Yi Ti read it in a minute and discovered it"s an announcement talking about how the comics for this novel was about to be published. It also said something about her——to support the publishing company, web comic updates might slow down appropriately.
This was a common phenomenon. For example, if a serial novel was sold for publication, the contract would have a condition that before the book was officially published, there must be no ending on the website. If it has ended, then the physical book must have extras that were not in the web series.
In this age of online reading, paper book sales inevitably entered a low tide, so businesses took various approaches to increase sales. For example, the cover was made beautifully and packed in plastic. On the one hand, it felt like “an untouched, new and beautiful” book. On the other hand, it made it impossible to look at the contents, so you just bought it for curiosity"s sake——this was called “looking forward to buying, regretting after buying”.
Nevertheless, the reading experience brought by paper books were still difficult to replace. At least Yi Ti firmly believed that touching paper stained with ink with your hands could make you “feel the words” more than touching the cold screen with your hands.
But then again, it"s not that stressful for Yi Ti to make her “slow down”. After all, she"s not “drawing” with both hands. After a period of trial and error, she got used to using the mind converter, so she could make a considerable number of comics in a day. After signing the contract, she had given all the current drafts to Formaldehyde. He was shocked at that time, and admired again and again, “You really love Aggregate! Only true love can do all of this!”.
Yi Ti: “……” She really didn"t know what to say.
One problem was that the drawings given by Yi Ti were all colored. The publishers believed that if this was the case, the cost would be much higher than ordinary black and white comics. However, the ma.n.u.script was really good, so it would be a shame to switch it to the black and white version. Besides, readers who were used to the colored version might not like this set. So in the contract, the publishers first set up a “pre-sale” with the Wei Feng website. In short, it"s cheaper to buy now, then it could be mailed to the buyer after printing. Once this opportunity was missed, buying it would cost XX yuan.
They took this opportunity to touch the taste of the readers. If sales were high, it"d be printed on a large scale after that. If not, cooperation could be stopped temporarily. Of course, because this cooperation was different from the past, Wei Feng website would also receive higher profits than usual but a considerable part of this would be given to Aggregate and Yi Ti which pleased everyone. After all, even if she had no confidence in her comics, she was quite confident in Aggregate"s novel.
Just as she thought about it, Formaldehyde sent a message, telling her that she also had to post the news when she updates today. She could just copy Aggregate"s announcement.
Yi Ti returned an “ok” and seeing that it was almost time to update (Her update time was almost like Aggregate, 11:30 am and 5 pm), she also put the announcement with the comic into the deposit box.
Shortly after, they were released.
Aggregate 11:32:25
Plagiarism is shameful! （picks nose）
Long XiaoTian 11:32:32
……Formaldehyde made me do it.
Aggregate 11:32:41
Won"t you still go to jail even if you"re not the boss behind the scenes? （dead fish eyes）
Long XiaoTian 11:32:46
Can you bail me out?
Aggregate 11:32:55
I"ll think about it.
After a while, the “prosecutors for personal fraud” imposed conditions, which was to make Yi Ti help draw him in a “2D character”. The reason was that on the author"s page of the comic, he didn"t want his picture printed there. He didn"t want to show his real appearance, so he asked for a drawing.
Yi Ti thought that she also didn"t want to show her appearance!
So she agreed decisively, making an appointment to hand in the drawing at this time tomorrow.
When she ended this conversation, Cecil also just pulled out his tentacles from the computer, and asked: “Xiao Ti, does this game exist on my computer?”
“No.” Yi Ti shook her head. She couldn"t play well before since she didn"t know how, so she uninstalled it. Also, “When I was playing, I was stuck in the old version. It"s been updated several times since then and you don"t want it to get stuck, right?”
He answered with certainty: “It wouldn"t.”
Yi Ti was stunned. Ah, yes, this thing seemed to have been transformed by him——anything made by Cecil was trustworthy!
“Do you want to try it out?”
“En, in the words of you Earthlings——theory must be combined with practice.” His voice was very serious.
Yi Ti: “……” She always felt like those words didn"t fit the scenario. She coughed softly, trying to remove the “triple chinned Cecil” from her mind as she said, “Then I will download it for you.”
“No need.” Cecil waved his little tentacles, “When I extracted the information just now, I incidentally put the installation package together. It went directly to your computer.” Saying so, he inserted the small tentacles into the jack on the left side of the computer.
At this point, the jelly alien officially entered the game journey, and after more than an hour of playing, he seemed to be “addicted to it”.
Yi Ti thought, if the game makers on Earth knew this, they would definitely feel proud!
With no business, she simply closed the shop doors, went back to her bedroom and took the mind converter. She put it on her head and began to “draw” the appearance of Aggregate.
What kind of person was Aggregate?
Yi Ti thought hard. Just now, she asked if he could provide a picture, but she was ruthlessly rejected. She also said she could just change his photo. Cough, he rejected her again.
