Pretending To Be Affectionate [Transmigration] - Chapter 38

Ling Yu went straight to the Xu family’s old house tonight, as Old Mr. Xu and his entourage had left in the morning.

Only Xu Miao was left in the old house tonight.

The two of them had dinner together.

After dinner, Xu Miao took out her prized Dahongpao tea and brewed a pot.

Ling Yu used her charm to sweetly talk Xu Miao into giving her a box of tea leaves.

Xu Miao was heartbroken and threw a pillow at Ling Yu, urging her to leave: “Why are you still here?”

Ling Yu tucked the tea box into the pocket of her fuzzy house coat, and in a good mood, she replied, “I’m unemployed now. Where else can I go but here?”

Xu Miao scoffed, not buying Ling Yu’s feigned misery.

Xu Miao had heard the news of Ling Yu being dismissed from the law firm this afternoon.

But this was a good thing. With less than ten days left, it was time for Ling Yu to leave Yuncheng anyway.

Xu Miao glanced at her sideways.

“Didn’t you say you had a date tonight? Did I remember wrong?”

“Not necessarily,” a hint of melancholy flashed in Ling Yu’s eyes. She lifted her eyelids, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the distance: “It depends on the other person’s intentions.”

Xu Miao looked up at the clock, then suspiciously eyed Ling Yu, who was wearing a fuzzy pajama set.

She didn’t look like she was going out; she looked more like she was ready for bed.

“Then what are you waiting for? Look at the time. Just do it tomorrow…” Xu Miao paused, as if she suddenly thought of something, and probed: “Yuyu, who are you meeting tonight? A man or a woman?”

Seeing the gossip in Xu Miao’s eyes, Ling Yu lied without batting an eye: “A man.”

Xu Miao immediately breathed a sigh of relief when she heard it was a man.

Ling Yu had a hidden illness. Normally, when a man got close to her, she could throw up anywhere, anytime. None of the men who got close to her ended up well.

Thinking that her date was a man.

Xu Miao relaxed. She went to the kitchen, took two cartons of yogurt from the double-door refrigerator, and tossed one to Ling Yu.

She casually instructed, “Then tell me when you leave.”

Ling Yu held the yogurt carton in her mouth and let out a lazy yawn. She mumbled an “mm.”

She had made a bold claim during the day, but whether Gu Qing would actually come home was hard to say.

It was snowing lightly outside, and the weather was freezing.

The Xu family’s old house was only five hundred meters away from Gu Qing’s villa. Gu Qing’s villa complex was located at the very end, and if she drove home, she would definitely pass the road outside the Xu family’s old house.

Ling Yu sat in the living room and listened for a while. There wasn’t even a car in sight outside.

She narrowed her eyes and checked the time. The clock showed exactly 10:30 p.m.

Ling Yu felt that the time was right. She thought to herself, It’s time for me to use the sympathy ploy.

She slowly took out her phone and sent Gu Qing a picture of the outside of her villa.

This was a photo Ling Yu had taken three hours earlier.

As expected, Gu Qing didn’t reply. Ling Yu didn’t take it to heart.

She planned to wait until midnight. If Gu Qing was truly heartless and didn’t come home, she would try again tomorrow.

Honestly, Ling Yu’s mood was quite complicated.

On one hand, she was desperate to survive. On the other hand, thinking about the extent of Gu Qing’s disgust for her, her deliberate plan tonight to scheme her way into bed with the other person felt a little despicable.

Ling Yu was undergoing a moral crisis.

Her phone suddenly vibrated.

Lawyer Gu, a professional: [Are you threatening me?]

What could she possibly threaten her with?

Ling Yu was amused. She sent Gu Qing an emoji of a small figure shivering in the snow.

The melancholy she had managed to cultivate was thus abruptly interrupted.

Gu Qing didn’t reply for a long time. Ling Yu decided to go upstairs to get her laptop. She planned to organize her drafts and wait until midnight.

Since she came to Yuncheng, she had been incredibly busy. Ling Yu’s serialized novel, Treasure Appraisal, had been put on hold for two months.

Most of her drafts were saved in the website’s backend. Ling Yu thought for a while to remember the password and logged into her author account.

She hadn’t logged in for three months. As soon as she logged in, a private message flashed in the upper right corner.

[Hello, may I ask if you are the author “Finding a Fish in the Ocean?”]

Ling Yu’s gaze lingered on the word “author” for a few seconds. She smiled and typed: [Mm.]

[Hello, author. I’m Mo Yang, a publishing editor from CB Chinese Network. I would like to ask if your long-form novel, Treasure Appraisal, published on the website half a year ago, has any intention of signing a publishing contract.]

