Chapter 74 Alice's Idol Project
When it comes to Kavi, Harold was extra cautious. He was worried that Kavi would go crazy buying milk tea just because someone said they needed his help.
But he did not ask Bainani about Kavi in a roundabout way. After all, they were roommates now, and he could get all the information he wanted by returning to Xumi City.
After Harold took the coupon from Bainani, he said goodbye to her and continued walking towards the ancient tree building.
As soon as he entered the busy commercial district, he saw a petite lady in red clothes and trousers selling slime milk tea.
The lady's name was Sadie. She was a cloth merchant. After she bought a batch of blankets according to Dolly's instructions and successfully sold them at a high price, she became Dolly's loyal follower.
At this moment, she was running back and forth in the milk tea tent built with bamboo poles and cloth, washing tea cups and pouring milk. There were so many people queuing that she was so busy that she couldn't even keep up with the pace.
Behind Sati was her own fabric stall. The blankets on the stall were colorful and had intricate patterns, which were rare even in Xumi, which was famous for its fabrics. They were obviously of high quality, but unfortunately no one was interested in buying them.
Harold had no doubt that even if someone were to walk up to her stall and take a few pieces of cloth, she wouldn't notice.
Harold looked at the length of the crowd, silently put the milk tea coupon in his hand into his pocket, and continued walking inside.
There are also many milk tea stalls in the commercial area far away from the port. The people running the stalls are all vendors who have lived in Port Omos for a long time. Their original spice stalls and fruit stalls can be seen beside and behind them...the situation is similar to that of Sati.
That's great, it looks like another big profit. Harold is quite satisfied with the current prosperity of the milk tea stall.
Harold found Dolly again, who was standing on tiptoe and happily putting Mora into the hourglass one by one.
Seeing Harold, she did not shy away from him, throwing Mora into the huge glass container and greeting him: "Good morning, my friend, do you want to count with me how many Mora we have earned?"
Harold was in a good mood: "Just show me the account book. It would be even better if you are willing to send my share of the income directly to my house."
"I have already done so. I am worried that you will be troubled by Ichimora when you are in urgent need of money."
Dolly jumped down from the box and pushed the box she had been using as a stepping stone to Haroldt. "How is it? Have you been surprised by my efficiency along the way? My speed in this area is not slower than the speed at which you produce research results, right?"
Hearing Dolly teasing him about his research progress, Harold smiled and said, "To be honest, this is really beyond my expectations, but the popularity of the novel is within my expectations. It's just that the number of votes is announced every month..."
It's very advanced and a first in the continent of Teyvat.
Dolly: "Hey, didn't you expect that? This is not my idea, it was provided by my almighty supplier.
When she knew we were going to create this kind of storytelling system, she immediately contacted me and said that she would be in charge of all publicity matters, and that publishing the vote counts every month was just the first step of her plan.
Harold pretended to be surprised: "You have mentioned this mysterious supplier twice. I really admire his vision and ability. I really want to know who he is."
Dolly's eyes twinkled as she praised him generously: "She is the great adventurer of the worlds, the guardian of Old Mondstadt, the famous Ms. Alice! This is a huge trade secret. I just told you this, shouldn't you express your opinion?"
Harold: "How about exchanging it for the story framework of Chapter 2?"
Dolly put her hands on her hips, but she didn't look angry. "That was originally meant for me, but Ms. Alice was also planning to meet you. 0-0, we're even."
"Is it because of the atomizer that you plan to meet me?"
"Of course not. I have asked the researchers at Fontaine to make the atomizer. You can put it in your laboratory in three months at the latest. There is no need to trouble Ms. Alice for such a small matter. Ms. Alice is interested in your character design and story outline.
It was unbelievable that she, who hadn't seen me for several years, suddenly appeared in front of me after receiving those manuscripts and said to me excitedly, "That's great, my idol group plan finally has a chance to come true!"
Then, she took the lead and wrote the first chapter of "The Bizarre Adventure of Slime Continent" in two days. Ms. Alice is very talented, and with her around, our business will naturally be more powerful."
As Dolly spoke, she occasionally cooperated with Zhen Ling to simulate Ms. Alice's expression and movements at the time, trying to make Harold more intuitively feel how magical the witch's abilities were and how she acted at will.
Harold took out the booklet and read it carefully again. This time he really saw some clues: "The first chapter of the novel was actually written by Ms. Alice. No wonder, only a great adventurer who traveled around the world could describe the landscapes of various countries in such detail."
