Garbage Light Novel Adaptation

Gu Xue lay sprawled on her bed and let out a shout. After looking at her phone for a while longer, she finally dragged herself up, opened her door, and headed downstairs.

Ever since discovering three days ago that she had turned into a girl, she had waited until Gu Rou left before coming out to wash up, eat, and deal with her bodily needs.

Staying in her room for three days did not mean she had gone without food or water or never taken a single step outside.

At least, Gu Xue could not manage that.

She had once watched some TV drama where the protagonist supposedly stayed in his room for two days and one night without coming out or closing his eyes, just sitting blankly in a chair and smoking one cigarette after another.

What utter bullshit.

Even if you did not eat or drink, you still had bodily needs, right?

If you were that amazing, you might as well become a cute idol girl.

Well, if it really came down to it, Gu Xue wished she were an idol too...

Back when she watched certain works that had poisoned her brain, her head had been full of strange thoughts. Now, whenever she dealt with her bodily needs, all she could think about was how embarrassing it was, embarrassing enough to make her want to die.

She had wanted nothing more than to jump out the window on the spot.

The day before yesterday, even while brushing her teeth, she had instinctively turned her head away, unwilling to look in the mirror. In short, she still had not fully accepted it.

But some things had to be adapted to.

Today, Gu Xue looked straight into the mirror as she brushed her teeth and carefully examined herself.

So pretty...

The instant those three words appeared in her mind, Gu Xue hurriedly stopped herself from thinking any further. She vigorously brushed her pearly white teeth, rinsed her mouth, washed her face, and walked out.

The food on the table was still steaming. It seemed Gu Rou knew her younger sister would come downstairs to eat after she left, so she had not cleared anything away.

Gu Xue hastily finished eating, filled her stomach, and washed the dishes and chopsticks as well.

Then she sat on the sofa and started scrolling through her phone.

Many of Earth's social media apps had replacements with roughly the same functions in this world. Staying home alone was not boring; every world had its idiot netizens, and dumb memes were still funny.

Just as Gu Xue was getting completely absorbed in her phone, unconsciously curling up in the corner of the sofa and hugging her rounded thighs as she shifted into a more comfortable position to look at memes, a notification from social media suddenly popped up and caught her attention.

Its general meaning was: come to work.

Three days ago, the shock of transforming had been too much, so Gu Xue had hidden in her room to calm down. When someone messaged her asking why she had not come to work, she casually made up an excuse about being sick and brushed them off.

Come to think of it, today was the last day. She had to go to work.

"I'm only nineteen. Is it really okay to keep staying up late and burning my life away every day...?"

Gu Xue sighed. Though she said that, she still decided to visit her workplace that evening. There were two reasons: first, she was interested in this world's animation production standards; second, she liked animation.

Even though she often complained internally that making animation was a dead end.

She loved it.

Otherwise, why the hell would she work in this field, staying up late and working herself to the bone every day?

Animation production was actually much like an assembly line. The moment one step was done, the next began. If one link got held up—for example, if the key animation could not keep pace—every later process would be affected. How the hell were they supposed to do cleanup, in-betweens, or coloring then?

Once a delay in one stage caused an episode to have problems, the processes for later episodes would all pile together. TV broadcasts would not be postponed, and they had to air one episode every week. The schedule would get tighter and tighter, and working themselves to the bone was just routine.

"I hope this world isn't too awful." Gu Xue replied to the message, then planned to go upstairs and get some proper sleep.

Animation studios generally started work in the late afternoon, close to evening.

The company Gu Xue worked for also began at five in the afternoon. Gu Xue was... a key animator.

That afternoon, Gu Xue was woken by her alarm. She went downstairs, tidied herself up a little, then looked at the T-shirt and shorts she was wearing and decided to take a shower and change clothes.

More than ten minutes later, she came out of the bathroom wearing a tracksuit—one for winter, at that—wrapped up from head to toe.

She felt awkward about her eyes being drawn to her long legs, and even more awkward about attracting other people's attention...

With that in mind, Gu Xue had changed clothes and wrapped herself up tightly. But the moment she put it on, she regretted it and felt stupid. It was late July, the hottest time of year. She could endure wearing a jacket indoors, but outside, she would definitely want to die.

"What am I even afraid of?" Gu Xue sighed, took off the tracksuit jacket, tied her long hair into a single ponytail, grabbed her phone, earphones, and keys, turned off the air conditioner, and headed out.

She took the train, got off after two stops, and soon arrived at the company entrance.

The animation studio Gu Xue worked for was called Snakehead. Translated, it roughly meant "black fish," and she had no idea what they were trying to convey with that name.

The company was considered young in the industry. It had started out doing outsourced work, then independently produced several animated series. It had made some hits, but most had received mediocre responses. It had been declining in recent years. Last year, it launched four shows in one season, all light novel adaptations. The audience had been stunned, and then... almost all of the episodes had been outsourced to other companies. Three of them had terrible quality.

This year, they had learned their lesson. In July, they only took on two projects. One was a manga adaptation, a project from the giant Shueisha, currently being handled by the company's core creators and main production team. The other was still a light novel adaptation, titled <My Right Leg Is Missing a Big Toe, but It Isn't a Toe—It's the Holy Sword>.

The title alone reeked of garbage... The budget was low, the production schedule was short, and the company was treating it casually. Most of the main staff were newcomers, the sort who had been forcibly promoted. There was no way the quality could be good.

It belonged to the kind of anime made to be sacrificed.

Unfortunately, Gu Xue was a key animator on the latter project...

When Gu Xue recalled all this on the train, she nearly turned around and went home.

What the hell was this?

Reason told Gu Xue that this project, this whatever-missing-toe thing, was complete garbage. If her name appeared in the credits, it might become a black mark on her record in the future. She should forget it. Her previous self... no, her old self had not been skilled enough, so she had no choice but to stay at this company and grind experience. But now, she could absolutely find a better company or simply become a freelance key animator.

But when people decided things, reason was often useless.

Especially for women. Gu Xue was a woman too, at least in appearance.

She was still very curious about the animation production standards of this parallel world, so she arrived at the company entrance and prepared to go inside.