Meeting

Early November, the weather turned cold.

On Friday morning, Chu Yu walked into the classroom as usual. After a busy week, Chu Yu had finally finished the original manuscripts for the first three chapters of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal the day before yesterday. Yesterday, he had slept soundly until dawn the moment he got home, and today he looked much more energetic.

Ordinary, as ordinary a morning as ever.

Of course, that was only what Chu Yu thought.

In fact, even Zhao Qinyin, who was several classrooms away, would nervously check her phone from time to time.

After all, today was the day Ink Fish Manga Company would hold the serialization meeting regarding the vacant serialization slot in the manga magazine Man Ying.

Although the author of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal was Chu Yu, as his assistant, she naturally hoped that This Work would be selected by the manga company.

Moreover, because she had participated in the drawing of this manga, Zhao Qinyin was even more aware of the quality of This Work.

The short plot integrated many elements such as combat, politics, love, and revenge.

Whether it was the artistry or the depth of the work, Zhao Qinyin felt it was far superior to those works currently serialized in Man Ying.

It was just a pity that only three chapters of the original manuscript had been finished before the serialization meeting... the plot had not yet fully unfolded.

Unlike the finished original manuscripts, the Manga Name that Chu Yu had given Zhao Qinyin for reference had already reached the content of Chapter Nine, so Zhao Qinyin could be considered to know a little bit about the subsequent plot.

From her perspective, if such a work were to be rejected for serialization simply because the plot of the first three chapters had not yet unfolded, that would definitely not be Chu Yu's loss, but the loss of Ink Fish Manga Company.

At 9:30 in the morning, dozens of editors from Ink Fish Manga Company, both big and small, were all present, sitting quietly in the conference room.

Many editors did not have suitable works on hand, so they were not prepared to compete for the vacant seat in Man Ying this time. These People were quite relaxed, chatting and laughing before the meeting started, but more editors had solemn expressions.

Among them was Su Ruo.

During This Period of Time, having read the Manga Name for the first nine chapters and the original manuscripts for the first three chapters of Rurouni Kenshin drawn by Chu Yu, Su Ruo finally had a general understanding of This Work.

To Be Honest, setting aside the projected sixteen-chapter length of This Work, in terms of quality and depth alone, it was definitely the most brilliant manga Su Ruo had received in all her years in the industry.

Especially early yesterday morning, after she had brought the original manuscripts home in a daze and read the three chapters of the manga from beginning to end after waking up the next morning, she was simply stunned.

The handsome character designs and combat, the exquisite Huafeng, and that panoramic shot of Xuedai Ba holding an umbrella in the rain on the last page of the Third Episode.

At that moment, Su Ruo realized for the first time that she didn't understand Chu Yu at all. All along, Su Ruo had regarded him as a Newcomer Manga Artist with potential.

But now, she didn't think so anymore. A manga artist who could produce such quality with only his second work—the word "potential" was clearly too pale to describe him!

At this time, Editor-in-Chief Pang Feng and Deputy Editor-in-Chief Song Jiayu walked in together.

"Everyone is here, so let's start the meeting!"

After the two took their seats, they didn't waste any words.

"There are Eighteen Works participating in the competition in this meeting."

"Of course, although it was said before that the purpose of this meeting is to select a work to fill the vacancy in Man Ying, if there are multiple excellent works among them, they can also be treated as reserve works for other journals!"

Next, the staff distributed copies of the Manga Name of the works submitted for competition to each editor.

"This is not the first time everyone has participated in such a meeting, but even so, I will state the selection rules again!"

"Each work has Five Minutes of viewing time. Please fill in your score for this work in the table on your desk after reading it."

"The top five works with the highest total scores will enter the final round for discussion and voting. The work with the most votes can obtain the serialization opportunity."

"There are thirty-seven people participating in this meeting. Among them, in the final round, the Editor-in-Chief's vote counts as five points, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief's vote counts as three points, and the votes of others count as one point. Abstaining from voting on a certain work counts as zero points!"

Generally speaking, for serializations in ordinary journals, only the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor-in-Chief have great Words, which can largely influence whether a work can be serialized. Only for the journal Man Ying, the serialization vacancy needs to be selected through such a serious voting method; this was also a rule of Ink Fish Manga Company for many years.

Soon, the first work was submitted.

During This Period of Time, no one spoke, and everyone focused on the work in front of them.

Works that had the confidence to participate in this kind of meeting naturally had decent quality. At the very least, even the editors who had worked in this industry for many years found it difficult to find obvious flaws in these works. At most, they could only say they weren't excellent enough; they were all at least at the passing line.

Soon, One Week passed.

