The Shocking Eunuch, Reborn as a Literary Girl

Chapter 3: The Desire to Make a Fortune

Although I seemed cool and reliable when I made that promise to my sister.

When I muttered to myself, "Let's wipe the slate clean of our past lives," I felt quite carefree.

However, after calming down a bit and checking the remaining rice on his body, Umehara Chiya was slightly sweating.

Currently, including the cash on my person and the savings in my bank account, my total remaining assets are approximately 5 yen.

Compared to current monthly expenses, this figure is so precarious that it defies description.

The rent is 8 yen, the private school is 4 yen per month, and the water, electricity and gas costs are about 2 yen per month. Then, the two sisters spend tens of thousands of yen on food every month, no matter how frugal they are.

Just by adding these up, the monthly expenses are at least 20 yuan.

This is still the most basic level.

This doesn't include the subway fare for my younger sister to go to school every day, the cost of buying new laundry detergent, dish soap, and other daily necessities, as well as other miscellaneous expenses.

If you add it all up, the monthly expenses are at least around 24 yen.

Compared to these daunting expenses, Chiya Umehara's income seemed rather meager.

Due to the sharp drop in her popularity during live streams, her income from being a Vtuber can now be basically summed up as something to do for fun, down from a peak of around 500,000 yen per month to just 20,000 to 30,000 yen per month now.

After her income from this area plummeted, she now relies mainly on odd jobs outside the home for her income.

Because she lacked formal education and hadn't made up her mind to graduate as a virtual streamer, still hoping that her popularity might recover, she didn't look for a full-time job.

Now she mainly does odd jobs outside.

These jobs don't pay much; they add up to a little over 100,000 yuan per month.

The tens of thousands of yen in living expenses that the distant uncle used to send to the two sisters regularly had stopped for almost a year, so they couldn't rely on him at all.

That is
Currently, her total monthly income is only around 100,000 to less than 200,000 yuan.

Compared to monthly expenses that often exceed 24, this is a truly severe deficit.

This deficit has persisted for six months.

As of today, the savings I accumulated when I was still a popular VTuber have been completely depleted, leaving me with only 5 yen.
Meanwhile...
When Chiya Umehara opened her phone, she saw messages from different people.

“Little sister Umehara, you’ve been a month behind on your rent. I know you’re not the kind of person who would intentionally delay payment, so I’m guessing you’ve been having some kind of trouble lately. If you are, you can contact me, and I won’t make things difficult for you.”

Chiya Umehara wiped the sweat from his brow as he continued flipping through the pages.

"Hello, this is Umehara Amane's older sister. The tutoring fees for next month are due. Since you haven't contacted us, we're sending this message to confirm if you still wish to have your sister continue with our tutoring."
If you wish to cancel the tutoring sessions, please contact us proactively.

Looking at these debt collection messages, some friendly and some unfriendly, and then at my savings of only about 5 yuan left.

After a moment of silence, Chiya Umehara let out a deep breath.

Then, unable to contain himself, he exclaimed in Chinese, "Holy crap, the pressure is immense!"

Yes, the pressure is immense.

When she first transmigrated, she felt very carefree.

"I've earned too much money in my past life, so it doesn't matter to me anymore. Compared to money, which is an external thing, what I really want is to sever all ties with my past life, stop being chased and cursed by a bunch of haters, and start a new life."

"Now that we've been reborn, let's show our true abilities."

But now, she regrets it.

"Can you return all the money I've earned? Not too much, just give me one million yen to help me catch my breath, okay?"

"No way, I worked so hard for so many years in my past life, earning so much money and enduring so much abuse, and now you're just deleting my entire game? Holy crap, Delta Force doesn't delete game files, why are you deleting mine?"

In that instant, she immediately realized that her earlier statement about not caring about money was just a result of being used to having money and speaking without understanding the situation.

Only when you're truly short of money do you understand what it means to be penniless and bring down even the strongest heroes.

However.
Right now, complaining or breaking down is useless.

After merging with Umehara Chiya, she is no longer simply a reincarnation of "Takayako".

If someone asked her, "Are you Chiya Umehara or Yoru Takaya?"

She might answer, "Both."

But at the same time, she seems to be neither.

Two completely different memories and their corresponding life experiences coexist in her mind, plunging her into a state of confusion about her self-identity.

At this moment, it was her deep-seated sense of responsibility towards her younger sister that became the anchor that kept her rational.

Therefore, she had to earn money immediately.

After taking a deep breath, Chiya Umehara's expression hardened, and he began to think.

In modern society, the most important element for a person to make money is to have irreplaceable value compared to others.

A person who can repair tools has the value of being a repairman.

People who can write code have value as programmers.

Each person's unique value determines their employment choices.

What is Chiya Umehara's unique value?

the answer is.
almost none.

Her early dropout left her without even a high school diploma and without any decent skills.

The jobs she can do are the simplest jobs that anyone can do.

For example, washing dishes at a restaurant, or working as a clerk at a convenience store.

This kind of job, which even high school students can do part-time, has no irreplaceable value, so how can one earn a high enough income?

If one insists on saying that Umehara Chiya has any unique value...
She really is young and beautiful.

In other words, physical value.
However, let's just skip this topic.

She was, of course, very confident in her beauty.

But that's it.
"My beauty is not for sale."

In short, if we were to summarize the reason why Chiya Umehara couldn't make money in one word...
That is, to accomplish nothing.

She had no particular skills, so being a low-income person at the bottom of society was her natural situation.

The fact that she can make money as a Vtuber for a year or two is simply because the trend of the times has come her way.

