Throughout the morning, while Lin Ji was writing the script, the vibration of his phone never ceased. His train of thought was somewhat scattered; when he looked back at the scene he had just finished, he wasn’t quite satisfied.

He concentrated for a moment, but the phone kept vibrating, all messages from Rice Grains Video.

Lin Ji simply turned off his phone and dedicated himself more fully to conceiving his script.

A Hollywood screenwriter once said that all writers hate writing.

Lin Ji belonged to the category of screenwriters who drew motivation from creation, but objectively speaking, a lack of inspiration could indeed cause a breakdown. Therefore, during the writing process, Lin Ji tried to stay as far away as possible from elements that disturbed him.

At this moment, the source of disturbance was Rice Grains Video.

Lin Ji had already watched the first episode of God of War Returns Home. The “cool points” were clear and distinct. Moreover, it utilized short drama elements that this world had never seen before. He never believed there was any possibility of this short drama flopping.

Even if the view count wasn’t as high as expected, it shouldn’t be making Rice Grains Video this anxious.

…

To some extent, Lin Ji didn’t have a clear enough understanding of the TV drama ecology of this world, or more swiftly, he didn’t have a clear perception of Rice Grains Video’s predicament.

Rice Grains Video was squeezed between the attacks of Chaoxing TV and Qike Video while suffering the disdain of TV stations. They were truly at the bottom of the television industry food chain.

Rice Grains Video desperately needed a work to prove itself, a work that could turn its fortunes around.

And God of War Returns Home was the best script Rice Grains Video had come into contact with in recent years. Perhaps because they were used to being “PUA’d” by competitors and audiences, Rice Grains Video had become accustomed to its bottom-tier position. Even though the screenwriter Lin Ji gave it a good review, and the platform internally affirmed the project, the creators still felt God of War Returns Home wouldn’t achieve great results.

After all… the platform had many projects that were highly anticipated before, only to end in dismal failure.

At their worst, Rice Grains Video had even created the miracle of eight consecutive flops.

The creators were full of hope for the short drama God of War Returns Home, expecting it to create a miracle. However, when the first episode of God of War Returns Home first went online, its view count was no different from any other drama released by Rice Grains Video.

Generally speaking, a single episode of a drama released on Rice Grains Video would get a little over 100,000 views. As more episodes accumulated, the earlier episodes would usually reach around 200,000 views.

Such data might not seem low, but generally speaking, the view count for a single episode on Chaoxing TV and Qike Video was over 1 million. Rice Grains Video only existed to be crushed.

When Guo Rui entered the office, he heard his colleagues sighing and groaning.

“We put it on the homepage banner, and we did the platform promotion too. Why is nobody watching?”

“By the way, could it be because we launched it too hastily?”

“Actually, it was expected. Sigh… after this show finishes filming, should we go look for new jobs?”

The atmosphere at Rice Grains Video was nice, the boss had money, and the treatment of employees wasn’t bad. However, the boss’s money didn’t blow in from the wind. The situation where Rice Grains Video relied on the boss’s own pocket for blood transfusions couldn’t change. There would come a day when the company would collapse.

“We ran into Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace. There’s nothing we could do. Who could have predicted that?”

God of War Returns Home had clearly calculated the auspicious dates for launch. Before the launch, the platform had also paid attention to the movements of Chaoxing TV and Qike Video, confirming that the other parties had no new dramas launching temporarily.

As a result, the moment God of War Returns Home was officially announced, Chaoxing TV released three episodes of Silken Tresses back-to-back. With Chaoxing TV exerting force, Qike Video naturally refused to fall behind and launched A Lifetime of Peace with the momentum.

Guo Rui didn’t think these two companies did it on purpose; it was probably just bad timing for Rice Grains Video.

As the promoter, he felt a bit depressed. He was just about to chat with Lin Ji, but the other party sent him a message in advance: “Steady.”

“God of War Returns Home is better looking.”

Seeing his message, Guo Rui’s tightly furrowed brows relaxed a little. Lin Ji was so certain, yet Guo Rui still felt unsettled.

After all, Lin Ji hadn’t experienced the pain of Rice Grains Video filming flop after flop, being hung on the headlines by the media and mocked.

“Wait a little longer. Don’t rush.”

Lin Ji wasn’t comforting Guo Rui without reason.

He was also in the main creator group chat for God of War Returns Home. After finishing his work on Secretly in Love with You last night, he scrolled through the group chat messages and realized that Chaoxing TV and Qike Video had also launched new series.

As the screenwriter of God of War Returns Home, he naturally had to pay attention to the movements of his competitors, so he caught up on both Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace.

