Episode 10 Name

After a long stretch without a day off, Chu Yu finally had time to rest. He eagerly considered how he would spend the break he'd given himself.

Go shopping?

Buy something?

Visit a scenic spot?

But as he watched the snow swirling outside, the ideas that had started to form in his mind gradually faded.

In weather like this, what could he do if he wasn't working?

After going to the cinema alone to watch a movie, he felt bored. He spent two whole days sleeping at home, and in the end, his weekend passed without him doing a thing.

That was how he used to spend his weekends, before he'd embarked on a career as a comic artist.

But after this long-awaited stretch of idleness, he found himself looking forward to getting back to work on Monday.

For a moment, he even wondered if there was something wrong with him.

But he quickly put the thought aside. By the time Zhao Qinyin and Su Ruo came over again on Monday, he had already finished drawing the name for Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal Episode 10 during his English class, which had gone right over his head.

The moment they came in and spotted the Episode 10 name on the desk, the two of them wasted no time. They sat down together and eagerly began reading it...

Kenshin and Ba, living in the countryside as husband and wife, spent the autumn together. Then winter came...

The scene shifted to the two of them walking through the snow.

Kenshin strode ahead with firm steps, while Xuedai Ba followed close behind.

Xuedai Ba was short of strength and fell to the ground. But when she looked up, she saw Kenshin holding out his hand to her, his face calm and his gaze clear.

Xuedai Ba simply stared at Kenshin.

The young man who had killed her fiancé. The young man who was incredibly gentle toward her when he wasn't killing people. The young man she had gradually developed complicated feelings for after spending so much time with him...

"I will..."

Kenshin gazed at her.

"I will..."

"Protect you..."

Su Ruo and Zhao Qinyin's eyes widened, and they both caught their breath.

It was only a name, not the finished art, but Chu Yu's paneling had brought the whole scene to life.

My poor lovestruck heart!

Su Ruo cried out inwardly.

At that moment, seeing Kenshin say those words to Xuedai Ba in the comic, Su Ruo felt the character's impact on her all at once.

The following panels showed Xuedai Ba's inner monologue.

In it, she admitted that she had approached Kenshin to kill him and avenge her fiancé.

But during the time she spent with Kenshin, she had completely strayed from her original purpose.

She had fallen in love with Kenshin...

And as Kenshin spent time with her, his cold heart, which had known nothing but killing, had gradually been melted by her.

Glowing red coals. The two of them embracing in the winter night...

Though that was what happened in the story, reading those scenes stirred no impure thoughts. Instead, they left the reader with a profound sense of sorrow.

At dawn, Ba got up early and left the place where she and Kenshin had lived together for so long.

That brought the Yoshioka Plot in Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal Part 3 to an end.

After reading the name for this episode, Su Ruo and Zhao Qinyin were silent for a long time.

Once again, it had ended on a crucial moment—and each time, the cliffhanger left them more desperate for the next installment.

Where would Ba go after leaving?

What about Kenshin? What would he do?

And in this episode, Su Ruo could feel that both Kenshin and Ba had reached new heights as characters...

Su Ruo looked up at Chu Yu. After a moment, she spoke.

"Chu Yu..."

"What is it?" Chu Yu looked at her. "Is something wrong with it?"

"Was that scene between Kenshin and Ba at night inappropriate?"

Chu Yu personally thought this episode was excellent, but when he'd been drawing the name, he had felt a little awkward about the scene between Kenshin and Ba that night.

After all, he'd never drawn anything like it before, and the comic would be read by hundreds of thousands of people on Man Ying.

But the story came from the system's original work. Changing it wouldn't be right—and Chu Yu didn't think it would be better if he changed it, either.

Still, if Su Ruo, as his editor, asked him to revise the scene on the grounds that it wasn't suitable for children, there wouldn't be much he could do.

"Our manga company isn't that old-fashioned!" Su Ruo said crossly.

