Chapter 2 - The kitten

Chapter 2 - The kitten

The cramped bedroom.

The bungalow, which was less than 6 square meters, was packed with jaw-dropping piles of items, stacked in layers as if they were squeezing toothpaste.

So many things, piled up in a room of less than 6 square meters, really makes people feel that this room is not a storage room, but a pity.

One of the most piled up things in the room is a piece of drawing paper, which is full of cartoons.

And in the innermost part of the room, far from the door, on an equally narrow bed, a thin, well-groomed man lay with his eyes closed.

The man's features were very beautiful to look at, but his pale, motionless, knife-sharp face always gave the impression that he wasn't dead yet.

Just then, an urgent knock came from the bedroom door.

Before the man could answer, an impatient voice from outside the door came straight through: "Lin Qingshan! There's a call for you!"

The pale man instantly stood up at that moment, but in the next moment, he turned his head to the floor and coughed hard, spitting out dozens of white pills.

Lin Qingshan sighed: "Hell, what kind of sleeping pill is this, why is it so hard to swallow?"

He wiped the saliva from the side of his mouth and slowly stood up, walking straight out of the room in his bare feet.

After getting up, he could only realize that the place where he was lying was not a bed, but a rusty iron gym frame with a whitewashed single mattress.

And on that side of the "bed", he placed a medicine bottle and a half-empty glass of water, the label on the bottle read "clonazepam tablets", five big words.

Lin Qingshan walked out of his rented house, barefoot, and slowly made his way to a convenience store outside.

"Lin Qingshan, there's a call for you here." The owner's uncle casually pointed with his hand and the microphone of the convenience store's landline was placed to the side, apparently waiting for the person who answered the phone.

The corner of Lin Qingshan's mouth quirked up in a grateful smile: "Thank you, Uncle Dong!"

He then stepped forward and picked up the microphone on the landline, put it to his ear and said, "Hello, this is Lin Qingshan!"

The owner uncle opened his mouth and said with a certain anger and impotence: "There's no Dong in my name... what does it mean that this kid keeps calling me Uncle Dong?"

But this kid hasn't been very normal, he won't mind that, right.

The microphone side heard Lin Qingshan's voice and immediately came a clear and somewhat excited voice: "Yes! You're good! Professor Aoyama, this is the manga editorial department of the Manga World Culture Company!"

Lin Qingshan realized: "Ah, so it's the place where I sent my comics before, that's great, honestly, you're very lucky."

"Very lucky?" Ito Ayumi was paralyzed for a moment: "What do you mean by that, sensei?"

"It's like this, if you'd called later, I could have come home." Lin Qingshan said seriously: "You definitely won't be able to find me by then."

Ito Ayumi came to a conclusion: "So that's it, professor, do you have time to pay a visit to our World Manga Culture Company? We have high expectations of your work 'Edge Walker' and are eager to enter into a cooperation with you to deeply explore the commercial value of this work!"

"Wait, something doesn't seem right..." However, at that moment, Ito Ayumi heard a puzzled voice coming from the other end of the microphone.

"What's wrong? Aoyama-sensei?" Ito Ayumi's heart squeezed.

"I remember that my job is Cyberpunk 2077: Edgewalker, not Edgewalker." A puzzled voice on the other end of the microphone said.

Ito Ayumi started to cry and laughed, but she didn't feel any different and said, "Yes, Professor, your work is Cyberpunk 2077: Edgewalker, so can I ask when you can come over to our side to talk about cooperation?"

Lin Qingshan thought about it and said, "So wait, wait, where does your company come from?"

"Oh? Wait?" Ito Ayumi froze for a moment, somewhat unprepared: "Would it be too hasty to wait? I haven't prepared the contract or anything on my end..."

Lin Qingshan blinked and said, "So, how about tomorrow?"

Ito Ayumi seemed to detect the urgency in Lin Qingshan's words and asked cautiously, "Professor, is there anything important on your side?"

"Yes." A serious voice came from the other end of the microphone, "It's something important that concerns my life... because I haven't eaten for a long time and I'd like to go and rub a meal on you.... Then again, does your company have a canteen?"

Ito Ayumi instantly sensed that the man on the other end of the microphone... seemed to be a little different from ordinary people?

Ito Ayumi opened his mouth and whispered: "Our company doesn't have a canteen... but... I can offer you a meal, sensei! Don't forget to bring the original manga and your ID card!"

"Then I'll come to your house tomorrow morning." Lin Qingshan said with a light in her eyes.

Ito Ayumi revealed a forced smile and replied, "Okay..."

"Beep beep beep-" the other end of the microphone went off.

Ito Ayumi hung up the phone. She had heard that there were some teachers in the industry who had strange personalities, but she wouldn't have met a teacher like that, would she?

...

After hanging up the phone, Lin Qingshan hummed again and walked slowly back to the rented house behind the convenience store.

Soon, he would be able to eat delicious rice and have a working income at the same time.

With a working income, his next experiment to try the method of traveling back to his hometown would have financial backing!

That way, he could cross back soon!

That's right, Lin Qingshan's soul was a traveler.

