good book if it wasn't published, those publishers must be blind!

It was a pity that they still didn't know who the author - Bright Moon was. His identity was something everyone was eager to uncover.

But Bright Moon remained elusive and mysterious. Every day, he would upload about 10,000 words worth of chapters then immediately head offline. People sent him multiple messages and tagged him in posts, but he never replied. No one knew anything about him, his age or whether he was a man or a woman.

The only thing they knew about him/her was that he was from Shanghai based on his account info. However, Shanghai was so large that finding someone was like finding a needle in a haystack, an absolute headache for publishers.

Li Zhongbai was also suffering a headache recently. After starting [Stories About The Ming Dynasty], he became a fan of Bright Moon. He persevered every day to send messages to his idol, but unfortunately he never received a response. But he didn't take it to heart too much. He realized that Bright Moon was probably drowned under messages plus he still had to write and update every day. How could he have the energy to deal with everyone?

But he still insisted on sending a greeting post every day, believing that he would eventually get a response.

He set up a '[SATM] Book Association' with his classmates and everyone gathered together to discuss the Ming Dynasty and [Stories About The Ming Dynasty].

Li Zhongbai also wrote an essay on a section of Ming history that he was interested in and gave it to his mentor. Unexpectedly, this attracted the mentor's attention and he even called him in and praised him, giving him extra credits for the essay!

Hearing that he got the inspiration from an online book and listening to him talk about [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] the mentor also became fascinated!

But the issue was that the mentor didn't have a computer at home so he haunted Li Zhongbai every day, asking him for updates. Li Zhongbai was miserable.

You have a salary for a reason, it's not like you don't have money, can't you just buy a computer and read it yourself? Besides, it's not as if there's no computers in school!

Fortunately, this mentor was an old man, and his reputation was good, otherwise there might have been rumors floating around!

The worst part was that the mentor also knew his family! So he couldn't even purposely ignore him.

Li Zhongbai prayed that [Stories About The Ming Dynasty] would be published soon, so he could shed this leach as soon as possible!

However, his wish would soon be realized, as Jiang Cheng's parents returned from Hainan.