What Kind of Neuropathy

Su Deqiang was furious, truly furious.

Even though deep down he knew it was unreasonable anger, Ou Congquan's drawings had nothing to do with the manga award.

But that feeling of "I want to make him miserable" was truly uncontrollable!

It was just too outrageous. Ou Congquan was actually fooling readers to promote some manga award, completely disregarding their feelings.

He wasn't acting like a human at all!

Since Ou Congquan's next serialization hadn't been released yet, Su Deqiang could only vent on social media, unable to truly boycott it.

So, he turned his attention to the manga award, which seemed to be Ou Congquan's top priority.

This was an act born of revenge, somewhat impulsive.

It was unreasonable, yet it brought a certain sense of satisfaction.

Just like at this moment.

Su Deqiang sat in front of his computer, watching the clock tick closer to nine. He immediately opened the online manga website, which was almost tied to the Wenxin Manga Award. He imagined the scene of the works released early being flooded with curses and downvotes, and felt a surge of exhilaration.

Top priority, huh!

Ou Congquan dares to advertise his trash with those rotten drawings!

Go eat shit!

See if I don't blast this damned website and manga award to hell!

Excellent?

I don't believe it! The works in this broken manga award! Can they really be so excellent that I can't find anything to criticize!

With this slightly twisted thought, Su Deqiang furiously refreshed the website, waiting for the time to hit nine, ready to unleash his spray at any moment.

Soon, nine o'clock arrived.

As soon as the time struck... the website page refreshed, and twenty-odd works appeared on schedule. Since they were released early, these works weren't categorized but were directly displayed on the website's homepage, like items on display. Readers would notice them as soon as they opened the site and could click to view them.

[Excellent Works for the Manga Award]

Su Deqiang glanced at the title above the twenty-odd manga works, then his gaze slowly moved down to those twenty-odd excellent works... No.

Su Deqiang's earlier thought that these twenty-odd works were displayed like items on a shelf without categorization was wrong.

There was categorization.

Two of the works had it; you just had to scroll down a bit to see.

And the category names for these two works were: Special Recommendation! Works Edited by Manga Artist Giving It Their All, Tang Yao!

"!!!"

Su Deqiang stared at this category, frozen in his seat. Then his face suddenly flushed crimson, and he became even angrier.

No way.

Are they playing like this?

Giving It Their All. Ou Congquan just promoted the manga award yesterday, and at the same time, he pretended to thank the editor. Did you two then put two works he edited into the manga award following this trend? Are you trying to set up two targets for readers to attack? And then you want readers to ignore other works?

Do you take readers for idiots!?

Why don't you just set up a barrel on the ground, prop it up with a stick, put "Girl, Boy, and Sword" underneath, and expect readers to jump in and curse it!

And "Special Recommendation"! Are you afraid readers won't see it!?

Actually, Shang Tao didn't really have that idea.

Although in Tang Yao's eyes... Shang Tao's move was like super-charging Ou Congquan's advertisement, a mischievous tactic born from fear of chaos.

But he actually had some ideas.

Not many, but some.

Like this seemingly out-of-place category.

This was a method he came up with after seeing the two works Tang Yao recommended and asking Ou Congquan... The purpose, of course, was not as simple as setting up a target for readers to attack.

He wanted to achieve two goals at once through the two works Tang Yao recommended!

The first goal was, of course, to ensure that when readers opened the website, they would see these two works first, giving them a little shock of the manga award.

The second goal... was to give readers some confidence in the editor Ou Congquan mentioned.

This was also why Shang Tao specifically asked Ou Congquan for help with the advertisement, and why he dared to let Ou Congquan help.

If there were no follow-up preparations, and he let Ou Congquan advertise while facing criticism.

It would end up looking like he was deliberately provoking the readers.

He would explode too!

Yes.

Shang Tao had also read the two manga Tang Yao drew.

And clearly, he had a lot of confidence in those two manga! Tremendous confidence! You could even say too much confidence!

