Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 134

“Tell me the truth. When did Uncle Jiu know that I lived next door?” An Yinong threatened him with a cake fork. “Think about it and tell me. If you confess, I will treat you leniently. If you resist, I will treat you severely.”

Xie Jiu, who was threatened by a cake fork, covered his forehead and laughed softly: “I thought you would be very unhappy.” After all, hiding it from him felt like a joke. Knowing that he lived next door, he pretended not to know and kept sending messages via parrot.

“What’s the big deal… Well, I am indeed unhappy. You asked me to call you Uncle Jiu, which makes me a generation shorter for nothing.” An Yinong took a big bite of the honey lemon cake. “And that pen, wasn’t it bought specially for me this morning? There’s a word engraved on it, Young Phoenix Qingsheng, right?”

His directness was simply too much for Xie Jiu to handle. He raised his hands in surrender: “I just happened to be passing by and thought the pen was suitable for you.”

“Did you really just happen to pass by?” An Yinong suddenly came closer. Under his eyebrows were a large pair of cunning eyes. The lips that were biting the cake fork were rosy and plump, like ripe berries, full of juice, where nectar would drip out with a light bite.

Xie Jiu held his breath and stared blankly at him.

“Would you like to buy me a pen to sign for me?”

Xie Jiu came back to his senses. He carefully stepped back and tried to suppress his pounding heart. He pretended to be calm and said, “Children who think too much will not grow tall.”

“Who’s the kid? I’m sixteen.”

He’s only sixteen. Xie Jiu looked at him for a long time before turning his head to drink tea.

“Actually, I also prepared a gift for Uncle Jiu.”

Xie Jiu turned around and saw An Yinong take out an identical gift bag, then took out an identical box from the gift bag and opened it.

He looked at the identical pen in the box and asked, “What is this?”

“The clerk said there were only two pens of this type left. You bought one and I bought the other. Isn’t it fate?”

Xie Jiu held the pen tightly and said nothing.

After seeing Xie Jiu off, An Yinong stretched and then went upstairs. After resting for so many days, the manuscripts for “The Imperial Spirit Girl” were almost gone, so he had to continue drawing.

Although the inspiration that the Walled City brought to him had been flashing somewhere in his brain, reminding him to start something new sooner, he had to finish what he had already started. Before the Imperial Spirit Girl was completed, the idea of the ‘Surreal Walled City’ had to be put aside.

Xie Jiu also returned to his villa with the pen. He went to the study upstairs, opened the safe and wanted to put the pen in, but then he thought better of it and took it out and placed it in the most conspicuous place on his desk. As for the other pen worth five figures, it had been thrown into the drawer.

After that, the two of them started to formally interact. Occasionally Xie Jiu would go to An Yinong’s house, and occasionally An Yinong would go to Xie Jiu’s house and stay for dinner.

The chef in Xie Jiu’s family liked An Yinong very much. With this supportive guest, he felt that his high salary was well worth it.

“It’s impossible to tell from Mr. Xie’s face whether he likes the food or not. I was surprised when he asked the kitchen to make honey lemon cake because he doesn’t like sweets,” said the chef with a smile.

“Is that so?” An Yinong recalled the scene of drinking afternoon tea with Xie Jiu. He thought Xie Jiu should still like sweets… right?

Because of the sudden layoff, Xie Xie suffered from ‘layoff syndrome’ and wanted to find a wife. An Yinong promised to help him keep an eye out for female cockatoos.

“She has to be pretty!” said the parrot.

Going to school, drawing, and getting to know his neighbors, An Yinong’s life was so good. However, some people just couldn’t bear to see him doing well.

Zhen Weilong and another unfamiliar cartoonist suddenly appeared and criticized Yinong, Gu Pan and their works in the newspapers.

“Who is Paul Lee?” An Yinong asked while drinking milk and reading the newspaper.

‘Paul Lee’ was of Chinese descent, and drew gangster comics. Because he often drew gangsters from other countries, he was praised for having an ‘international vision’ a ‘big picture’, but some local cartoonists thought his comics were ‘violent and eye-catchingly bloody’.

This person also had a very bad characteristic. He looked down on both martial arts and women.

As martial arts comics have many cartoonists, Paul Lee’s criticism would not affect them, but comics with female themes were in a very bad situation. There were two comics with female themes in the comics circle before, but both of them were humiliated by this person and forced to quit.

Many people accused Paul Lee of being too brazen and rude, but he didn’t take it seriously. The bloody violence he portrayed in his gangster comics did attract a group of middle school students, and these people were the reason why he dared to be so arrogant.

This time, Paul Lee set his sights on Yinong and Gu Pan, the new generation of martial arts cartoonist and a female-themed cartoonist.

“What a coincidence, it’s all my fault.” An Yinong, who was innocently scolded, shook the newspaper, “Zhen Weilong did it?”

An Yinong had been in a good mood recently. He was not angry when he saw these things in the newspaper. Instead, he changed his idea. Paul Lee had overseas readers. Was it possible to use him to promote his comics overseas?

