The Emperor of Heaven has Blessed You

Shin Jie Jie usually woke up after ten in the morning. As an author, her concentration was the best at night, so she developed the habit to work until late and sleep in until noon. Now that one of her books has proven itself to be a bestseller on the weekly trending charts of the nationwide magazine "The Weekly", she behaved even more leisurely than a cat - sleeping and eating all day. Yes, she took a break from work.

All that hard work and those sleepless nights had finally paid off for her. The publishing company had even mentioned negotiations with an entertainment company that wanted to buy the rights to her book. As she woke up and went to the small kitchen to make coffee, she couldn't hold back and give her newest book, "When the Thread came Undone", a hug and a kiss.

"My lovely child, you've grown so much." If someone else would hear her right now, they would surely get the creeps, listening to her laughing and giggling.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was Mari, an illustrator and one of her best friends.

"Mari, what's up?" In a good mood, Jie Jie answered her phone.

"JIE JIE!" A female voice screamed on the other side, making her automatically shrink away from the phone.

"What's with you? Is your favourite boy band in the city?" She asked quizzically. The last time her friend was this emotional was because that group made of testosterone came to the vicinity.

"I tried to reach you the whole morning!" The other voice seemed totally exhausted and ignored all of Jie Jie's questions. "Have you logged in to NovelsOnline?"

"What, NovelsOnline? No, I'm taking a break from writing."

"Go online! NOW! I am waiting!"

"Gosh, what's with you today?"

"JIE JIE! NOW!"

Of course, all that mysterious behaviour would also make her curious. Why was Mari so strange today? She took her cup of freshly brewed coffee and went to her work station. I didn't take long for her laptop to start since it was always on stand by. She logged into the main interface and opened the browser. While she was manoeuvring the mouse to click on the short cut that would lead her to NovelsOnline, she took a sip from her mug - just to turn it into a coughing fit.

"What the hell..." she murmured in between teary eyes from all the coughing. "What did you do, Mari?"

"What? No! That's what I wanted to ask you! How did you do that!" Mari threw the ball back into Jie Jie's field.

On the main site of NovelsOnline was the picture of two handsome men in a very promiscuous pose with clothes slightly undone. It wasn't anything special if you know what Boys Love was, but the thing that shocked Jie Jie was the fact that Mari drew this. It was the cover of Jie Jie's online novel which Mari would occasionally illustrate to enhance the quality.

Slowly Jie Jie began to slowly take in the news and comprehend the situation.

First, her novel was featured on the main page!

Second, it ranked number one in terms of fan support!!

Third, who the heck is this 'Emperor of Heaven'???

The more she tried to understand the situation she got herself in, the less she understood. Mari kept talking excitedly, but Jie Jie had already put down the phone, not listening anymore. She had opened her on-site messages. There were massive amounts of fan notices, private messages to congratulate or to curse her or people just wanted to be funny. She ignored all of them and went straight to the system notices. A few said she gained access to the VVIP Author Lounge. And one of them was as follows:

>> Congratulations Author Jie^2,

The Emperor of Heaven has Blessed You! You gained 1 Million Blessings!

We encourage you to keep up the good work!

- NovelsOnline <<

This was a standard message when you usually received a 'Worship' by fans. But what the hell is a Blessing now and who is this 'Emperor of Heaven'? Is this a new feature? How come there was no announcement about this new feature? And how much is an actual Million of Blessings worth? Enough to get to number one? Or is this a bug? Yes, must be a bug, and her story was the only one receiving those Blessings, making her jump into number one! This must be it!

"I have to report this bug, can't let this story stay on the front page for long. It will only attract unwanted attention..."

Can't let people see it. Boys Love stories rarely graze the front page. If this keeps up, all those stuck up people will come and harass her. She doesn't want to deal with haters. Homosexuality was still frowned upon in this country and during some instances still regarded as a crime.

Her phone rang again, this time it was an unknown number.

"I'm sorry Mari, I got another call, it must be the publishing company. I will call you back later, ok?"

"Huh? Wait, Jie Jie, what about NovelsOnline! It's ONE MILL...!"

Before Mari could say 'One Million Dollar', she was hung up on.

"Yes, this is Shin Jie Jie speaking."

Jie Jie changed her tone in lightning speed to that of a business voice. She had awaited a call from the publishing firm for some time now, sooner or later they would set a date for her to meet the entertainment company that will buy the rights to her book. She has to meet up with them and talk about the conditions. Being the mother of her child, she has to make sure that they would treat it with due respect and not butcher it to fit onto the screen. As an author herself, she felt her heart bleeding whenever a book's content get twisted by the screenwriters until nothing of the original remains.

"G-good morning... Author J-Jie?" A nervous voice spoke up.

Jie Jie twisted her eyebrows. This guy doesn't sound like the people from the publishing firm.

"Scammer?" She murmured.

"N-No! Author Jie, h-how could you s-say that!" The voice seemed to break out in tears. He was just nervous, okay? He seldom made phone calls, and this one was worth a million dollars! The more he tried to sound professional, the more he stuttered, this was so embarrassing, no one was taking him seriously... that man yesterday even enslaved him, making him work through the night! He cried, but no tears came out.