"I just wanted to ask how you came up with a scene like that."

"If I'm not mistaken..."

"You've never been in a relationship, have you?"

"How did you manage to portray such delicate feelings?"

Zhao Qinyin looked at Chu Yu with an expression of agreement.

Both of them were curious. Could Chu Yu, with his blockhead of a mind, really come up with such a tragic love story?

It was completely at odds with how he usually acted!

"Ahem, ahem." Chu Yu felt a little embarrassed by her words.

"With something like this, all I can say is that it's a talent!"

Talent?

Su Ruo was speechless.

No matter how she looked at him, she couldn't see how someone as absent-minded as Chu Yu could have that kind of talent.

In this episode, Ba's inner monologue was not only emotionally delicate, but Kenshin's manliness was at its peak, too.

Even Su Ruo, who had basically given up on love, had been moved. And this guy Chu Yu was calling it talent?

"I really wouldn't have guessed!" Su Ruo said, shaking her head.

"People say that the protagonists an author writes often reflect the author himself, but I can't see anything you and Kenshin have in common."

"If you had even half of Kenshin's manliness, you probably wouldn't be single now!"

"Creating a character like Kenshin really can only be attributed to talent!"

Chu Yu looked at her strangely. How had this turned into a conversation about him?

He thought for a moment.

"Ahem... Don't go off on a tangent. Our job is to finish this comic, not discuss whether a high school student like me has a partner."

"And if we're really going to talk about this, I'm not the one here who should be worried. That would be someone whose parents keep pressuring her to get married!"

Chu Yu didn't even give Su Ruo a chance to argue.

"Since there's nothing wrong with the name, I'll draw the story as planned. It's work time now, so I'll leave it at that. I'm going to get started!"

With that, Chu Yu headed over to the drawing desk by himself.

Zhao Qinyin couldn't hold back a smile. She glanced at Su Ruo, then went over to start working, too.

Only Su Ruo remained behind. She'd meant to tease Chu Yu, but instead he'd hit a sore spot. She watched the two of them working, then stamped her foot. But she didn't go over to bother them; she simply filed the slight away...

A few days passed in a flash.

In January, the cold winds in Ming City were biting, and the snow was already deep enough to cover people's ankles.

On the second Friday of the month, the comic market in Luo Province—or, more specifically, sales of the latest issue of Man Ying—was blazing hot.

Even in such heavy snow, crowds of comic fans still headed to bookstores and newsstands across the city to queue up for Man Ying.

Many bookstore owners were baffled. Based on their usual order quantities and past experience, they wouldn't normally sell out of Man Ying until evening. But this week, it had already sold out by noon.

"Call the supplier right away and tell them we need more stock!"

Bookstore and newsstand owners across Ming City made the same decision at nearly the same time.

"I'm sorry, Man Ying has sold out. We might not get more copies until this afternoon or tomorrow. You could take a look at some similar magazines, though. Fire Dragon and Sky Sound are both pretty good..."

Gu Yu, owner of a medium-sized bookstore in the eastern part of the city, smiled as he replied to the customer asking for Man Ying.

But despite the smile on his face, he was feeling uncomfortable.

He knew that even though he'd told these people more copies would arrive that afternoon, most of them wouldn't wait around once they left the shop.

"Ah, this is the third store already, and they're still out..." The student in front of Gu Yu looked disappointed and started to leave.

"Um... Wait, I wanted to ask you something..." Gu Yu called out to the student.

"Has Man Ying been running some kind of promotion? Why have more and more people been coming to buy this magazine over the past few weeks?"

"A promotion?" The student shook his head.

"Not that I know of. I mainly buy it to read a series called Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal... As for what you said, I'm not really sure."

With that, the student left.

(The author wrote this episode while watching IG play FPX, so it might be a little messy. I'll give it another look. I'm working on another chapter tonight, but it might be very late—or I might be too tired and end up posting it in the morning. You can all go to bed early!)