Tokyo: Oreimo

"Is this the 'Encounter on the Gamma World Line' you wrote?" Ryosuke took the book and flipped through it. On the title page was a line drawing of Kurisu, and the style of the artwork was clearly that of Horiuchi Ayumi.

"Yes, yes, yes! Although the drawing isn't very good, the story definitely has something to it..."

There's still stock left.

Ayumi delivered a precise blow from the side.

"Ayumi!!!"

The cries of despair from Tianzhong Middle School echoed once again throughout the electronics district.

.....

The stalls on both sides of the electronics street stretched from one end to the other. Cosplayers stood in twos and threes on the sidewalk for people to take photos, while otaku wearing anime t-shirts and carrying huge hiking backpacks moved between the stalls.

Tian Zhongxue neatly arranged the doujinshi on the table, took out a portable speaker from his bag, and started playing the background music of "Steins;Gate" on a loop, trying to attract customers with the atmosphere.

Half an hour passed.

An older man passing by glanced at the notebook on the table and walked away.

Two girls in JK uniforms stopped to look at the cover. One of them reached out her hand, but was pulled away by her companion.

The smile on Tian Zhongxue's face gradually froze.

"Ayumi, do you think our stall is in too out of the way?"

He lowered his voice and asked the vice president next to him.

Horiuchi Ayumi was sitting in a folding chair with a portable sketchpad on her lap and a pencil in her hand, doodling on a piece of printed paper.

Without looking up, she replied, "Three stalls to the left, their location is even more out of the way than ours, but they've already sold at least seven or eight copies of that Mami Tomoe fanfic from 'Puella Magi Madoka Magica'."

Tian Zhongxue craned his neck to take a look, then pulled back.

It was a stall with a pinkish-purple tablecloth hanging on it. There were several stacks of doujinshi on the table, and four or five otaku were gathered in front of the stall, waiting in line to browse through the samples.

"The art style of that stall is really good."

Tian Zhongxue admitted, then glanced at the stack of notebooks on his desk, still wrapped in plastic, his voice tinged with grievance, "But I put a lot of effort into the plot... even Chestnut Milk's analysis post was featured, and those readers clearly said my analysis was very insightful..."

He slumped back into his chair, dejected. "Damn it, we're both fanfiction, how come there's such a huge difference?"

Just then, two college students wearing plaid shirts passed by, each carrying a bag of game merchandise they had just bought. One of them glanced at Tianzhong Middle School's stall, his expression completely blank, as if he had seen a white wall.

Tian Zhongxue subconsciously stood up, opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the other person had already walked towards the stall in front.

"It's gone again."

Ayumi calmly added a comment from the side.

Ryosuke stood to the side of the stall, watching the scene unfold without saying a word.

As a creator, he knew very well why the stall wasn't selling.

The doujinshi (fan-made comics) auction is essentially a battlefield of visual impact; in a limited space, the cover must grab the eye of passersby in a fraction of a second.

The cover of Tanaka Middle School's doujinshi is a line drawing by Horiuchi Ayumi. Although the composition is acceptable, the level of completion is not high. The line drawing is not competitive in the sea of ​​colorful covers at the booth.

"Takashiro-kun...."

Tian Zhongchu turned to Ryosuke, looking at him with pleading eyes, "Did you sell a single copy...?"

"Currently, zero copies." Ryosuke answered truthfully.

"Ayumi?"

"Zero copies."

"Whoa!!"

Tianzhong Middle School let out its third wail this morning.

Ayumi looked up from her sketchbook and glanced at Tanaka Middle School. "President, if you keep making such a racket, even the stall owners next door will be scared away."

"But we really can't sell them!!"

Tian Zhongxue pointed to the unmoving stack of doujinshi on the table, "Two hours and zero copies!! Why is no one buying them?!"

Ryosuke looked down at the notebook in his hand.

The cover isn't exactly exquisite, but you can tell that some thought was put into it.

He flipped through a few pages of the content in the club activity room. As a hardcore fanfiction reader, Tian Zhongxue's writing style was definitely above average among fanfiction authors, at least it had a more "otaku feel" than the things he wrote under his own pen name.

The problem is that the plot is only of average to above-average quality. Readers need at least a minute to read it to judge whether it's good or bad, and by that minute, they've already been drawn away by a better stall.

Takashiro Ryouno stood next to Ryosuke, and she had changed her stance several times since she started setting up her stall.

Arms crossed over the chest, left hand on the table, right hand on the table, both hands behind the edge of the table, one hand supporting the chin, both hands supporting the chin.

Every few minutes, her gaze would drift to the side of the crowd, where there were takoyaki stalls, anime merchandise stalls, and satisfied otaku carrying large bags and small packages passing by.

