090 A "Nonfiction" Novel

As usual, I’m asking for three things! Votes, recommendations, and bookmarks!!

For Yang Tang, writing novels—or rather, copying them and publishing—hinges on clarifying social relationships, not the novels themselves. As long as the books are published under the royalty system, if one fails, he can write a few more; eventually, one will succeed. And if not, he can always switch to something else.

Thus, the problem with publishing isn’t that it can’t be done, but that it can’t be entrusted to his mother’s publishing house right from the start. After all, Yang Tang is a newcomer with a debut novel and an uncertain future. If his mother were to strongly support him at her workplace, gossip would become unbearable. Universities are full of high-minded people, but there are even more who are petty and envious. Everyone has a son or daughter, and talk would spread: “Your Yang Tang is publishing a book right after graduating from the college entrance exam—shouldn’t our Juan do the same next year?”

Publishing and making money is a good thing, but once dragged into such trivial squabbles, it’s Yang's mother who will suffer. So after much thought, Yang Tang decided it was better to let outsiders benefit than to have his own mother bear the brunt of idle talk.

The next day, having made up his mind, Yang Tang invited his parents to stay at the Bolian Hotel but didn’t mention a word about publishing the book.

“Dad, Mom, it’s summer break anyway. Let’s stay here for about ten days before heading back. By then, we’ll be just in time to check the exam results and fill in the college choices!”

Yang’s mother didn’t respond immediately and looked to his father for his opinion.

Yang Jixue glanced around the hotel room, neither agreeing nor refusing to stay. Instead, he suddenly asked, “How much does this room cost per night?”

Yang Tang held up his hand, showing five fingers.

“Five hundred Huabi dollars? Not bad, the usual rate for a five-star.”

“Dad, it’s five thousand.”

“What!?” Yang Jixue nearly jumped.

Taking advantage of the moment, Yang Tang continued, “I’ve already paid for half a month in advance.”

“You little rascal!” The literary old man Yang Jixue trembled with anger but refused to ask for a refund. It had to be said that his prideful nature was on full display.

“Dad, here’s my thinking. After selling that software, we cleared over three million after tax. We can’t just sit on it! So I came up with this: spend ten thousand a day on hotel rooms to push myself to my limits.”

“What? Ten thousand? Didn’t you just say five thousand?”

“Sorry,” Yang Tang replied apologetically. “The room’s big but there’s only one king bed—just enough for you two. So, I had to book an extra room.” In reality, he needed a second room for his mountain training.

Yang Jixue was speechless.

At that moment, Yang’s mother asked, “Ten thousand a day—what potential are you expecting to discover?”

“Mom, you know your son best! Look at this!” With a flourish, Yang Tang pulled out a poetry contract from his travel bag. “I just signed this with a catering group, and the money just came in—three hundred fifty thousand after tax, even more than selling software!”

“Three hundred fifty—” Yang Jixue’s eyebrows shot up. “Thousand?”

His mother was equally shocked.

“That’s right! If you don’t believe me, check the contract.”

The parents looked it over and fell silent. Selling a single poem for three and a half million—it was faster than robbing a bank. But when Yang Jixue saw the clause about transferring the naming rights, his face darkened. “Why did you sell the naming rights as well?”

Yang Tang tapped his temple. “Dad, there are plenty more poems in here. It’s just one poem, and they insisted on the naming rights. If I don’t take advantage of such a gullible customer, who will?”

“Still, you shouldn’t sell the naming rights! That’s a matter of a writer’s integrity.”

“Dad, what era is this?” Yang Tang disagreed in his heart but had to explain patiently. “Integrity? That’s just something the living say to impress other living people. Do you see any dead man jump up to declare his integrity?”

Yang Jixue had no words.

“Alright, Dad, Mom, I promise you both: those timeless masterpieces, I’d never sell them.”

Yang’s mother tapped his arm. “Enough, Xiao Hong. Go do your own thing. Your father and I have something to discuss!” With that, she pushed him out of the room.

“Mom, I’m not bragging! I really have—”

Seeing his mother firmly close the door, Yang Tang could only shrug, leave the hotel in frustration, rent a small truck, and personally drive to the apiary to collect ninety-nine beehives for the day.

It’s worth mentioning that although Yang Tang could drive, he didn’t have a license. Luckily, the route from the hotel to the apiary was short and in the suburbs, so for two days he drove without a license and never got caught or questioned.

He drove the small truck to a secluded spot, used his ring to collect the beehives, and then headed into the mountains.

