A Three-Way Conversation

Su Ruo suddenly stood up, crossed her arms, and took two steps back.

Chu Yu was dumbfounded. This Su Ruo was truly a Chatting Genius.

Also, was her action of stepping back two paces serious?

Did she really think he was the kind of person she imagined, someone who harbored thoughts about her?

"Ah, haha!" Su Ruo seemed to realize her subconscious action was a bit too exaggerated.

"Chu Yu, that was just a joke, forget I said anything!" Su Ruo sat down again. Her expression had returned to calm, but whether her heart was calm was unknown!

However, the topic she had steered in a strange direction earlier couldn't be easily resolved, and the awkward Atmosphere lingered.

"Right, here are your Car Keys. We got a Designated Driver to drive us both back last night. I'll return the keys to you first." Chu Yu also couldn't find anything to say for a moment.

"Is my car downstairs?" Su Ruo's eyes lit up at the words.

"Mm, Correct!" Chu Yu nodded.

"What? Are you planning to drive to work?"

"As if!" Su Ruo glanced around.

"Can I borrow an Umbrella from Your Home?" Picking up an umbrella from the cabinet, Su Ruo grabbed the Car Keys and rushed downstairs.

Three minutes later, Su Ruo returned, holding a bag, slightly damp despite the umbrella.

Chu Yu looked at her strangely. What was going on?

"I'm borrowing your bathroom!" Su Ruo didn't bother explaining much to Chu Yu.

She walked towards the bathroom with the bag.

A moment later, the sound of rushing water could be heard from the bathroom.

Judging by the situation, she was probably bathing inside.

This Woman was really not polite!

Chu Yu shook his head. He was bored anyway.

He grabbed some Tea, put it in the teapot, added water, and turned on the fire.

While the water was boiling, he also cleaned the dishes they had Finished Eating Breakfast with.

By the time Su Ruo finished bathing and came out, Chu Yu was already sitting at the table, slowly sipping Tea.

"You really know how to enjoy yourself!"

Su Ruo had already changed her outfit.

She had taken off the emerald green skirt from before, and was now wearing a pure white shirt on her upper body and a black knee-length skirt on her lower body.

She had gone out for barbecue last night, and her clothes were full of the smell of smoke and alcohol. Su Ruo couldn't stand it anymore.

Chu Yu said her car was parked downstairs, so she took the opportunity to bring up the change of clothes she kept in the car and take a bath.

Su Ruo poured herself a cup of tea and took a sip, exclaiming.

"Good tea!"

Suddenly, she seemed to realize something and stared blankly at the teacup in her hand.

After a long pause, she said.

"You're really something else, aren't you, young man?"

"If you like this tea, Yong Hui Supermarket downstairs sells it for twenty-five yuan a bag. It's a pound, enough for half a year." Chu Yu said with a straight face.

"But you say I'm something else, in what way?"

"You're quite the conversationalist! Is my focus on the tea?" Su Ruo glanced at him.

After a while, she said.

"We've only known each other for a few weeks!"

"Mm." Chu Yu nodded.

"But I just suddenly realized that even though we've only known each other for a few weeks, I feel inexplicably less stressed when I'm with you."

"At the very least, I can't speak as freely with you as I do now in front of many friends I've known for years, nor would I feel so comfortable eating and drinking tea at someone else's house, let alone borrowing their bathroom."

"That's why I say you're something else!" Su Ruo looked at Chu Yu, a little confused herself.

Su Ruo thought for a moment, then said thoughtfully.

"Could it be that you're the kind of person rumored to easily make women let down their guard and trust him, using and deceiving women's innocent feelings, possessing the potential to be a scumbag?"

Are you calling me a scumbag indirectly?

Chu Yu didn't know how to respond to Su Ruo's words and simply didn't want to bother with her.

The two fell silent for a moment.

Outside the window, the rain had stopped.

Su Ruo, having eaten and drunk her fill, picked up her change of clothes and left Chu Yu's home.

A few minutes later.

Beep!

Chu Yu's mobile phone chimed.

A transfer notification from Su Ruo popped up on Weixin.

"For yesterday's meal and the designated driver fee!"

Unbeknownst to him, The Garden of Words had already reached its fifth chapter on Ink Shadow.

Compared to the first chapter, which ranked third in reader votes, The Garden of Words climbed to second place in Ink Shadow's votes in the second chapter.