So she could only rely on imagination.
Aggregate……Aggregate……Aggregate……
Her thoughts diverged endlessly, and a human figure gradually formed.
Yi Ti looked at the picture displayed on the desktop computer, speechless.
The young man in the conversation had a face that was not handsome but still looked good. It"s just that the dead fisheyes and unshaven beard undoubtedly affected the image, making him look lazy and decadent. And he only wore the simplest shirt and shorts, with his legs up showing crumbling slippers. He was sitting in front of a computer watching a movie, holding a cuc.u.mber in one hand and the other hand holding a half-smoked cigarette. There was already a pile of soot on the ground.
“He"d probably smack me if I sent this.” She mumbled to herself. No matter how you look at it, this image was ten thousand miles away from the gravely demanded “wise deity with a military bearing, uncommon n.o.ble temperament, and most importantly, a heroic tenacious face” ah! But, she can"t fool her heart! If the old Aggregate was really “tall and mighty” in her mind, he wouldn"t look like such a wretched guy to her!
But, how to say it, she always felt that he looked like the person she met in Computer City that day, the one who sensed her sight. Of course, it"s not exactly the same, but the temperament was similar.
After slightly modifying a few details, Yi Ti decided——it was him.
Next was “Long XiaoTian"s” image. This was undoubtedly the most difficult part. If it"s “Yi Ti”, it would be simple. The problem was, “Long XiaoTian” was male.
Why didn"t she just copy the picture in the ID?
Yi Ti thought and found a copy of the ID card that Cecil printed out that day. After taking a closer look, she processed it into a 2D image in her head. After finishing, she wasn"t satisfied. It"s not that she didn"t like it, but……compared to Aggregate, it seemed too ordinary.
Wait!
Yi Ti blinked and suddenly came up with a great idea.
And then, if it was like this……and like that……
A few minutes later.
“That"s it!”
Putting the two pictures together, Yi Ti nodded again and again. She had to say, this really ill.u.s.trated the truth that “they are an author and a reader”. She silently praised herself!
After this was done, the time unknowingly went past twelve. Because she already notified Liang Chen in advance, Yi Ti made some lunch by herself. She ate but not fully, after all, there"s a big dinner tonight.
But what slightly troubled her was——
Morning, Cecil was playing a game.
Noon, Cecil was playing a game
Afternoon, Cecil was playing a game.
Evening, Cecil was playing a game.
In the end, Yi Ti thought that the so-called “shock therapy” would not work on aliens. She felt it"d become super bad if it went on like this! If she said before that he might become “obsessed with games” as a joke, well now, wasn"t it the complete fact?
Before dinner, she finally couldn"t hold back. She picked him up and said: “I say……Cecil……”
“What?” The jelly alien"s tentacles didn"t leave the keyboard. He didn"t remove his eyes off the screen either and answered absentmindedly.
“Game……is it fun?”
“It"s interesting.”
“……” Worst case! Yi Ti swallowed, silently repenting to the father and mother who were far away from the planet——sorry, your young son had become an internet-addicted teenager. She asked again, “Where is it interesting?”
“Probability”
“Probability?” This answer was a bit strange.
“En.” Cecil"s answer was a little fanatical, “This game was full of chances. For example, the explosion rate of killing large copies, the success rate of strengthening weapons, probability of opening treasure chests to get good items……”
“……why do you study this kind of thing?”
Cecil"s tentacles stopped, then, turned his head to look at her.
Don"t know why, Yi Ti thought that his expression was a little eerie: “My first orange weapon, when strengthening to level 10, broke.”
“……”
“The explanation of games on Earth was that it gave direct pleasure, but this game is depriving people of pleasure. I have seen people crying more than once.”
Yi Ti swallowed again: “What do you want to do?” Help, what"s going on with this completely misguided line of thought?
“I want to work out a formula for probability built into game companies, publish it, and let everyone stop crying about it.”
“……” Then the people at the game company would be the one in tears, right?
Yi Ti held her forehead, was this “a tragedy caused by an orange weapon”? Should she praise the game company"s skill for pulling hatred?
It seemed like this was the first time Cecil acted unexpectedly childish, but, it was also pretty cute.
She unconsciously thought so and then laughed.
“But, Cecil, if a game has no probability at all when you hit the monsters, you"ll know what will happen in advance. It"d become boring, right?” It"s like if a person knew in advance what kind of person they would meet in the next second and what would happen next, they"d feel that this life was boring. Although this a.n.a.logy might not be appropriate, Yi Ti thought the meaning was similar.
Cecil thoughtfully said: “It"s really the most exciting time when the monsters burst out.”
“Yes, it"s this feeling of the gap between imagination and reality that makes people not want to stop!”
“But my cracked orange weapon was the saddest moment.”
“……” How long would he mind this?