"My family is a bit special."
Meng Fan"s melodramatic expression wasn"t outside of what Wu Tong was used to. As she stretched her chest, she said, "My grandpa had seven siblings, each one having three or four sons. My dad alone has 25 siblings, and not one of them is a girl. When it came to me, it was the same. Because of the one-child policy, my uncles all only had one kid. Some had more, but they were all guys. I"m the only girl."
Meng Fan"s expression amplified even more. "Are you sure you"re not a stand-up comedian?"
Wu Tong s.h.i.+fted into a lunge and smiled at him. "It sounds like a joke, but it"s true. Let me tell you something even more ridiculous. When I was in elementary school, the boys in my cla.s.s liked to stick Xanthium in girls" hair. It"s that spikey plant that is so hard to get out of your hair. A guy grabbed my hair and stuck some on, and I couldn"t get it off for a long time so I cried."
After switching legs, she continued, "Then, several guys from different grades including ones from middle school rushed out and blocked the boy. That also included numerous uncles that ran out from the teacher"s office. Even the princ.i.p.al couldn"t stop them. It got so bad they had to call the education board."
Meng Fan thought about it hard. This gag sounded familiar to him. He seemed to have heard it before. Could it be that this speedy girl was a prototype for a comedian?
"Then...." Meng Fan didn"t know how to continue his sentence. After a moment of thought, he finished it, "Then it must be hard for you to find a boyfriend, right?"
Wu Tong paused her actions, then switched to another warm-up position. She nodded. "Yep. Thirty-one brothers basically cover all kinds of guys. They"re all really good to me too. It"s not that I"m comparing my boyfriend to them, but... How do I put it, some qualities that guys think are an advantage seem normal to me, so it"s hard for me to be curious or interested. Don"t people say curiosity and wors.h.i.+p is the first step to liking someone? That kind of thing rarely happens to me."
"The horror of being supported by my brothers."
Meng Fan wanted to tell her that she should just find a girlfriend instead, but he thought better of it and swallowed his words. He then found a more suitable on-topic subject to chat about, "It"s good you"re a girl with so many brothers, they must love and spoil you like a princess. They wouldn"t ever let you touch anything relating to those playboys and their fake sincerity, right? If you were a guy, and your brothers were sisters, you"d still be spoiled, but the method would be different. If anything, they would definitely try everything to dress you up... Hm, seems like it would be the same. They"d treat you like a princess too."
After completing her daily stretches, Wu Tong added another set. After hearing Meng Fan"s rambling, she looked towards him, as if her eyes were saying, "Please share your story now."
Meng Fan took off his headband and touched his hair. He sighed and said, "I have four older sisters and three younger ones. The four older ones especially, their favorite thing to do was to dress me up..." He lifted his head and remembered all the times that he had been dominated by his sisters. From a young age, he had just been a big woman.
"Of course, I refused that sort of thing... Finally, when I turned ten, they decided it was no longer fun to make me wear dresses, so they stopped the annual tradition... But they never stopped loving me, so they quickly switched from dressing me to feeding me."
Meng Fan rubbed his belly, then said with emotion, "Who says love can"t be felt? There"s nothing in this world that is more concrete than love."
"So, this is the reason why you"ve "grown" so strong?"
This time, it was Wu Tong"s turn to stare in awe.
Meng Fan nodded and finished his last stretch.
Wu Tong held back her laugh and completed her last warm-up exercise. Like the wind, she ran off, and as she ran, she couldn"t help but laugh out loud.
Weird, why did I tell him all that.
"This fast?"
FlatHeadBro received Meng Fan"s drawings around two o"clock in the afternoon. He downloaded them to find 12 ill.u.s.trations awaiting review.
After rus.h.i.+ng to write two chapters, with a cappuccino in hand, FlatHeadBro had watched about 30 minutes of yesterday"s stream. Although he didn"t quite understand art, he had seen his fair share of artwork in the past few days of searching for an artist. He was at least able to distinguish between good and bad, so he was not worried about Meng Fan at all.
