The Third Episode: A Burning Fever

Late at night, Zhao Qinyin returned home after finishing work.

She lived in an old residential complex in the east of the city, about a twenty-minute drive from Chu Yu's home. Thanks to how quickly Chu Yu drew, she usually went to Chu Yu's home after school, left around ten at night, and worked on the weekends as well. With the two of them working together, they could generally finish one chapter a week without sacrificing quality. She usually got home around eleven each night.

Most people would have found her life dull and monotonous: classes during the day, work as a manga assistant in the evening, and then rest.

But as far as Zhao Qinyin was concerned, apart from feeling a little out of place during the first few days after meeting Chu Yu, she had unexpectedly gotten along very well with him after spending some time together.

What's more, the manga they were working on together was being serialized in a magazine like Man Ying. Before long, Chu Yu had even declared that he wanted it to reach the top. Judging by how things stood now, that goal didn't seem impossible.

Although she wasn't the author of Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal, she was already thrilled that a manga she'd helped create was doing so well. The frustration she'd felt after having her own submissions rejected time and again had also largely faded.

She took out her key and opened the door.

Unlike the dark house she'd expected, the lights were still on. Her grandmother was usually asleep by this time, but today she sat in front of the television looking dejected, with a family photo from when Zhao Qinyin's parents and grandfather were still alive beside her.

"Grandma, why are you still up?" Zhao Qinyin asked.

"I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about your father and your grandfather." Zhao Qinyin's grandmother, Wu Zhen, was in her seventies. She was rather short, with a hunched back.

"Ah, why did something like that have to happen to your father? If he hadn't insisted on drawing those damned comics, he wouldn't have submitted them to Shanghai, and no one would have called him to go there. He and your mother wouldn't have met with an accident on the way, and your grandfather wouldn't have been so angry that..."

"Ah, forget it. There's no point talking about all that now. It's been years."

"By the way, how did your tutoring go today?"

"It... It went fine. Everything went smoothly." Zhao Qinyin tilted her head slightly.

"You're in your final year of high school now, aren't you?" Wu Zhen sighed.

"Why don't you stop tutoring students from other schools who are struggling? You're at a crucial point in your final year. How can you find time to take care of other people?"

"Our family isn't rich, but we're not so hard up that we need the money you earn tutoring people. Getting into a good university is what matters. You come home so late every day—you must not be getting enough sleep!"

"It's—it's okay, Grandma. Tutoring other people is a kind of review, too. It's even more effective than studying on my own. Look, I've been doing this part-time job for a long time, but my grades haven't slipped. I've never fallen below second place on any school exam!"

"Tutoring people helps you study? Really?" Wu Zhen asked doubtfully.

"I'm telling you, you have to keep your grades up. You can't turn out like your father. His grades were poor to begin with, and then he got obsessed with manga in high school. After graduation, he found a master and spent years learning how to draw those things."

"After he learned, he spent three years drawing that stuff at home without earning a penny. Then, at last, a manga company agreed to publish his work. Only after he started earning money did he meet your mother. Come to think of it, your father invited your mother to our home to be his manga assistant. They spent so much time together that they fell in love, and then you came along..."

"Your parents spent half their lives on manga. Your father even said he'd go to Modu, or even Japan, to become a manga artist."

"Well, he never made it to Modu. He died on the way..." At this point, Wu Zhen's voice grew agitated.

"Your father should have stayed away from manga when he was in school and focused on his studies. Then he wouldn't have dropped out of high school, and he'd still be alive today."

"Thank goodness you're not like your father. You're much smarter, and your grades are good. All I want is to see you get into a good university, choose a good major, and marry into a good family. Then I'll have done right by your father, your mother, and your grandfather."

Zhao Qinyin had heard Wu Zhen say all this many times.

She knew very well how much Wu Zhen hated the manga industry. Her grandmother had always believed that her father's death was tied to his choosing the wrong career.

Even while her father was alive, Wu Zhen had blamed manga for his misfortunes. After he died, she became even more convinced that choosing the wrong profession had led to his tragic end.

Once someone got stuck in a way of thinking, it was hard to change their mind. All these years, Zhao Qinyin had never managed to make Wu Zhen let go of her prejudice against manga.

That was why Zhao Qinyin had always kept her manga work a secret from Wu Zhen, whether she was creating manga or working as another manga artist's assistant. Fortunately, her grades had always stayed in first place, and the pay was decent, so Wu Zhen had agreed to let her continue her "tutoring" job.

But how long could she keep hiding it?

For the rest of her life?

Zhao Qinyin felt lost, too...

The two chatted for a while, then, as it got late, went to bed.

Back in her room, Zhao Qinyin watched snowflakes drifting past the window.

Thinking of how she'd kept lying to her grandmother all this time, she sighed.

In the end, she really was her father's daughter. Their personalities might have been different, but their interests and hobbies were remarkably alike.

In December, the temperature in Luo Province plummeted. Once the snow began falling, it hardly stopped.

But unlike the frigid weather, Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal was heating up the manga market in Luo Province.

After its first episode ranked only eleventh in the Man Ying reader poll, its second episode leaped to fourth place, with a whopping fourteen thousand votes.

Since then, although Man Ying had as many as twenty serialized manga, most of them had done no better than middling business. In reality, everyone at Ink Fish Manga Company was watching just four series in Man Ying.

Magic Realm, by Ink Fish veteran Shen Xin, and Tian Shu, by Wang He.

Secret Girl, by Dong Yun, the top manga artist who had left Feng Yu for Ink Fish.

And the newcomer manga artist who had never appeared in public, communicating with the outside world only through her editor, Su Ruo: Shui Xin.

Across the entire manga industry in Luo Province, Shui Xin and her series Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal were growing ever more famous. In its third episode, the series launched a new arc: Lost Cat.

After the two leads' stunning encounter in the second episode, the scene shifted in the third. The woman who had met Kenshin in the rain fainted, and Kenshin brought her to the place where he was staying.

Kenshin also learned the woman's name.

Xuedai Ba!

The story that followed seemed to settle into a quieter pace. It showed only the daily lives and memories of Gui, Kenshin, and Xuedai Ba. Compared to the fight between Kenshin and his enemies in the rainy night of the previous episode, and the breathtaking encounter with Xuedai Ba at its conclusion, the latest chapter was undoubtedly less exciting.

Many readers who had waited a whole week were disappointed. They wrote letters and left comments on the website urging the author to pick up the pace and draw more fight scenes.

Despite that, the third episode's vote count still soared, rising from just over fourteen thousand in the previous issue to more than nineteen thousand this time.

This left some people at Ink Fish, who had thought the series' success with its second episode would prove to be a flash in the pan, utterly dumbfounded.

By now, most people in the manga industry across Luo Province had realized it.

Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal really was a dark horse.

In the cold winter, it had stormed into Luo Province's manga market at astonishing speed. With only three episodes serialized, it had already become one of the top series among Luo Province's three major manga magazines.

And although it currently ranked only fourth in reader votes, anyone with an eye could see that its popularity was rising. At the very least, Wang He, whose series Tian Shu had now slipped to third place, was already feeling the pressure...