Chapter 137 - 126: Someone Is Here to Steal Her Lover Again

Chapter 137: Chapter 126: Someone Is Here to Steal Her Lover Again

With a serious expression, she pulled out her phone and opened the reading app. With a light tap of her finger, she opened the only book on her bookshelf.

Sure enough, the very next second, she saw the little fox avatar.

As if she’d discovered some massive secret, her expression grew stern.

Her intuition told Yan Xici that this had to be a girl!

In truth, it was easy to tell girls and boys apart, even online.

Especially their avatars!

Some guys might use cute, fluffy animals for their avatars, but their usernames would still give them away as male, carrying a certain masculine air.

But girls were different. This person didn’t have a username, but everything about the profile screamed ’girl’.

Her gaze grew increasingly suspicious. ’With so many donations... My gut tells me this person is definitely interested in Brother Xiao Ran!’

At that thought, her heart sank.

’This is bad.’

’I have a love rival!’

The more she thought about it, the more it left a sour taste in her mouth.

’Why is it so hard for me to find love?!’

’No way. I have to find out who this person is!!!’

After opening the user’s complete history, she counted. ’Aren’t there three Silver Alliance rewards here?’

’Why did Brother Xiao Ran say there were only two?’

"There are clearly three here! This person donated enough for three Silver Alliances," Yan Xici called out to Xiao Ran in the kitchen.

’Just who is this rich woman?’

’That’s thirty thousand already. No matter how rich you are, you can’t just throw money around like that!’

Hearing this, Xiao Ran, who was in the middle of washing vegetables, froze.

’Another one?’

A bad feeling washed over him.

’Great. Another ten Chapters. Twenty thousand words from my backlog, gone!’

’Who on earth is this? It’s like their money grows on trees! Don’t they feel the sting at all?’

Xiao Ran sighed. "Fine, I’ll post the update before I finish cooking."

With that, he wiped the water from his hands and headed into his bedroom.

He pulled his laptop from his bag, booted it up, logged into his writing software, and exported ten Chapters, uploading them all in one go to the author dashboard.

Then, in the author’s note of the last Chapter, he left a message.

Thank you to my nameless patron for the three Silver Alliance donations today, but I really can’t keep up. Releasing 50,000 words in a single day... I’m really out of stockpiled Chapters. I’m begging you, my generous patron, please have mercy.

Update complete. Xiao Ran finally returned to the kitchen to continue making dinner.

Yan Xici sat on the sofa, hugging her legs.

Staring at the thirty unread Chapters on her phone, she was curious about who this ’little fox’ could be. At the same time, she couldn’t help but marvel, ’It must be nice to be rich. You can make an author release this many Chapters in one day.’

’But I have to admit, binging a book like this feels amazing!’

’After all, it’s thirty Chapters! That’s enough to last me all night!’

’If I were rich, I’d donate for a Silver Alliance too!’

...

After dinner, Yan Xici returned to her room and started catching up on the new Chapters. After all, with over thirty Chapters released at once and her naturally slow reading speed, she figured she had enough material to last the entire night!

Meanwhile, Xiao Ran was forced to start writing again. Although he still had some Chapters in his backlog, he was accustomed to keeping a buffer of over two hundred thousand words.

How should one put it? It was probably just a matter of habit.

Some authors hated keeping a backlog, their grasp of the plot only ever two hours ahead of their readers’.

But other authors were different. They wished they could finish the entire story before publishing a single word. It probably had something to do with their personality.

You couldn’t say which method was better, as both had their drawbacks.

.....

「The next morning」

Since Yan Xici had a morning class, she headed to the university with Xiao Ran.

One went to class, one went to work.

One diligently paid attention, the other frantically slacked off.

After that reader’s completely irrational behavior yesterday, Xiao Ran was thoroughly spooked. Seriously. Donations were great, but his body really couldn’t take the strain.

All he wanted now was to contact that reader and persuade her to stop. She absolutely could not do something so irrational again!

’This is seriously going to be the death of me!’

