Universe Infinite Canteen

"It wasn't me the last two weeks either!" Qi Yu blurted out, but quickly realized he might have said too much.

Fortunately, the female editor didn't seem to react, probably not understanding what he meant.

Qi Yu changed his tune, "Since I've already missed two weeks, maybe the readers will get used to it if it's one more week."

"That may be small change to you, but right now, you are the pillar of Penguin Comics. Your absence for two weeks has caused a decline in the platform's traffic and daily active users, and the income of other authors has also dropped.

"Especially for some new authors. It's already difficult for them to make a living from comics. Now that we're in the era of short videos, the number of people reading comics is dwindling. As the top artist of the platform, it's time for you to rally and lead everyone through this hardship with your excellent works! Don't you agree, Boss Ma?"

The female editor turned to Ma Lu for help.

Ma Lu thought for a moment and then said, "Ah, although that's true, whether to update or not should still respect the author's wishes, right? We can't force Qi Yu to continue the series just because other authors are struggling... That feels a bit like moral hijacking."

Unexpectedly, after some silence, Qi Yu said, "Give me the pen."

The female editor happily handed over the pen, getting ready to express her thanks, only to hear Qi Yu ask, "How exactly am I supposed to use this?"

"Ah?"

"I'm just kidding. I've done some research over the last few days and think I've got the hang of it." Qi Yu turned on the computer, connected the drawing tablet, and scratched his head.

"But I'm really not good at serious drama, and like you, I have no idea what will happen next."

"It's okay; you always say this, but without an outline, you still create amazing stories," the female editor encouraged. "Just let your imagination run free. Everyone loves the wild and creative stories you come up with."

"Imagination, huh... That word feels a bit foreign to me, but I'll try my best. Although I really can't do serious drama, how about fan fiction?"

"Fan fiction? Oh, do you mean side stories? By rights, you should be working on episode 633 this week, but if you really want to do a side story, it's not impossible," the female editor said through clenched teeth. "As long as you're willing to update, I can persuade the editor-in-chief."

"Then I'll do the side story. I did have a story idea in mind," Qi Yu said. "Also... how many pages am I supposed to draw?"

"Comics are typically 17 to 20 pages per episode, of course, if you're willing to draw more, that would be even better."

"Then I'll draw 17 pages. It was meant to be a short story anyway."

Qi Yu picked up the pen and seemed to remember something, "By the way, I recently caught the flu, a serious one, almost died from it, which has severely affected my drawing ability."

"You've got the flu?" the female editor looked Qi Yu up and down skeptically, "But didn't you order room service just yesterday? It didn't seem like it."

"We really can't get past the room service topic, can we?" Qi Yu said, speechless.

"Just draw something so I can see. If it really doesn't work out, I can get someone to help you polish it."

"Alright then." Qi Yu scratched his head, "I'll start drawing."

Having said that, the digital pen hovered above the tablet without moving.

Then he simply closed his eyes.

About 5 minutes later, just as the female editor was starting to wonder if he was pretending to sleep to avoid updating, Qi Yu suddenly opened his eyes.

He exhaled deeply and finally, his pen started to move; he began slowly, revising as he drew.

Sometimes he had to search online for the plot he had drawn before, but after a half hour, he finally finished the first page.

However, Qi Yu did not put down the pen to eat his spicy meat sauce corn roll but continued on to the second page, moving much faster this time, finishing it in less than twenty minutes.

Then, without stopping, he started the third page. He kept up his momentum and managed to draw all 17 pages.

The spicy meat sauce corn roll was long cold, and during the whole process, Qi Yu didn't eat a bite. Towards the end, he was completely immersed in drawing, not even sipping water.

From the perspective of Ma Lu, who was watching, at least at that moment, he indeed looked like a great manga artist.

But when Qi Yu showed the rough draft, Ma Lu decided to take back his previous comment.

It was completely at the level of children's stick-figure drawings.

If it weren't for the supporting characters explicitly saying their names, Ma Lu wouldn't have recognized that the somewhat pretentious stick figure was the protagonist, Zhang Chulan.

The female editor fell silent when she received the draft.

She wondered if she had pressured Qi Yu too much, causing him to become defiant and turn in such idiotic scribbles as a way to cope and show his discontent.

Thinking this, she looked up at Qi Yu, only to see him craning his neck forward, expectantly asking, "How is it?"

"This is complete nonsense..." The female editor's face showed a trace of exhaustion, and she began to question the purpose of her job.

She became an editor because of her love for comics, but once on the job, she found that the work wasn't what she imagined. With a meager salary, she spent every day outwitting authors, constantly pushing for drafts, reviewing them, like a never-resting machine.

Her efforts were invisible to others; when an exciting new episode went online, readers would praise only the author. And because of her extreme measures to get updates, she would end up being disliked by the authors, humiliated like now.

Instead of this, it could be better to just go back to her hometown and become a civil servant, to live a stable life.

Just then, she suddenly heard laughter.

"Hahaha, what is this nonsense? Though it's super odd and all over the place, it's unexpectedly interesting with a huge brainstorm. Why is Xiong Er the final opponent?"

The female editor looked up to see Ma Lu, the boss of Universe Infinite Canteen, speaking.

He had just finished reading the side story drawn by Qi Yu on his laptop.

Qi Yu scratched his head, "Because my daughter requested it."

"Since when do you have a daughter? Aren't you still unmarried?"

"Oh, what I meant was I drew it for my future daughter."

"Well, I quite like it, but I don't know if the other readers will enjoy this kind of wild style. Also, Xiong Er, isn't that a bit of copyright infringement?"

"Copyright infringement? Oh, I didn't think of that. Should I change it then? How about Gao Fei?"

"Daring to mess with Disney, you're looking to be bankrupt."

The female editor also quickly scrolled through Qi Yu's new work on her phone. She couldn't help but burst into laughter by the third page, but soon she composed herself, yet couldn't hold back throughout the rest of the read, ending up laughing until tears were streaming down her face.