"Author, no, Miss Jie! My name is J-Justin Wang! I am a representa-ta-tive of NovelsOnline!"

"Ah, how considerate of you. I was about to contact you!"

Jie Jie thought he was calling about the bug. That would explain why he kept calling her 'Jie'. Jie² was her username. It was short for Jie Jie. He must not have heard her when she introduced herself.

The bug was annoying, although she would get a lot of attention through this incident. Being on the front page was free advertising for her book, and many authors would never get that chance, no matter how hard they tried. There must have been some new fans as well as haters. As long as the website doesn't want money for the advertising, she was actually very forgiving of this bug.

"Oh! You must have seen it already! That's great!" Justin Wang was delighted. This woman seems easy to talk to, and she sounded so enthusiastic. She must be overly delighted over the amount of sponsorship she has gotten. Ah, thank goodness, things are going to go well from now on.

"Then we await good cooperation with you!"

"Then I hope you deal with the bug soon!"

"...?"

"...?"

"Eh? Cooperation?"

"Eh? Bug?"

Both parties spoke at the same time and were instantly deep in thought. They had to take a break to process the words of the other.

"Wait, Mr. Wang, what are you saying? Isn't this related to the bug?"

"What bug? I am calling because of your novel 'The President and I'."

"Yes, isn't it a bug that my novel was labelled number one and got featured on the front page?"

"There is no bug..."

Justin Wang began to sweat profusely. But he felt her: yesterday he had the same thoughts when the system sent him a message that someone dropped one million dollars on just one novel. A novel about a homosexual relationship nonetheless. Rich people are indeed excentric and fearless.

But Justin Wang wasn't the only one who started to respirate. Shin Jie Jie also felt that something wasn't right. She began to walk around in her apartment, trying to see if there were hidden cameras somewhere. Maybe her friends are playing a prank on her? Perhaps she was filmed by that gameshow 'LMAO' right now?

"Then what is all this about, I don't understand."

"Miss Jie, haven't you seen the messages? Someone gave you a donation of one Million yesterday. Since then, your story was featured on all our lists, it actually is the highest prized story in the history of online novels right now. We even got inquiries from the press over this matter. Congratulations!"

After finding out that the author was stunned as he was, Justin Wang suddenly felt a lot more relaxed and gained some of his self-confident back. He had thought people had gotten insane these days.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jie Jie couldn't believe what she just heard. Someone seriously gave her a donation of one Million? "What Million? A Million of what? Potatoes?" Her head spun, but she couldn't see the big picture.

"One Million Blessings, of course! Oh, right, they were called Worships before, but we changed it yesterday, it's a long story... *sigh* oh, no, I'm losing tracks... I wanted to say that Blessings are the same as Worships now. You must have known of our donation program? We just changed the name.. and some titles... *cough* It took us all night to change the donation feature. It wasn't easy coming up with some cool title that could match a Million, you know...?"

Justin Wang seemed to lost track of the main topic the longer he talked. Somehow it sounded like he was complaining a lot but why would he complain to her? What's gotten it all to do with her?

Jie Jie tried to pick out the important message out of that messy rant.

"So you're saying, one Blessing has the same value as one Worship? You just changed the name? One Worship was one Dollar, so you're trying to say that..."

Jie Jie had to gulp down hard.

"You're saying that someone sent me a Million Dollars?!"

Camera! Where are the goddamn cameras!! Omigosh! No way!

"Uhm... of course, some of that money will be taken by NovelsOnline as a managing fee, as stated in our terms of service, which you've a-already agreed to when you decided to upload the contents of your story on our s-site. B-But since you are an outstanding author, we would like to offer you an i-individual contract that is cut to your needs. Uhm.. I assure you that we won't slight you. And we will even cut down on the managing fees as we want to establish a l-long term partnership with you, Author Jie."

"A personal contract?"

Shin Jie Jie's sixth sense suddenly told her that something was off.

"Y-yes... the sponsor has explicitly mentioned that from now on they want regular updates on at least a daily basis, 5 thousand words at least." Justin Wang's voice became smaller and smaller the more terms he counted. "Also, they wish for a sequel, a prequel, and at least two spin-offs."

Once Yang Yun had gotten into the car, his head cleared and started to work again. When he talked to Justin Wang, he was back to his usual self already. As Michael Yang, the President of YNG Entertainment, how could he just casually spend 1 Million Dollars without squeezing out every drop of advantage that was entitled to him? For a Million, this rotten author has to pay an equal prize. He was still generous since he didn't regard them equally to his business deals, or else there wouldn't even be a bone left.

"What the..." But Jie Jie had no time to ask what kind of bullshit was happening right now.

"Also, there will be a fan meeting that you have to attend. Your publishing rights will automatically be claimed by the sponsor. He will keep himself the opportunity to make as many physical copies as needed and if that happens, you will have to sign them all."

"..."

"Miss Jie, I know this is rather new for you, but I assure you that we will guide you thoroughly through every one of these points in detail. There are also some smaller points regarding your improvement and future p-performance, but we will discuss this personally.... Miss Jie... Miss Jie... Are you still l-listening?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, you must have gotten the wrong number." *clack*

And thus, Jie Jie hung up.