Of course, after watching his stream, he was not surprised or intrigued by Meng Fan"s speedy "submission". In fact, he was very pleased with Meng Fan"s brilliant work ethic.
"I will recommend you on my social media as well as the new book chapter that"s coming out today. "
FlatHeadBro was very pleased with the ill.u.s.trations, as well as Meng Fan"s professional att.i.tude.
"Thank you."
Meng Fan grabbed a copy of "The History of Ancient Chinese Weapons" after responding to FlatHeadBro and began reading. He just bought it not long ago and was more than halfway through it when he died. Now that he went back on time, he could skip forward and save a few days of reading.
Toward books that were "not professionally related to art but could a.s.sist in art-related professions, Meng Fan had always been diligent. He read more of these than he had academic textbooks and professional art collections, so he was quite the "non-professional".
The witch always said that no matter what kind of expression the character carried, it would ultimately communicate the source of its creation and the culture behind it. This sentence had been drilled into Meng Fan"s head by his mother since he was just a boy. Before he had found it annoying, but slowly he came to realize how much sense it made. Especially right as he left the world of imitation and entered one of creation and independent thinking.
"Do you have extra time?"
After about twenty minutes, FlatHeadBro sent another WeChat message.
"I showed your ill.u.s.trations to a few of my friends. They think you"re really good; the key being your high level of production."
"They"re also web novel authors, in need of some ill.u.s.trations."
"They wanted to ask if you have some extra time to draw some more sets, around the same amount as me."
Having had his work recognized by his boss, Meng Fan was pretty happy, only... He thought about it for a moment and replied, "I"ve got no problem drawing more sets, but I"m afraid that I won"t have enough time to read all the novels."
"*Bitter smile emote* I didn"t think about that. You"re right, it takes you a few hours to draw a set, but to read the novels would probably take you days." After a few minutes, FlatHeadBro messaged again. "I asked them, two are long-term contracts, one of which has just started, so it only has around 300,000 characters. The other one has a bit more, around 2 million, but he updates slow, so he"s got about 2 million characters left. At the least, it"ll take two years. He says you could probably just draw what you"ve read, and you"ll catch up to him, eventually. Besides, those two are willing to find people to help you manage your content. If you think it"s suitable, I"ll send you their contact info."
"Ok."
Meng Fan deduced that a long-term contract would be doable. His ill.u.s.tration task had to be completed. More drawings meant more money to be made. In addition, there was a huge possibility that those guys could boost his stream views. What more could Meng Fan ask for?
If he had enough time to read all the novels, he would have accepted FlatHeadBro"s offer in an instant.
Immediately, FlatHeadBro sent two contact cards along with another message. "Oh right, can you send me the original drawings that you did for my book?"
"Of course."
This was already paid for by the big boss from the beginning, so if he needed the originals, Meng Fan had to comply.
FlatHeadBro sent over an address, and Meng Fan sent a WeChat message to the delivery brother responsible for the school"s packages.
He successfully added the other two authors and came to a decision after some hasty negotiations. The conditions were exactly the same as the ones for FlatHeadBro. Soon, both of them had sent him their social media handles and their book t.i.tles.
"F**k!"
Meng Fan almost cursed out loud when he saw one of the t.i.tles.
The one that FlatHeadBro had said was already at two million characters, but Meng Fan could still catch up to!
That was also a novel Meng Fan had painstakingly been following, a horror type story with terrifying content, as well as a terrifying update rate. Three years, and he was only at two million characters!
How many times had he considered giving up because of the author"s slow update rate?
Meng Fan changed the WeChat nickname to the author"s name, then sent a message. "Do you want me to send you the originals?"
"Could you? That would be awesome, thank you!"
An address followed immediately.
Meng Fan was already wrapped in his thoughts. When he sent the originals, it would be reasonably fitting to put some sharp pieces from a blade in the envelope.