Identity

The next day, the English teacher saw Chu Yu slumped over his desk, fast asleep again. He drew a deep breath, holding back the urge to yell at him.

In his eyes, Chu Yu had given up on himself completely. Plenty of students in their senior year were like that. He shook his head.

At seventeen or eighteen, some students threw themselves into their studies, hoping to get into a good university.

Others, like Chu Yu, didn't care whether they went to university or not. Instead, they had already embarked on a different career path.

The reason Chu Yu hadn't taken leave to draw manga was simply that he wanted to maintain his attendance record and get his high school diploma first!

And there were others like Zhao Qinyin, who excelled at school but had their minds on other things.

As Zhao Qinyin sat through class, she chatted happily with someone on her phone, hidden in her desk.

"Then it's settled..."

"Tonight, I'll take you to meet him!"

The person chatting with her on WeChat sent that message.

"Okay!"

Zhao Qinyin found it strange that the other person had typed "him" instead of "her."

But she didn't think much of it. Maybe it had just been a typo.

Inside a Western restaurant, a man and a woman drank wine and chatted cheerfully.

"Deputy Editor-in-Chief Song, I've thought over your proposal for some time, and I've more or less made up my mind..."

"But before we finalize things, let me ask one last question. Can you really guarantee that I'll have the opportunity to serialize my work in one of the Modu Seven Greats...?"

The woman looked to be in her twenties. She was beautiful and elegant.

"No, Teacher Dong Yun, I think you may have misunderstood." Song Jiayu took a sip of red wine, then looked at her intently.

"I only said there was a chance. I never guaranteed anything. As you know, although my father carries considerable weight in the Modu manga industry, something like this ultimately depends on your own ability and performance, Teacher Dong Yun!"

As he said "performance," Song Jiayu raised an eyebrow and stressed the word, as if hinting at something.

Dong Yun seemed to catch his meaning. She lowered her head and fell silent for several minutes.

After a long while...

"Then I'll leave everything to you, Editor-in-Chief Song!" Dong Yun looked up.

"Here's to a happy partnership!" Song Jiayu smiled and held out his hand.

"A happy partnership!" Dong Yun shook his hand.

Song Jiayu looked at Dong Yun as if something had occurred to him. It took a long while before he finally let go.

"Dealing with a clever person like Teacher Dong Yun is so much easier than dealing with certain people..."

"Certain people?"

"Nothing. Just a junior employee at our company..."

Dong Yun nodded thoughtfully.

"Since I've decided to move my new work from Feng Yu Comics to Mo Yu, I assume you've already got some idea about its serialization schedule, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Song. After all, I've already announced in Luo Province that my new work will begin serialization soon!"

"I don't know if your magazine, Man Ying, has a series about to end. If so, that would be ideal. If not... please pick an unpopular work and make room for mine, Deputy Editor-in-Chief Song!"

Dong Yun spoke as if it were no big deal. Given her standing at Feng Yu, only Man Ying was worthy of publishing her new series at Mo Yu.

"Don't worry, Teacher Dong Yun. I've read the first few chapters of your new work, and honestly, its quality is much higher than your previous works. Our company has a serialization meeting next week to discuss filling the slot left by a series ending in Man Ying..."

That afternoon, the bell rang, and a crowd of students poured out, ready to head home.

Chu Yu raised his sleepy eyes and looked at the orange-red sunset outside, and at the classroom, which had emptied out in no time.

"Is it already this late?" Chu Yu slapped his cheeks hard, trying to wake himself up.

He didn't linger. He got up to go home, where another long night of work awaited him.

"Wait, Chu Yu...!"

Just as Chu Yu was about to reach the classroom door, a voice called out to him!

Chu Yu stopped and turned around.

There was only one other person in the classroom: a girl.

She had delicate features and large, darting eyes. Her expression was uneasy, and she hesitated, but in the end, she spoke.

"Chu Yu... I need to ask you a favor!"

Chu Yu looked at his class monitor, Qin Qianyv.

"What is it?"

"Could you... could you sign these two sheets for me?"

At last, Qin Qianyv took out two sheets of Autograph Paper and a pen, setting them on the desk.

She regretted it a little. Why had she joined in so enthusiastically yesterday when she saw her younger sister and cousin discussing The Garden of Words?

And why had she bragged to them that she knew the author, Teacher Shui Xin, and was close friends with him?

Now both girls, only half convinced, had asked her to get them an autograph from Teacher Shui Xin!

