Chapter 1

Afternoon, 5:55 PM.

Inspiration Class for Authors at Zongdian Chinese Website.

"Clocked out!"

"Wanna hit up Moyu Internet Cafe this weekend for some team games?"

"Sure, count me in!"

"What about you, Cui Da?"

Cui Geng shook his head, "I'm good, you guys go ahead."

The authors who invited him didn't insist. They got up, packed their things, and prepared to leave the Inspiration Class, head out for dinner, and then go home to rest.

The Inspiration Class, like a study hall, strictly adheres to an eight-hour work day, from 9 AM to 6 PM, with a one-hour lunch break from 12 PM to 1 PM.

In fact, with the work intensity of the Inspiration Class, it was basically the same as watching movies for eight hours straight.

The Inspiration Class had officially started running this past Thursday. Two days wasn't enough time for most authors to find suitable inspiration, so only two or three authors had actually started writing.

Most of the other authors planned to enjoy the weekend and continue gathering inspiration next Monday, taking their time to consider their new books.

After all, the royalties are now bought out by the website, the daily word count requirement has been greatly reduced, and they can naturally rest normally on Saturdays and Sundays.

Most of these authors were also very young, mostly between the ages of 22 and 28. It wasn't surprising that they would make plans to play games together at Moyu Internet Cafe on the weekend.

But Cui Geng, contrary to his usual self, didn't join the other authors.

After spending two days intensively researching, he suddenly felt a flash of inspiration in his brain. It seemed that the inspiration that had been dried up for several months was showing signs of recovery!

In the past two days, he had intensely revisited several movies, TV series, and novels, and had also consulted a lot of information online. A general framework for the whole story had appeared in his mind, and the background had been roughly established.

Cui Geng suddenly had a strong creative urge to write the beginning of this story.

As the saying goes, everything is hard at the beginning. But in novel writing, this isn't necessarily true.

Most novels start with a burst of inspiration, writing smoothly and freely, but the more they write, the slower they become, inspiration dries up, they get writer's block, they forget the foreshadowing they laid earlier... the whole structure of the novel becomes a mess, and it ends abruptly, getting them cursed out like dogs.

And at this moment, Cui Geng was in this state of overflowing inspiration, eager to write the beginning of the story.

So, novel writing is often easy at the beginning and gets harder as it goes on.

Writing is very dependent on state of mind. The content written in a good state is vastly different from the content written in a bad state. Inspiration is fleeting, so once authors have inspiration, they must immediately seize it and record it, otherwise some details will be lost forever.

Cui Geng went to the work area of the Inspiration Class.

The configuration here was similar to that of a study hall, with large screens, mechanical keyboards, and ergonomic chairs, ensuring the most comfortable writing experience.

Cui Geng didn't plan to write for too long anyway. He just wanted to write a simple beginning, maybe just an hour or two.

Turn on the computer, create a new document.

"Hmm... Where should I start this scene..."

As Cui Geng deliberated the details, the time on the computer unknowingly passed 6 o'clock in the evening.

"Hmm... I think it's better to use a flashback at the beginning, let's start with the moment when the protagonist changes his life goals."

Cui Geng made up his mind, reached out to grab the mouse next to him, ready to adjust the font size and line spacing of the document to his most comfortable settings.

He would feel uncomfortable using the default font and size.

However, Cui Geng's hand grabbed air.

Cui Geng: "?"

At that moment, he almost thought that there was something wrong with his cerebellum. The mouse was clearly within reach, but he actually missed it? Even Parkinson's patients wouldn't be this outrageous, right?

Cui Geng didn't pay much attention to this little episode and continued to reach for the mouse.

But he still grabbed air!

This time he saw it clearly. When his hand moved over the mouse, the mouse moved erratically to the upper right!

Cui Geng was shocked. He quickly grabbed a few times, but the mouse's reaction was much more agile than he had imagined. It moved randomly and continuously, and he couldn't catch it!

At the same time, a prompt popped up on the computer screen.

"It's time to get off work, please go back to rest immediately. Continuing to work will trigger an alarm and leave a record, you will be responsible for the consequences."

Cui Geng: "???"

He was completely stunned. What was this confusing behavior?

He couldn't even work overtime for a while?

And this mouse was even more outrageous. It actually had this physical method of refusing overtime?

Cui Geng had left work on time yesterday and didn't stay for long, so he hadn't encountered this situation. Today was his first time.

"Forget it, I'll go to Moyu Internet Cafe nearby to write!"

Cui Geng never expected that he would actually take the initiative to write during his rest time.

There was nothing he could do. It was really uncomfortable not to write down his inspiration. Cui Geng was afraid that if he didn't write it today, he would have forgotten the details by Monday.

So, he immediately set off for the nearby Moyu Internet Cafe, ready to write the beginning of the story there.

...

...

First of all, the title of this story.

After considering it again and again, Cui Geng first finalized the English title, and then translated the title into Chinese.

《suCCessor》，《继任者》(Jirenzhe).

The reason for translating it as "Jirenzhe" (Successor) rather than "Jichengzhe" (Inheritor) was because it mainly "succeeded" the superhero abilities and identity of Captain World, rather than inheriting an inheritance or something like that.

Cui Geng also came up with the look of the title: based on the artistic font of the word suCCessor in capital letters, the "suCCess" in it was painted bright red.