He even dared to gamble... gambling that even if Ou Congquan went against the grain and advertised, even if readers were angry, they would still give good reviews after seeing those two manga, forgetting their grievances! This would prevent other pre-released works from being affected! Readers would even look forward to the next issue of Girl, Boy, and Sword!

It could be called the height of audacity.

Of course.

From the readers' perspective, at least from Su Deqiang's perspective at this moment... this was treating readers like idiots, setting up a target for them.

"Good, good, good."

Su Deqiang looked at the inexplicably strange classification and was so angered he laughed: "Playing it like this, huh? Then I'll just have to see what you've so enthusiastically recommended!"

He moved his mouse and clicked on one of the works that the editor, Ou Congquan, had so enthusiastically recommended.

"Uzumaki?"

Even though it was released early, Shang Tao had clearly put effort into it... the title, cover, synopsis, and all other information were complete.

Readers could grasp the basic information of the manga at a glance.

Upon seeing the name of this manga, Su Deqiang immediately cursed: "What a stupid name! And the author's name, Third-rate Painter? You know you're third-rate and you still submitted? As expected, you just randomly picked two pieces of trash for readers to curse at, right?"

Honestly.

At this moment.

Su Deqiang felt that the people in charge of the manga awards and the website were in on it.

They actually used such a ridiculous method... He even lost the interest to read the manga and wanted to start cursing immediately.

But adhering to the ancient wisdom—since he was already here, he had already clicked—

He still clicked the read button and started reading casually with a critical and scrutinizing mindset.

"Heh, realistic art style? Truly a third-rate painter, not even understanding popular taste."

As soon as he saw the first page, Su Deqiang scoffed, then continued: "And being melodramatic! You don't even know how to create suspense, what's so strange about a knocking sound! Someone's outside."

"And locked up at home for a week, and you've eaten everything, so why don't you go out and buy some? Acting like it's the end of the world, but your furniture is all intact, right? What could possibly be outside? It's obvious you're trying to depict the character's psychological struggles."

"Flashbacks? Boring!"

"The death of a female celebrity? Heh, as expected, it's the usual trope of the protagonist overcoming inner turmoil!"

"Oh, a collective suicide, and pretending to be satirical about fangirls, right?"

"Human head balloons? Brain-dead trope."

"This is just ridiculous."

"They created a legend about balloons with human heads floating in the sky, but they don't dare to depict it directly, calling it a hallucination. To have a twist at the end, they definitely wouldn't dare to depict it directly, right?"

"Heh, I already know what kind of trope this is."

"I... What kind of crazy person is this!?"

When a person... views something with a preconceived bias, that thing will inevitably be full of flaws.

Su Deqiang was in this state from the moment he started reading the manga.

He was literally commenting on every page he read. Although he admitted that the author's drawing skills were not bad, What was the point? The plot and development were cliché and boring at first glance.

Then.

He saw a scene of two human head balloons kissing.

Upon seeing this, he forgot to even complain. His eyes widened, and he directly cursed.

What kind of crazy person!

Just said they wouldn't depict it directly, and then this happens???

And what kind of bizarre development is this!?

Is this something a human could imagine!?

So how is this going to end?

Su Deqiang stared with wide eyes at the computer screen, then... clicked to the next page.

Under the realistic art style.

A large-scale horror carnival, a massive horror party that developed from a single trigger, began to unfold.

The plot also started to race towards madness!

"..."

The room instantly fell silent, with only the sound of mouse clicks remaining.

And on Su Deqiang's face, a look of astonishment slowly appeared. As he kept watching... his features seemed to twist into a knot, his brows furrowed as if they could crush flies.

He read slower and slower.

But no matter how slow, there's always an end.

Soon.

He reached the end.

And when the entity knocking on the window was finally revealed... when Su Deqiang saw the female protagonist's Uzumaki grinning, looping the noose towards the female protagonist's body.

He froze on the spot, only hearing a buzzing in his ears, as if he had fallen completely into that terrifying manga world.

After a long while.

He finally trembled and snapped back to reality, then gasped sharply.

What kind of psycho is this!!!