There are plenty of ways to make money in this world.

Manual labor, brainwork, or selling your looks… Well, as long as you’ve got two hands and two feet, you generally won’t starve.

In his previous life, Luo Chen’s parents had left behind just enough money to cover both Luo Xi’s and Luo Chen’s tuition from high school through college.

Then Luo Xi was gone, and what remained of the money was just about enough to cover one or two years of Luo Chen’s living expenses in college.

Of course, living off your savings wasn’t a long-term plan. The problem was… he was lazy. A lazy person who didn’t want to do manual labor, and usually didn’t even want to leave the house…

So back then, after assessing his situation, he came up with two options: teach himself to draw, or teach himself to write.

But drawing took so much effort that, without some natural talent, hard work alone would mean spending at least several years at it.

So he gave up on drawing and turned to writing instead. At first, nobody paid any attention to his work, and it bombed. Then things got a little better. Once he had a steady readership, his royalties were enough to cover his daily expenses.

After all, the barrier to entry for web novels was practically nonexistent. The only difference was how much talent and effort you had.

If your first hundred thousand words flop, write another million to get some practice.

If you’re still flopping after a million words, then your approach is the problem. There are tons of guides and tips online. Keep practicing and learning, and if you can hang in there long enough, you’ll get your chance to break through.

Making a fortune overnight might be hard, but plenty of authors are out there working toward their dreams while earning just enough to get by.

No one should mock the effort it takes to keep chasing a dream.

…I seem to have gotten off track.

Luo Chen had more or less mastered writing as a way to make a living. That knowledge was all in his head… And now that he’d been reborn, he was a little arrogant, too. He had no interest in plagiarizing works that would appear in the future.

So he chose to copy himself. The outlines and plots he’d come up with before were still in his head, and writing them again was actually pretty fun.

He could guarantee it wouldn’t flop. Whether it would become a huge hit, though, was beyond his ability to predict.

In fact, even amateur writers usually managed around three thousand Chinese characters an hour.

But then readers would complain… If you can write three thousand an hour, why do you post so little in a whole day?

Revising, plotting, figuring out how to make the story more interesting—sometimes all that thinking took longer than the actual writing.

…I think I’ve gotten off track again.

Luo Chen spent about four or five hours sitting at his computer, hammering out an outline and submitting it. He was also prepared for the first hundred thousand words to feel like a single-player game.

Now all he had to do was wait.

After that, Luo Chen went to wash up and get ready for bed… Tomorrow was Thursday, and he had class.

Luo Chen wasn’t going to give up on school anytime soon. Education wasn’t the only path forward, but it could open up more paths… Knowledge raised the ceiling on your future.

Besides… he still hadn’t figured out what was going on with Lin Yuqi.

In the future, I’ll save you. And if I can’t, then at least I tried my best.

Please, please stop clinging to me…

I don’t want to play the gentle one anymore… It’ll make me so… irritated.

And this time, I haven’t done anything to you, so… I don’t have to take responsibility, either.

Luo Chen lay on his side in bed, gazing through the window at the night sky.

The summer night sky was always brilliant, unlike winter, when everything looked so bleak and desolate.

The wind chime by the window rang softly.

Luo Xi had apparently given him the wind chime for his birthday three years ago. It had stayed with him for a long time, even in his previous life.

That familiar sound followed him into his dreams.

……………………

In the morning, Luo Chen woke to the sound of his phone alarm.

Once he got used to something, he was the kind of person who didn’t want to change it. He’d been using that alarm tone for six or seven years.

When he woke, the dazzling sunlight made it hard to open his eyes. He sat halfway up and spent five minutes coming out of his dream. Then he finally woke up properly, slipped on his slippers, and hurried off to wash up.

…At this time of day, Luo Xi would usually already be sitting on the sofa, changing her shoes and getting ready to head out.

He’d usually catch a glimpse of his little sister’s feet, bare one moment and tucked into short white socks with lace trim the next… That was kind of creepy of him.

At this hour, Luo Chen had only just gotten up, and Luo Xi certainly wouldn’t wait for him… Though sometimes she’d make breakfast and leave it in the pot.

So every time Luo Chen opened the pot, it felt a little like playing a lucky draw.

What if she’d been in a good mood and made breakfast today? Right?

Unfortunately, that chance had now dropped to zero… After washing up, Luo Chen went into the kitchen.

He was a firm believer in always eating breakfast. He cracked an egg from the fridge and fried it with last night’s leftover rice and some scallions, making egg fried rice.

As mentioned before, once Luo Chen got used to something, he was too lazy to change it. He’d been making egg fried rice for four or five years, and his skill had reached perfection. The whole kitchen filled with the aroma of eggs and rice.

After breakfast, he washed his hair and headed out. Drying it would’ve taken too long.

The school was close to home, only about a ten-minute walk away. Luo Chen had timed it just right: he wouldn’t arrive too early, but he wouldn’t be late, either.

He went to his seat. Come to think of it… he’d never had a desk mate at this two-person desk, from his first year of high school all the way through his last.

Back then, he’d happily used both desks: one for his textbooks, and the other for snacks, manga, and novels.

The only downside to this seat was that it was by the window. If he didn’t draw the curtains, the dazzling sunlight would turn the whole desktop golden.

He rested his head on the desk and began thinking about all sorts of random things.