Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

On the other side, Wang Ming put his earphones down with a blank look on his face as he repeatedly confirmed to himself that he hadn’t heard wrong.

Wang Situ…

Wasn’t that his uncle’s pseudonym?

Was the head of state actually a fan of his uncle?

The fact was really too terrifying, and Wang Ming couldn’t help sucking in his breath sharply as his mind felt like it had already fallen into chaos.

…

At that moment, there were only five hours left before the end of the double monthly votes campaign.

Lie Mengmeng looked at the ranking chart on his phone. In first place was Braised Pork Shoulder, whose votes had already reached 1.6 million, while Braised Pig Feet in Sauce, who was ranked second, had 1.58 million votes. They were hot on each other’s heels, neither giving way to the other.

After they had posted that perfunctory standalone chapter, Father Wang’s monthly votes had only just reached eight hundred thousand… Although his monthly votes had increased by nearly four hundred thousand, the gap between him and first and second place was growing wider and wider.

But Father Wang didn’t seem worried. He calmly smoked a cigar as he watched a TV drama; he didn’t even bother to watch the live vote counts on TV.

Lie Mengmeng actually understood himself what the fight over monthly votes was like.

At the initial stage, it was a fight between writers, when the number and quality of their chapter updates often determined whether readers would enthusiastically vote for them. But at the middle and late stages, it basically already wasn’t about the writers any longer as it became a battle between nouveau riche readers…

“I just asked the chief editorial office, and they confirmed that Braised Pork Shoulder and Braised Pig Feet in Sauce aren’t rigging the votes; each of these teachers has a heavenly-level sect backing them…” When Lie Mengmeng said this, he was actually already feeling despair in his heart.

To understand the concept of a heavenly-level sect, the annual net profit for a light force heavenly-level sect was over one hundred million; it wasn’t surprising at all that they could set aside a portion of their expenses to send a red packet’s worth of monthly votes to their favorite author.

Lie Mengmeng had thought that there was something wrong with the number of votes for these two authors earlier, but that was purely because he hadn’t understood the situation. All in all, both authors had already gotten almost a million monthly votes by six o’clock. If you wanted to send a monthly vote red packet now, each monthly vote cost five immortal gold, so such a large number of monthly votes absolutely wasn’t something that ordinary people could afford.

“Oh, heavenly-level sects, that’s a little awesome!”

Father Wang, however, laughed when he heard Lie Mengmeng’s words.

Lie Mengmeng almost puked blood. How was it a little awesome… It was pretty awesome!

Currently, how many heavenly-level sects were there in the country which had been certified by the government? No more than fifty… If you could rope in a heavenly-level sect as your patron, that was the equivalent of getting an entire financial group behind you.

“Big bro, do you have any big names like a heavenly-level sect or whatnot in your fan group? If not heavenly-level… earth-level will also work…” Lie Mengmeng couldn’t help asking.

After all, looking at the current fan base, Father Wang certainly had a lot more fans than the other two writers; it was impossible that there weren’t any big shots among them.

“Oh, that. Certainly, someone approached me before, and said that they were from Spirit Sword Sect,” Father Wang said.

“Spirit Sword Sect?” Lie Mengmeng was shocked. “This… This is a heavenly-level sect! Big bro! The heavenly-level sect currently supporting Braised Pork Shoulder is Spirit Sword Sect!”

“Oh, I know that!” said Father Wang. “But they wanted me to advertise their sect in my book, so I declined.”

Lie Mengmeng: “Why… Why did you decline…”

Father Wang pushed his black-rimmed glasses up in a habitual gesture. “True fans won’t have so many demands.”

Lie Mengmeng: “…”

Looking at Lie Mengmeng who had a tense expression on his face, Father Wang couldn’t help laughing. “How come I feel that you’re more nervous than I am?”

“The gap in the monthly votes battle this time is too wide… If we lose, I’m guessing some of your fans might leave for someone else.” Lie Mengmeng sighed.

In fact, “some” was a conservative estimate. Father Wang, after all, was a veteran guru on the website and had dominated the charts for many years. If he was overtaken and “slaughtered” in this battle, this would definitely become explosive news.

In addition, the other two writers currently had heavenly-level sects as their patrons. If they could ride the momentum this time, Lie Mengmeng felt that Father Wang would have a very difficult time in the future. Father Wang had refused to advertise a heavenly-level sect in his novel, and if the person helming this sect was a petty one, he might suppress Father Wang.

Lie Mengmeng didn’t understand why Father Wang still looked relaxed.

Father Wang: “Hehe, don’t worry, just wait and see.”

A heavenly-level sect was indeed profound and formidable…

But the issue was that the “heavenly-level sects” behind these two writers were Father Wang’s leftovers.

They wanted to fight him head-on?

…

There was unexpectedly a lot of attention being paid to the shots being fired during the double monthly votes campaign in this particular round of monthly votes.

After Wang Ling finished his homework and scanned the ranking chart, he discovered that Father Wang was lagging behind in third place. He immediately opened some discussion forums and news apps. Sure enough, this monthly votes battle had already become a news item.

News Headline: “A god has fallen? Wang Situ, veteran guru of Cultivation Chinese Network, falling behind by a wide margin in the monthly votes battle for the first time!”

There were many similar news reports, and in what seemed like an instant, they dominated the various major news channels and hot topic searches.

When Lie Mengmeng and Father Wang had been talking downstairs, Wang Ling had also heard about the “heavenly-level sects” that backed the two writers who were competing for votes.

Wang Ling was guessing that it might have been the heavenly-level sects adding fuel to the fire behind the scenes by disseminating this news…

Actually, there were many cases in recent years of sects collaborating with popular writers. The writers would advertise the sects in their books, and in return, the sects would support the writers in the competition for monthly votes or by giving them gifts.

This was the current trend in the market. In this mass of online cultivation novels, popular writers frequently based the worldbuilding in them on the modern cultivation framework, so big name sects had already long eyed this as an advertising opportunity; some sects would even look for authors to specially write “cultivation novels” featuring their own sects as the backdrop.

Initially, however, it had mostly been earth-level sects who had sought out writers to collaborate with, because it was the earth-level sects that didn’t have enough students.

Who knew when heavenly-level sects had started doing the same thing…

There was a lot of discussion in the class group on this. In fact, quite a number of people in class were fans of Father Wang, but in the end they were just students. Five immortal gold bars for a monthly vote – where would students get the money for that? Wang Ling thought that as a student, an official subscription as a form of support was already pretty good! Saying that you didn’t have money because you were a student and so you read the pirated version was never an excuse.

Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal always followed Father Wang’s books closely!

So after watching the news, he immediately expressed support for it in the group. “Everyone! Senior Wang’s book The Live Streaming Life of the Immortal King is now ranked third in the monthly votes chart! Is it possible for everyone to mobilize whatever strength there is around you to help Senior Wang campaign for votes?”

Dharmaraja was the first to respond as he immediately sent an OK sign. “No problem! I’ll vote for Senior Wang!”

Cailian Zhenren sent a fist salute emoji. “I don’t really read this type of novel, but I still support Senior Wang. I’ll contribute a hundred monthly votes.”

Immortal Toya: “But Senior Immortal, our strength alone is not enough. This gap is a little big.”

Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal nodded his head and said, “Everybody, vote first. I’ve already announced an event in my cultivation forum to cheer Senior Wang on! No matter what, we have to make Senior Wang the top!”

Just then, he directly sent out the link to the event.

When Wang Ling clicked on the link, he saw two big words on the event’s main page: Summit War 1 …