Meeting

At the beginning of November, the weather turned cold.

On Friday morning, Chu Yu walked into the classroom as usual. After a busy week, he had finally finished drawing the manuscript for the three chapters of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal the day before yesterday. Yesterday, he'd gone home in the afternoon and slept soundly until morning. Today, he looked much more refreshed.

An ordinary, uneventful morning, just like always.

Of course, that was only how Chu Yu saw it.

In reality, even Zhao Qinyin, who was several classrooms away, kept glancing nervously at her phone.

After all, today was the day Ink Fish Manga Company would hold a Serialization Meeting to fill the vacant slot in its manga magazine, Man Ying.

Although Chu Yu was the author of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal, she was his assistant, and naturally hoped the manga company would select the series.

Besides, having worked on the manga herself, Zhao Qinyin knew its quality better than anyone.

Its short story brought together all sorts of elements: combat, politics, romance, revenge, and more.

In terms of both artwork and depth, Zhao Qinyin thought it was far better than the other series currently running in Man Ying.

It was just a shame that Chu Yu had only managed to draw three chapters before the Serialization Meeting. The story hadn't fully unfolded yet.

Unlike the finished manuscript, the manga name Chu Yu had given Zhao Qinyin for reference already covered the story through Chapter Nine, so she had at least some idea of what came later.

In her opinion, if a series like this lost out on serialization just because the story hadn't opened up in its first three chapters, then it wouldn't be Chu Yu who suffered the loss. It would be Ink Fish Manga Company.

At nine thirty in the morning, dozens of editors from Ink Fish Manga Company had gathered in the conference room and taken their seats.

Quite a few editors didn't have a suitable series and hadn't prepared to compete for the vacant slot in Man Ying. They looked relaxed, chatting and laughing before the meeting began. Most of the others, however, wore solemn expressions.

Su Ruo was among them.

After spending the past week reading the first nine chapters of Rurouni Kenshin in manga-name form and the first three chapters as finished pages, Su Ruo finally had a general understanding of the series.

Honestly, setting aside its projected length of sixteen chapters, its quality and depth made it the most compelling manga she had received in all her years in the industry.

Especially after she'd stumbled home with the manuscript in the early hours of the previous morning and only got around to reading all three chapters from beginning to end that morning. She had been completely stunned.

The striking character designs and fight scenes, the beautiful art, and the full-page image at the end of Chapter Three, showing Xuedai Ba standing beneath an umbrella in the rain.

At that moment, Su Ruo realized for the first time that she didn't understand Chu Yu at all. She had always regarded him as a promising newcomer.

But she didn't think that way anymore. For a manga artist whose second work already had this level of quality, calling him merely "promising" was a laughable understatement!

Just then, Editor-in-Chief Pang Feng and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Song Jiayu walked in together.

"Everyone's here. Let's begin."

After taking their seats, they got straight to the point.

"Eighteen series are competing in this meeting."

"Of course, although we said the purpose of this meeting was to choose a series to fill Man Ying's vacant slot, if several of the entries are good enough, we can also consider them as backups for other magazines."

The staff then handed out copies of the manga names submitted for consideration.

"You've all attended meetings like this before, but I'll go over the rules again anyway!"

"You'll have five minutes to look at each series. Afterward, please rate it on the form on your desk."

"The five highest-scoring series will advance to the final round for discussion and voting. The series with the most votes will get the serialization opportunity."

"There are thirty-seven people participating in this meeting. In the final round, the editor-in-chief's vote is worth five points, the deputy editor-in-chief's vote is worth three, and everyone else's is worth one. Abstaining on a series earns it no points."

Normally, the editor-in-chief and deputy editor-in-chief had a great deal of say over which series ran in their magazines and could strongly influence the decision. But Man Ying was the only magazine whose vacant serialization slots were decided through such a formal voting process. It was a long-standing rule at Ink Fish Manga Company.

Soon, the first series was brought in.

Nobody spoke during the session. Everyone concentrated on the work in front of them.

Any series confident enough to enter a meeting like this was bound to be decent. Even the editors in the room, many of whom had worked in the industry for years, found it difficult to spot any obvious flaws. At worst, they could say that a series wasn't exceptional. They were all at least good enough to pass.

