A High-Stakes Gamble and Fate

It was nearly two in the morning.

Tang Yao and Li Xue finally parted ways.

One went downstairs, the other upstairs.

The editorial departments of the two magazines were on different floors.

When Tang Yao returned to the Big Comic Editorial Department, most of the editors who worked during the day had gone out. Even the editor-in-chief was nowhere to be seen.

But Kang Ming was still there.

He heard footsteps in the distance, looked up, and saw Tang Yao. His eyes lit up. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon."

Tang Yao returned to her desk and began storyboarding Shao Changqing's original manuscript. She glanced over at Kang Ming's desk. "What are you working on?"

"Reader surveys."

Tang Yao nodded knowingly, then asked, "How does it feel?"

The reader survey system was similar to the one used by Weekly Shonen Jump in her previous life—a system that left every manga artist holding their breath. It was born of the need to compete in a brutal market, and came to be known as "survey supremacy."

Simply put, once a manga reached its fifth chapter, it could continue serializing if its survey votes and popularity rose.

But if its votes and popularity fell, it would be forcibly canceled by its tenth chapter.

No matter where the plot was headed or how far the story had progressed, it would be brought to an abrupt end.

And after the fifth chapter, there was also a last-place elimination system... If a manga ranked last and failed to climb the rankings within a few weeks, it would be canceled too.

In short, it was brutal.

That was also why Li Xue hadn't forced her to become a manga artist.

She knew how hard it was to be a manga artist under that cruel system. You couldn't afford to let up for even a moment. Every issue had to have suspense and a climax, and you had to keep manufacturing scenes that made readers eager for more.

"It's not quite what I imagined."

Kang Ming looked at the survey in his hands. "I'm still getting used to it, I guess."

"Oh—"

Tang Yao drew out the sound, then suddenly asked, "So, what do you think of mobile games?"

"Mobile games?"

Kang Ming turned to her, surprised.

Tang Yao nodded. "Yeah."

Kang Ming hesitated for a moment, then said sheepishly, "You might not believe me, but I think they're the future. Phones have more potential than the traditional internet. If I could, I'd like to try working in that field. That online battle platform was one of the things I made for the sake of that dream."

"I see."

Tang Yao paused as she leafed through the manuscript, then asked, "Suppose you had a job in mobile games that paid an average salary. Would you take it? Ah... there's one condition: the company is still in its startup phase."

"I would."

Kang Ming hesitated, but finally answered honestly. "Even if it was a startup."

"..."

Tang Yao smiled, then said softly, "It's a promise."

"?"

Kang Ming gave Tang Yao a puzzled glance, then found himself momentarily dazed by her smile.

A salary might not be tied to one's ability.

But it was tied to how much one cared. The saying "Why kill yourself for a few hundred yuan?" might be crude, but it wasn't wrong.

When an employee started thinking about quitting and decided to act on it, their work performance took a serious hit.

Tang Yao was no exception. She wasn't a saint, after all.

After getting Li Xue's promise and hearing Kang Ming's answer, she instantly felt like she couldn't keep storyboarding. She wanted nothing more than to go home and draw cute girls. If it hadn't seemed weird to draw at her desk, she would've started right then and there.

Thankfully, what little reason she had left pulled her back. She wasn't a saint, but she still had a basic sense of responsibility.

So she patiently spent the afternoon finishing her work.

A little after six in the evening.

Tang Yao gave Teacher Shao's manuscript one last check. Once she was sure there were no problems, she tossed it onto the editor-in-chief's desk along with Teacher Ou's masterpiece, then began packing up as though she'd been set free.

Time to go home and draw cute girls!

"You are like the wind~"

Perhaps because she was in such a good mood, she swayed gently as she packed and hummed a tune.

Nearby.

Kang Ming was still battling the reader surveys. Hearing her, he turned to look at Tang Yao, who seemed to be in high spirits as she swayed and hummed an unfamiliar melody. "Heading home?"

"Mm. See you tomorrow."

Tang Yao waved cheerfully, then headed for the door.

Watching her youthful, happy-looking figure, Kang Ming seemed to catch her mood. A smile crept onto his face too.

Meanwhile.

Tang Yao really was happy. Not even the long commute could wear it away, and it lasted all the way home.

"Xun."

She had just opened the door.

Like a character stepping out of a moonlit dream, Tang Xun came out of her room with some clothes in her arms. She turned to look her sister up and down, and, after confirming she was all right, turned and headed for the washing machine with the clothes.

Since she finished class early and lived nearby, Tang Xun had usually showered and started making dinner by the time Tang Yao got home from work.

To be honest.

She was incredibly thoughtful. Tang Yao couldn't imagine how much worse her life here would have been without her sister taking care of so many daily chores.

