Chapter 271: Xiao Yanhan’s Struggle
After being told that, Xiao Yanhan also had to admit that the manga she drew was indeed quite bad. She had just stuffed popular market elements into a pot and stewed them together, without any consideration for the overall coherence. Every time she wanted to draw a serious and proper manga, she would always end up drawing something like a comedy manga, and the key was that it wasn’t even funny.
Xiao Yanhan had been drawing manga for so long, but she had never made a major breakthrough. She felt that her talent was not enough.
“Yanhan?”
“Ah? I’m listening, I’m listening.”
After a moment of being lost in thought, Xiao Yanhan quickly sat up straight and focused on listening. And Yu Linna sighed, putting the manga she had drawn on the table, looking a little disappointed.
“Yanhan, this manga, to be honest, the positioning is not clear. Since you want to develop in the direction of commercial manga, you should determine the style. And don’t you think that stewing everything in one pot, the taste that comes out is like a dark cuisine?”
“Mmm…”
“And another thing, it’s not that you’re not capable, you’re just not working hard enough.”
This sentence pierced her chest, and Xiao Yanhan was very hurt. That was true. She hadn’t worked hard enough. After starting university, besides attending classes, she was always playing with her friends, going out to eat, and fooling around. Although she was also drawing manga, she was obviously not as hardworking as before. In contrast, Yu Linna was almost always typing, always writing her manuscripts, basically never stopping. Once, when Xiao Yanhan got up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, she even saw that her desk lamp under the bed was still on, and she was still working hard alone.
Plus, she was a super genius and was willing to work hard. Wasn’t it a matter of course for her to have such achievements?
“Linna, I think I’m about to die…”
“Take the manuscript back and draw another one. This time, you determine the style. I’ll still help you look at the manuscript.”
“Is this true? Shion-sensei?”
“Mmm, of course it’s true.”
“Alright.”
Hearing her say this, Xiao Yanhan quickly cheered up and became motivated. Since the dearest Shion-sensei was willing to help her look at her manuscript, that meant she could get her professional guidance. This was a good thing. She had to seize this opportunity to continue drawing.
She, Xiao Yanhan, was an unbeatable woman.
Nothing could stop her.
And so, from that day on, Xiao Yanhan became obviously much more diligent. When Yu Linna was fighting in front of the computer, she was also drawing at her own seat. Her manga was all hand-drawn, different from Yu Linna’s digital tablet drawing. She needed to use many tools, so the probability of her buying tools online also increased.
“That girl Yan, she’s become so diligent recently.”
Lan Ranyan made herself a cup of coffee this day. Seeing her drawing at her seat early in the morning, she couldn’t help but sigh with emotion. Had this Xiao Yanhan been stimulated by something? How did she become so diligent? She had never seen her work so hard before.
“Her, she’s probably encouraged by her idol,” Fang Jiangning said with a smile while making a video.
Lan Ranyan looked at the drawing Xiao Yanhan, the writing Yu Linna, and the video-making Fang Jiangning. She found that the girls in their 383 dorm all seemed to be incredible people, hidden dragons and crouching tigers. On the contrary, she seemed very ordinary.
But, their entire dorm was not just ordinary university students.
Staying in this dorm was unexpectedly not bad.
Xiao Yanhan was indeed working very hard on her drawing. She wanted to draw better, to make her work better. She had been drawing for the past few years, but she was always rejected. The manuscripts she had been rejected for probably added up to a whole cardboard box. But people were still unwilling to accept her manuscripts. A normal person would have given up long ago after being treated like this, but only she kept doing it, persistently submitting her work.
Because this was her only dream, to be a manga artist, and a great one at that, so that everyone who saw her manga could smile. This was her dream.
Yu Linna said she would guide her, so she had to keep going. At least in terms of effort, she couldn’t let people down.
These past few days, Xiao Yanhan would never slack off when Yu Linna was working. Only when Yu Linna rested would she dare to stop working. Basically, her life routine was the same as Yu Linna’s, all about work. Even her meals were brought by Lan Ranyan.
“It seems Yanhan is taking you as a role model, working hard on her manuscripts.”
Fang Jiangning handed a cup of milk tea to the working Yu Linna and said with a smile.
Holding the milk tea, Yu Linna sucked on the pearls and looked at the still-fighting Xiao Yanhan. Even if the manga Xiao Yanhan drew was bad, she had to admit that she was indeed working very hard. These days, she hadn’t seen her have any entertainment time. Almost all her time was spent fighting. It could be seen that she was really serious about drawing manga.
“It’s not that she has no talent, nor is it that she has no ability. She just hasn’t found a path that suits her. Just like me before, I hadn’t found a path that suited me. If I had kept walking, I would have just ended up in a dead end. Once you find the right path, you can turn a corner and immediately see high-rise buildings.”
She was like this before, thinking she was very amazing, the center of the world. She had foolishly run into the entertainment industry, but it had become more and more awkward, because this was not the path she should have taken.