A cartoonist who has a base overseas seems to be explosive and impulsive. If he got angry and gambled, would he go to his base camp to call for help? Then won’t the Hong Kong comics circle be connected with the overseas comics circle?

An Yinong touched his chin and felt that there was great potential in this matter.

“Yinong’s external image is more gentle, while Gu Pan’s image is more sharp and direct. If we want to make the other party angry, Gu Pan will probably have to take action.”

At this time, An Yinong still felt that this was not very kind, even though Paul Lee was the one asking for trouble.

However, after reading Paul Lee’s entire speech in the newspaper, he no longer felt guilty at all – he deserved to be criticized for his foul mouth. Paul Lee probably grew up abroad, so his wording was very direct.

He said in the newspaper that martial arts comics are a self-carnival of conservative Chinese people, that there are no martial arts in the world, and that they cannot beat karate or Western boxing.

The Chinese were backward and ignorant, but they are still immersed in the mental anesthesia of punching white people (martial arts comics), which was truly pitiful and lamentable.

“Most comics in Hong Kong are too limited and can’t go beyond this small place. People overseas won’t even take a second look at them.

“If you want others to see you, change the stale smell around you.”

“What a bastard!” The entire martial arts comics circle was now in an uproar. What does “self-revelry of backward and ignorant Chinese people” mean?

This was intolerable!

One veteran in the comics circle stood up, then two veterans in the comics circle stood up. They loudly denounced Paul Lee for being ungrateful, narrow-minded, and arrogant.

Paul Lee didn’t take it seriously and even laughed, saying that they were all relics of the last century and still wanted to continue persecuting the youth of this century. They should be buried with their outdated ideas.

His ideas were not without reason, but they were also too extreme and self-righteous, and he had the arrogance of someone who thought he could rule the world from a high position.

An Yinong spoke in the newspaper as “Yinong”, saying that Paul Lee had inherited neither the gentlemanly manners of the East nor the gentlemanly etiquette of the West, and that such impolite and disrespectful behavior should not be called “new era, new thought.”

Moreover, we have always had a “selective inheritance” attitude towards old things. Neither giving up everything nor inheriting everything was advisable.

Paul Lee certainly could not admit it, and he spoke again, believing that “Yinong”, as a new generation cartoonist, was a gravekeeper holding the tablets of the old era.

After targeting all martial arts cartoonists, he once again turned his attention to “female cartoonists”.

He said that the subject matter of “The Imperial Girl” was very interesting and creative, but it was a pity that it fell into the hands of a female cartoonist, resulting in the final story being too “gentle and weak”, which was a pity.

It was the limitations of Gu Pan’s female thinking that restricted the development of this story.

In other words, he believes that “although Gu Pan  was the creator of this subject, she was not worthy of this subject.”

Who was worthy then? Himself?

As it turned out, Paul Lee really did launch his new comic, which was also an adventure in another world. Looking at the setting, it was obvious that it “borrowed” from “The Spirit Girl”.

The only difference was that the protagonist was a man, and all the highlights were concentrated on him, while the other characters were as flat as previous comic characters, especially the female characters.

“Your face is as big as a basin.”

An Yinong raised his eyebrows while looking at the newspaper: In Paul Lee’s eyes, Gu Pan was both Chinese and a woman, with these two dual attributes, so he wanted to bully her?

“The Imperial Spirit Girl is not good, but I see you enjoyed copying it. The martial arts comics are not good? If the two glass balls under your eyebrows are useless, why don’t you pick them off and play with them yourself.”

“To comment on a cartoonist based on their gender and subject matter instead of their work is just a hooligan. If you open your mouth, women are unworthy; if you close your mouth, women are not good enough. Women’s feet have been liberated all over the country, but you have bound your head with foot binding cloth. Tsk tsk, it’s disgusting.

“You said I’m not as good as you? That’s your comment? Okay, you’re both a contestant and a referee. The good thing about you is that you’re thick-skinned, and even bullets can’t penetrate you.”

“At least I won’t speak nonsense when I don’t know anything about Western boxing or martial arts. Think about it, it’s the courage brought by ignorance, right? Well, I admit that I am no match for you in terms of being ignorant.”

The above was the message left by ‘Gu Pan’ in the newspaper.

He had given face to Zhen Weilong when he had mocked him before, but this time he was being direct and ruthless in mocking Paul Lee, which was not his usual style.

“Is she standing up for Yinong? Yinong seems to be a gentleman who is not good at swearing, but Gu Pan’s words are more harsh, like a hot pepper.” They guessed.

“What is the relationship between these two people? They can’t be just colleagues in a publishing house. They must know each other in real life, right?”

“Who knows, but this Paul Lee deserves to be scolded, he is such a mean person, ha, good scolding. I like Gu Pan’s violent temper.”

It’s also because Paul Lee went too far and was unpopular, so few people in the industry supported him.

He was a Chinese American who became famous abroad. Unfortunately, his comics were not well accepted by the local environment, so he turned to drawing gangster comics in China. Who knew he would become popular?

