Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 120

An Yinong was worried and drove all the way to the bar that Editor Qian mentioned. But when he got there, the matter was over. Editor Qian did not come out alone. There were many colleagues from the magazine, and they would not really let her die of drunkenness on the street alone.

“Really.” An Yinong was in the car, watching her being helped into the taxi by two colleagues, “Even if you’re happy, you don’t have to get so drunk, right? Fortunately, nothing happened.”

The car started again, and they were about to leave but An Yinong saw a familiar person coming out of the bar from the corner of his eye. It seemed to be Zhang Ming. He was wearing a waiter’s uniform and being hugged by a drunk man.

“Didn’t Wen Long care about him?” An Yinong was a little confused. In the plot, Wen Long was extremely good to this ‘white moonlight’. Even if he felt resentful about what An Yinong said, he would not allow him to be taken advantage of while working as a waiter in a bar.

Zhang Ming on the other side had already pushed the drunk guest away with his skills. He turned around and opened the wallet he had stolen, but there were only a few hundred yuan in it.

“No way? With such a small amount of money you’re going to come out and learn how to drink?” He took out the money and put it in his pocket, casually throwing the wallet aside.

“Hmm?” Perhaps because An Yinong’s sight was too obvious, Zhang Ming looked over and saw the car. His expression froze there.

He couldn’t see the people inside through the car window, but he was very familiar with that car. Every time he saw He Tiantong getting on that car, he would wonder why he was not a child from a rich family. If he was a child from a rich family, with such a gentle father and a beautiful mother, he would definitely work very hard and not let them down.

However, he had nothing. Even if he tried his best, he could not have what He Tiantong was born with.

“Are you here to laugh at me?” Zhang Ming looked at the car, as if he was looking at something he had been longing for with all his might but could never catch up with. His face fell into darkness, and jealousy and hatred fermented. That hatred even penetrated the car window glass and reached An Yinong’s eyes.

If Zhang Ming had a gun with a bullet in his hand now, and there was a zombie and An Yinong in front of him, An Yinong believed his bullet would shoot into his head without hesitation.

The next day, Editor Qian came to the He family with a box of snacks, looking ashamed. “I’m sorry, boss. I called you yesterday to harass you. Please forget what I said.”

Oh my god, it’s bad enough that she called the boss after getting drunk, but she also said that he was too young, otherwise… It’s terrible, the boss won’t think that she is coveting his beauty, right? She’s really not such a beast.

An Yinong accepted the gift. He did not mention what happened yesterday. He just said, “Don’t drink too much when you are drinking outside. There are so many perverts. If you run into one, you’re done for.”

“Yes, I will definitely not do it next time.” Editor Qian bowed her head and admitted her mistake. Although the young boss was not very old, he had a very strong aura.

After seeing off editor Qian, An Yinong called the president, but he didn’t tell him about what happened last night. He just said that it seemed that the sales of the “Heroes of the Desert” volume seemed to be good, and he wondered if it had a chance to be on the best-selling comics list.

“Of course there is, and it may be ranked very high.”

It turned out that many famous cartoonists have not released new works this year, and Yinong’s “Heroes of the Desert” was very strong. If nothing unexpected happened, it will definitely be on the best-selling comics list this year, and the same went for people.

“Editor Qian is really a lucky person. After signing Yinong, she also signed Gu Pan. Now the Yuling Girl in our magazine is also selling very well. Who knows, our magazine will have two shining stars this year.”

“……That’s good.” After Editor Qian was promoted to full editor, she was still in charge of Yinong and Gu Pan. This was her luck, which others could not envy.

After that, the reputation and sales of Gu Pan’s “The Imperial Spirit Girl” continued to rise. At this time, other comic magazines could no longer sit still and began to analyze their intentions in serializing comics with female themes.

Because of the previous incident with “Heroes of the Desert”, these magazines had been paying attention to the developments of “Huayou” magazine, and naturally they also knew about their serialization of comics with female themes. They treated it as a joke at first, but they never expected that this female-themed book would become so popular.

“Comics about women? Isn’t this just digging your own grave? It’s not like no one has tried comics about women before, and they simply couldn’t attract readers. Why is this one so special? … No!”

The editors who had read the entire comic had a look of ‘seeing through it all’ on their faces.

“Take away the gender of the protagonist, this… this is a comic about an adventure in another world.”

Moreover, it was not set as an alternate world type from the beginning. Instead, it took a different approach and introduced the concepts of “inner world” and “outer world”, breaking through certain boundaries of previous comics, blending daily life and the alternate world together, creating a new collision.

In other words, this was a comic with a neutral plot that could also be read by male readers. Although it may be somewhat strange for male readers to read comics written from a female perspective, the artist’s skills and the wonderful plot completely made up for this shortcoming.

“This feeling of suddenly jumping from the boring daily life to another world also has a strong appeal to adults who repeat the same things day after day.” They occasionally wanted to break the routine and take a breath, and this comic satisfied their needs.

As amazing as later generations’ readers were when they first encountered the concept of ‘time travel’, so too were today’s readers amazed when they saw this kind of world transformation.

“What kind of luck did Huayou magazine have? Where did they find these new talents with their own halos?”

“Now we are just waiting for the second issue. If the style of the comics doesn’t collapse and the plot doesn’t fall apart, this comic has the potential to become a breakthrough in female-themed comics.”

