Chapter 610: Web Comic Volume (10): Top-Tier Resources
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Qin Ran had already opened the door by then.
She thought it was Cheng Mu to remind her to sleep. But the person she saw at the door was Cheng Juan.
Qin Ran was stunned for a second. “What are you doing here?”
Cheng Juan walked in silently. When he was sure that no one else was in the room, he kissed Qin Ran on the forehead.
On her laptop, it had reached the page where the five characters had to pick their cards.
A few minutes later.
The game started.
Qin Ran wasn’t online, so Qiao Sheng and his two other teammates fought in the middle with their cards.
Qiao Sheng and Lin Siran weren’t that good in the game. They usually wouldn’t play in the arena if they didn’t have high-level players to carry them.
With Qin Ran, they were playing in a higher-level arena.
Every player in this arena was particular about their points, especially those who often picked the “carry” type attack card.
As Qin Ran didn’t manage to pick her cards in time, the system a.s.signed the three attack cards she usually picked.
The moment she entered the game, she heard some teammates spouting insults.
Chang’an: Did you not see the attack card I chose??
Chang’an: AFK dog.
Chang’an: You could just pick a good card and win it for us already. Are you dumb?
Lin Siran and Qiao Sheng couldn’t be bothered with people like that. They had seen too many of these players. Soon enough, they’d be taking their words back.
“Ran Ran, Ran Ran, are you there?” Lin Siran’s character was standing in front of Qin Ran’s, who wasn’t moving. “Qiao Sheng, could Ran Ran have disconnected?”
At this point, their teammate Chang’an’s cards had been completely destroyed by the opponents.
Chang’an: I’m going to report all of you. S***.
“You guys are in the way.” Lin Siran heard a languid voice coming from the video.
Qiao Sheng was already having trouble in the game. “Master Juan, Sister Ran, help me!”
Lin Siran’s and Qiao Sheng’s levels were this high because Cheng Juan had recently helped them. Cheng Juan wasn’t slow in the game, but he was not as quick to kill as Qin Ran was. He took the time he needed to calculate the damage of each card.
And casually strolled to the five of them.
Five minutes later.
Chang’an: Grandpa, take me with you!
“You guys can continue playing.” Cheng Juan left the game after just one round.
“No, thank you. We’re having our finals exams soon.” It was rather late in the night too. Seeing that Cheng Juan and Qin Ran weren’t interested in continuing the game, Lin Siran decided to leave too.
But she found something a little strange.
Wasn’t Qin Ran in Shanghai?
Both of them were accompanying Qin Ran in the game at night because they didn’t want her to feel bored alone. What was Cheng Juan doing with her account?
…
On the other side, Cheng Juan left the game and went to the shower.
When he came out, Qin Ran was using her laptop on the bed.
Cheng Juan dried his hair with the towel while talking to Cheng Jin on the phone. “Mm, in Shanghai. The Liu family? Sure.”
He was looking at Qin Ran’s laptop while talking to Cheng Jin.
She was going through some comics.
“You’re troubled over this?” Cheng Juan tossed the towel aside and sat beside her. He had one hand around her waist and the other on the laptop.
He thought for a bit.
The outline of the draft seemed a little familiar. He pointed at one of the characters and scrutinized it. “Is this the comic Cheng Mu reads?”
Cheng Juan had a good memory and knew that Cheng Mu was always reading comics and getting told off by Cheng Jin.
He also knew about Qin Ran designing the bulletin board.
Back then when she created such a fuss in school, he could already tell that she had a flair for drawing.
Now that he saw all these outlines, he roughly knew what was going on.
“Mm.” Qin Ran leaned back. She thought for a while and then asked, “Do you think I can still go back?”
After the Pan family’s death, she had a hard time dealing with such a blow. Then, she found out that her grandma’s health condition was deteriorating quickly, and she practically vanished from the world.
Her initial motivation was simple—to make money.
But after that, there was nothing to work for.
That year, she slowly forgot about comics altogether.
There were many inspirations for this comic. The President of the Student Union, Jiang Feng, was based partly on Pan Mingxuan…
After she came to terms with their deaths, Qin Ran had other matters to handle. She turned her attention to the Research Inst.i.tute and the Xu and Qin families.
Now that everything was more or less settled, Qin Ran still felt a little averse to it.
She sighed.
She couldn’t help but think of the vast number of fans on Weibo.
This was the first time she felt burdened by this.