Ling Yu replied without thinking: [No.]

[Why?]

Mo Yang was a bit surprised and sent a long string of question marks.

She wasn’t offering a regular contract, but a publishing contract.

For an online author, the highest value of a book was in its publication and the sale of its film and television rights.

Mo Yang had expected to be rejected, but not so bluntly.

“Finding a Fish in the Ocean” had burst onto the website six months ago like a rising star. She became famous on the website with her long-form level-up novel, Treasure Appraisal.

As an unsigned author, she quickly climbed the channel’s newcomer chart, and a month later.

Her data soared, rapidly climbing the channel’s monthly chart and crushing a host of veteran authors.

Mo Yang was a copyright editor at CB Chinese Network and usually didn’t get involved in the signing process with acquisition editors.

But she had heard about the internal battle for authors at CB Chinese Network six months ago.

When a literary talent like “Finding a Fish in the Ocean” appeared, the acquisition editors at the website fought tooth and nail, vying to sign the rising star.

Unfortunately, “Finding a Fish in the Ocean” had other aspirations.

To all the olive branches thrown by the various editors, the reply was uniformly: [Just for fun. Do not disturb.]

And the reality was just as she said.

Even though the data for Treasure Appraisal was good enough to explode the online literature market that year, “Finding a Fish in the Ocean” wanted neither money nor fame. Her updates were extremely slow. Even though she had over a hundred chapters saved in the backend.

Six months later, the total word count she had posted was only a hundred thousand words.

She truly treated it as a hobby, often updating weekly or every other day.

The comment section was full of people criticizing her and giving low ratings, but the author wouldn’t check the backend even once a month.

Many people online were cursing the author to fail.

However, as the plot of Treasure Appraisal unfolded, with eccentric plot twists piling up one after another, the worldview gradually expanded. Especially recently, a novel appraisal method appeared in the “Treasure Appraisal” segments.

Many people began to focus on the appraisal methods mentioned.

There was constant debate online, with endless arguments about the appraisal method “Finding a Fish in the Ocean” created.

As the popularity grew, experts from major jewelry and antique industries began to focus on the appraisal method mentioned in the novel.

Many major professors initially approached it with the intention of finding flaws, trying to find academic errors in the logic chain of the novel, Treasure Appraisal.

However, to everyone’s surprise, the appraisal method mentioned in the text was proven to be practical by a professor in Northern City.

This discovery shook the industry.

Of course, this wasn’t the most shocking thing. Just as everyone in the industry was stunned that the appraisal method offered in Treasure Appraisal had opened a new chapter in the thinking of appraisal methods.

The author, “Finding a Fish in the Ocean,” left a note to her readers when she stopped updating two months ago, saying that the current appraisal method was merely a stepping stone for the protagonist to reach the peak of her life.

This amateur approach would be completely revised in the future.

The arrogant author’s note became a trending topic on social media a few days ago.

The phones of all the leaders in the CB Chinese Network editorial department were inundated with calls from various jewelry appraisal experts.

That was why Mo Yang personally reached out, holding onto a final thread of hope.

She calculated in her mind that even if the author didn’t want to sign with the website, as long as she signed the publishing contract, they could get the author’s contact information and act as an intermediary for the various jewelry appraisal professors in the industry.

Ling Yu had been so busy lately that she had no idea she had suddenly become famous.

Treasure Appraisal was a long-form level-up novel that she hadn’t finished writing in her previous life and had saved in her drafts.

The concept was novel, and the worldview was vast.

She had spent three full years organizing all the knowledge and context of the appraisal industry before transmigrating.

She had initially thought she could finish the novel smoothly, but around the hundred-thousand-word mark, Ling Yu realized that the appraisal methods in her text didn’t exist in this world.

All of her previous appraisal knowledge came from her previous world.

She didn’t know much about the jewelry and antique industry in this world. Now that the first stage of the protagonist’s journey had been revealed, more problems were exposed in Ling Yu’s writing.

After realizing the problem, Ling Yu stopped updating in time.

What she lacked now was knowledge about the appraisal industry in this world. She wasn’t in a hurry to update.

That was why she wouldn’t sign a contract and said she was just “playing around.”

Mo Yang was still sending continuous pings in the chat window, trying to persuade her earnestly.

Ling Yu was unmoved.

The other party kept calling her “author” and became more persistent: [Please, reconsider. If you sign with CB Corporation, you won’t have to worry about the future film adaptation and publication of Treasure Appraisal.]

