“So, did you figure out if this novel can continue?” Isabel asked.
Jiang Ye stared for two seconds. “Don’t tell me you’re already writing the second book.”
“I’m telling you, I am already writing the second book.” Isabel smiled smugly. “I’ve written quite a bit, but it will still take a long time to finish. So, I’ll publish the first book first and see the market reaction.”
“The part you’ve finished will be released as a complete book. Although the market habit is for thin volumes, to make a lasting impression on readers, we must break the norm. That’s why I’ve chosen a thick book of over six hundred pages,” Isabel said. “We’ll affiliate with a major publishing house, do a large print run, advertise in advance, and then simultaneously launch in all major bookstores, placing it in the most prominent positions.”
“If the market reaction is good and reader reviews are high, this book can be added to the school’s recommended reading list,” Isabel said. “This isn’t me using my power to sell my own books. The three planets themselves have an unwritten rule: works by local authors, as long as they are of sufficient quality, will be prioritized for promotion.”
“Agreed,” Jiang Ye nodded. “Our few planets already have mature book review websites. I’ll set a benchmark: as long as it scores above 8.7 with over three hundred thousand ratings, your book can be added to the school’s recommended reading list.”
“The most crucial point,” Isabel said, “is that I don’t intend to reveal my true identity.”
“What do you mean?” Jiang Ye was taken aback.
“I don’t want to leverage my identity to boost sales. Until sales and reader reputation are established, the publisher and bookstores cannot use me as a gimmick for promotion,” Isabel said. “The author’s name will only be ‘Isabel.’ There are many people named Isabel in the world, so no one will suspect it’s me. The author introduction on the title page will also be very simple, stating that I am a mysterious author who only communicates and signs contracts online with the publisher, and has never appeared in person.”
“Alright, now that you say it, I’m getting excited too,” Jiang Ye said with great interest. “If it’s known that you wrote it, the sales would definitely be terrifying. But setting aside your identity, how far it could sell and what honors it could receive is truly an unknown.”
Isabel and Jiang Ye discussed publishing details for over an hour, and the matter was settled.
She returned to Exile Planet, and Jiang Ye was responsible for arranging the publication.
Publishing involves many processes: content review, manuscript proofreading, style finalization, obtaining an ISBN, printing, promotion, and distribution. Jiang Ye requested it to be done as quickly as possible, but it would still take about a month.
In just one month, the topic of “average lifespan tripling” had become a hot topic.
Several variety shows dominated the airwaves, many of them focusing on the theme of lifespan tripling. Numerous celebrities joined, including not only familiar faces from variety shows but also some major stars who had never appeared on such programs before, greatly surprising their fans.
In the short video and online novel sectors, works with similar themes also emerged, gaining considerable popularity and showing signs of forming a trend. A large number of video production teams with millions of followers consecutively released videos on the same theme, and several legendary online novelists who had retired for years made a comeback, claiming, “We didn’t want to write, but they paid us too much.”
Related discussion forums began to appear online, with membership growing to tens of millions. The forum content was complex; after excluding advertisements and filler posts, the remaining discussions mainly fell into two camps. The first camp attempted to interpret why General Bing led this trend, with various so-called “insider news” surfacing, only to be subsequently proven as rumors. The second camp purely discussed personal matters, specifically how ordinary people should plan their lives if their lifespans were to triple within their lifetime.
Along with the positive developments, negative ones also emerged.
The Jiang Ye Star police cracked multiple “longevity drug” rings, involving 2.2 billion in illicit funds, with over a million people privately purchasing so-called “longevity drugs.”
The scams employed by these longevity drug rings were diverse. Some claimed that the technology for longevity drugs was actually very cheap, but the wealthy elite deliberately inflated market prices to make money, and they, unable to stand by, secretly produced cheaper drugs for the common people. Others claimed they were the secret team producing drugs for Jiang Ye, that Jiang Ye took their medicine every morning, and that they wanted to earn more, so they secretly sold some to the public. Several rings even Photoshopped pictures and videos of Jiang Ye taking medicine, as well as group photos of their leaders with Jiang Ye, creating elaborate stories.
Some rings even claimed to be interstellar pirates who had looted a batch of goods from aliens, and finding it difficult to fence them in other territories, they were selling them cheaply on Jiang Ye Star, on a first-come, first-served basis due to limited quantities. These teams also prepared pictures and videos, all featuring scenes from gunfight games with bullets flying and blood splattered everywhere, as breathless robbers pried open the bodies of escorts, cracked open the escort vehicles, and carried out boxes of medicine… The game graphics of that era were almost indistinguishable from live-action footage, making it look completely real.
The ingredients of the longevity drugs seized by the police were also varied.
The most common were flour pills, where capsule shells costing 20 yuan per kilogram were filled with flour, and then cheap packaging was added. The cost of a box of medicine was only 60 yuan, yet it was sold at an exorbitant price of 20,000 yuan. There were also vitamin pills, where vitamins were simply put into different casings and sold, but at prices five hundred times higher than those in pharmacies.
The most outrageous were painkillers and stimulants, which were more expensive to produce but more effective in deceiving people. This was because some individuals, after taking the so-called “longevity drugs,” experienced relief from toothaches and back pain, felt more energetic, and could now urinate with great vigor, leading them to believe the longevity drugs were genuine and rushing to buy them, falling victim multiple times.
The Bi Rong Star police apprehended an electronic fraud group whose methods were even more sophisticated, requiring no arduous drug manufacturing, as they relied on the internet and phone calls to swindle money.
Their modus operandi was to first find targets online, then send out mass messages informing them, “You have been selected for the triple lifespan qualification and have obtained a longevity quota. Please contact us before XX date, otherwise, it will be considered a forfeiture of your qualification.”
They also emphasized that this matter could not be disclosed to others and must be kept secret, as it was a completely confidential operation. Once a foolish individual fell for it, they would proceed with the old scams of charging handling fees and verifying assets through remittances, or newer methods of extracting personal information.
The most absurd thing was that these electronic fraud groups had very few members, often consisting of five to ten people per group, and sometimes even two or three diligent scammers could manage. They didn’t even need to personally engage in persuasion; they had specialized automated online chat robots, secretly smuggled from outer space and operated in hidden locations.
A machine the size of a wardrobe, programmed with hundreds of gigabytes of artificial intelligence data, was equipped with nearly a thousand mobile phone slots. By simply inserting phones, it could automatically make calls or engage in online chats, operating 24 hours a day with incredible efficiency, contacting an average of thirty thousand netizens daily. With a few more machines, they could contact over a hundred thousand netizens daily.