Chapter 69: The Lonely Illustrator
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The name of the young girl was Lu Yi Yun. She was the ultimate female otaku, and a severe ACG otaku; once an otaku, there were no regrets for life—she was the type to rather face haggard than to miss a loved one. She dropped out right after a few days of college because of her extreme inability to adapt. After that, she had always just stayed home in her rented house.
Lu Yi Yun had a talent for painting. She had learned to sketch and oil paint when she was young. She has walked onto the path of no return of manga and illustration because she was led astray by her passion for manga. Now, she was able to live off of a few orders for her illustrations, and had also published some manga online, but the popularity wasn’t too high.
She was very well aware of the reason; her drawings were not of any issue, but the plot was defective. If the plot was good but the illustrations were bad, it could be tolerated, such as, “One Punch Man” and “Attack on Titan”. But if it were the opposite, then it would not work. Having said that, the skill for fabricating plots could not so easily be improved—only slowly. Recently, she has been reading some popular novels, and wanted to use that to improve herself. But maybe it was because she had read too much manga that she got headaches whenever she read texts. Lu Yi Yun was also a regular customer of the live broadcast room, “Eating, Drinking, and Playing in Binghai”, but she couldn’t be counted as a fan because she had never tipped any money or spammed, thus she did not dare call herself a fan.
She watched Snowy’s live broadcasts not because Snowy was cute—she had long since lost all hope for the real world—she watched because Snowy would mention a lot of places to go around in Binghai on her broadcasts. It was as if she could travel Binghai without having to step a foot outside, and they were the essence of Binghai City. This was a very important life experience for Lu Yi Yun who always stayed at home.
She followed Snowy’s live broadcasts to all sorts of unique stores, no matter if the main topic of the store was good eats, tabletop games, exquisite flowers or ancient books—she watched them all with relish. She also recorded them every single time—they could all possibly hold valuable material for her future manga. She had imagined herself walking into the stores together with Snowy, personally trying the foods, hearing the musical performers, deeply breathing in the fragrance of flowers, sitting on an old chair holding the traditional books, and having spent the whole afternoon under the warm sun. But, that was just her imagination; she didn’t have money, and did not have time, and even more so felt frightened about leaving the house, until last week when Snowy actually chose a pet shop to do a live broadcast.
Lu Yi Yun also raised a pet cat—the former tenants left it behind. She was uncertain what kind of breed it was—probably a mix. If it were an expensive purebred cat, the people certainly would’ve taken it away. The back of this cat and the back of its head were yellow. Its chest and face were white, its four limbs were a mix between yellow and white, and its fur was pretty long. The former tenants had called it “Jasmine”.
At that time, Lu Yi Yun was on bad terms with her family because she had just dropped out of college. Her parents had threatened to cut off ties and expenses. She almost had no money after renting the apartment, and she was worried that if she couldn’t even keep herself alive, how could she raise a cat? Thus, she had asked the former tenants to take Jasmine away, but the former tenants refused, and had plainly said, “If you don’t want to raise it, then help us throw it out.” After they had finished speaking, they carried their belongings and left, with their backs looking sharp. If you don’t want to raise it, then help me throw it out, if you don’t want to raise it, then help me throw it out. Why did it feel like as if it was like old newspaper books? A life can just be thrown away?
Maybe it was because of the same type of hurt, but she had always felt that her lonely self was very similar to this lonely cat. After she had came back to her senses, she was already holding it in her arms, crying. Jasmine did not resist its new owner, and nestled softly and warmly in her arms; maybe it had already accepted its fate of having been abandoned. Lu Yi Yun wiped her tears after some time had passed. Even if it was for the cat, she still had to find to a way to fill their stomachs. From that time on, she worked hard to exert herself, and sent her illustrations to different web submissions. She desperately entered a variety of QQ group chats to receive orders and place advertisements. Since she was a newbie, the orders that she had received were not much and were unstable, and the expenses were low. But demand was high; she was often woken up by phone calls in the middle of the night and had to get out from bed to edit. The counterparties weren’t satisfied with one edit, and wanted second and third edits…
She had also lost control before, and raged tantrums in the empty rented apartment. Other than her mobile phone or computer graphic boards that she did not dare to throw, she hurled everything else that she saw. But even during those times, Jasmine still did not hide, but squatted quietly by her side as if it had committed a wrong itself, and did not move even when called. In the end, they cried together as one cat and one person, then continued to edit after having cried enough. Once she started editing, she would not stop until dawn.
Because she experienced these initial hardships, she did not violate customers, and since her illustration skills were pretty good and she handed in orders on time, the amount of orders slowly increased. The price for single pictures also increased a little, and her life had finally improved. But she and the cat had also lost a lot of weight.
When she saw Snowy’s live broadcast about the pet shop, the owner had introduced to the camera that the shop offered services to give baths to cats. She had only remembered then that she had never given Jasmine a bath since she took Jasmine in. She had always clung together with Jasmine in the cramped, rented apartment. They had just experienced the mugginess of midsummer, and Jasmine’s fur had gotten longer. It would be self-deception to say that Jasmine’s body did not have an odd smell. She felt guilty and blamed herself, “Why didn’t I ever think of giving Jasmine a bath when I took a shower myself?” In the live broadcast, she had seen that Snowy bought a cat in the shop as well, and the price was staggeringly expensive, but Snowy did not even twitch an eyebrow. It really seems that it was lucrative being an anchorperson.
In the light of trusting the shop that Snowy had chosen, she decided to bring the cat to Amazing Fate Pet Shop to give it a bath. She searched the map online, and was surprised to find out that the old fashioned small district she was in was actually very close to Amazing Fate Pet Shop. The backdoor of the small district was on the same street as Amazing Fate Pet Shop. It was also only a ten minute walk, which further dispelled her fear of going a long distance. There were small supermarkets in the small district, and she knew how to cook for herself. Other things could be taken care of with express delivery and online stores. She had not left the small district for a few months, and had always stayed in her room drawing desperately.
Thus, she had lost a lot of weight. She did not need to buy new clothes since she did not go out often, and when she wore the clothes from the past, they appeared too large. She had taken care of her haircuts in front of the bathroom mirror, so her hairstyle was too horrible to even look at. Her cheeks appeared pale and unhealthy because she had not seen the sunlight in a long while. Her myopia had also worsened due to repeated weary and cumbersome work. The most basic moisturizing cream was the only cosmetic she owned. She felt herself that she looked like a hillbilly in the mirror. But it was fine; she wasn’t looking for outside encounters anyways, so her image did not matter.
Along the way, she kept feeling as if passersby on the street were looking at her; countless eyes intertwined into a net and bound her tightly. She hugged Jasmine closer, restrained the urge to turn around and flee, and briskly walked to the location on the electronic map with her head lowered.
