Tokyo Tycoon, Start as a Writer

Chapter 8 Anxious Intern Editor Meets Her Match
Midori Kobayashi has been a little anxious lately.

After lunch, she lay on her desk and looked out the window.

There are no tall buildings blocking the view in front of Shinchosha. Looking out from the fifth-floor window, you can see the street scene and blue sky in the distance.

“It’s been more than three years. Time flies.”

Kobayashi Midori murmured softly.

She was born in Hamanaka, a small coastal town in Asahikawa, Hokkaido.

The town is small, shabby, old and dilapidated.

Communication basically relies on shouting, and public security basically relies on dogs.

Google Maps shows mosaics, the tram runs every two hours, and convenience stores close before dark; there are no bookstores, no dentists, no cinemas, and no coffee shops; there is no place to recruit workers, and no one wants to marry there...

Since childhood, Midori Kobayashi has been a girl more beautiful than anyone else around her, but that beauty did not bring her much luck.

Her father died early, and her mother raised her and her sister alone by running a small restaurant. Her mother also had lung disease and needed high medical expenses to control her condition.

When she was very young, Midori Kobayashi started helping out in her family's restaurant, and thus developed a character that allowed her to endure hardships.

There is little entertainment in the town.

Growing up, Midori Kobayashi had almost no other means of entertainment except watching TV.

Every year, TV shows with the name "Tokyo" are broadcast on TV tirelessly. The heroines in the shows are mostly glamorous career women who work hard in the company, live in spacious and fashionable apartments, and can openly say "Let's go to bed" to their loved ones.

The streets of Tokyo shown in magazines and on television caught the attention of young people in small towns.

Just as moths cannot resist the temptation of a moth-catching light, they only want to fly to that dazzling place.

“Let’s go to Tokyo!”

Almost every girl of my age has a Tokyo dream.

I want to live in Tokyo, work in a Tokyo company, and fall in love with a handsome guy in Tokyo.

Midori Kobayashi has no intention of going to Tokyo.

She just wanted to stay in the small town, work with her mother, and take care of her sick sister.

This idea changed when I was in high school.

The senior high school students in the small town are divided into two factions.

One group dreams of going to Tokyo to work hard, while the other group wants to stay in their beloved hometown. Kobayashi Midori is of course the latter.

But she became the only college student in the class.

She was admitted to the Faculty of Letters at Waseda University with excellent grades.

Now I have to go to Tokyo.

Upon hearing the news, the mother cried with joy, but inside she was filled with endless confusion and anxiety.

More than three years have passed, but every time she looks at the street view, Midori Kobayashi can recall the scene of the day she first came to Tokyo.

Come out of Tokyo Station and stand in the square in front of the station.

All she could see were tall and imposing buildings, and the cold streetscape made entirely of man-made products, making her feel as if she had entered a scene from a science fiction movie.

"Ah...it's really high!"

The streets were crowded with people, coming and going, and their footsteps hurriedly crossing each other.

Various noisy sounds overlapped and rushed over like a waterfall.

The bustling scene of the big city made her, a country girl, feel very restrained.

She was hungry at that time and wanted to find something to eat. There were several trendy restaurants nearby, but she was too timid to go in. She wandered around the street foolishly for a long time before she finally found a convenience store and went in to buy a sandwich and milk.

Whenever she thought back to the time when she just turned eighteen, Kobayashi Midori couldn't help but blush and call herself an idiot in her heart.

More than three years passed in the blink of an eye.

She is now completely familiar with the city of Tokyo, her studies are going very well, and she has started an internship at a company.

Some time ago, my mother also came to Tokyo with my sister.

My sister had excellent grades and was given the opportunity to attend an aristocratic high school for free.

Now that the family is living together again and she has a formal job, Midori Kobayashi is full of expectations for the future.

then……

Then she found out that the work was so difficult.

In the editing industry, accumulation of author resources is very important. Only with a stable supply of high-quality authors submitting articles can performance be guaranteed.

Midori Kobayashi is a newcomer and has no author resources at all.

Only when people who want to submit manuscripts browse the Xinchao website and see her as a new editor on the editor list, and think that new editors are not so strict, will they be likely to submit their manuscripts to her.

Because new editors are not as strict in reviewing manuscripts, the quality of the manuscripts submitted is usually not high.

