Chapter 108: Talking to the Teacher About Counter-Strike

Fang Qi currently had three tasks at hand; the task to sell the first act of Diablo, due to the arrival of the new game, was still short of a dozen or so sales from completion.

Fang Qi remembered that in a couple of days, it should be the release date of the first volume of the official Diablo II novel, a time that was already fast approaching.

"Where is your Qingqing?" Fang Qi asked Xu Zixin.

"You don't know?" Xu Zixin said in surprise, "She's out promoting the official novel."

"Promoting?" Fang Qi laughed despite himself; this girl truly took her work seriously, but in this ancient world with neither television nor internet, how could one promote anything?

Only after Xu Zixin's explanation did he learn that the methods of promotion in this era consisted of either hiring the young shop boys at Dongguan Book Forest to hand out flyers at the entrance, or spreading the word by mouth via communication jade.

Of course, for certain special books, Dongguan Book Forest would personally send out recommendations.

Take "Wuxian," for instance.

"Should we go take a look?" Xu Zixin asked.

"Might as well." This matter, after all, concerned him directly; to act entirely as a hands-off manager would indeed be somewhat unjustifiable.

It would be just as well to go and see.

...

Lingyun Academy.

The martial arts training ground of the Yellow House.

Upon the broad lawn, a tall woman clad in red leather armor, her hair tied into a neat and sharp ponytail, stood at the very front of all the disciples, her brows furrowed in scrutiny.

Mu Hongzhu was the martial arts instructor for Class A of the Yellow House; these students were each held in high expectation, leaving no room for the slightest mishap!

Who could have known that today's martial arts class had already begun for over an hour, yet several disciples had still failed to show up?!

How could this be tolerated?!

In the past, the disciples within Lingyun Academy had always revered strength above all else, so there was never any need to worry about such matters, not to mention that Lingyun Academy possessed strict discipline, and few ever dared to flout its rules.

But today, gazing upon the disciples where quite a few were clearly missing, even Mu Hongzhu, who was usually of an excellent temperament, found her countenance darkening at this moment.

At this very instant, she held a thin register in her hand, lowering her head to calculate exactly which disciples possessed such audacity.

"Song Qingfeng!"

"Present—!" A long, drawn-out reply echoed from afar, and raising her head, she saw a band of disciples charging toward them at full speed!

Mu Hongzhu's face turned somewhat pale with anger...

"Speak up, where have you been." On her countenance, Mu Hongzhu still maintained a surface calm.

Song Qingfeng, Lin Shao, Xu Luo, and the others fell into a wave of awkwardness, scratching their heads as they spoke earnestly, "Instructor, we... went to study..."

"Study...?" Mu Hongzhu stared coldly at the group.

Lin Shao and the others shuddered, hastily bringing out the same rhetoric Ye Xiaoye had used to deal with Ye Songtao, recounting the tale of the internet cafe.

"..." After listening, Mu Hongzhu's expression grew increasingly unpredictable.

Her cold gaze swept across the few of them as she said, "You can learn martial arts there, it can elevate your strength, so you went? And you stayed there learning until now?"

The few looked at one another; although it sounded like the truth, why did the flavor of these words feel a bit off?

Yet at this moment, they could only nod subconsciously.

"Do you mean to say that what I teach is not as good as what that little shop teaches?" Mu Hongzhu's face turned entirely black.

Song Qingfeng: "..."

Lin Shao: "..."

Xu Luo: "..."

Nalan Mingxue had only just rushed over at this time, and hearing Mu Hongzhu's interrogation, she covered her forehead in dismay.

Lingyun Academy not teaching as well as a small shop?

"Are you stupid?" Nalan Mingxue whispered from behind them.

Wasn't explaining it this way completely pulling the rug out from under her?

"I will give you one minute to explain." Mu Hongzhu felt as though her lungs were about to burst with rage, her hands on her hips as she stared coldly at them.

...

"Let me do it." Nalan Mingxue shot a glare at the few of them and began to explain.

This time, Nalan Mingxue finally seemed to admit that they were late because they had indulged in play, and Mu Hongzhu's expression eased slightly.

However, as the explanation went on, how did it become harder and harder to understand?

"Are you saying that you watched the owner of that shop play Counter-Strike, became utterly entranced, and thus were late?"

During this past period, she had heard her disciples discuss that little shop called "Origin" more than once; she had merely regarded it as another place of amusement and paid it no mind.

And when she occasionally heard that one could increase strength and combat experience within that little shop, she merely treated it like the Qin Mountain Beast Garden, a place that indeed possessed some utility for martial artists.

It was merely some utility, but there was no necessity to pay it any heed.

After all, what manner of cultivation method could compare to the swiftness and speed of entering the Martial Arts Tower for secluded meditation?

The Lingyun Martial Arts Tower was itself something that everyone in the entire academy took immense pride in.

As an instructor of Lingyun Academy, she naturally felt this even more so!

Aside from preparing lessons and teaching disciples in the academy, she had to cultivate herself, so she naturally had no leisure to concern herself with matters of those amusement parlors.

Yet she was somewhat curious: what on earth were instant-scoping and flick-scoping? What kind of splendid combat and techniques were these, which she had never even heard of, that could leave the elites of her Lingyun Academy so utterly captivated?

"Origin Internet Club has released a new game again?!"

"Counter-Strike?"

"And there are new firearm-type spiritual artifacts?"

Nearly half of this class could be considered veteran players—those who played Resident Evil, those who played Diablo, and those who played Legend of Sword and Fairy were all present—and upon hearing that a new game was out, whispers immediately broke out below.

"..." Mu Hongzhu's face turned icy cold.

...

The location where Dongguan Book Forest resided could be described as exceptionally prime; speaking of which, Fang Qi had been to this general area before, right across from the Tianfu Marketplace.

Shen Qingqing's mood at this moment could be described as exceedingly poor; writing the text and publishing the book, this single volume of the official novel had cost her a great deal of effort. Although the general framework of the plot was already set, the handling of many details required consideration, and combined with the design and publication, even as a martial artist, handling all these matters at once left her feeling somewhat exhausted.

Originally, she intended to take advantage of this period to promote it extensively, so that it might receive a good response when the time came, but who could have known...

"Shopkeeper, can you not show some flexibility?" Sitting opposite Shen Qingqing was an elegant middle-aged man wearing a green cap, his face thoroughly serious at this moment.

"Miss Shen, it is not that we are unwilling to be flexible, but... you surely know the influence of 'Wuxian'; the manuscript for the ninth volume was completed ahead of schedule, and we must conduct promotions immediately," the middle-aged man spoke.

Although "Wuxian" was merely a biographical novel, the fact that it could enter the ears of young masters like An Cheng and Ouyang Cheng showed that its influence was definitely not lacking.

Even Nalan Hongwu knew of biographical novels; from this, one could imagine that this form of entertainment, within the upper echelons of Jiuhua City, was in fact considered quite widely circulated.

This world originally did not possess many forms of entertainment, and precisely because of this, the rise of biographical novels occurred; even if it was not yet flourishing, it had already begun to take shape.

At this moment, it happened to be the time for promoting the next volume of "Wuxian"; at a time like this, the so-called debut work of a young lady from a noble family like Shen Qingqing would naturally be pushed aside.

Not to mention...

"Diablo?" Yu Rui found it somewhat amusing. "What a bizarre name. Can a book like this actually sell?"

.