Lin Ji’s summary of these two dramas was just one word: Flat.

Although supported by large platforms and starring highly popular young actors, in Lin Ji’s view, these two dramas were too flat. You couldn’t find major flaws, but there were no shining virtues that caught the eye either.

When he watched the third episode of Silken Tresses, he already felt a trace of impatience.

Perhaps his eyes as a screenwriter were pickier than ordinary people, but Lin Ji was certain that a drama with insufficient advantages in his eyes would appear the same in the eyes of the audience.

…

“Lin Ji’s new show is on Rice Grains Video? For real?”

The moment he heard this news, Xiao Cheng didn’t quite believe it. He questioned his agent several times, and only when the other party sent over a screenshot of the opening titles of God of War Returns Home did Xiao Cheng confirm it.

He was the person in this world who least wanted Lin Ji to make a comeback. Based on his understanding of Lin Ji’s screenwriting level, it was difficult for Lin Ji to establish a foothold in the TV drama circle. But he hadn’t expected Lin Ji to find two jobs in such a short time. Secretly in Love with You had already made him vigilant; adding God of War Returns Home, for a young screenwriter, this was already quite an impressive achievement.

“Short drama??” A faint, mocking smile appeared on Xiao Cheng’s face. “A short drama on Rice Grains Video?”

In Xiao Cheng’s career plan, short dramas had never occupied a seat.

Not just him, among the graduates of the National Film Academy, few took the path of short dramas. It was one thing for Lin Ji to write a small sweet drama like Secretly in Love with You, but to be so desperate as to squeeze into the short drama industry…

“What kind of trash title is this?”

Xiao Cheng put on a look of regret for Lin Ji’s choice, but the corners of his mouth couldn’t stop rising.

Because Lin Ji had been chasing him relentlessly before, the reputation he had painstakingly built had suffered quite a bit. Xiao Cheng had tried every method of PR and asked several big shots in the circle for help before barely stopping the downward trend of his career.

Xiao Cheng was just thinking about how to deal with Lin Ji, but he didn’t expect the other party to seek his own death first, actually diving headfirst into the short drama circle.

There was a chain of discrimination in the TV drama circle. Xiao Cheng’s representative work, Love in Summer Night, was a sweet romance drama; compared to serious dramas, its style was naturally a tier lower. This was why he had put so much effort into getting the head writer credit for Snow in Early May.

Xiao Cheng admitted he wasn’t doing as well as other screenwriters and believed that if he couldn’t successfully transition to slice-of-life dramas or serious dramas, his upward channel would inevitably become narrower.

For someone like him, the channel was merely narrow. But once Lin Ji took the path of short dramas, his upward channel was approximately zero.

Short drama = Trash. This was the consensus in the circle. Moreover, the title God of War Returns Home looked incredibly suspended from reality. Xiao Cheng directly sentenced Lin Ji to death in his heart.

“Are you still going to watch this show?” the agent asked.

Xiao Cheng shook his head. “It only has 130,000 views. What’s there to watch?”

If a script he wrote only had 130,000 views, he wouldn’t have the face to continue mixing in the entertainment industry.

The agent didn’t make another sound.

In reality, not only were the broadcast ratings of Snow in Early May terribly poor, but its view count after moving to web streaming wasn’t great either. The majority of the episodes didn’t exceed 100,000 views.

But Xiao Cheng had long since dumped that pot onto Lin Ji. Outside, he acted as if Snow in Early May had nothing to do with him. The agent naturally wouldn’t touch his bad luck by mentioning this to him.

What Xiao Cheng didn’t know was that 130,000 views was indeed the real-time view count of God of War Returns Home, but one hour ago, this figure was 100,000.

In other words, in just one hour, the real-time views for God of War Returns Home had increased by a full 30,000.

…

Guo Rui was chatting with Lin Ji. Regardless of the view count for God of War Returns Home, Rice Grains Video’s plan was to make 30 episodes, creating a small series. Since short dramas were small in volume, the total duration of 30 episodes was less than 10 episodes of a standard TV drama.

Lin Ji had already completed part of the subsequent scripts. Guo Rui communicated the ideas of several colleagues to Lin Ji; he wanted to add some creative ideas to God of War Returns Home.

In his impression, Lin Ji was rather aloof, the type of screenwriter who didn’t like people interfering with his creativity. But as they chatted, Guo Rui discovered the other party wasn’t hard to get along with. Lin Ji wouldn’t necessarily reply to all messages in time, but as long as it was content he found interesting, he would definitely be interested in chatting about it.

Guo Rui was typing engrossedly when he heard low exclamations coming from the office:

“It went up again, holy sh*t!”