Xinchao is a very strict publishing house. She thought several manuscripts were okay, but when she submitted them to the editor-in-chief, they were rejected.

During the more than one month of internship, she signed contracts with two authors in total.

It's still May and half of June, but there's still no performance report... Kobayashi Midori is very anxious about this.

Although there were no performance evaluation indicators for intern editors, she still felt embarrassed and ashamed when she saw her name shown as zero when the data was presented at each routine meeting.

What is more terrible than being embarrassed is the possibility of not being able to turn around.

There are no performance assessment requirements for intern editors, but it does not mean that you will be converted to a full-time employee if you are deemed to have no ability.

Without a permanent job, I have no money to pay for my family’s living expenses, my sister’s tuition and medical expenses…

The cruel reality can make people feel suffocated.

Kobayashi Midori is now in such an urgent situation where she may not be able to get a regular job, so she runs to the security booth whenever she has free time, hoping to see the manuscripts submitted to her, although most of the time she returns disappointed.

The job is not yet secured, and the savings are still gradually decreasing, with the balance gradually decreasing to zero.

It feels like a broken blood vessel, with blood oozing out drop by drop, and soon you will die.

If an excellent work is submitted to her at this time, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the submitter is her benefactor.

She will remember this for the rest of her life!

"Editor Kobayashi?" The security guard knocked on the door.

Kobayashi Midori turned her head and looked over, a smile quickly spread across her face: "There is my manuscript, right?"

"There really is one." Oshima Isamu walked in and said according to Oguri Naoto's instructions, "It's this one, but the postman damaged the packaging when delivering it, so I didn't remember it. Please take it."

He handed over the folder.

Kobayashi Midori took it with both hands and bowed solemnly: "Thank you very much."

"Okay, I'll go back first." Oshima Isamu turned and left.

"Goodbye, I'll buy you a cup of coffee when you're free~~"

Kobayashi Midori waved her hand, sat down happily and opened the folder.

"Matsueda Kiyaki..."

When the name came into view, Kobayashi Midori's heart sank instantly.

She did feel deeply disappointed. Her dream of having luckily found a quality writer was shattered because the contributor with a very charming name was her college classmate.

She knows all the basic information about this classmate.

It is said that his grandfather's family was well off, but they fell into poverty when the bubble burst.

My father was once rich, but he was unwilling to humble himself and work, and eventually ended up committing suicide by jumping off a building.

Qingxian seemed to be only five years old at that time.

Since Xiao Qingxian was old enough to understand, he has been raised by his mother alone, and their life is very difficult.

His mother worked odd jobs to support him and forced him to study hard. Although his grades were good, he was a poor child who was always oppressed by life. If not for this, he would not have married into a big family before graduating from university...

During college, he always gave Kobayashi Midori the impression of being a little nerd holding a book.

Dull, rigid, inferior and not good at speaking.

Easy to be bullied.

Probably his only advantage is that he has a very good memory, and he managed to get good grades by rote memorization.

But his own writing is of an average standard.

Kobayashi Midori has read some of the essays he wrote.

With that kind of writing style, let alone writing a novel, even if I submit some marginal stories to a street magazine, it would be difficult to get published.

Mr. Qingxian, it's not easy to be a novelist. You are only 20 years old and haven't even graduated from college. You have no experience in writing novels before, and you don't have any guidance from people in the industry. How can you create a work that touches people's hearts?

Do you have enough life experience?

To put it another way, it’s okay to have no experience, but do you have a wild imagination?
None of them.

Writing a novel is not like writing an essay in kindergarten. It is not that simple.

While complaining in her heart, Kobayashi Midori opened a novel titled "The Dancing Girl of Izu".

As a classmate, she planned to invite Kiyoaki Matsueda over after watching the film and give him sincere advice: give up unrealistic dreams as soon as possible, be down-to-earth, take one step at a time, and consider how to support yourself first.

But as she watched, she couldn't take her eyes away.

The soft little mouth opened in surprise.

His eyes widened with surprise.

"By the way, Editor Xiaolin." The security guard came back and said at the door, "I forgot to tell you just now that Editor Xiaoli accidentally saw this manuscript and said he would come to discuss with you to see if it can be transferred to him..."

"No!"

Kobayashi Midori refused outright.

"Please tell Editor Xiaoli that I have already recommended this manuscript internally!"

(End of this chapter)