As for her fantasy of making money through novels.
Taking advantage of not having to work today, Chiya Umehara read through the entire manuscript she had written. The book was titled "The Story of a High School Girl Who Is Transported to Another World After Working a Part-Time Job."

Just after reading the title, she couldn't help but complain, "What kind of rubbish title is this?"

Light novels often have very long titles.

The reason is often that they hope to convey more gimmicks and selling points through long book titles, attracting readers to buy the book and find out more.

Chiya Umehara didn't particularly like this approach, but she could understand it.

However.
She simply couldn't accept the story of "a high school girl who gets transported to another world after working part-time."

This book title, while continuing the common flaw of light novels being so long that it can be irritating, offers no information or selling points whatsoever.

Just like what I said earlier, "people need to have unique value."

A novel needs unique selling points to attract attention and make money.

However, judging from the title, what selling points does Ms. Chiya Umehara's novel have?
the answer is.
"Absolutely not!"

"What is this about an isekai (other world) story? What about high school girls? What about being transported to another world after working part-time? It's so cheesy! Who would watch this kind of stuff?!"

"If I absolutely have to travel to another world, please give me some special skills, okay? How about becoming a dragon girl? Or a vampire? Or maybe I should have a system that grants ten times the experience points?"

Are you afraid of pain? Do you want to quit the team? Are you an important member who was expelled from the blind and ignorant hero squad?
What? Nothing at all?
"If you don't have anything, what's the point of having such a long title?! It's long, tedious, and lacks any content or information—0 points!"

After a hysterical outburst, Chiya Umehara calmed down slightly.

A novel is not good solely because of its title or synopsis.

Titles and summaries are merely ways to attract readers.

It's simply a tactic to make one's story more visible in the fiercely competitive novel market; even good wine needs advertising.

But this doesn't mean that a bad title necessarily means a bad novel.

Even in a fiercely competitive market like the Endpoint Chinese website, there are some very talented authors who attract readers simply through their basic skills, without using complicated titles or descriptions.

But then again...

How well is the novel itself written?
Using the memories already in her mind, and after a brief review of the 2 words written down, Umehara Chiya made an assessment of the content.
"Complete garbage! Zero points!"

"What on earth is this? Why is almost all of the 2 words about fighting slimes? What about the protagonist's future goals? What about the expectations the readers have? What's so interesting about just fighting a slime?"

"After the initial reincarnation and understanding of the situation, shouldn't the author immediately give the reader a sense of purpose? That would motivate the reader to continue reading, right? If even the protagonist doesn't know what he's supposed to do, then the author clearly doesn't know what he's writing either!"

"Then how will the reader know what the protagonist wants to do?"

"The pacing of the plot is a complete disaster!"

"If the pacing of the plot is not good, then at least the atmosphere created through the writing should be up to par."

But the writing is a complete mess; it doesn't even read smoothly! You clearly didn't study Chinese literature properly! Before you start writing novels, please learn some Japanese!

The dialogue is so hilarious, it's practically like the character conversations in a 90s RPG!

"The writing style, the creativity, the pacing of the plot, the character development—not a single one of them meets the standards. This kind of manuscript is worse than that of a middle school student with a delusional chuunibyou (middle school syndrome). You think you can make money and change your fate?! What kind of daydream are you having, Chiya Umehara?!"

"Face reality!!!"

Chiya Umehara is now a person who is both a person and a person.

Therefore, from her own perspective, this criticism is not a critique of the body's original owner from the perspective of the reincarnated person.

Rather, it's the half of your soul that can write novels criticizing the half that can't.

She was criticizing her past self.

Such criticism even caused her to develop an uncontrollable self-loathing towards her past self.

At this point, she began to realize how naive and ridiculous her past understanding had been.

She also realized that if she continued down the same path, it would be absolutely impossible for her to make money by writing novels.

More likely, when all hope is lost and there is no way out, they will head towards some abyss from which there is no turning back.

Fortunately, it's alright.
"Now, I am merciful."

Chiya Umehara smiled confidently.

The fundamental difference between her now and before is that she is no longer a person without special value.

Even compared to her peak, she has become much more depleted in terms of both creative energy and inspiration.

Even though she rewrote the fourth volume of "Phoenix Clan" countless times, it was still unsatisfactory, and she was criticized relentlessly online.

Fans say she's lost her touch.

She herself feels that she often lacks the strength to write.

But
Those are all comparisons with one's past self.

It's a comparison with the self who created "Eight States" and "Phoenix Clan," a work that resonates with the youthful memories of a generation.

It's compared to himself, who single-handedly became the author of one of China's most influential popular novels.

Instead of comparing myself to those who haven't even scratched the surface of novel writing and whose work is completely undeveloped.
Even when she was nearing death in her previous life, her new book on Qidian.com consistently achieved sales of over 10,000 subscriptions.

Although a large part of it is because she is famous.

Although everyone calls her a super eunuch, they still gather on time every time she releases a new book, reading it while still criticizing her.

Although people might say her writing isn't as good as before, and criticize her for this or that.

but.
People will still watch it.

Because she truly has something unique and different from other authors.

It's a unique place that readers can't find anywhere else to substitute.

If one writes with the goal of "surpassing one's past self" and "creating a masterpiece that satisfies oneself," then of course one will be dissatisfied with one's current level of writing, and will repeatedly abandon the project because one feels it is not well written.

However, if we lower our expectations a bit...
"I just want to make a fortune."

"Then there is absolutely no problem."

Thinking of this, Chiya Umehara smiled confidently.

Now, she's ready to make a big splash.

(End of this chapter)