Under the scrutiny of peers, the latest episode of “The Imperial Spirit Girl” was published in the magazine. With the serialization of the new issue of “Spirit Girl”, the world of psychics slowly unveiled its mystery to everyone. The imaginative background setting was amazing, and there were also psychics with different talents.

“It’s amazing that you can turn ‘poetry’ into power!”

“The music of the corrupt ‘Luthor’ can actually trigger negative energy in humans and cause them to commit suicide?”

Readers got to know this strange world through the eyes of the protagonist Su Xue, who was originally an ordinary person.

The main theme of this comic was that all things had spirits, not just animals or plants, but also objects that were given special meanings by humans. However, An Yinong did not want this comic to be too heavy, so he used a light-hearted way to show this special world.

He let the protagonist talk and play with the two stone lions in front of the martial arts gym. Due to years of influence, the stone lions had amazing martial arts skills and were the best teachers and sparring partners. The stone lions also told the protagonist about her grandfather and great-grandfather.

Even the family heirloom could transform into a handsome man with long white hair. He called himself the spirit of the weapon. He looked like the snow on the mountain, but he was very childish when getting along with others. However, there must be fluctuations after the warmth, so the protagonist soon encountered a crime unique to the world of psychics. Someone used spider-like silk threads to control a person who had just finished a night shift to his death.

The protagonist, who sensed something was wrong and had a strong sense of justice, of course stepped forward to stop him. But at the beginning, because she had no idea about the fighting style of psychics, she was simply overwhelmed and beaten. This made Su Xue feel frustrated, but the more she lost, the braver she became.

“What it this?”

“That’s a person who collects human souls and puts them into clay figurines to refine into puppets. In other words, a puppeteer.”

At this time, the nine-tailed fox appeared, reluctantly let her borrow his energy, and taught her how to fight. This battle was very exciting, blending realistic martial arts with magical spells to create a very realistic and cool fighting style.

Especially after the heroine Su Xue integrated the power of the nine-tailed fox, she directly evolved into a beautiful and wild woman with perfect body. Demonic patterns appeared on her face, and her fighting style also possessed some animality. She really looked very beautiful. After that, the evil psychic was directly crippled by her.

“Your fighting talent is truly terrifying. Growing up is as easy as breathing. You are worthy of being…” The nine-tailed fox left her body, its narrow eyes gleaming with danger. “I will keep an eye on you. If you do something wrong, I will kill you.”

That’s all for this talk.

High-quality paintings could attract more readers. After “The Imperial Spirit Girl” replaced “Heroes of the Desert”, the sales of “Huayou” increased instead of decreased. Many female readers introduced this comic to their classmates and friends, leading to more people becoming interested.

Editor Qian, who came to An Yinong with a sack of letters, also said this: “There were comics with female themes before, but the market didn’t accept them. Strangely, many people read them this time.”

“There are many reasons, but the two most important reasons are the female readers who have been cultivated and the neutral story core that abandons gender stereotypes.” said An Yinong, who was already 16 years old but looked more mature than his peers.

Editor Qian’s eyes were full of question marks: “Cultivated female readers, and neutral story core?”

“Well, it’s the 30% of female consumers who read “The Legend of Desert Heroes” that I told you about before. They can support the basic audience and bring in more female readers. As for the core story of “The Imperial Spirit Girl”, what do you think of it after reading it? Is the gender stereotype very obvious?”

Editor Qian thought about it, and she slightly widened her eyes. Now when she recalled it, although the protagonist’s costume was very beautiful and the painting style was also very delicate and gorgeous, when she read it, she did not have a particularly obvious feeling that it was a “story exclusively for women.”

In traditional male comics, female characters could be divided into four categories: good wife type, demon type, good mother type, and sister type. These women were fixed in the frame and had no personality of their own.

However, the female characters in “Spirit Girl” were difficult to describe with a label. They were not images under the male gaze, but more specific and realistic female images.

An Yinong smiled meaningfully: “Her image has changed a lot after the transformation, but she is still the girl who has become very tenacious because of life.

“Her charm, such as her perseverance, tenacity, and calmness, transcends gender. The whole story is an alternative adventure and a growth process from a child to a young adult. It is a story that both boys and girls can resonate with.” This was why he dared to test the waters in “Huayou”.

After Editor Qian left, An Yinong opened the letter. A large part of it was addressed to “Yinong” and a small part was addressed to “Gu Pan”.

“Xiao Qi, can you please help me read it?” An Yinong had no guilt in asking the system to do the hard work, and the system did not have dyslexia.

The system rolled its eyes, but still read the contents of the letter to him.

Fans of “Heroes of the Desert” wrote in their letters that they liked the comic book very much. Some like the protagonist, some like the supporting characters, and some like the villain. Readers all hoped that their favorite characters could have a good ending.

Fans of “The Spirit Girl” said that they were very surprised to see so many charismatic female characters in one comic book. The several female characters here do not attract attention because of their identities as ‘protagonist’s spouse’, ‘beauty’, ‘mother’ or ‘wife’, but were recognized for their excellent qualities such as agility, strength and calmness.

Of course, there were also a small number of readers who express how much they dislike it. This was inevitable. Even money can be disliked, let alone a work that was meant to express ideas?

To some extent, making people dislike something so much that they wrote letters to complain was also a kind of success, right? An Yinong picked up the teacup and drank with a smile.