Chapter 4: Bimonthly Magazine

Ito Ayumi went to the restaurant next to the company's office building. At this point, it was still working hours and there weren't many customers in this fast food chain restaurant.

There were only three or four customers in the restaurant, a couple in casual clothes, a balding middle-aged man in a suit and a handsome young man with slightly messy hair.

But they've already ordered fast food and are having dinner, so it can't be Professor Qingshan who asked Ito Ayumi to invite him for a meal.

It seems that Professor Qingshan hasn't arrived yet.

However, it was still a few minutes before the agreed time, so it was fine to wait a bit.

Ito Ayumi was about to sit down in an empty seat and wait for Lin Qingshan to arrive.

But at that moment, the handsome young man who was not far from her waved to her: "Is that Ito-san?"

Ito Ayumi froze for a moment: "Erm ... I'm ...."

Since arriving in Magic City to take up her position, it was the first time she had heard someone address her in the habit of her hometown.

Lin Qingshan revealed a delighted smile, "You've finally arrived ... Oh, by the way, I'm Lin Qingshan!"

"You are ... Qingshan-sensei?!" Ito Ayumi blinked in surprise.

"Yes ... I am ..." Lin Qingshan rubbed the back of his head and said with some embarrassment.

...

Ito Ayumi looked at the handsome young man with slightly longer hair in front of her, still a little incredulous.

After all, in the manga business, although it's not much about age, most manga artists rely on accumulated experience to stand out.

This was especially true in Japan, as most manga artists didn't start out creating directly, but rather as assistants to established manga artists.

Even if there are manga artists who create their own work from scratch, most of their debut works will be failures.

But on the other hand, Lin Qingshan started out as a novice cartoonist who submitted to World Manga Culture.

So wasn't it fair to be younger?

But when Ayumi Ito observed Edge Walker's mature drawing style and the subplots that could almost be compared to animation production, she subconsciously assumed that Lin Qingshan must be an older, novice manga artist.

But now it seems to be ...

The young man in front of him had slightly messy hair, but it was quite lush and black. Underneath his bangs were a pair of sharp eyes that were very bright at the moment, and his jawline was like a V. With such a young physique, he was almost like a young man of the same age as Ito Ayumi, ah!

"What's wrong?" Lin Qingshan asked as she picked up the noodles and put them in her mouth, revealing a happy smile.

Ito Ayumi shook her head, "It's nothing, but ... Qingshan-sensei, do you want to order something else to eat ... I still have a bit of money, so I can offer you food other than ramen bok choy. "

Lin Qingshan had already ordered bok choy ramen for dinner here before she even arrived at the restaurant and was waiting for her to pay the bill.

That does sound a bit nasty, but let's say he is nasty and has ordered the cheapest fast food, like aonori noodles ...

Ito Ayumi sensed that Lin Qingshan was a little unpredictable.

Lin Qingshan grunted and finished the last of his green vegetable noodle soup, crunching his mouth.

Then he said with a big smile, "All right, I'm satisfied with the bok choy noodles to eat, but after all, this is your treat, ah, I can't be too indulgent, right? And I'm already full.

Lin Qingshan had always been very clear, he couldn't just splurge on someone else's treat, could he?

And see in front of this Japanese girl is a magical drift family, the magical city is not easy to live in, people come from far and wide here is not easy, he will eat a green vegetable noodle to fill his stomach on the line.

But, by the way, he's been starving for so long that when he eats, these green vegetable noodles seem almost as good as a delicacy.

"So ... good." Ito Ayumi said, "So now we're going to talk about Edge Walker's business cooperation?"

Lin Qingshan nodded: "No problem."   

"Does Qingshan-sensei have the original manuscript of the manga and the identification with it?" asked Ito Ayumi.

"Here." Lin Qingshan took a file bag from the side and then pulled out his ID card.

Ito Ayumi subconsciously looked at the ID card first.

Lin Qingshan, 25 years old ...

Only two years older than her ah ...