“…It went up by nearly 200,000 in an hour. I thought I was blind! No, I camped it for the last hour, it really went up by 300,000.”

“Just… when did we become luxurious enough to use the word ‘just’ for 300,000?”

“Truly badass!”

The group’s voices weren’t loud at first, but they grew louder as they chatted. Just as Guo Rui was about to speak up to stop them, two colleagues from the front row walked directly to his desk holding their laptops, dragging two chairs along with them.

“Brother Guo, look!!”

Guo Rui knew that was the backend data for God of War Returns Home. Viewers could see the frontend data, but only the platform staff could see the backend data.

Guo Rui was a bit indifferent at first, but when he saw the numbers displayed on the screen clearly, his eyes widened slightly.

The single-day premiere data for God of War Returns Home was 80,000. Guo Rui remembered this very clearly.

Long dramas produced by Rice Grains Video generally exceeded 100,000 views per episode. Influenced by the subject matter and the fixed impression that short dramas equaled trash, the view count for short dramas was usually even lower.

But right now, before his eyes, the view count for the first episode of God of War Returns Home was impressively 500,000+.

What kind of concept was this?

For platforms like Chaoxing TV and Qike Video, a premiere episode breaking 500,000 was considered very poor data. Of the dramas Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace airing this time, neither had a single episode with fewer than 1 million views.

But at Rice Grains Video, there hadn’t been a single episode of any drama exceeding 500,000 views for a whole year.

Moreover, this wasn’t the final data for God of War Returns Home. The real-time view count was still growing continuously.

Guo Rui stood up directly. “What’s the situation?”

The colleague in charge of publicity lifted their head from the screen. “It seems the heat started from the webnovel circle.”

When God of War Returns Home first aired, Rice Grains Video gave it a homepage promotional slot and marketed it on Weibo and several TV drama forums. But the results were just average. The focus of Weibo marketing accounts and TV drama forums was on Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace; no one paid any attention to God of War Returns Home.

Yesterday, there wasn’t a single recommendation for God of War Returns Home on Weibo. By today, refreshing the feed in real-time showed quite a few people recommending the show.

…

While Rice Grains Video was still in shock that “our own show is actually being recommended by ‘Tap Water’,” which was a first since the platform’s founding, C University freshman Liang Jinjin was equally in shock that a random post he made had received a thousand replies.

Not only that, his “water post” (shitpost) had been reposted to TV drama forums, and even Weibo marketing accounts had posted it.

Liang Jinjin was a good-for-nothing freshman whose only hobby was reading novels. In high school, reading novels caused his grades to plummet wildly, leading him to end up in Archaeology at C University.

The life of an archaeology student wasn’t as colorful as the outside world imagined. Once in university, Liang Jinjin started holding novels and reading again.

When he was restricted from reading novels in high school, he felt every genre was good. Now that he was in university and could read freely, he couldn’t find any novels that lit up his eyes.

Bored to the extreme, Liang Jinjin clicked into Rice Grains Video.

The reason he had Rice Grains Video installed on his phone was, he bought a membership for a shopping website, and it came with a free annual pass for Rice Grains Video.

No one around Liang Jinjin watched Rice Grains Video. Usually, when catching up on dramas, they only looked for Chaoxing TV and Qike Video. He mostly watched anime on Rice Grains Video; although Rice Grains couldn’t buy domestic drama rights with money, they had bought several overseas anime rights.

Clicking on God of War Returns Home was an accident. The homepage ad for Rice Grains Video was like sticky candy; he just accidentally touched it and found himself redirected to the interface of God of War Returns Home.

Liang Jinjin was just about to close it when the introduction for God of War Returns Home caught his attention “The God of War returns home, only to find his daughter living in a dog kennel…”

This summary made Liang Jinjin’s finger pause for a second. By the time he reacted, he had watched for a full five minutes.

The plot of God of War Returns Home was neat to the extreme: A young girl locked in a dog kennel, starving every day, beaten and scolded. The mean aunt bullied the little girl as usual. The door was suddenly kicked open, and a figure appeared, it was actually the boyfriend of her sister who had died five years ago.

The aunt insulted the sister’s boyfriend to the extreme, only to be kicked a full ten meters away by him.

Liang Jinjin only felt that in just five short minutes, he seemed to have read through fifty chapters of a webnovel.

Moreover, he had never seen this kind of genre on screen. The kick delivered by the protagonist made him feel cool to the extreme.

“You actually dare to hit me?” The aunt roared and screamed, lunging to hit the sister’s boyfriend.

Just then, the boss of the aunt’s company suddenly appeared. He was the richest man in the city and the pillar of the aunt’s wealthy life.

