Chapter Twenty-Eight: Decision

After eating their fill, the three sat around the warm stove.

"Alright, I have some news to tell you!" Su Ruo took out her phone and suddenly said.

"Today's Man Ying's twelve-hour voting rankings are out," Su Ruo said, her previous playfulness gone as she looked at Chu Yu and Zhao Qinyin.

Su Ruo's words instantly captured their attention.

"Over four thousand votes, ranking eleventh," Su Ruo didn't keep them in suspense.

"Over four thousand votes, that many?"

"Over four thousand votes, that few?"

Zhao Qinyin and Chu Yu said almost in unison, then they looked at each other.

For Zhao Qinyin, after three whole years of submitting work without getting a serialization opportunity, it was already an incredible feat that in the first chapter, over four thousand people were willing to log in to the voting website via their phones and computers to cast a vote for her work within twelve hours of its release in the magazine.

But for Chu Yu, it was completely different. Chu Yu knew that even when he was serializing The Garden of Words on Ink Shadow, the voting support in the last two issues was only around three thousand.

Although this had already broken the voting record for works on Ink Shadow, Ink Shadow was a magazine with only tens of thousands of copies in circulation, yet it could still garner so many votes. In contrast, Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal, published in a magazine like Man Ying, which sold over three hundred thousand copies per issue, only achieved this result...

"Don't worry, this is just the first chapter..." Su Ruo saw Chu Yu's somewhat solemn face. She was also a little nervous, but she still patted his shoulder.

"Don't you remember that The Garden of Words only had less than a thousand votes in its first chapter, and in the end, over three thousand people supported you?"

"If Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal can develop at this pace, it should have no problem entering the top five in the voting rankings by then."

Honestly, Su Ruo had high hopes for Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. Having worked at Ink Fish Manga Company for so many years, Su Ruo had led several works to serialization in Man Ying, but without exception, their results were mediocre.

Only Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal managed to defeat Dong Yun's new work by an absolute advantage at the Serialization Meeting to get the serialization opportunity, and it also served to strike back at Song Jiayu and vent some anger.

At that moment, even Su Ruo had fantasized about Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal becoming a huge hit after its serialization, but reality was never that simple.

Although Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal had indeed defeated Secret Girl to get the serialization opportunity, in reality, Secret Girl received the manga company's unreserved promotional resources. The advertisements placed by Ink Fish Manga Company on buses, subway stations, and underground passages in Ming City were all about Dong Yun's new work, Secret Girl. Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal seemed to have been forgotten by the manga company, receiving no support at all.

Su Ruo also felt a deep sense of powerlessness about this. Compared to Song Jiayu, who had a strong background, her voice was indeed weak. Even though Editor-in-Chief Pang Feng proposed at the meeting to allocate some resources to Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal, it was rejected by the operations department.

Thinking of this, although she was comforting Chu Yu, her eyes also turned red as she spoke.

"I'm sorry..." Su Ruo said in a low voice.

Zhao Qinyin and Chu Yu were both a little stunned.

"Huh?" Chu Yu looked at her.

"Why are you saying sorry..."

"Given the quality of Rurouni Kenshin, if it wasn't for following me as its editor, its results would definitely have been much better than this..."

"Why are you bringing this up again?" Chu Yu shook his head.

"I didn't agree when you suggested changing my editor back then, so isn't this matter already in the past?"

"There are no 'what ifs' for things like this!"

"When I submitted The Garden of Words, I sent it to Ink Fish, Wind Fish, and Dragon Tooth. It was you who saw the potential in this work and gave me the chance to serialize it!" Chu Yu said.

"If you put it that way, if you hadn't discovered me back then, there wouldn't be any Rurouni Kenshin now!"

It was precisely because of this that Chu Yu didn't change editors when he learned of Su Ruo's predicament. Although discovering potential manga was Su Ruo's job, for Chu Yu, it was akin to what the ancients called the grace of recognition.

If he had agreed to Su Ruo's suggestion at the time, his future works might have had a much better standing at Ink Fish. But in Chu Yu's eyes, it would be like seeing a good friend get beaten up and running away instead of helping.

If he were an adult, he might have prioritized profit heavily. But in reality, a few hundred yuan a month was enough for him, and drawing manga was merely a hobby and a choice influenced by the system's incentives.

Chu Yu didn't want to dwell on this issue.

"Sister Su, don't overthink it. I don't believe that Song Jiayu brat can cover the sky with one hand. So what if he's withholding promotional resources? It's not a big deal!"

Although the predicament Su Ruo was in was one Chu Yu had chosen for himself, he didn't regret it.

"Rurouni Kenshin has hundreds of thousands of readers each issue. Just publishing it on this platform is the best promotional resource."

"It's just that it's newly serialized and hasn't accumulated readers yet. A temporary dip in performance isn't a big deal, right?"

"I haven't met that kid, but isn't Song Jiayu the type to resort to such petty tricks? Sister Su, if you're feeling down now and having these thoughts, you're playing right into his hands."

Perhaps because he genuinely considered Su Ruo a friend, seeing the redness in her eyes earlier made Chu Yu somewhat agitated. His words became much more numerous and increasingly impassioned. He didn't notice Zhao Qinyin and Su Ruo's gazes gradually fixating on him.

"If that's the case, then we absolutely cannot let him have his way."

"I'm confident this work will definitely become popular next," Chu Yu said.

"Definitely... will become popular," Su Ruo unconsciously repeated.

"Why... do you have such confidence?"

A good quality work and a work that will become popular are two different things, much like how most people haven't read the works that win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

"Because... this work was drawn by me, so I have confidence," Chu Yu said in a deep voice.

He refused to believe that a work that had made its mark in the history of manga in another world could fail in his hands.

"Before this work concludes... I want to reach the top of the popularity poll on Man Ying."

Chu Yu looked at the two of them and said seriously. He wasn't being arbitrarily confident. Unlike the two in front of him, he had read the entirety of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. If a work of such quality couldn't achieve first place in the popularity poll on Man Ying, then Man Ying wouldn't just be a local publication for Luo Province.

"Reach the top?" Su Ruo asked.

"That's right, reach the top, take first place."

"Doesn't Song Jiayu just think he can control everything? I want to make Rurouni Kenshin reach the top of Man Ying, uh, let him, uh, how do you say that..."

"Slap his face." Zhao Qinyin, who had been silent all along, suddenly spoke up from the side.

"Yes, yes, yes, exactly." Chu Yu nodded quickly, though he hadn't expected Zhao Qinyin to say something like that.

Reach the top...

Su Ruo's heart pounded as she thought of those two words.

Looking at Chu Yu's clean-cut and confident face, Su Ruo somehow felt that she didn't understand him as well as she thought.

Before, Su Ruo had felt that with Chu Yu's potential, he might have a chance to become a top Manga Artist in Ming City in the future.

But at this moment, she felt that for this person before her, Luo Province and Ming City might be too small. Shanghai, or even RB Island, might be where he truly belonged.

"I see!" Su Ruo smiled, her beautiful face momentarily captivating.

"Since you, the author, have said so... then this work will aim to reach the top of Man Ying from now on!"