Walking the Path of a Workaholic in Cliché Novels (QT) Chapter 138

An Yinong had no idea what kind of love, hate, and vengeance his colleagues and readers had imagined. He and Xie Jiu were recently accompanying “Xiexie”, who had grown up and could lay eggs, to go on a blind date.

The two searched all the pet shops in Hong Kong, but they never expected that “Xiexie” would fall in love with the flower-headed parrot that came to An Yinong by chance.

“They should have reproductive isolation, right?” An Yinong asked Xie Jiu.

“Even if there is no reproductive isolation, the genders are not suitable.” They were both males and cannot lay eggs.

An Yinong: …Are all birds so fashionable these days?

However, the two little birds finally overcame many obstacles and announced that they had successfully held hands.

Xie Jiu specially asked someone to build a bigger birdcage. It’s just that the flower-headed parrot had the characteristics of a “stallion” and had many bird friends. It went out to wander from time to time. Xie Jiu came to An Yinong with a frustrated face and a whimpering “Xiexie”.

“You made your own choice. What’s the point of crying?” An Yinong poked the parrot’s head with a paintbrush.

“Chirp.” When other birds come, he followed them and chirped.

“You can go with me.” An Yinong held up his face and analyzed it carefully, “Shared interests and hobbies help maintain the healthy development of the relationship.”

“Chirp?” Really?

“Really. Besides, when Huatou comes back, you can ask him where he went, and you can go with him next time.”

Xie Jiu watched the young man carefully comforting the parrot, thinking: Are there common interests and hobbies?

An Yinong was still thinking about buying some nuts to comfort his pet and say “Xiexie”, but within ten minutes, the parrot came back with a bunch of sweet berries.

It turned out that he had asked his good friends to keep an eye out for this berry. The parrot liked it very much and wanted to taste it with “Xiexie”. This time he followed his friends to pick berries, and then brought them back for his partner.

“Xiexie” was resurrected with full health on the spot, and was full of energy again. The two humans were left touching their stomachs and feeling choked: they never thought that one day they would be shown affection by the parrots.

“Matters of the heart need to be explained clearly and answered clearly. Guessing all the time will only make you autistic.” After the matter was resolved, An Yinong took a sip of tea and lowered his head to continue drawing.

He continued drawing “Monster City”. Inspired by The Walled City and his previous kidnapping, so it had a bit of cyberpunk feel to it.

Xie Jiu was looking at the finished drawings. He was amazed at An Yinong’s imagination. The watch-like ‘computer’ that projected light and shadow in the air and was controlled by a touch screen and could be used for communication, watching videos, listening to music, or working remotely was very interesting.

Even people didn’t have to worry about distance when they held a meeting. Their images were directly projected into the virtual space. Except for the top “hackers” who travelled across the Internet, the meeting had absolute confidentiality.

The virtual world was so convenient and had everything you needed. You could enjoy the same level of enjoyment as an ancient emperor without spending much money.

Moreover, people with average looks in reality could become handsome men and beautiful women in the virtual world, and people with average abilities could command a group in the virtual world. The virtual world gave people another possibility.

No wonder people in comics were addicted to the virtual world.

However, in contrast to the freedom of the Internet, the densely populated human communities abandoned in the corners of reality, with layers of pigeon cages. Except for the central activity area, the lower floors of other places never saw sunlight all year round.

Xie Jiu, who walked out of the area, seemed to see the shadow of the walled city. Therefore, the rapid advancement of technology had not only brought good things.

In the future world, the gap between the rich and the poor was even greater, the class distinctions were more obscure and difficult to cross, and human desires breed “monsters”. Monsters did not have specific images, but rather were grotesque humans whose hearts had been polluted by monsters.

This was where the name “Monster City” comes from.

Xie Jiu forgot time as he read. It seemed that the human beings in the future would be much more sober, cold-blooded, decadent and discouraged than the people of today. They would work and study like robots during the day and indulge in all kinds of magical entertainment at night.

There was not much passion in them, only numbness after being beaten by reality. Although they looked like humans, sometimes you feel like they are a group of tools kidnapped by machinery, high technology and short-term excitement.

Of course, there were also some people who did not want to be bound by various rules and live freely and arbitrarily, and occasionally too freely. These people crossed the boundaries of certain rules and became criminals. In order to avoid going to jail, they went to a corner forgotten by the world – Monster City.