What he had just told Ito Ayumi about going home was traveling back to the world of his previous life.

But for Lin Qingshan, traveling to the other side was a thing of bad luck, not joy.

He didn't like this world, after all, he was alone and loose in this world.

This world, although the country was powerful, was almost as if an unknown change had suddenly occurred at some point.

However, Lin Qingshan was certain that it wasn't a senior traveler who had caused this world to change upwards.

Because the technological development of this world didn't have a big bang and even American technology continued to put pressure on the Republic.

Now, this time node through which he traveled was the same as the previous world, but technological development was still a little slower, smartphones hadn't appeared yet!

This was a parallel world.

At the same time, everything from the previous world had been changed beyond recognition, there was no Apple, no Huawei and, of course, no Junior JUMP, no Dragon Ball, no Deadly Fire Sea.

In their place, however, there were other equally powerful companies and equally wonderful manga.

It was for this reason that Lin Qingshan decided to use the three-legged manga kung fu of the previous generation and become a professional manga artist.

Then he would earn money to return home!

However, he also had a more fortunate place:...

"Lao Deng System!" Lin Qingshan lay down on the bed and shouted directly.

Instantly, a high-tech virtual interface that only he could see suddenly appeared in front of him.

[Host: Lin Qingshan]

[Skill: Hard Disk Memory (Diamond), Cinematic Level Subtitling (Platinum), Kaleidoscopic Painting (Master)]

[Points: 250]

At the same time, there were also three options on the page: shopping, lottery and fusion enhancement.

This was because the system was there, and the system also gave 10,000 points and the master-level skill Kaleidoscopic Painting in the gift package for newbies.

He was able to almost effortlessly adapt the Cyberpunk 2077: Edgewalker anime from his memory into a manga.

The master-level Kaleidoscopic Painting skill, as the name implies, gave him the ability to be proficient in several painting styles and various painting techniques.

Abstraction, realism, impressionism... and so on, and even ink painting and splatter painting in the national style he could use freely.

Together with the ability to record his memory, he could make the memories of his past life in his mind come to mind quite clearly.

Even after his memories had been completely stored on hard disk, he could even recall the memories of his childhood.

So, reproducing those world-famous paintings he had seen in his previous life, "Starry Night", "Mona Lisa", "The Scream" and others, shouldn't be so easy.

But unfortunately, it would take a long time to make money from traditional art.

Lin Qingshan didn't want to hang himself so that the works he plagiarized could be sold for a good price.

Besides, the task requirements for earning points in the system were...

He looked at the system's tasks page.

[Current tasks-Nobody: create a work of any genre and have it praised by three people, current progress 2/3 (100 points)Fledgling: have ten people know your name and be impressed by you, current progress 3/10 (100 points)Born with Talent: show your talent and change the world! Grants rewards at different stages, depending on the level of change! (Reward unknown)]

Although the mission had no time limit, Lin Qingshan couldn't wait long, he had always been an impatient and action-oriented person!

So why not draw comics, draw comics to make money faster, so he rescued another movie-level subplot.

As for choosing the anime "Cyberpunk 2077: Edgewalker", it was purely out of interest.

Cyberpunk, that kind of work doesn't seem to have appeared in this world yet, the great master who opened the mountain is always more than a little successful.

And, similar to a hot-blooded teen manga like Deadly Fire Sea, there were already a few books in that world, and drawing that kind of manga again wouldn't necessarily appeal to many manga fans.

So he simply gambled that a cyberpunk work like Cyberpunk 2077: Edgewalker, which hadn't yet appeared in this parallel world, would be an advantage, or at least catch the eye of a manga editor!

Now it seemed that he had made the right choice, after all, he would soon even be able to devote himself to a meal!

"System Lao Deng, this sleeping pill is very difficult to swallow, isn't it, it's strangely dry, I couldn't swallow it even after drinking half a glass of water," Lin Qingshan crammed his mouth shut and said.

"If the host is taking sleeping pills just to get a good night's sleep, the reason why it's hard to swallow could be due to the host's tense mood, sore throat, etc., so we suggest that the host relax their mood or treat the sore and swollen throat," the system's icy voice could only be heard by Lin Qingshan and the words seemed to be completely devoid of emotion.

Although this system was capable of dialog, it was actually more like a GPT artificial intelligence from the previous life, with the beauty of a simplified artificial.

"If the host is taking sleeping pills to end his life, he needs to take a large amount of sleeping pills, and more than 5 pills will make swallowing difficult, more than 10 pills will block the esophagus, which is only 2-3 centimeters in diameter, and at the same time there are some ingredients in sleeping pills that will prevent the host from swallowing a large amount of pills, and the host will be quite unhappy during this process."

"So the system side suggests to the host that they shouldn't take sleeping pills to end their life."

Lin Qingshan scratched his head: "I'm not trying to kill myself either, I just want to go back."

"I've been here a long time, my kitten will miss me~" he yawned and, after a while, let out a weak but rhythmic snore.

In his dream, he seemed to have returned to his old home, and little Sanshua, whom he called Green Water, had turned into a cat and was saying to him: "Welcome home, master".

(End of chapter)