But there are two sides to every coin. Boosted by the three Alliance-level donations, Xiao Ran’s book shot straight onto the main page, jumping from the top ten directly into the number one spot.

This was something he himself had not expected.

...

On the film set, Boss Yang had just finished filming her scene and was sitting in the dressing room getting her makeup touched up.

She had nothing better to do, so she opened up Xiao Ran’s novel again.

He had already published over eighty thousand words, and under her high-pressure tactics, he had released another fifty thousand.

She had been so sure she would finally get to the romance plotline. But she never expected that after spending thirty thousand yuan, all she got was the early-stage, will-they-won’t-they teasing. It left her utterly speechless!

As for the author’s note he left, she saw it too, but she didn’t reply.

’Besides, I don’t believe a single word of it. No backlog?’

’Who’d believe that?’

’He said the same thing after the first donation, and didn’t he still obediently post the Chapters?’

In a fit of pique, the boss added another twenty thousand.

After all, to her, this was all just pocket change.

’I just want to see how the plot unfolds. Why is that so difficult?’

’At this rate, when will I ever get to the end of this book?!’

’Xiao Ran has sold adaptation rights before, and Director Zhang thinks very highly of him. Liu Min has also been keeping a close eye on his new book. If they make a move, I might not be able to get the rights!’

And so, Xiao Ran, who had just finished writing another ten thousand words, wanted to cry.

’Who the hell is this?!’

’Five Alliance-level donations! Is this person insane?’

’Five of them! That’s a full one hundred thousand words! Are they trying to kill me?’

’This is just bullying!’

He was even starting to suspect that this was some kid who’d stolen their parents’ phone.

’After all, what normal person would spend fifty thousand yuan just to read a book?!’

’I mean, that’s not five hundred, or even five thousand. It’s fifty thousand!’

He gritted his teeth, forced out another twenty thousand words for the update, and then immediately contacted his editor, Shi Guang.

Xiao Ran: Brother Shi, can you see the donation information from the backend?

Shi Guang: What’s up, brother?

Xiao Ran: Here’s the deal. A reader has given me five Alliance-level donations in two days. I’m a bit worried they might be underage.

There had been a lot of news in recent years about kids stealing their parents’ phones to donate to female live-streamers. He was genuinely afraid he’d run into a similar situation. It wasn’t just about refunding the money; it would make him look like he was intentionally swindling a child.

Seeing Xiao Ran’s message, Shi Guang immediately logged into the admin dashboard. However, he could only see the times the user had topped up their account, not their specific personal information.

Shi Guang: I can’t tell from here either. Brother, how about this, you try to contact them first, send them a private message or something.

Shi Guang: If it really is a minor, then you’ll just have to refund the money.

Xiao Ran: ....

To be honest, in all his years of writing, this was the first time he’d ever run into a situation like this. Getting donations was normal, but getting this much was a first for him.

Xiao Ran: Do you know if this has happened to any other authors?

Shi Guang: There have been, but in those cases, the Alliance donations weren’t all from the same person. A situation like yours... I’ve honestly never seen it before.

Looking at the message from Shi Guang, Xiao Ran frowned and fell into deep thought.

He then promptly sent a private message to the nameless patron: "My generous patron, you really can’t keep doing this. If I have to keep this pace up, my hands will give out. And not just my hands—my eyes will go blind!"

But unfortunately, Yang Mi was reading the book right now and didn’t notice the private message at all.

By the time she saw it, half an hour had already passed.

Seeing Xiao Ran’s message, she replied curtly: "I think you still have more Chapters in your backlog!"

’Honestly, she knew what she was doing was a bit of a low blow, but there was no other way for her to read ahead.’

’Besides, Xiao Ran was publishing so quickly, and the quality was still so high. It had to be from a backlog. Now she was just curious—exactly how big was this guy’s backlog?!’

’It’s like it’s endless.’

But to be honest, spending fifty thousand yuan just to get to the start of the romance... that was a price tag most people certainly couldn’t afford.