"Sorry for the trouble."
When Gu Xue was being harassed by phone calls from the animation production team, Bo Wen happened to be at home and got a call from Ms. Mihara.
Bo Wen picked up his seven-year-old daughter and set his phone on the table. Raising his voice a little, he said with a smile, "It's no trouble, really. Even if you hadn't asked, I would've explained."
He would've had to come out and explain no matter what.
Because he'd accepted a Restraint Fee.
A Restraint Fee was an extra payment given by a production company to an animator after they took a job. On top of the per-cut rate, the company paid them to keep them from taking other work and to make sure they prioritized its project.
Not every animator received a Restraint Fee. Those who did were generally recognized by the production company for their ability. For someone like Bo Wen, most of his income actually came from Restraint Fees, so he was quite concerned about his reputation. It would've been fine if he'd accepted a partial Restraint Fee that still allowed him to take other work.
The problem was, while Gu Xue was working on episode eleven of Invasion, Bo Wen had already accepted a full Restraint Fee for another anime, and he'd been working on it for some time. Now someone had made up nonsense, and plenty of people believed it. He was genuinely angry and exasperated. The director of that anime was a friend of his, and had actually called to ask if he'd been slacking off, or forgotten about their friendship because someone else was paying him more...
Bo Wen had been caught in the crossfire for no reason. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
There was a brief silence