After focusing on reading Manga Name for an hour, fine beads of sweat appeared on the foreheads of many people.

However, the further they went, the more relaxed the expression on Su Ruo's face became.

Because although there were several excellent works among them, To Be Honest, from an objective angle, Su Ruo still believed that these works had a significant gap compared to Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal.

Moreover, among them, there were also several works that, like Chu Yu's, did not submit Manga Name for evaluation but submitted the original manuscripts directly.

Of course, the authors of these works were certainly not "liver-exploding" players like Chu Yu, but rather those who had finished their New Work long ago and were just waiting for such a serialization opportunity to submit them.

Time passed, and when the staff once again uniformly replaced the works in front of the editors, the eyes of almost all the editors lit up.

It was not a Manga Name, but another original manuscript submission, and the first page attracted the eyes of many editors.

The work was titled Secret Girl.

"This... image?"

"This Huafeng is so familiar."

"The author..."

"Dong Yun..."

In an instant, the conference room erupted!

"Teacher Dong Yun, no way!"

"She is the Pillar Manga Artist of Feng Yu Comics!"

"I did hear that she didn't rush to renew her contract with Feng Yu after it expired, but no matter what, she left the platform where she struggled for seven or eight years. Why would she come to our Ink Fish?"

Dong Yun is a contracted author for Tian Yin Comics, a magazine under Feng Yu Comics.

In Luo Province, there are The Three Great Manga magazines: Man Ying, Tian Yin Comics, and Fire Dragon Comics, which belong to Ink Fish Manga Company, Feng Yu Comics, and Dragon Fang Comics, respectively.

Before this, Dong Yun was serialized on Tian Yin Comics. Her previous work, Heart Mystery, held the number one spot in the Popularity Poll for forty-five weeks, making her one of the top Shojo Manga authors in Luo Province.

Suddenly, the hearts of the editors present turned cold.

For a figure like this to come to Ink Fish, it would be standard procedure to cancel a work on Man Ying just to make room for her. Why would she even need to attend a Serialization Meeting?

Isn't this just bullying?

Who would dare deny her a serialization opportunity?

If they did, her fans could send a mountain of Bad Review letters tomorrow and stage a protest at the entrance of the manga company.

Song Jiayu smiled. He had long understood that this would be the reaction once Dong Yun's work was unveiled at this meeting.

He could have directly arranged for Dong Yun's work to be Serialized on Man Ying, but he didn't do that. Instead, he had Dong Yun's New Work enter this Serialization Meeting.

His goal was nothing else; he simply wanted to let Su Ruo feel what despair was like.

After all, he had heard that Su Ruo had been busy running around during This Period of Time, seemingly pinning her hopes on the new work by the author of The Garden of Words to stand out at this Serialization Meeting.

Although he didn't believe that the new author had the ability to draw a work of sufficient quality to break through the many entries in this Serialization Meeting.

But being careful is always good. After all, the serialization opportunities for other magazines are basically decided by him and the Editor-in-Chief Pang Feng. Only Man Ying uses a voting system, which might lead to some unexpected situations.

But no matter what, even if that newcomer's work really exploded in quality, it couldn't possibly surpass Dong Yun's New Work!

However, what Song Jiayu found strange was that when Su Ruo saw the work signed by Dong Yun, her brows were initially tightly furrowed. But after carefully reading through the work, those furrowed brows actually relaxed, and the expression on her face even seemed faintly dismissive.

This shouldn't be!

Song Jiayu had seen Dong Yun's New Work. Whether it was the Huafeng, the plot, or the opening, everything was above standard, not a bit worse than the opening of her Peak work, Heart Mystery. Could the work of the newcomer named Shui Xin that she brought really be stronger than Dong Yun's work?

Heh...

Song Jiayu Shook Head!

The Five Minutes of reading time passed quickly.

Most of the editors preparing to compete for this opportunity sighed.

As expected of Dong Yun's New Work; the quality of the work is indeed not on the same level as those previous entries.

Losing to her is no shame!

Soon...

A new work was swapped in.

Although everyone Inside the Heart had already defaulted to the idea that Dong Yun's New Work, Secret Girl, had already won this serialization opportunity.

But their professional integrity made them still carefully examine the subsequent works. After all, if there were truly works with potential, they could let them be serialized in other magazines.

"Rurouni Kenshin. Reminiscence Arc!"

The submitted manuscript, like Secret Girl, was also a raw draft, with the author signed as Shui Xin.

"It's here." Song Jiayu smiled.

He really wanted to see how this work, which Su Ruo pinned her hopes on, would compare to Dong Yun's New Work, and just how far behind it would be...