Decisions

After they'd eaten their fill, the three of them sat around the heater.

"Okay, I have some news for you!" Sister Su suddenly said, pulling out her phone.

"The popularity poll rankings for the first twelve hours after Man Ying went on sale are out." Sister Su's playful expression vanished as she looked at Chu Yu and Zhao Qinyin.

Her words immediately caught their attention.

"Over four thousand votes. We're ranked eleventh." Sister Su didn't keep them in suspense.

"Over four thousand votes? That's a lot!"

"Over four thousand votes? That's so few!"

Zhao Qinyin and Chu Yu spoke almost in unison. Afterward, they looked at each other.

For Zhao Qinyin, who had spent three years submitting work without getting a chance to serialize, having more than four thousand people log in to the voting site on their phones or computers and vote for the first chapter within twelve hours of the issue's release was already an incredible result.

But Chu Yu saw it differently. Even when The Garden of Words was serialized in Ink Shadow, it had received around three thousand votes in the final two issues.

That had already broken the voting record for a work in Ink Shadow. But Ink Shadow was a magazine with a circulation of only tens of thousands, and it had still drawn that many votes. Meanwhile, Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal had been published in Man Ying, which sold over three hundred thousand copies per issue, yet it had only managed this...

"Don't worry. This is only the first chapter..." Seeing Chu Yu's troubled expression, Sister Su grew nervous too, but she still patted his shoulder.

"Have you forgotten? When The Garden of Words first started running, it got less than a thousand votes. In the end, more than three thousand people supported you, didn't they?"

"If Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal keeps developing at this rate, it should have no trouble making the top five."

To be honest, Sister Su had high hopes for Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. In all her years at Ink Fish Manga Company, she'd overseen several works serialized in Man Ying, but none had achieved particularly good results.

Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal was the only exception. It had beaten Dong Yun's new work by a landslide at the serialization meeting to secure a spot, and it had even given Song Jiayu a taste of his own medicine.

At the time, even Sister Su had imagined the series becoming a huge hit once it began running. But reality wasn't so simple.

Although Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal had indeed beaten Secret Girl to win a chance at serialization, Secret Girl had received the Manga Company's full support and promotion. The ads Ink Fish Manga Company had put up on buses, at subway stations, and in underground passages across Ming City were all for Dong Yun's new work, Secret Girl. It was as if the Manga Company had forgotten Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal existed, giving it no support at all.

Sister Su felt utterly helpless. Compared with Song Jiayu, who had powerful connections, she was indeed insignificant. Even when Editor-in-Chief Pang Feng had suggested at the meeting that they allocate some resources to Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal, the Operations Department had vetoed it.

Thinking of all this, she had been trying to comfort Chu Yu, but as she spoke, her eyes reddened too.

"I'm sorry..." Sister Su said quietly.

Zhao Qinyin and Chu Yu both stared at her, startled.

"Huh?" Chu Yu looked at her.

"Why are you apologizing...?"

"With a work as good as Rurouni Kenshin, its results would definitely be much better if it had a different editor..."

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

"When you suggested changing my editor, I said no. Didn't we put that behind us?"

"It's not like you can change things just by imagining how they might've gone!"

"When I submitted The Garden of Words, I sent it to three companies: Ink Fish, Feng Yu, and Dragon Fang. You were the only one who saw something in it and gave it the chance to be serialized!" Chu Yu said.

"If we're going to talk like that, if you hadn't discovered me back then, there wouldn't be a Rurouni Kenshin now!"

That was why, after learning about Sister Su's situation, Chu Yu hadn't changed editors. Discovering promising manga was part of Sister Su's job, but to Chu Yu, it felt like the old saying about someone recognizing your talent and giving you a chance.

If he'd accepted Sister Su's suggestion, his work might have been in a much better position at Ink Fish. But to Chu Yu, it would have been like watching someone beat up a good friend and running away instead of helping.

If he were an adult, he might have cared a lot more about his own interests. But in truth, he was content with a few hundred yuan a month, and drawing manga was just a hobby—and a choice encouraged by the system.

Chu Yu didn't want to keep dwelling on the matter.

"Sister Su, don't overthink it. I refuse to believe that kid Song Jiayu can do whatever he wants. So what if they won't give us promotional resources? It's no big deal!"

Although Chu Yu had chosen this mess himself, he didn't regret it.

"Rurouni Kenshin has tens of thousands of readers each issue. Just being published in a magazine like this is the best promotion we could ask for."

"It's only just started running. Of course it hasn't had time to build up a readership yet. It doesn't matter if the results are a little underwhelming for now."

"I've never met the guy, but isn't Song Jiayu the type to pull underhanded stunts like this? Sister Su, you're feeling down and thinking that way because it's exactly what he wants."

Maybe it was because he truly considered Sister Su a friend. Seeing the redness at the corners of her eyes had unsettled Chu Yu too. He spoke much more than usual, growing more and more impassioned as he went on. He didn't notice that Zhao Qinyin and Sister Su were both staring at him.

"So we can't let him get what he wants."

"I'm confident this series will definitely become a hit..." Chu Yu said.

"Definitely... become a hit." Sister Su repeated the words almost unconsciously.

"You... why are you so sure?"

A work being good and a work becoming a hit were two different things, just as most people had never read a Nobel Prize-winning novel.

"Because... I'm the one who drew it. That's why I'm confident," Chu Yu said gravely.

He refused to believe that a work that had left its mark on manga history in another world could fail because of him.

"Before this series ends... I'm going to reach the top of Man Ying's popularity poll."

Chu Yu looked at the two of them and spoke with conviction. He wasn't blindly confident. Unlike the two women in front of him, he'd read the entirety of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal. If a work of this caliber couldn't reach the top of Man Ying's popularity poll, then Man Ying wouldn't be a local magazine limited to Luo Province.

"The top?" Sister Su asked.

"Right. The top. First place."

"Doesn't Song Jiayu think he can control everything? I'm going to make Rurouni Kenshin reach the top of Man Ying's rankings. Then I'll, uh... make him, uh... what's that phrase?"

"Show him up," Zhao Qinyin suddenly said, speaking for the first time.

"Right, right, exactly." Chu Yu nodded quickly, though he hadn't expected Zhao Qinyin to come up with that phrase.

The top...

At the thought of those words, Sister Su's heart pounded.

Looking at Chu Yu's handsome, confident face, Sister Su suddenly felt that she didn't know him as well as she'd thought.

Before, Sister Su had thought that with Chu Yu's potential, he might one day become one of Ming City's top manga artists.

But at that moment, she felt that Luo Province and Ming City might be too small for him. Perhaps Modu, or even RB Island, was where he truly belonged.

"I see!" Sister Su smiled, her beautiful face suddenly drawing everyone's attention.

"If that's what you, the author, say... then reaching the top of Man Ying's rankings will be this series' goal!"