Monster City was a strange place. Every day, many young people walked out of Monster City, and many young people walked into Monster City from outside. This small place opened its arms and welcomed everyone. It seemed that there was no absolute good or bad, only a balance.

If you can balance your human nature and animal nature, you are an ordinary person. If you can’t balance it well, you will easily become a “monster”.

Xie Jiu found the most interesting aspect to be the protagonist, a human who had fallen but not completely fallen. Because he was obsessed with machines, he conducted human experiments in violation of the law and transformed himself into a half-mechanical lifeform.

He lived in a small corner of the steel jungle and looked like just an ordinary bookstore owner, guarding physical books that were eliminated eight hundred years ago.

The protagonist interacted with various “monsters” in this small corner, such as the owner of the resentful house who walked between the Yin and Yang worlds, the wanderer from the dragon kingdom, the cursed doctor, and so on.

He also interacted with ordinary people from the outside world, and their tacit understanding was not to disturb each other, let alone disrupt his peaceful life as a bookstore owner.

Unfortunately, this city had been experiencing undercurrents recently, and it seemed that some unknown force wanted to push this corner to self-destruction, so the protagonist who was devoted to his retirement could no longer sit still.

He wanted to find the relatively peaceful person who destroyed the monster city.

“This is the first time I’ve seen a character like this who is so powerful but only wants to live an ordinary life.” Xie Jiu found that he could actually understand ‘him’.

“Is this the style you said you wanted to change?”

“Hmm?” An Yinong just remembered that Xie Jiu probably didn’t know that ‘Gu Pan’ was also his pseudonym, so he didn’t answer directly, but just asked, “What do you think of this style?”

“I think it’s good, but you know, I don’t read comics very often.” To be precise, Xie Jiu had only read Yinong’s comics. He was not interested in the comics, but in the person who drew the comics.

An Yinong lowered his head and continued to trace the manuscript with a liner pen: “I know you are very busy, Mr. Xie, the chairman who is busy with all kinds of things, don’t you have work today?”

“How can you be a boss if you have to do everything yourself?”

An Yinong, who drew comics himself: …

“It’s different from your situation. You are more of a ‘great cartoonist’ than a ‘magazine owner’.” Xie Jiu looked down at his watch. “The ‘Xiexie’ issue has been resolved. It’s time for me to leave.”

“I won’t see you off. Goodbye.” An Yinong didn’t get up to see him off. They lived next door, so wouldn’t he be exhausted if he kept seeing the other off?

Xie Jiu turned around and watched him concentrate on painting, then looked at the two parrots in his hands. For a moment, he envied his parrots.

“At least we don’t have reproductive isolation, although it’s of little use.” Xie Jiu squinted at the birdcage in his hand.

“Chirp?” Xiexie the parrot shrunk his neck. For some reason, he always felt that the look in his owner’s eyes was a little dangerous.

“Monster City” had been serialized for many days, and readers had already found the source of inspiration through clues on the screen – the walled city.

“For the first time, I felt that our walled city was such an interesting place.” People in the walled city were extremely curious. Even the gangsters in the east district of the walled city came out to buy the magazine, saying that their boss wanted to read it.

An Yinong actually received a letter sent from the East District of the Walled City. Inside the letter was a photo of him posing, his muscles were shiny with oil, and his skin was covered with tattoos, scars and bullet holes.

This man used three pieces of paper to briefly describe his life in the underworld, hoping to get a role in “Monster City”, even if it meant playing a villain.

An Yinong, who always felt threatened, said: …

This comic with a unique style has surpassed the previous serialization record of “The Desert Heroes” and had become this year’s dark horse male-themed comic.

The reason why the limitation of “male theme” was added is because “Master Scholar” by “Gu Pan” was an unshakable mountain in the field of “female theme” comics.

The story of “Master Scholar” was not complicated. It was a love story between Yinuo, a human girl living in modern times, and Yanxi, the ghost of an ancient nobleman who appeared after breaking an antique hair comb.

In their identities, one was a fish in the water and the other was a bird in the sky. But because Yinuo broke the hair comb, their fates were linked together.

Yinuo is frank and sincere, Yanxi is considerate and introverted. They will think about each other but will not act on their own. This way of getting along was different from the previous “Ghost”. It seemed relaxed and indescribably touching.

