"Why do you look so awful? Have you been grave robbing?"
Tang Yao lowered her head again and asked casually.
Meanwhile, Kang Ming, whose complexion was even worse, heard Tang Yao's question but did not answer right away. Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat down before saying with a grave expression, "Editor Tang... I've been screwed."
"Huh?"
Tang Yao froze when she heard that. Then she slowly turned her head and stared at him with her beautiful, widened eyes. "My condolences... Also, if you can, please tell me the details!"
She was very interested!
"No."
Seeing Tang Yao's eyes sparkling, Kang Ming realized that she had misunderstood. He shook his head vigorously, then raised the latest issue of Big Comic in his hand and said heavily, "Three years ago, right after I graduated, I saw a collected volume of the manga Girl, Boy, and Sword. From that moment on, I fell in love with it. The reason I applied for a job as a manga editor when I had nowhere else to go was also because of this manga.
Because I really, really love this manga."
"...I understand."
Tang Yao's eyes instantly dimmed. She looked somewhat disappointed, like someone who had seen a person bring over cat food and was excitedly preparing to eat, only to discover that it was the wrong flavor.
Still, she understood why Kang Ming had that expression.
"I really love this manga, but do you know what happened in the latest issue?!!!"
Kang Ming suddenly became agitated. "Teacher Give It Your All! No! You old bastard! No! That fucking idiot actually..."
"You're so loud."
Tang Yao lowered her head again and adjusted the lettering for Uzumaki as she interrupted him. "I know what you're upset about. I'm the editor in charge of this manga, so I saw how this issue unfolded before you did."
"Huh?"
The expression on Kang Ming's face froze. He stared blankly at the girl with her head lowered, as though he had only just learned this fact.
Then he became even more agitated and suddenly raised his voice. "Then..."
"I told you not to be so loud."
Tang Yao noticed the other editors looking their way and had no choice but to raise her head. "I tried. You should know the specific reason too. Do you remember the argument between the editor-in-chief and me when you first reported for work? I said there was a problem with Teacher Ou, but he told me not to interfere."
"...Teacher Ou?"
"I almost forgot that you just started. Give It Your All is a pen name. His real name is Ou Congquan... That's right, he's the Teacher Ou I was talking about."
"..."
Hearing this,
Kang Ming's expression froze again. Then memories of his first day at the Editorial Department surged into his mind like a flood.
"There's a problem with Teacher Ou's drawing! Do you think you understand it better than he does!? Do you know which work sells the most copies of Big Comic? Do you know what effect a one-week hiatus for Girl, Boy, and Sword would have?"
Editor Ding's words exploded in Kang Ming's ears.
"He's an idiot too, isn't he!!!?"
In an instant,
Kang Ming understood everything. He abruptly stood up and suddenly shouted, "A hiatus would be better than this! This is complete garbage! And you're saying there's no problem!!!"
Because of his roar,
the entire editorial office fell silent.
Everyone turned to look at him.
But Kang Ming did not care in the slightest. He only looked at Tang Yao and waved his arms. "You clearly warned him! Why did he insist on going his own way? Why did he have to feed the readers this garbage?!"
"Calm down first."
Tang Yao took her hands off the keyboard and gave Kang Ming a helpless look. "Can shouting solve the problem? Can it change the situation?"
"But this is too ridiculous! Why did neither the author nor the editor-in-chief react when you had already told them? This makes no sense!"
"..."
Tang Yao saw that he still had not calmed down, and things showed signs of becoming more troublesome. She took a deep breath, moved her chair around, and slowly wiped the expression from her face. Then she extended a pale, delicate finger and pointed downward, saying coldly, "Sit down!"
"..."
Kang Ming looked at the expressionless girl before him. She was practically worlds apart from her usual cute and lively self. The contrast was so great that he shuddered.
In an instant, he calmed down.
He obediently sat down.
"I understand how you feel."