"Don't you think you're a little cold toward your sister when she comes home, Xun?"

Tang Yao reclined on the sofa. When the cool, aloof girl returned, she patted the spot beside her and teased her.

"What do you want me to say?"

Xun sat down beside her sister and gathered her long hair over one shoulder. "Welcome home, Sister?"

"That's not necessary."

Tang Yao smiled, looking at the girl who seemed ready to tie her hair into a ponytail before cooking. "I'm just curious—why do you look me up and down every day? Are you checking that your sister's still alive?"

"Something like that. I'm worried about your mental state."

The girl let her hair fall and turned to look at her sister, who had come home exhausted every other day but was unusually relaxed today. "If you ever break down and refuse to go to work, wanting to stay home instead, I'll need to prepare in advance."

Tang Yao joked, "Prepare what? To kick me out?"

The girl looked away without answering her sister.

"You're so cold. But don't worry, Xun."

Tang Yao didn't mind at all. She moved closer and rested her head lightly on her sister's shoulder, relaxing as she smiled. "Adults are tougher than you think. We relieve stress by complaining all the time, lie to deal with all kinds of relationships, and even do despicable things.

"If all else fails, we can cry in the car before going home. It's no big deal."

"The adults in your eyes are so pitiful."

"That's just how pitiful adults are. So don't sit there looking all serious and longing to grow up. The adult world isn't much fun."

"Then why don't you complain to me? Do you cry every day before coming home?"

"..."

Tang Yao smiled softly. Her little sister was pretty good at talking back. "It's not that bad. Your sister hasn't officially become an adult yet. And she doesn't have a car, though she's tried it before."

"Then you might as well cry at home."

Tang Xun fell silent for a moment, then said slowly, "At least someone's home. It's not as private as a car, and it's embarrassing, but I've known you since you were little. I already know all the embarrassing things you've done. In fact, you'd already completely humiliated yourself in front of me a week ago."

A week ago was when Tang Yao had arrived in this world.

Tang Yao's expression stiffened. She lifted her head from the girl's shoulder and turned to look at her.

Tang Xun looked back at her sister, expressionless.

"Do you really like rubbing salt in your sister's wounds?"

But Tang Yao wasn't going to be intimidated by her stare. She reached out and gently pinched the girl's soft, smooth cheek, squeezing it a little.

Tang Xun faced her sister, her pretty face squished until her lips puckered. Her cool, aloof air vanished in an instant, leaving her looking kind of cute.

"...Go take a shower."

Tang Xun glared at her sister, no longer quite so composed. She pulled free of her sister's hand and stood up. "I'm going to make dinner."

Tang Yao watched the girl walk off with longer strides than usual. She tilted her head and smiled knowingly.

After they showered.

The sisters ate dinner together.

As usual, Tang Xun took the bowls and headed for their cramped, semi-open kitchen to clean up.

Tang Yao didn't help her. She had something more important to do.

She returned to the room they shared, sat down at the desk again, and took out a sheet of drawing paper. This time, she wasn't sketching a manga, but a character illustration of a cute girl.

Of course, she'd been talking about it since she got off work.

But she couldn't just start drawing blindly... Her experience in her previous life told her that gacha games were hugely popular in the early days of the mobile internet and could make a fortune.

Even later copycats made money, as though everyone could get a piece of the mobile-game pie.

But the company that had launched Million Arthur, the progenitor of gacha RPGs, was Square Enix. It might have gone downhill by the time Tang Yao crossed over... but it still owned powerhouse franchises like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Quest. Its experience and resources were on a completely different level from any studio's, let alone an individual's.

The gameplay alone couldn't be solved with art assets. Even though early gacha games were infamous for not focusing on gameplay, they still needed some.

She could forget about gameplay that was too difficult to make.

There were plenty of other things to consider too, not to mention the story and voice acting.

Even just figuring out how to distribute the resources players could earn in-game—that is, free pulls—and those they could buy outside the game—that is, paid pulls—was enough to give her a headache.

Fortunately, she had plenty of successful examples to draw on.

Her first task was to piece together a mobile game from the vast library of games in her previous life—one that balanced development difficulty and revenue, and suited this world. That way, she could secure investment and earn the first pot of gold of her life.

She needed to be cautious and take it one step at a time.

Because if she failed, she'd have no choice but to make a living drawing manga.

Of course, if she succeeded... she could probably free herself from the shackles of money for a while and do a lot more.

This was a high-stakes gamble.

"First... I need to figure out the game's foundation."

Tang Yao twirled the pencil in her hand. After a long moment of thought, she wrote a single word on the paper—Fate.

The famous Fate series.