Chapter 38 Training Class

With Rizhao Shouyue joining Zeyue, Zha Zejun’s burden was instantly lightened by more than half.

What Zha Zejun had found most headache-inducing recently was the editorial department. There were simply too many authors, and he had no time to provide individual guidance. Besides, given his current position, spending time mentoring a single author to write a book—even if it meant nurturing another god-tier writer like Yuzhe—was not worth the trade-off.

The website was already on the right track and possessed a healthy self-sustaining capability. One or two top-tier writers would not have a massive impact on the platform overall.

The crucial issue was the editors. Before Rizhao’s arrival, the editorial department lacked anyone capable of carrying the heavy load. Zeyue’s editors had very limited experience with web novels, forcing Zha Zejun to spend a tremendous amount of time and energy on the department.

It wasn't that Zha Zejun couldn't handle hardship—entrepreneurs fear hardship least of all—but what he needed to focus on were strategic matters, rather than wasting time on the hands-on cultivation of specific authors or editors.

With Rizhao, an industry veteran, the company gained someone fully competent in both the deep understanding of web novels and the daily management of the editorial team.

He no longer needed to worry about the specific work of the editorial department, and Zha Zejun could completely delegate the day-to-day management of the entire website as well. Rizhao came from this exact background; even if Zha Zejun were to manage the web novel platform personally, he might not do as well as Rizhao.

In fact, he would likely do worse.

One had to realize that the secret to Zha Zejun founding Zeyue and securing absolute loyalty up to this point boiled down to two magic weapons: first, throwing money around generously; and second, leveraging adult maturity and prophetic foresight to create one "miracle" after another, inspiring a strong sense of personal cult-following among a group of students. Back then, when Rizhao hoisted the banner for Huanjian, he lacked both of these advantages and had to rely entirely on management artistry and personal capability.

Then there was business operations—specifically, the newly established planning and operations department. Zha Zejun still needed to spare some attention for this area, choosing the right timing and opportunities to utilize copyrights and expand into publishing and adaptation businesses. However, Rizhao could take charge of the actual implementation; having worked in the industry for many years, his network of information and connections was even richer than Zha Zejun's.

All in all, Rizhao, parachuted into Zeyue, had effectively become the de facto second-in-command and the undisputed number-one figure right below Zha Zejun. Aside from Song Yun’s technical department, which he could not penetrate, Rizhao held massive decision-making authority over all other operations.

In theory, Rizhao’s power was sufficient to sideline Zha Zejun, but in reality, there was zero possibility of that happening.

First, Rizhao had jumped ship from a "hostile camp"; he was not part of Zha Zejun’s original core team.

No matter how harmoniously he got along with the people at Zeyue, for a long time to come, in the hearts of Zeyue’s employees, Rizhao would remain an outsider—more akin to an "externally hired expert" of the company.

All of his power stemmed entirely from Zha Zejun. That authority was only effective with Zha Zejun’s nod of approval.

Furthermore, despite his high position, the company boasted many veteran figures, and quite a few people were capable of talking back to Rizhao. Leaving aside Song Yun, who was spiritually the true second-in-command of Zeyue, even several core members who had started out following Zha Zejun from the initial project team had the backbone to stand up to Rizhao.

If it were someone like Song Yun, Zha Zejun would never have delegated power to this extent.

The company's current structure was exceptionally solid.

Song Yun was Zha Zejun’s confidant and the spiritual second-in-command of the company, but his capabilities were insufficient to replace Zha Zejun in managing the enterprise as a whole, which was why his official ranking was lower. Rizhao possessed sufficient capability and served as the de facto second-in-command in practical work, but his role was strictly limited to executing Zha Zejun’s will. A delicate balance and mutual restraint had formed between Song Yun and Rizhao.

In addition, Zha Zejun firmly kept a tight grip on Zeyue’s economic lifeline and personnel.

This arrangement of checks and balances was cut from the exact same cloth as the old Zejian Company: placing the right people in the right positions, allowing everyone to make full use of their talents while securing Zha Zejun’s undisputed, singular "ruling" status.

As for Rizhao, after spending just a few days at Zeyue, he developed a faint sense of regret that they hadn't met sooner. The entire atmosphere at Zeyue and the level of recognition for the industry far exceeded what he had experienced back at Huanjian. Here, it felt like a giant fish entering the vast ocean, giving him boundless room to put his skills to use.

This was what he had always imagined a web novel enterprise should look like—even better than anything he could have conceived.

On the third day of taking office, he submitted two proposals to Zha Zejun.

The first was about the editorial department.

The editorial department needed to be reorganized.

Currently, Zeyue Chinese Network’s functions had a preliminary division, with the editorial and technical departments each attending to their own duties. However, the internal division of labor within the editorial department was very primitive: authors were assigned to corresponding editors based on the last digit of their author ID numbers.

As a result, although each editor managed a roughly equal number of authors and books, their professional focus was diluted. Every editor came into contact with all genres of books, inevitably turning into a "jack of all trades" who understood a little bit about every genre while not truly grasping any of them deeply. Even if an editor wanted to specialize in a specific genre, they simply couldn't squeeze out the time.

"We can organize editors into six major groups—such as Fantasy, Xianxia, Urban, and so on—based on the website's homepage navigation. Editors in each group will exclusively handle books of that specific genre. Each group will have a group leader, acting as a genre chief editor, plus two responsible editors. What do you think, President Zha?" Rizhao asked.

Zha Zejun laughed. "You and I are thinking along the exact same lines. To be honest with you, I was already considering refining the editorial team. For a novel website, the role of editors is simply too crucial; they must be sufficiently professional. But I genuinely couldn't spare the energy."

Dividing editors into groups wasn't something that could be done on a whim; one had to account for both the fields they excelled in and the areas they wished to work in. Both personal capability and individual aspirations had to be balanced.

"In addition, once the grouping is done, it would be best to establish a dedicated training lecture series and make it a regular practice," Zha Zejun added.

"Actually, based on my observations over the past few days, Zeyue’s editorial standards are already first-rate in the industry. The little knowledge I have in my head will probably be emptied out before long," Rizhao said modestly.

Zha Zejun waved his hand and smiled. "The stuff you have in your head is more than enough for them to learn from. However, I’m not asking you to do all the training yourself. You have too many things on your plate right now; occasionally giving everyone a lecture is fine, but if it's regular training, you wouldn't be able to manage even if you had three heads and six arms."

Rizhao was slightly stunned. What did that mean?

Training inherently required finding high-level teachers to instruct lower-level students. The problem was that currently, the group of editors with the highest standards in the industry were almost all gathered right here at Zeyue. If the training wasn't conducted by him, where were they supposed to find teachers?

Did he expect them to go to Qidian to poach people?

The second matter Rizhao wanted to discuss with Zha Zejun was, in fact, precisely related to Qidian.

"Let's leave Qidian aside for the moment."

Zha Zejun waved his hand and said, "Zeyue's greatest advantage lies in our understanding of the industry surpassing other websites, and even surpassing Qidian. Moving forward, if we want to maintain this advantage, we must take it a step further and make Zeyue the most professional website in the industry, and even the holy land for web novel writers. This will rely on the training you just mentioned. If you feel the word 'training' sounds a bit too narrow, we can also call it 'web novel research'."