The implicit and secret love between teachers and students, between humans and ghosts, and in the collision of modern and ancient concepts had fascinated a group of readers who love emotions. Moreover, this also broke the rumor that ‘Gu Pan’ only draws adventure comics with female themes. ‘Gu Pan’ also drew emotional comics, which were also first-class.

At the same time, some readers who loved history came out to argue, arguing about the specific era and background corresponding to the male protagonist. When An Yinong was setting up the male protagonist, he specifically referred to his own previous life, and the details were very detailed.

At the same time, there were poems that An Yinong had written before. The hero could compose poems and essays with ease, and he was proficient in the six arts of a gentleman and had various elegant hobbies. When reading it, it really felt like a young master of an ancient noble family appearing in front of you.

It was this sense of reality that made the conflict and fusion of ancient and modern concepts in this comic more interesting. But this raised new questions: Who was the leading figure of Huayou magazine, Yinong or Gu Pan? Which one could better support the sales of Huayou magazine, Monster City or Master Scholar? Were Yinong and Gu Pan friends or rivals?

A bunch of tabloids were speculating and betting, hoping that the rumored good friends would quarrel and go their separate ways. It would be best if they both left Huayou and fell into the hands of others. – From other magazines that were eyeing them.

Internal strife was impossible. The title of the next episode of “Yinong” was “Rivals, but more importantly, friends”, and the title of the next episode of “Gu Pan” was “This feeling remains unchanged, this heart remains unchanged”.

It was like drinking a sip of sweet maple syrup through the paper.

However, the current situation of two stars competing for glory did need to be resolved. The cartoons of the two of them occupied more than half of the space of “Huayou” magazine, leaving too little space for others, which was not conducive to the long-term healthy development of the magazine. Therefore, “Huayou” magazine decided to split “Huayou” into two.

The original “Huayou” was renamed “Manlin Pavilion”, and a female-themed comics magazine – “Rose Pavilion” was also spun off. In the future, the comics of “Gu Pan” would be moved to “Rose Pavilion”. At the same time, all cartoonists were welcome to submit their works. Currently, only comics with female protagonists were accepted.

In addition, the first issue of “Rose Pavilion” magazine will randomly include character bookmarks hand-drawn by “Gu Pan”. Interested readers could make a reservation in advance.

As a result, the 10,000 copies of the first edition of “Rose Pavilion” magazine did not even make it to the market, as they were all pre-ordered by readers. The “Rose Pavilion” magazine that appeared on the market later was the second batch of reprints. This showed how large the consumer group for female-themed comics was and their high their purchasing power.

In addition, the ability to publish overseas versions of “Manlin Pavilion” and “Rose Pavilion” had also attracted a group of new generation cartoonists and gained a backbone force. Their magazines were poised to become dark horses in the industry.

Other comic magazines were already drooling with envy.

‘Nan Yinong Bei Gu Pan’ (originally Nan Yinong vs Gu Pan, later changed to Nanbei), the two most capable cartoonists of the new generation, why can’t they poach any of them? What benefits did “Huayou” promise?

The president of Huayou also wanted to know this question. After thinking about it, he said: “Maybe it’s because of feelings?”

“Maybe they stay here because of sentiment, but we can’t just speak with sentiment.” An Yinong said to the president. He said that he was interested in finding an animation production company to produce an anime.

However, at present, he only had enough resources to make one animation, tentatively “The Imperial Soul Girl”. Because it had a light-hearted style and tells a story of growing up, it was suitable for both men and women of all ages, and was suitable for animation.

“What should I say to Yinong?” The president was a little nervous. Yinong came earlier than Gu Pan, and his comics became famous first. But now, Gu Pan had taken the lead. No matter how good their relationship was, he should be upset now, right?

An Yinong: “We will do our best to promote Monster City abroad.”

The style of “Monster City” was very suitable for internationalization, and its imagination of the future was also very attractive. An Yinong thought he had handled the matter properly, but he never expected that after the outside world knew about it, the following report appeared in the newspaper:

“Capital interference, Gu Pan Comics made animation, took the throne of the best-selling comics, and suffered the bitterness of farmers. “

“The director is in love with ‘Gu Pan’. The former friend has become the enemy today? Where will ‘Yinong’ go?”

Xie Jiu from next door came to him with the two parrots: “You and Gu Pan, are you in a close relationship?”