Then she picked up the original manga manuscript, but ...

Unlike normal scribbled originals, Lin Qingshan's original manga was so well finished that it looked like an original when you looked at it.

Generally speaking, an original sketch is a sketch made by a manga artist when he or she is thinking about the plot and drawing the layout of the manga.

In this kind of sketch, the manga artist basically doesn't put much effort into it, the characters are extremely scribbly, or he simply draws a blank doll or even a matchmaker and puts it there, and the scenery or whatever is drawn in a circle and then writes in a text what kind of scenery should be drawn here.

But Lin Qingshan's original manga is almost a highly finished portrait and scenario, Ito Ayumi compared it with the final draft of "Edge Walker" in her mind, and only then could she see that there is still some gap between that original draft and the final draft.

This was thanks to Lin Qingshan's master-level ability to paint kaleidoscopes, allowing him to draw with his hand to make the whole image extremely well finished.

 There's also ... that he himself is not a serious cartoonist, in fact, he's not aware of the original draft of this thing, in his opinion, the cartoon is just a good drawing and a bad one redrawn.

 Those "originals" are the ones he drew badly at the beginning.

 Ito Ayumi looked at these original drafts and immediately determined that "Edge Walker" was Lin Qingshan's draft.

However, after leafing through the first dozen pages of the "original manuscript", she froze for a moment when she turned to the next page.

"Is this ... the fourth chapter of 'Edge Walker'?" said Ayumi Ito.

"Well, yes, I brought the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters too." Lin Qingshan shrugged and said, "I didn't bring much of the original draft."

Ito Ayumi immediately perked up: "So can I ask Qingshan-sensei, how many words have you finished?"

"I've written up to the 23rd chapter." Lin Qingshan said casually.

Ito Ayumi was instantly shocked in her heart, "Our Novice Grand Prix this time is asking for medium-length works ... Lin Qingshan you don't ..."

"I know that." Lin Qingshan said with a big smile, "Don't worry about it, 'Edge Walker' is expected to be a serial work that ends with only 40 chapters."

As there were only 10 episodes of the Edge Walker anime, according to a corresponding episode of the manga, which usually had 2 to 3 chapters of content, the reverse adaptation was that the manga would only have around 30 chapters at most.

But as "Edge Walker" is actually an adaptation of a game itself, the audience is almost entirely made up of gamers who have already played the game "Cyberpunk 2077", its background setting basically won't need to be over-described in the anime.

But in this world, the game "Cyberpunk 2077" doesn't exist, meaning that the background of the story, the division of power and the setting of the story need to be described, right?

That's why Lin Qingshan started the first chapter to adapt more to the Cyberpunk 2077 trailer in that episode of the motif, mainly to introduce the background of Cyberpunk 2077.

There were also the definitions and further classifications of the Super Dark Dream, the Prosthetic Body Transformation, as well as the regional and power divisions of Night City, all of which Lin Qingshan had introduced accordingly, so that he was about to finish in just 40 words.

"23 chapters!" Ito Ayumi was surprised: "So, what's your subsequent plot arrangement, Lin Qingshan?"

"This ah, is the story of the protagonist implanting a powerful prosthetic body, joining a gang to meet the female protagonist to meet his partner, and starting to walk in the prime of his life." Lin Qingshan said with a big smile.

"It's true! The protagonist will meet a lot of great partners!" Ito Ayumi nodded in satisfaction.

"So let's sign the following contract, according to the company's process, Lin Qingshan, you debuted through this Rookie Grand Prix, your work will be published in Manga World gogo, which is a biannual magazine, serialized once every half a month, and at the same time, according to the popularity of the teacher's work and the votes of manga fans, at the same time, the PK of the Rookie Grand Prix and the work of the same time period ..."

"In terms of the manuscript fee, the best we can offer a novice teacher is 400 yuan per page of drawings submitted, which is equivalent to about 30 to 40 pages a month if you serialize two stories a month, teacher ..."

(End of chapter)