She had finished drawing the first chapter of the second part of Celestial Wolf. She was stuck at the last part where she had to draw the professor’s death along with the other researchers. It took her many tries.
Cheng Juan patiently listened to her talk and then said, “It’s alright. If you can’t draw well, you can always come back.”
Everyone who knew Sister Ran knew that she wasn’t scared of even death. But she went soft when others got too nice and mushy to her.
Qin Ran raised a brow. “… Who isn’t drawing well?”
“Me.” Cheng Juan paused for a while and then kissed her on the lips. He smiled. “It’s me who can’t draw well.”
…
The next day.
Pinnacle Studios.
Editor Shen arrived early.
“Morning, Editor Shen. Stayed up last night?” The colleagues in the staff room were all rather close.
Editor Shen said, “Took a while to look through some scripts.”
He dared not say that he hadn’t slept a wink the previous night because he had been too excited. While his dark eye rings were obvious, his energy level was surprisingly high.
He got into his seat and logged into Weibo.
There were a few more private messages.
Editor Shen hurriedly clicked open the chat and saw Magic Lamp’s replies from a few hours ago—
[Add my WeChat account.]
She then sent a string of numbers.
It had been years, and Editor Shen had never known how to contact Magic Lamp personally. This time, it was Magic Lamp who asked him to add her on WeChat. Editor Shen’s hand shook for a while before he got to it.
The profile picture was very simple—just a blank white image.
Even the name was simple—
Q.
He got accepted not too long after sending the request.
Editor Shen: [Boss Magic Lamp?]
Qin Ran just woke up. She was typing on her cell phone while brus.h.i.+ng her teeth.
[Only one last scene left for the first chapter of “Celestial Wolf” part two. Will be out within a week.]
Editor Shen was shocked.
This meant that…
Magic Lamp was coming back?
Editor Shen jumped up.
“Editor Shen?” A middle-aged lady stopped at the door. “Are… you alright?”
“a.s.sistant Cao,” Editor Shen said with his eyes lit up. “Magic Lamp is back!”
The woman was shocked to hear that. She pushed her gla.s.ses up a little and asked, “Are you sure it’s Magic Lamp himself?”
“It definitely is.” Editor Shen was the person who knew Magic Lamp the best. Of course, he could tell that was Magic Lamp himself! He paced about the staff room for a while before saying, “I’ll do the contract and hand it to the Manager. We’ll need some publicity for Magic Lamp this year.”
He got back into his seat and opened a word doc.u.ment immediately.
a.s.sistant Cao smiled. “You finally saw this day. I’m happy for you, but… your A-grade contract might not necessarily be approved. Besides Young Master Mo, Yiyi Zining is also a hot topic now. They’re the two bestselling authors at the moment.”
The company’s resources were carefully allocated. Everyone knew that Yiyi Zining was popular online at least partly because of her relations.h.i.+p with Young Master Mo.
If this was set a few years ago when Magic Lamp was at the peak, it would be fine.
But so many years had pa.s.sed, and Magic Lamp was no longer as popular as before.
“Also… Magic Lamp hasn’t produced any works in years.” a.s.sistant Cao looked at Editor Shen. “Many people will lose their spark. Magic Lamp now might not be the same person as Magic Lamp back then.”
Editor Shen continued typing in his word doc.u.ment. “I trust him.”
Editor Shen was focused on his task.
When he was done, he didn’t send it straight to Magic Lamp. Instead, he printed it and took it to the Manager.
“Manager.” Editor Shen entered and immediately told the manager that he was requesting some top-tier resources.
Editor Shen wasn’t a newbie, and he had some reputation in the organization. He hadn’t done anything drastic in the past few years, so the manager was shocked to hear that he wanted to groom some new people.
He took Editor Shen’s doc.u.ment and was about to go through it when a woman entered.
If Mu Nan was around, he would’ve recognized that she was Mu Zining.
The Manager put the doc.u.ment aside and quickly stood up to talk to her.
Before Editor Shen was done talking, the Manager smiled at him and said, “Editor Shen, I’ll discuss this with you later. I’ll talk to Yiyi Zining about the collaboration first.”
Yiyi Zining was now the popular little princess of Pinnacle Studios.
It wasn’t just because she was producing good works, but also that she was very honest about herself on Weibo, including her life as a rich girl and comic artist, as well as her perfect education history and good looks.
She was almost as good as a second-tier artiste with growing potential.
In that case, it was only natural that the company would put Yiyi Zining first.