After Bai Mo left, the old men gathered once more, eating and chatting.
"How long do you think it will take him to spread this thing?" Hua Taishan, who was most familiar with Bai Mo and the initiator of the entire plan, was the first to ask.
"Half a year," Mo Bu Yan, who rarely spoke, uttered just two words.
"I'd say three months."
"Why don't you, Old Hua, set up a bet? Let's gamble on it?"
Holding the first version of the Martial Edict, Bai Mo first spent most of the day diligently typing the sprawling, nearly forty-thousand-character handwritten manuscript of the Martial Edict, word for word, into his computer.
Although he now spent most of his time on bodily evolution and cultivating qi, his mentor had been pulled into the research institute and had no time to manage him. The project, designed more for lining pockets and climbing the ranks than for genuine research, offered little of substance to study. Thus, Bai Mo often spent his leisure time browsing various websites.
After completing the first step, he dialed Hua Taishan's number.
"Hello, Elder Hua."
"Already handled the publicity?"
"Not yet. I have a request. I won't be putting my name on this Martial Edict; the authors will just be the four of you elders."
"What's wrong? Is someone threatening you?" Hua Taishan's first reaction was that Bai Mo was in danger.
"No, I just don't particularly like the feeling of being the focus of countless eyes. Besides, my status isn't comparable to yours; my position isn't commensurate with such a prominent association, and forcibly attaching my name might invite trouble."
"To each their own ambitions. I had thought you, a young man, would be more enthusiastic about this fame than us old fellows. Such a trailblazing name comes with immense benefits. We, on the other hand, genuinely hope to use our greater renown to expose more people to martial arts and ignite their interest."
"My apologies, my interest doesn't lie there."
"No matter. It's a virtue for a young person not to be conceited." Hua Taishan, in a good mood, joked.
...
After calling Hua Taishan, Bai Mo took a taxi to an internet cafe quite a distance away.
Using someone else's phone number, he registered an account on the Zhongdian Novel Website and activated the online author service. His pen name was a combination of the four elders' surnames—Mo Li Hua Lei—a homophone for "Jasmine Bud."
Clicking open the new work page, Bai Mo created a new book, titled simply "Martial Edict," then uploaded the first chapter, a total of one hundred and twenty-six characters describing the basic breathing technique.
This chapter introduced the initial path of attracting Spirit Qi for body tempering, which he had personally verified to be effective.
He then employed a masterful cliffhanger for the subsequent methods, stopping just short of explaining how to further enhance the effects.
...
However, Bai Mo, drawing on years of experience reading novels, knew well that no one in their right mind would read a book with just a hundred-odd characters.
To become popular quickly, he would have to game the system.
He contacted an online astroturfing service through a small ad, splurging a hefty sum of money on them, telling the 'brushers' to spare no expense in propelling the book to the top of several ranking lists.
...
Over the next few days, Bai Mo lay in his dorm, observing the spectacle in the comment section from the perspective of a reader.
"Watching the big moneybags. A novel with just over a hundred characters per chapter, yet in three days it's been brushed to nearly a hundred thousand clicks and recommendations!"
"Starting a thread to follow!"
"Watching the divine book!"
"A book with just over a hundred characters, and every day Silver Alliance members are flooding the screen with notifications. Is the author just burning money for fun?"
"'Martial Edict'... what era is that novel title from? Isn't it incredibly tacky?"
"Ten coins per floor, settlement after one million floors!"
"Lutianxia passing by..."
...
A few days later, the comment section, once filled with sarcasm, became a uniform chorus of amazement.
"I got bored and tried it, and found that the Spirit Qi Body Tempering Method described seems to be real..."
"Could it be some reclusive, rich expert with nothing better to do, publishing cultivation manuals on Zhongdian.com?"
"Tested and confirmed effective."
"To think there's actually a great master openly publishing such a secret technique, not keeping it hidden to quietly make a fortune?"
"A big moneybags who can get tens of thousands of clicks and recommendations daily probably doesn't care about such cultivation techniques being leaked... they're just treating life as a game."
"Divine technique manual, click to receive!"
After the hype and public relations team gave it a push with their 'silver bullet tactics,' this novel on the Zhongdian Novel Website, with a main text of only 126 characters, truly took off.
More and more people discovered that the breathing technique described within was genuinely effective.
Although Bai Mo had already spent all his money on fake clicks, the daily clicks and recommendations continued to skyrocket.
The content of the first chapter was rapidly reposted by countless internet porters to platforms like WeChat, Weibo, blogs, and Tieba. Unbeknownst to themselves, countless individuals began their own path of attracting Spirit Qi for body tempering from this very source.
...
"Have you found out who it is? Someone who managed to develop a method for utilizing Spirit Qi in such a short time." Inside Tianjing City, an old man in a Zhongshan suit asked.
"The Special Investigation Team retrieved the backend data and found that the author registered using the phone number of Hua Taishan, the vice-president of the National Martial Arts Association."
"National Martial Arts Association, the Hua family... is it that person's younger brother?"
"You're aware of Hua Taishan's background; he's backed by that Hua family, and the other co-authors are also from the association."
"My subordinates haven't taken any further action without your approval."
"This isn't something that will ruin the country or bring disaster to the people," the old man in the Zhongshan suit said after a moment's thought.
"Go personally to confirm it once. If it really is them, remind them not to let there be a next time."
"Understood."
Although the old man felt that this unauthorized public release of cultivation information seemed to harm some national interests, the elders involved were all imperial relatives with deep connections, so he decided to turn a blind eye.
...
After throwing the first chapter online, Bai Mo calmly assumed the role of a casual observer.
He watched the discussion surrounding the "Spirit Qi Body Tempering Method" and the Martial Edict ferment online. When countless people in the comment section were clamoring, begging him not to pull another "divine cliffhanger" and pleading for updates, he secretly went to another internet cafe to log in to the "Mo Li Hua Lei" account and uploaded the second chapter, still just over a hundred characters long.
Having detached himself from the affair, doing it purely for fun, Bai Mo could not yet imagine the madness of ordinary people for the Martial Edict.
With the Spirit Tide outbreak and the emergence of Ability Users, countless people felt lost about the future. Even those fortunate enough to gain abilities didn't know what they were supposed to do.
The name "Mo Li Hua Lei" instantly became one of the trending search terms online.
As Bai Mo expected, in such a powerful online environment of meme creators, morning news could generate a slew of jokes by the afternoon. The pen name "Mo Li Hua Lei" easily led meme creators to the rather artistic homophone "Jasmine Bud."
Thus, conversations like "Sister Jasmine, please update more, Sister Jasmine, please give us the continuation!" spread everywhere online. Some even went further, creating feminized anthropomorphic images of "Mo Li Hua Lei."
When Bai Mo saw the sexy and charming "Jasmine-girl" images online, he couldn't help but maliciously wonder what kind of expressions they would make when they eventually discovered that "Mo Li Hua Lei" was actually four old men.