That had put her in a tough spot. Although she was almost certain Chu Yu was the author of The Garden of Words, Shui Xin, unlike what she'd told her cousin and sister, she and Chu Yu had barely exchanged twenty words in the two months since the school term began.

Usually, Chu Yu either hung out with a few classmates he was close to, or slept or daydreamed. He sat in the back row, giving off an unapproachable air.

Qin Qianyv was never outgoing to begin with. She read The Garden of Words and could even be considered a fan, but she'd never had a chance to talk to Chu Yu.

If her sister and cousin hadn't provoked her yesterday with their scornful looks and accusations of bragging, making her boast that she could get Shui Xin's autograph today, she wouldn't have stayed behind to call out to Chu Yu.

"An autograph?" Chu Yu looked at her in confusion. What kind of strange request was that?

"Why?"

Qin Qianyv immediately grew nervous.

What should she do? Should she reveal the secret?

The secret Qin Qianyv meant wasn't that Chu Yu was Shui Xin. That couldn't possibly be a secret to Chu Yu.

The secret was that she knew Chu Yu's real identity.

"Because..."

Qin Qianyv took a deep breath and steeled herself.

"My younger sisters are fans of your manga..."

"So they want me to get them an autograph."

"Uh, no, two autographs."

She didn't mention that she was a fan of Chu Yu's too. She felt a little embarrassed.

"Fans?" Chu Yu's heart skipped a beat.

What the heck? Had he been found out? That couldn't be!

"Uh, what are you talking about? I don't understand." Chu Yu forced a stiff smile.

After explaining, Qin Qianyv felt much more at ease.

She'd kept the secret to herself all this time, but holding it in for so long had been hard.

Now that she'd simply said it out loud, it actually felt pretty good.

"Chu Yu, how should I put this... You really aren't cut out for lying." Qin Qianyv looked at him, then took a manga from her desk and opened it to the pages of The Garden of Words.

She'd made her point perfectly clear!

Chu Yu started to say something, but when he saw Qin Qianyv's expression, he stopped himself.

After all, pretending to be clueless in front of a smart person would just make him look like a clown.

"How did you know?" Chu Yu's question was as good as an admission that he was Shui Xin.

"Do you remember two months ago, when I was looking for some reference material and found a stack of manga in your desk?" Qin Qianyv asked.

"So that's what happened..." Qin Qianyv's reminder brought that incident back to Chu Yu.

After all, when someone saw original pages that were usually only in a manga artist's possession, it was only natural for them to guess the artist's identity!

"You have a good memory!" The manga's publication and that mishap had been two weeks apart. Chu Yu hadn't expected Qin Qianyv to buy Ink Shadow, or to recognize the work after so much time had passed.

That meant Qin Qianyv had known about his secret for all this time, yet hadn't let on in the slightest.

Just as he thought... She was a woman with a deep, inscrutable nature. It would be better to keep his distance from someone like that.

"Two autographs, right?"

Chu Yu didn't really understand why anyone would be so keen on things like that, but it was only two autographs.

He stepped forward and swiftly signed his pen name, Shui Xin, on both sheets of Autograph Paper. Without saying anything else, he turned and headed for the classroom door.

He was desperate to get out of there. Having his identity as a manga artist exposed felt like someone had read his diary. It was embarrassing and mortifying.

And The Garden of Words was about the entanglement between a teacher and a student, which made Chu Yu feel even more awkward. He just wanted to get away as quickly as possible.

"Oh, and Class Monitor, please keep this a secret for me." Chu Yu turned back to look at Qin Qianyv.

If Qin Qianyv spread the word and everyone at school found out he'd drawn a manga about a teacher-student relationship, just imagining it made him cringe.

"Don't worry." Qin Qianyv nodded.

"I won't gossip about it!"

She wouldn't connect the manga's content to Chu Yu's real life. The school's teachers were all middle-aged women in their forties or fifties. If they'd all been young teachers, she might have thought otherwise.

"By the way, how does The Garden of Words end?" Qin Qianyv asked abruptly before Chu Yu could leave.

"Did Yukino quit?"

Episode 5 had ended right as Yukino was preparing to resign, at the crucial moment when the male lead learned she was a teacher at his school.

Episode 6 of The Garden of Words would be released tomorrow, and Chapter Seven the following Wednesday. Although Chu Yu was already working on a new series, readers still knew him for The Garden of Words.

"You'll find out next week. I never spoil anything!"

Chu Yu stopped, looked Qin Qianyv in the eye, then left the classroom.