Seeing him sit down, Tang Yao returned to her usual demeanor and turned her chair back around. "I used to be a reader too. I know your dissatisfaction and anger. You can curse all you want, but shouting that loudly in the editorial office will cause trouble. Don't forget, you just started working here. And you really are very loud."
Kang Ming gave a bitter laugh. After looking around at everyone nearby, he withdrew his gaze and more or less understood what Tang Yao meant.
But...
"But I really can't accept this... Or rather, all my fantasies about this profession have been shattered. So what was Teacher Give It Your All thinking?!"
This time, Kang Ming lowered his voice, but he clenched the latest issue of Big Comic tightly in his hands. His words were filled with intense confusion.
"Everyone has a moment when their fantasies are shattered. It's better to get used to it early. Once a hobby becomes connected to your career, things get complicated. The game industry you originally planned to enter would be the same. You probably don't know this, but many online-game planners don't even play the games they're responsible for."
"Huh?"
"You really didn't know?"
Tang Yao kept her head lowered as she continuously refined the lettering and replied helplessly, "That's why work is such a boring thing. As for Give It Your All, Teacher Ou's way of thinking isn't particularly unusual. He simply lost his reins and became immersed in his own world, feeling good about himself... After all, to a certain extent, authors are free. They can draw anything they want, as long as they completely ignore commercialization.
But if the work is commercialized in the first place, then the market will teach them what the real world is and what consequences are.
If an online-game planner doesn't play their own game, they won't understand what the players actually want. They may hold out for a while, but sooner or later, they'll face the consequences.
A manga's consequences will come even faster. After all, Teacher Ou's work is nowhere near finished. The reader survey for the next issue, the manga's popularity, and the readers' resentment will all be fed directly back to Teacher Ou.
He'll probably understand very soon that there's a gap between the real world and the world in his mind."
Speaking of this,
Tang Yao could not help recalling an anime from her previous life called The Irregular at Magic High School, the one commonly nicknamed The Anti-X Hero.
That anime perfectly demonstrated how the world an author imagined in his mind could be entirely different from the real world... The plot point Tang Yao found most unbearable was probably the ending of the first season, when the characters declared righteously that they would not pollute the offshore waters and had to wait for the warships to leave the coastline.
After the nuclear wastewater discharge became a real issue,
Tang Yao felt that scene was incredibly stupid every time she thought about it... She practically wanted to stuff a microphone into the original author's mouth and make him perform it again.
"...But no matter how strong the urge to express yourself is, you can't do it this way. Did he really never consider how the readers would feel?"
After listening to Tang Yao, Kang Ming experienced a double shattering of his fantasies in a short period of time.
His face was ashen, and his expression looked as though he had been royally screwed. He muttered, "Honestly, I still can't let this go. Miss Tang, don't you feel..."
"I made four trips and still couldn't change Teacher Ou's mind."
Tang Yao paused, then said, "Actually, an editor is a bridge between readers and manga artists. It's our responsibility to prevent manga artists from indulging themselves and becoming completely trapped in the world inside their heads. But neither Teacher Ou nor Editor Ding obviously sees it that way."
"..."
Kang Ming was speechless.
The pillar author insisted on going his own way, and he had also heard what his immediate superior, the editor-in-chief, had said.
Under those circumstances, making four painstaking trips could no longer be called dedication.
It was practically giving it his all.
But the result had still not changed.
At that moment,
he felt that all his fantasies had been shattered. He even wanted to resign on the spot.
"Still, judging from your reaction, the other readers outside probably aren't calm either. Next, let Teacher Ou and that esteemed editor-in-chief taste the bitter fruit of their actions."
Tang Yao typed the final character, took her hands off the keyboard, and turned her head again. "From here on, it depends on the author himself. After drawing a plot like this, if he can't give everyone an explanation or wrap up the story properly, I think the pillar author's career is about to end. Let's see what he's thinking and what he chooses to do."
Kang Ming froze for a moment. "Choose... Is there even a choice?"
"Turn to the last page."
Before you continue