Chapter 198: “There’s A Spirit Underground” Volume 1
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
The most antic.i.p.ated performance of the 11/11 gala, without doubt, was the superstar at the end of the show. Technically, that English superstar who began the show was also very famous, but he’d been in China before and was no longer fresh. But this superstar had never been to China before, and no one could steal their spotlight.
Aside from this, there were a few more other highlights as well. “Fairy” and the long-distance basketball were undoubtedly among the best, and Meng Fan was the common factor of the two. Naturally, he was the biggest surprise of the gala. Several people had searched it up, curious as to who this person was and what he was like.
The hashtag #WhoisMengFan was trending for a long time on Weibo. Everyone’s shopping craze was at an all-time high, yet people still had the time to push Meng Fan onto the trending page. Probably because his sand art performance and long-ranged shot were amazing enough on their own, but combined, people couldn’t contain their curiosity.
During the day, he was temporarily removed from the trending list. After all, everyone was up late shopping, but at night, he made it again after people resumed their searches…
There were many people who entered Meng Fan’s stream through Weibo. There were so many viewers that 8th Station actually felt nervous, so they opened a second channel for him.
“I just got here, is this the sand art magician’s channel?”
“Are you the G.o.d hand?”
“Weibo Spectator +1.”
“I’m here from the trending list!”
“I heard this host is kind of troll!”
“I heard he could sing too.”
“His voice is so crisp!”
“What is this stream for, how did I end up here?”
“Host, are you thirsty for your fans?”
“Hahaha, our host only eats fried foods!”
“Wtf there’s so many people! Meng fatty can’t hide anymore!”
“Everyone’s here from the 11/11 gala, right?”
Meng Fan didn’t think he’d have this kind of impact on the gala, but he also wasn’t planning to score such a crazy basket that night either. If he hadn’t scored that hoop, he’d probably have half the number of curious viewers.
Sand art and long-distance shooting were only effective combined because the two have nothing to do with each other.
“I know several fickle netizens are here from last night’s 11/11 gala. You guys want to watch some sand art right? My viewers from before have never seen me perform sand art, so I’ll stream myself sand painting for an hour today, followed by an hour of manga.” Meng Fan smiled. “Because of the 11/11 gala, I haven’t had time to work on my manga in several days. If I don’t work on it soon, there won’t be anymore updates.”
Meng Fan wasn’t going to change up his schedule just because there were new viewers. He continued his normal regimen.
His new sand art station was already set up with his streaming equipment. It was directly attached to the streaming device, while his live stream a.s.sistant had already picked out the most optimal angle. If Meng Fan wanted, he could add any special effects with the live stream aid to make his stream feel like the 11/11 gala’s stream. The live stream a.s.sistant could also direct the program and cut out and st.i.tch in any special scenes.
All the new viewers were mostly there out of curiosity, as there were several of them, reaching a total online viewer count of 700,000 when Meng Fan had only been on for about 30 minutes.
They’d come out of curiosity, but whether they stayed or not would depend on Meng Fan.
Make them all stay?
That’s not likely. Not everyone had the habit of watching streams.
Meng Fan would be very talented if he could keep a quarter of the newcomers.
In an hour, the sand art performance ended, and Meng Fan began to work on his manga. The number of viewers began to decrease, going from a peak high of 900,000 back to 700,000.
As Meng Fan continued his stream, the viewer count continued to fall, to a number hovering between 500,000 and 400,000.
It was even harder to determine if they’d come again or not.
Once his three-hour stream ended, Meng Fan glanced at the total viewers during this short stream and found himself quite satisfied. 2.3 million!
Normally he received about 300,000 views during his stream, and one million at most, but this didn’t happen often. For example, he’d reached this number during the lottery draw for the press conference for “There’s A Spirit Underground”.
2.3 million was seven times his regular count!
Of course, Meng Fan knew that people had come by today because they were curious and Meng Fan was a fresh face. It was unlikely he’d gain that many viewers again. But as long as he could reach 1 million viewers per stream, Meng Fan would be happy.
After logging off, Meng Fan continued to draw.
He’d been so busy the last few days and now had to catch up publications for both mangas.
When he completed the [Collector of Millions] task, he’d gained more drawing skills, scriptwriting skills, and set design skills. They proved effective during his sand art performances and were helpful to his manga projects as well.
As he became more familiar with sand art story writing, he became more familiar with manga creation as well. The creative desire hidden in his heart was beginning to come out.
He wanted to create an original!
During the process of drawing “There’s A Spirit Underground” and “Guide To Campus RoMANce”, Meng Fan had been inspired several times. Some were able to be used on these two mangas, while others were relevant to the storyline in his mind. Everytime he was inspired, he’d record it in a small notebook for later.
As time progressed, the stories in his mind became more and more clear. Meng Fan took some time and wrote out 30,000 words for it.
Now, he had all the qualifications to start his original series!
But he decided he’d keep gathering information for a while longer.
At least until “Guide To Campus RoMANce” was published so he’d have more time to work on it.
Besides, Meng Fan’s most urgent task at hand was to complete the achievement task for [Professional Manga Artist]. Once he received +5 points in drawing skill, scriptwriting, set design respectively, he’d begin creating his own series.
[Professional Manga Artist] required the serialization of a long term manga or three short manga series, and issue ten separate volumes with a total sale count of 100,000.
The first requirement had already been satisfied, since “There’s A Spirit Underground” was a long-running Manga.
The third requirement wasn’t hard to meet either. 100,000 was no small feat for a manga series, but a worse case that Meng Fan could buy it out himself.
He couldn’t outsmart the System by buying it himself, but he could ask someone else to buy it for him. The System couldn’t blame him if he did that.
Only, the second requirement was a bit difficult. Even if he only published 8-10 chapters per volume, “Guide To Campus RoMANce” would only publish three volumes at most.
And Meng Fan wasn’t the one who decided if it could even be published, or when it could be published…
He gave Mr.Sleepy a brief call, and suddenly tapped his head and began laughing. He almost forgot Mr.Sleepy was also someone who had coal in his family and was no less enthusiastic about manga than Meng Fan was himself.
“I was just planning to discuss this with you! I’ve already contacted the publisher, and everything is good to go. Just waiting for you to decide the volumes. When the first volume is published, I’m planning to print 50,000 copies.”
“Fifty thousand?!”
Meng Fan knew about the manga market. This was a huge amount for a first print.
He thought about it and asked him hurriedly. “You’re not planning to buy all fifty thousand copies, are you?”
Meng Fan was worried Mr.Sleepy was almost too rich. If Mr.Sleepy was planning to buy them himself, Meng Fan couldn’t guarantee the System would give him the experience points, so he had to ask. If he was actually planning to, Meng Fan had to stop him.
“I’m not dumb!”
Mr.Sleepy didn’t understand why Meng Fan would ask such a question either. “My group of author friends wants at least a copy, which means at least 10,000. In addition, there was a presale survey on the animation network, and it netted tens of thousands as well. My 50,000 is a conservative method, okay… What, do you not know how popular our manga is right now?”
Alright, while Meng Fan was busy speculating that Mr.Sleepy’s family had coal, he’d forgotten he had connections as well!
He also forgot how popular “There’s A Spirit Underground” has gotten!