Chapter 101: Creating a Website

After Zhuang Buzhou left, the atmosphere in the room became much more relaxed. Laughter and casual chatter filled the air. Most of those present were authors from the Swordwashing Alliance, and the conversation gradually turned to Swordwashing itself.

Da Song Fengyun peeked out the door and, seeing that Zhuang Buzhou had not returned, snorted, “That Zhuang Buzhou, he always acts like a seasoned veteran when writing on the site!”

“Yeah, he often bossed us around too. Brother Zhao, you really stood up for us!” said Cat Doesn’t Eat Fish.

“Messing with my boss? That’s just asking for trouble! That Zhuang Buzhou is nothing. The real big shots in the community wouldn’t dare provoke my boss!”

Yu Zhe wasn’t familiar with the feud between Song Tianming and Zhao Zejun, but after hearing about Jiang Xuan’s fierce beating of Erzi that day and having a few drinks, he had loosened his tongue.

Zhao Zejun gave him a kick under the table.

Fortunately, these young authors were used to “Bloody Cloud”—Yu Zhe’s online persona—constantly boasting and exaggerating. They didn’t take it too seriously. Both Bloody Cloud and Zhuang Buzhou shared a penchant for bragging, but unlike Zhuang Buzhou, Bloody Cloud didn’t belittle others to elevate himself, so he wasn’t disliked.

Da Song Fengyun expressed some concern, “We may have vented some anger today, but Zhuang Buzhou has a loyal fanbase and is a veteran writer on Swordwashing. I heard he’s on good terms with several moderators. Do you think he might retaliate against us in the future?”

“Afraid of him? Nonsense!” Yu Zhe slammed the table. “He has readers, but I have even more! If he tries to retaliate, it’ll just be a war of words in the review section. I won’t let him defeat me in a fight of insults!”

Yu Zhe was confident because he was a big name on the site. The combined fanbases of the other authors probably only made up a fraction of his, so none of them dared say such things.

Bloody Cloud and Zhuang Buzhou had engaged in several vicious online battles before, all witnessed firsthand. In a single day, the review section could have dozens or even hundreds of posts attacking each other, with word counts exceeding those of their daily novel chapters. Such scenes were terrifying—if they really went at it, the review section would be flooded with insults every day, leaving no time for writing.

Moreover, Bloody Cloud was the site’s marquee author, so moderators never dared to act against him, but the other writers had much less influence. Even a slight bias from the moderators in resource recommendations could keep them down indefinitely.

“It’s no big deal! We don’t write novels for money anyway; it’s all for fun. If it gets bad, we can just switch to another site,” Linglong muttered.

“I heard there’s a new site popping up in the country called…” Cat Doesn’t Eat Fish began.

“I’ve heard of it too, but its readership can’t compare to Swordwashing at all,” Da Song Fengyun interjected.

Zhao Zejun said casually, “How about this? You all keep writing on Swordwashing for now. I’ll start a new novel website. When it’s ready, if anyone’s interested, you can come write there. How’s that sound?”

“Great! Boss, if you start a site, I’ll be your first supporter!” Yu Zhe responded without hesitation. “You don’t know how many more people are reading online novels now. More than half of my readers aren’t even old Swordwashing fans—they’re newcomers to web fiction. When you first told me that online novels would become a new entertainment trend, I didn’t believe it. But now it looks like there’s real potential. If you build a site, you might even make some money someday.”

Yu Zhe’s large fanbase gave him confidence wherever he went. His near-blind admiration for Zhao Zejun meant he would follow whatever he did closely. Their good personal relationship was also a key factor.

The others, however, were less enthusiastic.

After all, Swordwashing was the largest novel site in the country, boasting hundreds of thousands of readers and growing rapidly. Abandoning the solid foundation they had there to move to a new site felt risky and a bit hard to let go.

Yu Zhe felt a little embarrassed and said angrily, “What are you all afraid of? Writing novels doesn’t earn money anyway. It’s the same wherever you go!”

Zhao Zejun smiled and waved his hand at Yu Zhe. “There’s no rush. Building the site will take time. When it’s ready, we can decide then. Meanwhile, I’ll set up a QQ group for us to purely discuss novel plots.”

“Brother Zhao, I’d be happy to join your website,” Linglong said shyly. “I don’t have many readers on Swordwashing anyway.”

Zhao Zejun laughed heartily. “Since you want to write romance novels, start by drafting an outline. I’ll help you revise it. If it attracts some readers, you can join my site and be one of the two pillars alongside Yu Zhe!”

“That sounds wonderful, thank you, Brother Zhao.” Linglong smiled softly.

As the dinner ended, Zhao Zejun went out to pay the bill. Da Song Fengyun followed him out and pulled him aside.

“Boss Zhao, are you really serious about making a novel site?”

“Yes,” Zhao Zejun nodded. “Why?”

“Heh, I study software engineering. Could you let me handle the website development?” Da Song Fengyun asked hesitantly.

“Oh right, I forgot—you’re a college student. Which school?” Zhao Zejun slapped his forehead.

“Heh, Provincial University of Science and Technology. I’m a sophomore this semester. Yu Zhe said you also got into that school, so you’ll have to look out for us brothers,” Da Song Fengyun said, clearly more mature than the high schoolers, already playing the social game.

Zhao Zejun chuckled. “No, you’re the senior. You’ll have to look after me.”

“It’s all the same. We help each other!” Da Song Fengyun paused, then added, “Boss Zhao, don’t worry. A novel website isn’t technically difficult. I’m studying this field, so I can build it quickly and well. The budget will be minimal too. Projects like this only need a small team of four or five people. I’d even work for free.”

Zhao Zejun didn’t respond directly but asked, “If you don’t want money, what do you want from building this site?”

Da Song Fengyun scratched his head, glanced back at the authors still inside the room, and smiled slyly. “For someone like me, a pure engineering student, the most important thing for future job hunting is project experience. If I can be the team leader and develop a website that actually launches, that will look great on my resume. And if your site grows big, that’d be even better.”

“If the site grows big, why worry about finding a job? I’ll just hire you directly,” Zhao Zejun joked.

“Boss Zhao, you agree then?” Da Song Fengyun asked excitedly.

“You’re a software engineering student at Science and Technology University. Surely you can handle a website,” Zhao Zejun said seriously.

“Yes, absolutely. The tech isn’t hard! Besides, I know several programming experts who are quite famous at our school.”

“That’s perfect. Keep the benefits in the family,” Zhao Zejun laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, after dinner, let’s talk about the website requirements.”