Shift! The Side-Character Heroine-Chapter 25

Zhao Youyue was an attentive girl with high awareness of her surroundings. Though her IQ was at average point, her EQ was exceptionally high. Anyway, she tended to neglect particular details sometimes. After all, she was just in a panicked state moments ago.

She considered herself lucky this time for having dodged the bullet. As for Han Leng, she could only sigh in her mind that he was really unlucky. Supposedly, he had seen Mr. Qiu was about to walk away and decided to lay down and sleep to his heart’s content. Unfortunately, he was caught in the act.

What to do? Mr. Qiu was indeed too damn treacherous, out of expectations he swung around and caught them off guard. Many of the students did not see that coming. In fact everyone should thank Han Leng for getting himself into trouble. At least during the moment that Han Leng stood up, many students who were about to fall asleep were awakened in that very instance. The sound of recital in the class suddenly spiked.

Zhao Youyue no longer dared to take out her phone, but nonetheless she stopped reciting the text. She had completely memorized the text in the Dimensional Gate anyway. Out of whim, she retrieved a language reference book entitled “Wang Houxiong’s Complete Interpretation of Teaching Materials”. She started looking for articles in the book to be read as stories in order to pass time. Even if Mr. Qiu came back again, he would not have anything to comment upon seeing her reading a reference book.

Zhao Youyue had a staggering number of reference books which were all purchased by her mother. As long as the reference book was slightly well-known in the market, her mother would buy her a set of those. The collection would of course included the very famous “Five Years’ College Entrance Exam and Three Years’ Mock Papers”. Her mother had already done this since Zhao Youyue was still in junior high school. However, the books basically remained in the same condition from the date of purchase until present day. They were at least eighty-percent brand new.

Zhao Youyue’s mother was named Wang Hua. She was a beautiful studybug since young and a woman of many talents and artistic flair. Her father was also a famous calligrapher in town, therefore she could be said to be born into a family of scholars and had a privileged family background. However, Zhao Youyue’s maternal grandfather passed away when she was only eight years old.

Wang Hua wished to educate Zhao Youyue on a strict routine since young and to mold her into a talented lady just like herself. She enrolled Zhao Youyue in many skill development classes but unfortunately she did not manage to persevere. This was because Zhao Youyue’s father, Zhao Jiayi tended to spoil his daughter. As soon as his daughter threw a tantrum, he would surely say, “It is okay if she doesn’t want to go, our daughter should be the priority. It is important for her to have a happy childhood”.

Indeed, Zhao Youyue was quite wild and playful during her childhood. To this day, she still missed the days she spent at her granny’s house in the farming village catching crabs, lobsters and fishing, not to mention the playmates she had alongside her…

Wang Hua would then get into an argument with Zhao Jiayi, saying that the child had been spoiled rotten by him and was becoming just like him when he was young – basically just getting by in his studies but managed to become a hospital director in the end based on his favorable family background. God knows what blinded Wang Hua and made her decided to be with him. Zhao Jiayi, on the other hand, would just let out a smile and responded that she had the best taste as his medical prowess was rather exceptional. Wang Hua sneered and replied that he had only gone to the hospital to tease and flirt with other nurses, and was not actually doing any works. Zhao Jiayi quickly explained that he only had his wife and daughter inside his heart and there were never such things as what she had mentioned.

The cold war between the duo would only last a few days, and they would eventually reconciled their relationship. Their public display of affections had left Zhao Youyue with a strong phobia for intimate relationships. She unknowingly became a senior member of the FFF Inquisition [1]. She felt fine on her own. Remaining single allowed her to do whatever she liked and not to worry about others.

No matter what, Zhao Youyue was the only daughter Zhao Jiayi and Wang Hua ever had. Eventually Wang Hua decided to let things be. It was fine if her daughter turned out to be ordinary person. At least she was healthy, had cute looks and seemingly obedient as well. Zhao Youyue would quiver like a quail whenever Wang Hua raised her voice. Oh how adorable she looked! She began to enjoy teasing her daughter this way. Erm no… that is not the right way to put it. She was actually educating her daughter to study diligently and improve herself every day. During her daughter’s yearly birthday, she would wrap up a dozen reference books in a beautiful gift box and hand it to her as birthday gifts. She would then put on a smiley expression as she watched Zhao Youyue opening the gift box.

Zhao Youyue, “God damn it!”

…

Just as Zhao Youyue was going through her daily school routine, she decided to mess around in “Pure Romance” to let the mangaka, Su Li and the readers feel her wrath. Meanwhile, Su Li was submitting the manuscript of the latest manga issue to her editor, Wei Suo.

Wei Suo had a short figure and a bald head. It was quite obvious when he stood alongside a pretty mangaka like Su Li. At the moment, he was meticulously browsing through Su Li’s manuscript. As he read towards the end, a sinister smile showed on his face. Without holding back, he praised, “This is a very interesting issue indeed, Miss Su Li. You’re very creative in using such a method at the end to provide fan service for the character ‘Xu Jing’. What an excellent plot development to torment ‘Xu Jing’ into that state. The readers will surely look forward to seeing the hero saving the damsel in distress and finally winning over her heart.”

Wei Suo was one of the senior editors at “Wind Manga” who specialized in the harem manga category. Under his tutelage, Su Li’s achievement in harem manga-s had increased by leaps and bounds. However the improvement was not in terms of character design or storyline arrangement, but providing fan service instead. This was because Wei Suo generally did not give out any sort of recommendations on the plot. His only expectation for Su Li was that she must assure herself to credit fan services in every single issue of the manga series. In this way, the manga’s popularity would never go into much decline.

Su Li only gave out a slight smile upon hearing Wei Suo’s praise. After all, she was an expert in the area of Doujinshi manga-s so she tended to have exceptional imagination when it came to abusing the female characters.

Wei Suo continued, “With the kind of character designing prowess you exhibited on the character of ‘Xu Jing’, perhaps you no longer need to draw this sort of typical harem manga-s for your next project. You can try drawing some fresh and beautiful romance manga-s, action manga-s or anything like that. Maybe those are easier to be turned into anime-s. At that time, you’ll be working alongside other outstanding editors.”

Listening up to this point, Su Li interrupted, “Editor Wei, thank you for your help all these while.”

Wei Suo waved his hands and left Su Li’s studio while carrying her submission pack. Su Li almost jumped out of joy after hearing the words he said before leaving. It turned out that this manga of hers was already known by several anime production companies and remarked her recent storyline regarding “Xu Jing” was rather interesting. They intended to adapt “Pure Romance” into an anime. They even planned to further increase “Xu Jing’s” appearances in storyline as this character was the topmost favorite of the readers now.

This weekend, the latest issue of “Wind Manga” would finally be published.

Translation note:

[1] FFF Inquisition is a group in Fumizuki Academy featured in light novel series “Baka to Test to Shoukanjuu”. The defining characteristic of the group is that they are very much similar to the KKK but instead of basing their actions on racial motivations, they seek to punish those with attention from girls. Their motive could be to make things fair as they find it wrong for others to enjoy female attention while they themselves are cursed with having no one.