Probably because he was an ‘import’, he had always been so arrogant, looking down on cartoonists from Hong Kong, and it was not the first time that he has cursed people.

The cartoonists in Hong Kong have been disgusted by him for a long time.

Paul Lee didn’t expect that a woman like Gu Pan would dare to scold him in the newspaper. He was furious and scolded Yinong in the newspaper for hiding behind a woman and being a man without balls at the critical moment.

There was also “Gu Pan”. He said that Gu Pan was simply a lunatic. All women were like this. They cursed others when they were not satisfied. Women could mess up everything. They were synonymous with disaster.

Finally, he mocked Gu Pan: “The whole country? Where is the whole country? This is Hong Kong City!”

This was too much. The port city was leased, not sold, and the sovereignty still belonged to the mainland government. An Yinong was really angry.

The next day, Gu Pan’s four-frame cartoon appeared in the newspaper:

A stick figure holding a dog bowl looks for his owner: Someone scolded me.

The owner who only saw a pair of legs: How did that person scold you?

Stick figure holding a dog bowl: The man told me what I had done.

Wow, the familiar “Gu Pan” and the familiar taste, this word was once again popular among young people.

But at this moment, An Yinong still felt angry: not only because this person discriminated against Chinese people on Chinese soil, but also because he gave him so much contempt and humiliation just because he misunderstood that he was a woman, and even openly “borrowed” his settings. How much discrimination did other women suffer in their daily lives?

No matter what, he must develop the female comics market and get this arrogant and disrespectful bastard out.

Soon after, the latest issue of “The Spirit Girl” came out, and the climax of the comic, “Young Psychic Contest”, officially began.

Young psychics under the age of eighteen and over the age of fourteen could participate. The location was the Sky Island, an invisible and intangible island. Participants must use their special abilities to reach the island.

In fact, ‘landing on the island’ was the first test, and anyone with slightly lower abilities would be eliminated.

In this issue of the comics, foreign inspiration finally appeared, including a witch riding a broom, a magician wearing a pointed hat, a temple girl wearing a witch costume, and a strange scientist who could operate machinery…

‘Gu Pan’ had a wild imagination, and all kinds of unexpected spells were performed in front of readers, including an undertaker who appeared on stage on a coffin.

At the same time, the Black Robe Organization, a mysterious dark force that occasionally revealed its true colors, also sent several talented young men to participate in this competition, and threatened to take the top three places.

Among them there was a Gu Master with a head full of silver ornaments, a blond and blue-eyed ‘angel’ who was good at manipulating people’s hearts, and one who was wrapped like a mummy.

The Young Psychic Competition was a rare high-risk competition that did not restrict the background of the contestants, did not reject death, and did not shy away from risks. But at the same time, it was also the easiest competition to stimulate the potential of the contestants and let them grow.

Many seniors advised the protagonist not to participate because it was too dangerous, but the love of challenges and the fearlessness of danger passed down from her martial artist grandfather made the heroine determined to give the competition a try.

“I have been practicing martial arts since I was young. I have to get up at four o’clock every day to stand in horse stance and practice with sticks. I didn’t understand why my grandfather was so strict with me before, but now I understand.”

The heroine bowed to the spirit tablet and picked up the Miao Dao passed down from her family: “When people live in the world, they must have a ‘dao’ to protect themselves and deter the enemy.”

“I must grow up and have my own ‘knife’, and the Psychic Competition is the best way to do that. Having a knife but not using it and having no knife to use are two different things.”

The last chapter of the comic ended with the girl’s resolute expression and determined back.

Readers were going crazy. Were all the cartoonists of Huayou from the same place? Why did they always get stuck at such a critical point? The previous “Yinong” was also like this, and now this “Gu Pan” was also like this!

Why? Why does it take another week to see the next chapter? I really want to crawl into the editorial office of “Huayou”. They must have the manuscripts for the next chapter saved! Let’s form a group to steal the saved manuscripts!

Yes, readers didn’t care what the newspapers say about small-scale, small love or whatever else. They only cared about whether it looks good or not.

Undoubtedly, “The Imperial Spirit Girl” was good-looking, and it was in a way that stimulated their adrenaline, so what’s wrong with women being the protagonists? Women were also very fierce and handsome when fighting! Especially when the protagonist and the demon spirit merged and demon patterns appear on their faces and they change their clothes, they were so handsome that no one can compare.

The sales of “Huayou” and its equally divided audience of both sexes were like a slap in the face of the former Paul Lee, but the matter was not over yet.

The comic ended here, but the fight in reality had just begun, with the same newspaper and the same “Gu Pan”.

“First: Gu Pan is male.”

“Second: If you look down on Chinese people like this, I’d call you a ‘banana person’, would you dare to agree?

“Third: Paul Lee, let’s compete on the next issue’s magazine sales (total within seven days). If I lose, I’ll quit the comics industry and commit suicide under a pseudonym. If you lose, just shout in the newspaper, ‘Everyone here is Paul Lee’s father.’ Are you brave enough?”