13: Chapter 13 Initial Subscription Data

Chen Fan also noticed the many messages about tips.

He felt a surge of excitement; with so many tips, his income next month was going to explode.

He checked the first subscription data, which was still steadily rising; everything was moving in a good direction.

Chen Fan leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen for quite a while.

He stretched his neck and then closed the page.

Watching it for a while was enough.

There was no point in staring at it constantly; the final first subscription data wouldn't be determined until noon tomorrow, and the tips wouldn't keep flooding the screen forever.

Twenty-four hours passed quickly.

Returning to the Hongshulin Internet Cafe, Chen Fan couldn't wait to open the author dashboard and check the first subscription data.

First-day subscriptions: 18,847

Chen Fan stared at the number without blinking.

18,847. It had broken ten thousand. Not only that, it was even approaching twenty thousand.

In 2009, this achievement could be considered the ceiling. To reach this level, the gimmick of releasing 100 chapters at once definitely added a lot of points.

Just then, a new message popped up on Chen Fan's QQ. He opened it and saw it was from his editor, Xinghe.

[Xinghe: "Congratulations, you've broken ten thousand in first subscriptions. It's a pity you're just short of twenty thousand."]

[Chen Fan: "It's quite good. I'm very satisfied."]

[Xinghe: "Do you want me to help you promote the news that you're approaching twenty thousand first subscriptions on the forum?"]

Seeing this, Chen Fan was stunned. Approaching twenty thousand? Wasn't he still more than 1,000 short?

However, he also understood that compared to breaking ten thousand, being close to twenty thousand was definitely more attractive.

Moreover, if this news spread, it would certainly benefit his work. Once the post was made, thousands of people would see it, and more people would flock to Qidian to check out the book.

Secondly, word of mouth. Breaking ten thousand in first subscriptions was the best advertisement in itself. When readers saw "This book has over ten thousand first subscriptions, even approaching twenty thousand," their first reaction would definitely be, "I have to check that out."

Chen Fan barely hesitated and immediately agreed.

After finishing the chat with Xinghe, Chen Fan checked the tips again. There were 32 new Alliance Masters and over two hundred Helmsmen. Adding the 18 Alliance Masters from the free period, he already had 60.

In this day and age, Qidian didn't have Silver Alliance Masters or Gold Alliance Masters yet, so Alliance Master was the highest tier of tipping.

Just from this portion of tips, there was nearly 80,000, and Chen Fan could get half, which was over 40,000.

After closing the tips page, Chen Fan started uploading today's chapters—10 chapters totaling 30,000 words were uploaded.

After uploading, Chen Fan suddenly remembered something: today was the 12th, and last month's royalties should have been sent out.

Although his work was still in a free state last month, there were tips from 11 Alliance Masters and dozens of Helmsmen, totaling about 16,000.

And Chen Fan could get over 8,000.

Thinking of this, Chen Fan couldn't sit still. He immediately settled his bill, logged off, and prepared to go to the bank to check if the money had arrived.

His bank card was from China Construction Bank, but he hadn't set up online banking, so he couldn't check his balance online and had to go to the bank.

[Ding, Wealth Points + 8132]

Hearing this notification sound, Chen Fan's eyes lit up instantly. Was this last month's royalties arriving?

Since the system had already prompted that his Wealth Points had increased, it must have arrived. However, Chen Fan still had to go to a bank branch; after all, he wouldn't feel at ease without seeing the account balance with his own eyes.

Before leaving the internet cafe, he checked the time; there was only a little over thirty minutes left until the first class of the afternoon.

It took over twenty minutes to walk to the nearest China Construction Bank branch, and a round trip would take at least forty minutes. He definitely wouldn't make it to class.

It looked like he would have to skip the first class of the afternoon.

Skip it then. Chen Fan didn't care anymore; anyway, with his current grades, he had basically been given up on.

He walked along the street for over twenty minutes and found that China Construction Bank at the street corner.

Arriving at the ATM, Chen Fan, with an excited heart, took out his bank card from his wallet and then carefully inserted it into the machine.

After tapping the screen a few times, Chen Fan entered his password, and soon, the bank card's balance popped up on the screen.

Available balance: 8,132 yuan.

Seeing this number, Chen Fan's anxious heart settled. He had finally earned money.

It had been nearly a month since his rebirth, and he had earned over eight thousand.

It hadn't been easy.

He clicked withdraw and entered the amount of 2,000.

The machine began to hum and spat out a stack of bills. He counted them, and there were exactly 20.

Chen Fan folded the money and stuffed it into his pocket, took out his bank card, and turned to leave.

With these two thousand, Chen Fan planned to go buy a mobile phone today.

Although mobile phones nowadays had very few functions, and even smartphones didn't have many features, Chen Fan still needed to buy one first.

Without a phone, Chen Fan really wasn't used to it; he couldn't check the time when he wanted to, and couldn't contact people either.

So, a mobile phone was definitely a must-buy.

The only thing to consider was whether to buy a traditional feature phone or a smartphone.

At this stage, the only thing that could be called a smartphone was the iPhone 3GS. The others, like Samsung, Sony, and HTC, seemed to still be using the Symbian system, which in Chen Fan's view, couldn't be considered a smartphone at all.

In his previous life, he used Huawei phones, a loyal user from the Mate 30 to 80, and had never used an iPhone. However, in this era, Huawei phones were truly unusable. No matter how loyal he was, Chen Fan couldn't choose Huawei, so he could only choose an iPhone.

However, Chen Fan didn't plan to buy an iPhone 3GS either. In his previous life, while scrolling through Douyin, he had seen the history of the iPhone, and the iPhone 3GS had many drawbacks, such as only supporting Unicom's 3G, while China Mobile could only reach 2G.

The main thing was that the price was too high, and Chen Fan's funds were currently not very sufficient, so he had to give up on it.

Chen Fan's goal was next year's iPhone 4. By then, his funds would definitely be in the millions, more than enough to buy a phone.

So for the current stage, Chen Fan decided to buy a feature phone first.

If he was going to buy a feature phone, there was only one choice: the king of the feature phone era—Nokia.

As for which Nokia model, Chen Fan didn't know much about phones from this era, so he wasn't sure which one to buy. His first phone was bought in college, and it was a no-name machine that cost a few hundred yuan.

He would check online later; as long as it could meet Chen Fan's current needs, it would be fine.

Chen Fan's needs were just being able to make calls, check the time, send and receive text messages, and chat on QQ.

30 minutes later, Chen Fan stood at the classroom door, where a teacher who looked like a young man in his twenties was giving a lecture.

This was Chen Fan's chemistry teacher, Li Bin.

He wasn't very old, so naturally, he didn't have much authority. When someone talked during class, he never scolded them or made them stand in the corner.

Sometimes, halfway through the lesson, he would talk to the students about international affairs, drifting from oil prices to the situation in the Middle East, and then winding back from the Middle East situation to chemical reaction rates, managing to circle back after a long detour.