Chapter Thirty-Four: Disabling the Tipping Feature and Borrowing Money

Zhang Yun saw the author’s reply in the message bar and was so excited he nearly jumped up. He picked up his phone and replied, “Thank you for your hard work! As much as I'd love to read more, you should remember to rest, too!”

“Alright, thanks for your concern!” Jiang Yun replied, then turned on his computer and wrote thirty thousand more words, releasing the new chapters.

“@Am I an Idiot?, the new chapters are up.”

Zhang Yun practically leapt for joy—he hadn’t expected the author to keep his promise. At first, he’d thought the author was just brushing him off.

But how could anyone write so fast? Thirty thousand words in forty minutes.

Zhang Yun began reading. The new chapters happened to pick up with Xiao Yan leaving Yunlan Mountain, only to return again.

The suspense was ingenious, leaving readers hanging. What would happen when the protagonist returned to Yunlan Sect?

Zhang Yun racked his brains, trying to imagine how the plot would unfold.

“Damn! I might as well not have read the new chapters—I’ll never sleep now!” He hadn’t slept for a whole day and night, but after reading the update, he was instantly rejuvenated and truly couldn’t sleep.

Clenching his teeth, Zhang Yun took out another ten thousand yuan from his savings as a reward.

“Dear author, could you post five more chapters? Just five! It’s not enough—I need more!”

Jiang Yun was about to go to bed when he saw the message, and his expression darkened. He made a decision.

Jiang Yun replied, “Please tip rationally!”

Then he grabbed his phone and called Zhang Yi.

“Hello? Sanyu, what’s going on so late?”

Jiang Yun explained his decision.

“What? You want to disable the tipping feature?” Zhang Yi nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Yes,” Jiang Yun answered calmly.

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Zhang Yi said.

“Go ask the editor-in-chief and the manager.”

“But why?”

“Because the money people are tipping comes from their own savings. I don’t feel comfortable taking it,” Jiang Yun said, expressing his unease.

Zhang Yi was speechless—this guy was truly headstrong. Just because he felt uneasy, he wanted to disable tipping? “Sanyu, it’s really late! How about tomorrow? I’ll talk to the editor-in-chief and the chairman then.”

“The sooner, the better.”

After hanging up, Jiang Yun wrote another ten chapters—thirty thousand words—and posted them, as a way of making amends to “Am I an Idiot?”, otherwise he would have felt guilty.

Glancing at the time, it was already eleven at night. Jiang Yun called Li Lulu.

“Hello, boss! You finally called me! I was starting to think you’d forgotten all about me!” Li Lulu sounded thrilled.

Jiang Yun asked about her situation, but Li Lulu’s responses were hesitant and distracted.

“Lulu, is something wrong?”

Li Lulu stammered, “Boss, um… could I borrow some money from you, again?”

“How much?” Jiang Yun asked offhandedly.

“Two hundred thousand.”

“Two hundred thousand?” Jiang Yun frowned. “What happened? Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing!”

“What’s really going on?” Jiang Yun’s tone turned cold.

Startled, Li Lulu almost dropped her phone. She really had no face left to ask Jiang Yun for more money. After much hesitation, she mustered her courage and said, “My brother needs a down payment for a house.”

“Heh.”

Jiang Yun let out a laugh of exasperation. “Tell him, no! He’ll have to figure it out himself.”

With that, Jiang Yun hung up.

The busy signal droned in Li Lulu’s ear, leaving her heart in turmoil—she’d surely disappointed Jiang Yun. She regretted ever bringing it up.

Li Lulu returned to the hospital room.

“Lulu, what did your boss say?” asked her mother, Xu Yue.

Xu Yue was nearly fifty, with a perm and a taste for fine clothes.

“Oh, Mom, how could you? I already borrowed five hundred thousand, and you want more?”

“What do you mean borrowed?” Xu Yue objected. “He said it was your salary—just paid in advance!”

“Five hundred thousand! Have you ever seen anyone get a five hundred thousand advance? Who does that? That’s enough to cover me until I’m your age!”

“Nonsense! Doesn’t he pay you twenty thousand a month? In five years, you’ll have earned it all back!”

“Unbelievable! Am I not supposed to eat or drink? This is absurd!” With that, Li Lulu stormed out.

She ran to the fire escape and wept. What would her boss think of her now? She should never have mentioned borrowing money.

Looking out at the neon lights, Li Lulu made up her mind.

She took out her phone and booked a train ticket to the Magic City.

She needed to explain everything to her boss in person.

The phone rang just as Jiang Yun was about to sleep.

“So many things today,” he muttered, answering the call.

“Hello?”

“Sanyu, I told the editor-in-chief and general manager about your decision right away. They don’t agree,” said Zhang Yi.

“Tell them that if they refuse, I’ll stop serializing. I’ll go post on another site.”

“But—but—”

“But what?”

“But you signed a contract!” Zhang Yi protested.

“Then I’ll just finish the book outright.”

“Wait, Sanyu! Don’t do that. I’ll talk to them again. But your reasoning is a bit flimsy, isn’t it?” Zhang Yi was anxious; his own results were at stake.

“I’m disabling tipping to prevent people from following the crowd and tipping beyond their means. Not just for this book, but for all my future works.”

Jiang Yun hung up.

His decision triggered an emergency meeting among the upper management at Vertical & Horizontal Fiction.

“That’s the situation. What does everyone think?” The editor-in-chief looked at the computer screen.

The screen was divided into small boxes, each containing a person—supervisors of all levels. The matter hadn’t yet alarmed the chairman.

“My opinion is, for the long term, we should grant the request,” said a female supervisor.

“And the rest of you?”

The others nodded in agreement. They weren’t fools—no one would trade a watermelon for a sesame seed.

But a few others, rather foolishly, objected.

A vote was taken; those in favor outnumbered those against.

In the end, the editor-in-chief approved Jiang Yun’s request.

The next morning, Jiang Yun finished updating the day's chapters early.

His readers caught up with the latest developments.

“Huh? Why can’t I tip anymore?”

“Me neither!”

People flooded the comment section, asking what had happened.

“I can’t tip—what’s going on?”

“Author, please come explain!”

Seeing the messages, Jiang Yun posted an announcement and pinned it, explaining what had happened.

The website also put up a banner.

Only then did everyone understand the truth.

“There aren’t many people like this left!”

“Support, support, all the way for the author!”

Jiang Yun gained another group of fans—and they were all die-hard supporters.