This title has three different meanings:

First of all, in the entire story background, all the superheroes consider themselves successors to the first-generation superhero, Captain World. Captain World distributed his superpowers throughout the United States, giving everyone the possibility of becoming a superhero. At the same time, he was deeply loved by the American people and regarded as a role model for superheroes.

Therefore, all the subsequent superheroes considered themselves successors, meaning that they would act like Captain World and would not disappoint those who supported them.

Secondly, there will be a very crucial plot in the book, which is a TV show called "The Successor." This show is an important part of the protagonist's plan.

Finally, the word successor happens to have the word success in it.

Painting success in bright red hints that this is ostensibly a story of "succession," but it is actually a story of "success," and the so-called "success" here is ostensibly the "success" of an ordinary person becoming a superhero, but it is actually a "success" piled up with blood and killing, an ambitious person achieving evil goals through dirty means.

Before starting to write the beginning, Cui Geng carefully considered the specific writing method.

There are many entry points for the beginning of the whole story. If you follow the usual habits of online writing, most of them will use a chronological narrative method.

But Cui Geng considered that the content he was writing now shouldn't be written in the style of online novels. Instead, it should be written in the style of a movie script or a literary short story. Therefore, in order to make the story more compact, he decided to use a flashback.

...

United States, Hope City, 2010s, a rainy night.

Hope City, one of the most prosperous cities on the east coast of the United States, has complex and changeable weather, sometimes cloudy and sometimes sunny.

This bustling metropolis is like a huge melting pot. Buildings of different styles can be seen everywhere in the city, and under the surface of luxury and extravagance, dark alleys hide dirt and filth.

It is one of the most prosperous and richest cities in the United States, and also one of the cities with the highest crime rate in the United States.

However, with the joint efforts of superheroes and the police, just like the name of the city, the crime rate here is decreasing year by year, and the whole city and its citizens are bathed in hope.

Although the crime rate in Hope City is high from a data perspective, here, people can often see all kinds of superheroes patrolling in the air, and they can hear news of criminal organizations being destroyed by superheroes every day. The citizens' sense of security and happiness are among the highest in the United States.

Phil Simmons, the only son of real estate tycoon Ryan Simmons, is a well-known playboy in Hope City.

Sports cars, yachts, private jets, models, sea parties... Phil is very good at spending money like water and enjoying life in a timely manner.

Phil is definitely not the richest second-generation rich kid, but he is definitely the most high-profile second-generation rich kid. At the age of 31, he has a strong sense of self-promotion and has accumulated millions of followers on his personal social media accounts through day-to-day efforts.

Compared with superheroes, entertainment and sports stars, and political figures who have tens of millions of followers, millions of followers may not seem like much, but Phil is not a superhero, a star, or a political figure after all. As a pure second-generation rich kid, being able to obtain these fans does show that he has "talent" in some aspects.

Of course, his Simmons Media company has also contributed a lot in this regard.

And at this time, this man who has been triumphant for most of his life, 6'4", with a handsome face and perfect figure, a doctor of law and an MBA, the CEO of Simmons Media, is on the rooftop of a skyscraper under construction, sobbing.

Urine, uncontrollable due to fear, stained his well-tailored, expensive suit pants, leaving an embarrassing dark wet spot that was still slowly expanding.

His beloved, high-profile bright red tie was grasped in an extremely thick, veined, hairy arm, and his entire body had come to the outside of the rooftop. If it weren't for the arm holding the tie, he would have already fallen from a height of more than a thousand feet and had intimate contact with the ground.

Phil Simmons' handsome face had been completely distorted by fear. Tears, snot, and rain were mixed together, and a small part flowed into his mouth, which was hoarsely begging for mercy, and was sprayed out with a small amount of saliva.

"Please, don't kill me!"

"My dad has a lot of money, no matter how much money you want, he will give it to you!"

And at this time, the one holding Phil Simmons' bright red tie was a super strong man who was nearly eight feet tall and weighed an estimated 400 pounds.

Tonight, when Phil Simmons was driving his sports car in the rainy night as usual, this strong man suddenly appeared in front of his sports car, smashed his beloved sports car to pieces, and then dragged Phil Simmons, who had fallen into a brief coma due to the impact, out of the deformed driver's seat, and came to the top of this skyscraper under construction, like carrying a chick.

When Phil Simmons woke up in the cold rain, his whole body was hanging on the skyscraper, and his life was entirely entrusted to the strong man's hands.

Phil Simmons had no intention of resisting at all, because this strong man, who looked extremely vicious, had strength similar to the weakest superheroes.

There aren't many "super villains" with such great destructive power in Hope City, but each of them makes the police who maintain the city's security have a headache.

However, although the crime rate in Hope City is high, it basically all frequently occurs in some neighborhoods where the poor and homeless gather. Phil Simmons lives in a wealthy area, and in his thirty-one years of life, he has never encountered this situation before.

Extreme fear made his hands and feet cold, and his body was out of control. Apart from crying and begging for mercy, he had no other way.

And this villain, who was like a mountain of flesh, looked at Phil Simmons' terrified and distorted expression with interest, revealing a mocking smile.

Background, appearance, wealth, intelligence... etc., the villain could not compare with Phil Simmons.

But the villain had something that Phil Simmons didn't have, and that was strength.