Before long, an hour had passed.

After spending an hour focused on reading manga names, many people had fine beads of sweat on their foreheads.

But as the meeting went on, Su Ruo's expression grew more and more relaxed.

Although there were a few excellent series among them, Su Ruo still thought that, objectively speaking, they fell well short of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal.

A few of the entries, like Chu Yu's, had been submitted as finished pages rather than manga names.

Of course, those authors weren't frantic workaholics like Chu Yu. They were artists who had finished their new series well in advance and had waited for an opportunity like this to submit them.

Time passed. When the staff replaced the works in front of the editors again, nearly everyone's eyes lit up.

It wasn't a manga name. This was a finished manuscript, too, and the very first page caught the editors' attention.

The series was called Secret Girl.

"This... the art?"

"That style looks so familiar."

"The author..."

"Dong Yun..."

The conference room erupted!

"Teacher Dong Yun? No way!"

"She's a Pillar Manga Artist at Feng Yu Comics!"

"I heard she didn't rush to renew her contract with Feng Yu after it expired. But still, she's leaving the platform she's worked so hard to build for seven or eight years and coming to Ink Fish? What for?"

Dong Yun was a contracted artist for Tian Yin Comics, the magazine published by Feng Yu Comics.

Luo Province had three major manga magazines: Man Ying, Tian Yin Comics, and Fire Dragon Comics. They belonged to Ink Fish Manga Company, Feng Yu Comics, and Dragon Fang Comics, respectively.

Dong Yun had previously serialized her work in Tian Yin Comics. Her previous series, Heart Mystery, had ranked first in Tian Yin Comics' Popularity Poll for forty-five straight weeks. She was one of the top shojo manga artists in all of Luo Province.

The editors' hearts sank.

If someone like her was coming to Ink Fish, the company could simply cancel another series in Man Ying to make room for her. There was no need for her to compete for a serialization slot!

Wasn't this just bullying?

Who would dare deny her a chance to serialize her work?

By tomorrow, her fans could flood them with angry letters and block the entrance to the manga company in protest.

Song Jiayu smiled. He had known that the moment Dong Yun's work appeared at the meeting, this would be the reaction.

He could have simply arranged for Dong Yun's series to run in Man Ying, but instead, he'd entered it in the Serialization Meeting.

There was only one reason: he wanted Su Ruo to experience what despair felt like.

After all, he'd heard that Su Ruo had been running around all week, apparently hoping that the new work by the author of The Garden of Words would stand out at this meeting.

He didn't believe that a newcomer could draw a series good enough to beat all the other entries.

Still, it was better to be cautious. The serialization opportunities in the other magazines were basically up to him and Pang Feng, but Man Ying's slots were decided by a vote. Unexpected things could happen.

In any case, even if that newcomer's work somehow surpassed expectations, it couldn't possibly outshine Dong Yun's new series!

What puzzled Song Jiayu, though, was Su Ruo's reaction. At first, when she saw the series bearing Dong Yun's name, her brows furrowed. But after she carefully read through it, they relaxed, and she even seemed faintly unimpressed.

That didn't make sense!

Song Jiayu had read Dong Yun's new series. Its art, plot, and opening were all excellent, no worse than the opening of her peak work, Heart Mystery. Could the newcomer called Shui Xin really have brought in a work better than Dong Yun's?

Heh...

Song Jiayu shook his head.

The five minutes allotted for reading passed quickly.

Most of the editors who had hoped to compete for the opportunity sighed.

As expected of Dong Yun's new series. Its quality was in a different league from the works they'd seen before.

They hadn't lost unfairly!

Soon...

The staff switched in another new series.

Although everyone had already assumed that Dong Yun's new work, Secret Girl, had won the serialization slot, professional pride still made them examine the remaining entries carefully. After all, if they found a promising series, it could run in another magazine.

Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal!

Like Secret Girl, the submitted work was a finished manuscript. The author's name was Shui Xin.

"Here it comes." Song Jiayu smiled.

He was eager to see how this series, which Su Ruo had pinned her hopes on, compared with Dong Yun's new work—and just how much worse it was...