Dolly: "This is the first time you and Ms. Alice have collaborated across time and space. Ms. Alice is very satisfied with this. She will come to you again. I hope you won't be too surprised when she appears in front of you."
"nature."
Harold nodded. "I can't lose my composure in front of Ms. Alice. I need to practice my facial expression management."
Dolly nodded with satisfaction. She was finally willing to unveil the mysterious wooden box in front of her. "Before that, do you want to read the readers' letters?"
"A letter? Is that an analogy or a statement?"
Harold already had the answer in his mind when he took out the colored pieces of paper from the box. He knew that the merchants selling milk tea probably used the suggestion box to collect some feedback.
Dolly: "Look for yourself. I've already screened it. You won't see any urging for updates or 'I'm XX's dog' or anything like that."
"'Grandstanding'? That's a really harsh assessment."
The first comment Harold read was a negative one. He could only shake his head helplessly, lamenting that his luck was as bad as ever.
However, this comment is quite pertinent. While criticizing the character settings in the article as being completely unreasonable, it also praised the author's imaginative ideas.
Finally, it ends with “Looking forward to the next chapter”.
After reading it, Harold handed the piece of paper to Dolly: "It seems that there are a lot of scoldings."
Dolly took the paper and read it quickly: "These booklets are given away free of charge with the character-exclusive milk tea. In the first few days after the booklets were released, positive reviews dominated.
But after our people spontaneously carried out 'missionary work', it attracted too much attention from all walks of life. As you read on, you will immediately see some comments from old scholars, which can be called 'criticism'. "
Harold continued reading and, as expected, saw comments such as "distorting academic trends", "lacking substance", and "wasting public resources".
"The inevitable problem is that it has a wide audience. Maybe someone with ulterior motives will report this matter. Then we have to think about how to deal with the attack from the Ministry of Religious Affairs."
Harold said as he read the contents of the paper.
Dolly said lazily, "Do you think the House of Religious Orders will target us? Will they order us to close the store?"
“We pay a lot of tax for selling milk tea. The Fatwa is willing to take over, but can they do better than this? No. They have to turn a blind eye just for the sake of money.
But I’m afraid that the price of paper will go up in the future, or milk tea will be subject to luxury tax.”
Dolly said something shocking: "I am not without experience in going against the Ministry of Education."
Harold did not respond. He had already quickly read one-tenth of the feedback. Generally speaking, the response was good. Many people were interested in this novel way of storytelling. Some people also continued the story or speculated on the character's background story.
Haroldt put the paper back into the box. He felt that there was no need to read it any further. "Have you seen these, Ms. Alice?"
Dolly: “I was just about to send this batch over, the last batch was sent over, but she didn’t respond, so I thought, maybe she’s not interested.
I heard that she published some books under different names, and left them at the door of the publishing house or hid them in the library after writing them, and she never cared about what others thought of them. "
Yes, Ms. Alice is thinking of establishing the "Teyvat Idol Group" with the help of Slime Milk Tea, so I guess she won't care about other people's opinions.
Then, Harold told Dolly the framework of the second chapter of the story. In the second chapter, the race officially began. The carriages of Prince Rock and Prince Grass deviated from the course at the beginning. The two exchanged their riddle experiences in the car, and from time to time they would make an inexplicable "...", and then adjust the driving direction according to the direction of the dowsing rod.
Prince Thunder and Prince Fire encountered a powerful enemy. Prince Thunder fell to the ground seriously injured while trying to protect his companion. Prince Fire, who was half-crippled, recalled the teachings of his elders, the painful experience of his parents being killed in front of him, and his increasingly distant sister. Suddenly, he felt his right hand getting hot, as if he had gained new strength, and he burst out with amazing strength to defeat his opponent.
The princesses complained to each other about how troublesome their brothers were, and everything went peacefully along the way.
Dolly said depressedly: "Only these few characters appear?"
Harold said confidently: "It's only this long. If Ms. Alice feels it's not enough, you can modify it at will."
Dolly accepted this reason and turned to ask, "Does the new power refer to the Eye of God?"
Harold: "The same power system as the continent of Teyvat cannot attract readers' attention. We need to create a new way of fighting. I think we should call it 'holy relics'. The ancient holy relics buried in the land are attracted by the prince's beliefs, choose him and give him power."
After hearing this setting, Dolly immediately wrote down the framework of the second chapter.