When she chose the right path, she came to the path of light.
A week later, Xiao Yanhan’s manuscript, which she had worked on desperately, drawing through the night, was finally finished. When she presented the black and white manga to Yu Linna, Yu Linna clearly saw her dark circles and her slightly haggard face. She had suffered a lot during this time, but for her manga, she had really worked very hard. To be able to produce a set of manuscripts for her in such a short time showed that she was still dedicated.
“Linna baby, this time I drew a story about a young detective team. Take a look, I drew it with a lot of care.”
Yu Linna took her manga. Xiao Yanhan sat next to her like a lackey, waiting expectantly for her evaluation. It could be seen how much she valued her evaluation.
She opened the manga. The first page she saw was a few teenagers dressed up as Sherlock Holmes and Watson, causing trouble at a masquerade ball. The beginning was a bit comical. Looking further, these few teenagers formed a detective team and started a detective agency, helping their classmates investigate small cases.
If you just looked at the beginning and the general plot, it wasn’t a bad theme. After all, this theme had a market.
Unfortunately, Yu Linna still thought it was very bad.
“How is it?”
Xiao Yanhan looked at her with anticipation, waiting for her praise. This was a work she had spent some time on. She believed that her hard work could be rewarded.
“The theme and content are still a bit interesting, and fresh enough. I think if it’s drawn well, it won’t be an uninteresting theme.”
“Oh, oh, so you’re saying I…”
“Don’t be too happy too soon. I’m not finished. First of all, your theme is interesting enough, but the plot is too cliché. It’s still a rotten one-man, multiple-women detective team setting, and they’re all interested in the male protagonist. That’s fine, but why are you making a school detective theme like a manga for young children? And also, why would you have a murder case in a school theme, and even let the protagonist have a cheat and be a detective, and the most crucial thing is that he can even solve the case. Do you think you’re drawing Conan? What the hell is this!”
“…”
Xiao Yanhan once again lay on the table. She knew that she had failed again this time.
It was so infuriating to finally come up with a theme, only to have the plot crash and burn. And this wasn’t the first or second time this had happened. She always wanted to stuff popular elements and commercial selling points into her stories. This kind of random stuffing, the final result was like a hodgepodge.
“Linna, I think I’m going to die again…”
“Get up and continue drawing.”
“I can’t draw anymore. I’ve already worked so hard…”
Yu Linna sighed.
She really wanted to say that sometimes, hard work doesn’t represent success. Hard work is just a basic requirement. Everyone works hard, but whether they can succeed is not decided by hard work.
This is reality.
Besides telling her to continue drawing, Yu Linna couldn’t do anything to help her. After all, the person who wanted to become a manga artist was her.
But Yu Linna was not an idle person. She couldn’t put all her time on her. And so, with the hit broadcast of The Smile of the Rose, Shion-sensei’s popularity grew even higher. The production team wanted to ask her to appear on a show. Several program teams invited her to be interviewed on their shows. But she refused them all.
Helpless, the production team thought that Shion-sensei was always very low-key and unwilling to appear in public, so they proposed to do an interview on QQ, with the interview content published in the form of a magazine. Yu Linna also agreed.
And after that, with the hit broadcast of this web series, the official Weibo also came to find her, wanting her to interact with fans under the official Weibo for an hour. At first, Yu Linna didn’t want to accept, but Chen Xi did some ideological work on her, and she also agreed.
And then what? Because her popularity and status in Wenqing were getting higher and higher, the Wenkuzhijia monthly magazine came to find her, wanting to do a short interview with her and introduce her struggle along the way. It would start from her battle in the Wenqing New Talent Award.
She also accepted.
Therefore, her workload increased. Besides writing manuscripts and scripts, she also had to participate in interviews. For a time, she was extremely busy. Fortunately, her script was quickly finished and handed over to the company, so they could start filming and production as soon as possible. Otherwise, she would have been even busier.
Xiao Yanhan would find that sometimes Yu Linna was not in the dorm; she would run out. Seeing the empty seat, she felt a great sense of loss. She wondered why she could be so successful, and why she couldn’t.
She was also working very hard.
“Yan, you’re not drawing manga anymore?”
“I’m drawing, I’m drawing, of course I’m drawing.”
Xiao Yanhan patted her cheeks, throwing away the messy things in her mind, and sat down to continue drawing manga. She couldn’t be affected by these things.
…
Yu Linna was busy, and Ye Zhiyun was also busy. Recently, she was also working on a radio station project. She had just invested in a radio station and wanted to create a program. The production side had suggested inviting Shion-sensei to the program, but everyone said it was impossible because Shion-sensei never appeared in public. On the contrary, Ye Zhiyun suggested inviting a member of the original drama club to participate in the program. These members of the original drama club were originally in stage plays and skits and had even been on the Spring Festival Gala. Now they had set up a company and were making movies. These people had contacted Ye Zhiyun before, asking if they could apply to be on their program to increase their exposure and popularity.
This drama club, its original name was Happy Fries.