Mo Yang boasted about the company’s background, hoping to lure her in: [You might not know this, but although CB Corporation only deals with publishing contracts and entertainment, the company’s policies for its authors are usually very relaxed. Furthermore, the company has strong assets and is a subsidiary of the Gu Corporation in Hong Kong City. You must have heard of the Gu—the one that belongs to the richest man in Asia.]

Mo Yang’s lips curved into a smile. Every time he boasted to others that he was an employee of a subsidiary of the Gu Corporation, his tone was particularly confident.

After all, it was the Gu family. Even a subsidiary was part of the global top 100 Gu Corporation.

Ling Yu, who had been about to block the person, paused. She looked at the “Gu” in the chat box twice.

[Is this the Gu from Gu Qing?]

008 quickly responded with a laugh: [Of course. The female lead is the destined daughter of this world… her background wouldn’t be weak.]

Ling Yu continued the conversation casually: [But she’s miserable.]

008: [Beautiful, strong, and tragic. If she weren’t miserable, how could the satisfaction of her revenge be fully shown? This isn’t even that miserable. The female lead’s stage isn’t Yuncheng; it’s the Gu family…]

008 suddenly stopped talking, realizing it had revealed too much, and decided to shut up.

Ling Yu raised her eyebrows: [Even if she’s recognized, she won’t necessarily have a smooth journey, right?]

008 played dead.

Ling Yu gave a lazy “oh”: [I knew it then.]

[No wonder the readers are so resentful. The female lead of this world isn’t following the “level-up” script for a heroine with no male romantic partner. It’s more like a concentration camp for perverts, where all the bad guys are working together to push Gu Qing toward utter madness.]

008 was speechless. It thought to itself, If she weren’t so miserable, and the readers weren’t so resentful, why would we need you?

Although she thought this, 008 didn’t dare to say it out loud. It gave a muffled response: “Right. I wonder which idiot wrote this kind of utterly miserable novel with no male romantic partner.”

Even though the ending was good, still…

It wasn’t satisfying; it was just frustrating.

Ling Yu didn’t say anything.

In the chat box, the editor named Mo Yang continued his persuasion.

Normally, Ling Yu would have blocked such a long-winded person a long time ago.

But she thought about the messy lawsuit Gu Qing would face when she returned to the Gu family.

She didn’t move, as if by some strange impulse. She thought for a second.

She typed a line into the chat box: [Treasure Appraisal covers some professional fields of knowledge. I can’t manage it with my current writing skills, so I stopped updating.]

Mo Yang would not be deterred by “Finding a Fish in the Ocean’s” false modesty.

The depth of Treasure Appraisal was no longer just a simple literary novel. It involved the pioneering of appraisal methods.

Although the story had only covered less than a tenth of the plot, the jewelry appraisal method that appeared in the recent chapters had caused a huge sensation in the industry.

Its value was no longer just a literary value. Even if it ended poorly, its value would still be immeasurable.

Mo Yang carefully chose his words: [With the writing skills you’ve shown so far, we completely trust that you can perfectly present the story of Treasure Appraisal…]

Ling Yu raised her eyebrows: [Alright then. I plan to go abroad for further study for a period of time. If your company can wait, it won’t be too late to sign a contract in two years.]

[Ah, this…] Mo Yang looked troubled. No one could predict what would happen in two years. What if “Finding a Fish in the Ocean” was poached by another company?

He quickly typed “one moment.”

He quickly called the company’s CEO. One minute later, the CEO only gave a six-word instruction.

[Sign a temporary agreement.]

Ling Yu received the electronic contract from Mo Yang ten minutes later.

It didn’t involve the work itself, only two lines of text.

Party A (the company) would wait two years for Party B to sign a contract. The company would promote Treasure Appraisal through various channels free of charge. During this period, all revenue earned by Party B would belong entirely to her.

And Party B, “Finding a Fish in the Ocean,” would be required to return from her studies in two years and prioritize signing the copyright of Treasure Appraisal with CB Entertainment.

Ling Yu quickly scanned the content. Perhaps because she had refused many times before, the agreement the other party offered was extremely sincere.

So, she decisively signed the contract using Xu Miao’s cousin’s ID.

As for why she signed this contract, it was probably because, in two years, if she ever met Gu Qing again.

If the other party was going crazy again, she wouldn’t mind helping her out.

Ling Yu was very self-aware of her own limitations. She might not be able to help Gu Qing in the business world.

However, Gu Qing was a lunatic. If the other party ever needed help in her madness, she would be willing to lend a hand.

After all, the “prostitution fee” was a two-way street.

To survive tonight, she had to endure Gu Qing’s demands…

But she could pay the fee herself…