By the third chapter, The Garden of Words had reached first place in the voting rankings.

And it held the first place in votes for both the fourth and fifth chapters.

Furthermore, The Garden of Words' fifth chapter garnered over 2,400 votes, more than double the second place's 1,100-plus votes.

In terms of sheer reader support, The Garden of Words' vote count even surpassed several works serialized on Man Ying.

But Ink Shadow and Man Ying couldn't be compared; one had an audience of tens of thousands, the other hundreds of thousands.

Moreover, with Ink Shadow only featuring The Garden of Words as a new work for these past few issues, sales had risen by about ten percent.

Anyone with eyes could see whose contribution this was.

Gradually, within Ink Fish Manga Company, the name Shui Xin, author of The Garden of Words, was increasingly mentioned by many editors.

Manga artists who published in other journals also began to take notice, realizing that a newcomer manga artist with considerable talent had appeared in the Ink Shadow journal.

Although Ink Fish Manga Company had dozens of journals, large and small, with over ten of them dedicated to manga serialization, they boasted a vast number of authors.

However, regardless, being able to top the reader vote count in a journal and maintaining a solid lead was proof of genuine talent.

Not just within the manga company.

Shui Xin's name also began to spread among students in various schools.

After all, the largest audience for manga was students.

Among them, middle and high school students were the most prominent, as they had generally developed basic logical reasoning skills and had sufficient disposable income to purchase manga journals.

Even in Chu Yu's own class, there were students discussing this work.

"Liu Jie, don't you like buying Ink Shadow? I've already finished reading all the latest issues of Man Ying, Fire Dragon Comics, and Tian Yin Comics. I'm so bored. Why don't you lend me the Ink Shadow you bought so I can take a look?"

"I don't mind." The girl named Liu Jie had an ordinary appearance and average grades. Like Chu Yu, she was an invisible figure in the class.

After speaking, she took out many comic magazines from her desk drawer.

"I have the latest issues of Ink Shadow here. Take them if you want to read!"

"With so many works, which one is good?" the person borrowing the comics asked casually.

"Uh, based on my personal hobby, I think a manga called The Garden of Words is the best."

"Let me see. Right, if you want to read this work, start from Ink Shadow issue 396. This issue is when The Garden of Words Chapter One was first published."

The speaker was unintentional, but the listener was thoughtful.

Chu Yu, sitting in the back row of the classroom, heard this and glanced at his two classmates. He was naturally happy that someone in the class was discussing his work, but he didn't want anyone to know that he was currently drawing manga.

After all, that would only bring trouble.

His original intention for drawing manga was simply to read more manga from another dimension, and it would be best if he could earn some money on the side.

Compared to becoming a star manga artist and encountering crowds of fans on the street, he preferred to remain unknown, staying in his own little corner, drawing manga quietly without anyone paying attention.

Therefore, his attention only lingered on the two classmates for three seconds before shifting back, and he continued to rest his head on his desk to sleep.

But Qin Qianyv, sitting in the front row, felt an overwhelming sense of familiarity upon hearing the words "The Garden of Words" mentioned by Liu Jie in the back.

As a top student, her memory was naturally good.

In just one minute, she recalled why the words "The Garden of Words" sounded so familiar.

Wasn't that the name of the manga she found in Chu Yu's desk drawer when she was looking for materials from him over a month ago?

She had only read a small part of it before Chu Yu dismissed her with a few words.

Qin Qianyv recalled this incident as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

"Excuse me!"

While Liu Jie was chatting happily with the classmate who borrowed the comics, Qin Qianyv turned around and interrupted them.

"May I ask if I can borrow that Ink Shadow issue 396?"

"Uh, of course." Liu Jie was stunned for a moment, then said generously.

Qin Qianyv picked up the comic periodical and, following the table of contents, found the page for The Garden of Words.

As she opened it.

The first thing she saw was a familiar scene: a pavilion in the rain, with a young man and a woman inside the pavilion.

The familiar short poem from the manga.

Qin Qianyv turned her head, looking at Chu Yu, who she hadn't spoken more than ten sentences to in the two months since school started.

At this moment, he was catching up on sleep during his break.

As expected... it's that work.

How could it be?

Could it be... Chu Yu submitted that work to Ink Shadow, and it was successfully published?