A mocking smile appeared on the aunt’s face. Just as she was about to throw herself at the boss to complain, she was kicked away by the boss: “You dare to bully even his daughter? Do you know who he is?”

Liang Jinjin was hooked by the plot. Just as he was impatiently waiting for the male lead’s identity to be revealed, the video reached its end. Liang Jinjin thought there would be a next episode, but on the screen, only a line of clear, large characters appeared” God of War Returns Home, see you on Wednesday.”

Liang Jinjin: “?”

He was just watching the climax part; how could it just end like that?

Liang Jinjin took stock of the webnovels he had read. Although there were many “cool texts” (power fantasies), something like God of War Returns Home that condensed dozens of chapters of “cool points” into 10 minutes was truly unheard of.

Current webnovels all followed a restrained mode. Even if there were fights and tearing each other apart, it was done in a refined way, or the protagonist spent forty chapters plotting before finally taking down the opponent.

A “cool drama” like God of War Returns Home that showed no mercy and started tearing immediately was very suitable for a university student like him with an unstable mental state.

Liang Jinjin turned Rice Grains Video upside down but still couldn’t find the next episode of God of War Returns Home.

Next door, Silken Tresses released three episodes at once, totaling 100 minutes. God of War Returns Home being only 10 minutes, what did that mean? Did they look down on his noble VIP membership?

Liang Jinjin didn’t want anything else right now; he just pointed at watching the next episode of God of War Returns Home. Unfortunately, there were still three days until Wednesday. Wasn’t it too miserable for him to wait bitterly alone?

Liang Jinjin logged into the webnovel forum he frequented without hesitation.

【God of War returns home, finds daughter living in a dog kennel… OP discovered a god-tier drama, must recommend it!!】

【Super super super cool (shuang), I testify with my ten years of reading experience!】

【The drama’s pace is very fast, it won’t feel draggy. You can finish it in one breath. OP couldn’t find a novel to read recently, but once I watched this drama, I couldn’t stop at all.】

Liang Jinjin was indeed an old book fan. His level on the webnovel forum was very high, and he loved recommending books on the forum usually, so the forum buddies trusted him quite a bit.

【Going to watch it now.】

【Going to take a peek. Rice Grains Video, right?】

【Don’t love watching dramas, but the summary looks quite interesting. Going now.】

Liang Jinjin glanced at his watch. It was 9:45 AM.

There were many night owls in the forum, but presumably, a few had already been deceived.

The moment the needle jumped to 9:55, Liang Jinjin elegantly reopened the forum.

【Ahhhhhhhhh who understands the pain of watching the first half without the second half?】

【OP is a bad person!!!!】

【Hate. Wasted my precious 10 minutes. So where is the next episode?】

【What do you mean I have to wait until next Wednesday ahhhhh!】

A massive swathe of replies appeared under the post. Every forum friend Liang Jinjin tricked inevitably came back to accuse him.

For the whole day, the post hung at the very top of the forum. There were more and more replies. Many netizens weren’t tricked by Liang Jinjin but were genuinely curious about the drama God of War Returns Home, so they went to Rice Grains Video to take a look.

【!!!! HATE!! I shouldn’t have clicked in out of curiosity!】

【Suddenly reminded of that webnovel I chased a few years ago. It was truly good, but the updates were truly dragging.】

【Habitually supporting original works, habitually charged a membership. Only after charging did I remember, Rice Grains Video is a video site, not a webnovel platform…】

The number of people in the webnovel forum was not small. Plus, God of War Returns Home was only ten short minutes; introducing this drama didn’t even require editing clips, one could just forward the original drama directly.

Liang Jinjin and the forum netizens forwarded it everywhere. The real-time view count of God of War Returns Home kept rising. While the view counts for Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace were tending to plateau and their curves becoming flatter, on the view count statistical platform, the curve for God of War Returns Home rose all the way, skyrocketing by 5 million views in a single day, until it finally sat in the position of No. 1 for Single Day Single Episode View Count.

Rice Grains Video: “?”

Chaoxing TV & Qike Video: “?”

Stop having a seizure, thanks.

NOTES

PUA: Pickup Artist. In Chinese internet slang, it refers to gaslighting, emotional manipulation, or suppressing someone’s confidence (e.g., a boss suppressing an employee, or competitors bullying a smaller company).

Tap Water: Slang for “Tap Water Army.” Refers to fans who voluntarily promote a work for free because they genuinely like it, as opposed to the paid “Water Army” (bots/shills).

Stop having a seizure: Slang meaning “stop acting crazy,” “stop tripping,” or “don’t be delusional.” Used here to express the major platforms’ disbelief at the impossible data.

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