Ling Nai was indeed feeling a bit bored.

She came to Akihabara today intending to stroll around alone with Ryosuke, but as soon as she arrived at the electronics district, she was forced to stand guard in front of this stall, watching as Tanaka, a "newbie in the doujinshi world," sold things in the wrong way.

But she couldn't bring herself to directly ask Ryosuke to go out with her.

Although she had no interest in whether these doujinshi would sell or not, and this guy had only joined the club two weeks ago, he didn't have much of a relationship with the other members.

Even so, no matter how thick-skinned you are, you can't just leave others to have fun by yourself.

Ultimately, Ling Nai is still polite.

"Hello...."

She tugged at Ryosuke's sleeve.

"Want to go shopping?"

Ryosuke, of course, noticed his sister's boredom.

In fact, Ling Nai's toes had been tapping the ground since the beginning, though very subtly, with a rhythm and frequency that revealed a sense of anxiety.

This was a sign that her patience was running out.

"Let's go shopping..."

"Wait a moment!"

Just as Ryosuke was about to say goodbye briefly to Wada Middle School, Ling Nai loosened his sleeve, turned around, and walked up to Ayumi.

"Lend me your pen."

Ayumi was stunned for a moment and didn't react immediately.

Ling Nai didn't wait for her answer, and directly pointed to the pencil in Ayumi's hand, and then to the sketchbook on her knee.

"Pen and paper, can I borrow them?"

"Oh...oh." Horiuchi Ayumi subconsciously handed over the sketchbook.

Ling Nai took the pen and paper and returned to the stall. She glanced around, then placed the cardboard she had picked up from the street under the sketchboard. She twirled the pencil between her fingers twice and then put pen to paper.

I started writing very quickly; in about seven or eight seconds, a rough outline appeared on the paper.

Tian Zhongxue was squatting on the ground organizing the inventory when he suddenly felt a rustling sound behind him. Just as he was about to turn around, Bu Mei grabbed his shoulder.

"Don't make a sound."

Ryosuke, seeing Ling Nai's actions, roughly understood what she was going to do and couldn't help but cover his face.

Chapter 236 Please accept my deepest respect

Ayumi lowered her voice, her eyes fixed on Ling Nai's hand.

To be precise, he was staring at the pencil in Ling Nai's hand.

That was my own pen, with a wooden handle, HB hardness, and the eraser at the end had been shaved off in half.

But in the hands of this blonde girl, it was like a different pen.

The pencil moved across the paper with lines as smooth as mercury pouring out, with almost no unnecessary pauses.

The other person didn't even need to mark the reference with crosshairs first. The figure was drawn directly from the hair tip in the upper left corner. The direction of the hair strands, the tilt of the head, and the proportion of the neck and shoulders were all done in one stroke. Even Ayumi's most common mistake of repeatedly modifying the shoulders was not done.

The speed was also abnormal, frighteningly fast.

When Ayumi draws, she carefully considers every stroke. In the draft stage, she draws at least three or four layers of auxiliary lines to determine the proportions, and then slowly outlines the lines.

But the speed of the girl in front of me was on a completely different level. Almost every line she drew was superfluous. She used a single stroke to make the thick lines thick and a light stroke to make the thin lines thin.

What shocked Ayumi even more was the content of the image.

Ling Nai drew a half-length portrait of Amanne Reiha, standing in profile.

She actually recognized this character; in fact, she was extremely familiar with him.

Ayumi herself has drawn many fan art pieces of Amane Reiha, but this one by Ling Nai completely surpasses most of the fan art works she has seen on the forum before.

Tian Zhongxue had stood up at some point, looking over Ayumi's shoulder at the gradually taking shape drawing, his mouth agape enough to fit a fist.

"Are you kidding me?"

He managed to squeeze out a few words, "This quality... is this fan art?"

The sound from Tianzhong Middle School attracted passersby.

At first, it was just two otaku carrying bags of doujinshi (fan art). As they passed by, they were drawn to the images on the sketchboard and stopped in their tracks.

"Wait, isn't that Lingyu? She's drawn so well!"

"What? Lingyu!? There's such a person in S;G?"

"Of course there is! That's a time traveler from 2036. If you haven't gotten this far, it means you haven't finished the game yet. I suggest you give it a try, you definitely won't regret it!"

"Don't spoil it, you bastard!"

Then more and more people gathered around.

Tian Zhongxue was originally idly shouting on the side, but this action attracted more attention, and then he suddenly realized what had happened.

These people's attention was not on his fanfiction at all.

All eyes were focused on Ling Nai's pen, and she finished faster than anyone had imagined.