Meanwhile, inside the hotel room—

“Don’t you think our son has changed a lot in the past six months?” Yang’s mother voiced her concern.

Yang Jixue was unconcerned. “Xiao Hong’s just grown up—he knows how to make money, and it’s honest money. That puts my mind at ease!”

“Making money is good, but he’s spending it far too recklessly. At this rate, as he said himself, he’ll burn through it all in no time. He wasn’t like this before.”

He chuckled. “Back when he said he could program and make software, I didn’t believe it either. But the facts are right in front of us—he made three million with software, and there’s the contract to prove it!” He was full of pride. “Besides, on the eve of the college entrance exam, when he fell into that unexplained coma, didn’t we check his birthmark? If you still doubt it, I have this.” He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket.

“What’s this?”

“Open it and see.”

Yang’s mother unfolded it and found it was a paternity test report. “When did you get this?”

“When Xiao Hong was unconscious before the exams and the doctors were baffled. We were both frantic. I started to wonder if maybe, after you gave birth at Factory Two, there’d been a mix-up in the nursery. So I decided to check if we’re really his biological parents. If not, we could look through Factory Two’s records and maybe find his birth parents—maybe they could donate serum or something and wake him up.”

“So what does the report say?”

“It showed we’re his biological parents. Factory Two even double-checked. The results matched, and the record’s in their files.” Yang Jixue tilted his head. “Guess I was overthinking. It was all for nothing, but at least Xiao Hong pulled through in the end!”

But Yang’s mother shook her head. “I’m not sure Xiao Hong is really fine. I think we should take him to a big hospital in the capital for a full checkup.”

Yang Jixue wanted to say that Factory Two’s medical standards were among the best in the southwest, but in the end, he nodded. “Let’s wait until he’s finished his college applications, then we’ll go to the capital.”

“Alright.”

So over the next ten days, they settled in comfortably at the Bolian Hotel.

Each day, Yang Tang followed his routine—heading into the mountains to practice evasion and the “inch punch.” On the third day at noon, the long-awaited notification finally came: Evasion skill upgraded to Level 2.

Evasion Level 2: 50% chance to dodge attacks in close combat by standing still—passive, instant activation.

Level 2 Evasion retained all the special effects of Level 1, such as “can be used while attacking.” The only difference was the probability—up from 30% to 50%. In actual combat, this meant Yang Tang could spar with soldiers from the special ops unit without losing ground. Of course, he wouldn’t reveal such abilities unless absolutely necessary.

For the remaining seven days, aside from daily mountain training, he stayed at the hotel with his parents, soaked in the hot springs with them, and wrote code.

In fact, the code he was writing was closely related to his future writing career. Simply put, he was developing a voiceprint analysis and transcription program: it could capture a person’s voiceprint and convert it to text. This way, he could “write” books simply by dictating, greatly improving efficiency.

Writing such a program wasn’t particularly difficult. The challenge lay in collecting and analyzing voiceprints for the general public, but since it was just for Yang Tang himself, the program could be very simple. He finished it in under two days, did some tests and tweaks, then put on his headset—whenever he spoke to himself, he was “typing” his book, and he could even sync the manuscript to his laptop.

To be safe, Yang Tang bought a branded laptop just to store backup copies of his manuscripts, so he wouldn’t have to keep his main laptop in the hotel room all the time.

But laziness is laziness. After a few days, Yang Tang found himself nearly hoarse from dictating and finally finished “Billy’s War,” a Western novel he remembered vividly from his previous life. That book had been banned in the United States, but in this world, there was no William Stanley Milligan, so Yang Tang pulled a trick—he labeled it as a novel rather than nonfiction in the preface, hoping it would pass muster.

“If only I could convert brainwaves directly into digital signals!” he mused.

Others could type hundreds of thousands of words without feeling tired, but Yang Tang, dictating his book, still wanted to find an easier way.

Bang, bang, bang!

It was almost midnight when someone rapped on the door.

“Who is it?” Yang Tang, preparing for bed, frowned.

“It’s me—your old man.”

Exasperated, Yang Tang opened the door. “Dad, it’s so late. Aren’t you sleeping?”

“Sleep? Where’s your laptop?”

“On the desk,” Yang Tang said, pointing to his new laptop.

“Hurry, turn it on, get online. You can check your results right after midnight!”

“Huh?” Yang Tang blinked, then realized it was the twenty-third. He couldn’t help but laugh. “Dad, is it really necessary? Is there any difference between checking tonight and tomorrow morning?”

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