Soon enough, just as Weng Kanya had said, her hands went sore from answering phone calls.
Since no one could find Teacher Little Qiao’s contact information, they had no choice but to call the only person who could reach her—Weng Kanya.
Every time Weng Kanya picked up the phone, it was either another magazine society asking for Teacher Little Qiao’s contact details or inviting her to contribute articles.
It was probably because the thousand-word fee of 100 yuan she had casually quoted to Zhu Hao last time had been taken as sarcasm and spread by him.
The magazine societies that called specifically asking for Teacher Little Qiao to preview their publications all offered the exorbitant fee of 100 yuan per thousand words.
One had to know that in their circle, the openly marked highest fee was 30 yuan per thousand words. Even if some magazine societies poached people privately, they offered at most 40 yuan per thousand.
But now, any magazine society that wanted to invite Teacher Little Qiao to write offered 100 yuan per thousand words without any haggling.
While it made Weng Kanya sigh in amazement, it also filled her heart with even greater pride.
Her goddess deserved such high fees!
Of course, in Weng Kanya’s mind, Teacher Little Qiao’s thousand words were worth far more than just 100 yuan!
In her view, the benefits Qiao Shu had brought to their magazine society far exceeded 100 yuan per thousand words by a huge margin!
Therefore, no matter how the other magazine societies pleaded or raised their offers, Weng Kanya rejected them outright.
And because of this, Weng Kanya, who had previously been an unknown little editor, suddenly became famous throughout the publishing world!
Of course, whenever people mentioned her, it was with envy, jealousy, and hatred, as if they had eaten ten pounds of lemons—they were incredibly sour.
And whenever they brought up Weng Kanya, who had gotten extremely lucky and secured the money tree that was Teacher Little Qiao, everyone inevitably mocked Happy Children Magazine mercilessly.
After all, who didn’t know that Teacher Little Qiao had originally submitted to Happy Children Magazine?
It was a pity that Happy Children Magazine had no eye for talent and refused to raise the fee for Teacher Little Qiao, who already had a fan base back then.
In the end, they had even fired Weng Kanya over the issue of raising Teacher Little Qiao’s fee.
Now, whenever anyone mentioned Happy Children Magazine, they said the society was blind—how could they throw away such a huge money tree?
“I heard they wouldn’t even raise it to ten yuan per thousand words for Teacher Little Qiao before. Now it’s great—not only ten yuan per thousand, but even a hundred yuan per thousand is something Teacher Little Qiao looks down on. They can’t invite her.”
“Teacher Little Qiao’s value isn’t something that can be moved with just a hundred yuan per thousand words! Who doesn’t know how hot Fairy Tale Princess is selling now! It’s already on its third reprint, right? That sales figure is insane!”
“Yeah, I read the first issue of Fairy Tale Princess. The quality of every story was too high! It’s really hard to imagine how Teacher Little Qiao’s brain works. She actually managed to write an entire fairy tale magazine by herself, and every story maintained a standard above par. She’s truly amazing!”
“Not just above par! That long serialized fairy tale story she wrote, Ningning and Kangkang’s Magical Adventure, has only just started serialization, but her conception is truly ingenious and marvelous. I think this fairy tale story is bound to become a classic!”
“So, Happy Children Magazine really has no eye for talent. What a great fairy tale author they lost!”
…
Ever since Fairy Tale Princess was published, Happy Children Magazine had fallen into dire straits.
The reason was none other than the massive sales explosion of Fairy Tale Princess right after its release.
At first, Wan Zhuo and Zhu Hao had been annoyed by the exorbitant conditions Weng Kanya had demanded and wanted to give her the cold shoulder.
After all, they all knew that starting a magazine society and publishing a magazine was no simple matter, especially a fairy tale one.
Even if Teacher Little Qiao’s fairy tales were captivating, their magazine had just launched—no one knew about it yet.
Magazines in their early stages were always the hardest; they needed substantial funding to persist until they could turn a profit later.
So they planned to wait until after the launch, when sales were poor, to strike at their arrogance and confidence before negotiating.
While keeping an eye on Fairy Tale Beauty Magazine’s launch, they mocked the young woman Weng Kanya to their peers for being too ambitious and demanding too much.
Others who heard those conditions chimed in agreement.
But who would have thought—Fairy Tale Princess sold out explosively upon release!
The first print run was quickly snapped up by countless readers, followed swiftly by the second and third printings…
The name Qiao Xiaoqiao burst onto the publishing scene like a comet, shining with dazzling brilliance before everyone’s eyes, shocking the entire industry so much that their jaws dropped and they couldn’t pick them up—like the Emperor Star descending to earth.
And Weng Kanya, the ‘discoverer’ who had spotted this dark horse Qiao Xiaoqiao, leaped from an obscure little figure to a marvel everyone in the publishing world wanted to know.
They all wanted her to introduce them to the mysterious Teacher Little Qiao and act as a bridge.
There was no helping it—who in the publishing world knew Teacher Little Qiao, or had any information related to her? After all, when Weng Kanya left Happy Children Magazine, she had cleared away all information connected to Teacher Little Qiao.
Whenever this came up, the publishing peers couldn’t help but mock Happy Children Magazine again, whipping the corpse as it were.
Because of this, Wan Zhuo didn’t even dare to go out to friends’ gatherings.
However, at that moment, he had no time for gatherings anyway. He was overwhelmed and frazzled dealing with his own magazine society’s issues.
The massive sales of Fairy Tale Princess had indeed made him uncomfortable, but what hurt even more was that sales of Joyful Children Fairy Tales plummeted, making it impossible for him to hold it together!
After all, this directly hit his interests…