I turned reality into a romantic comedy

"It's normal for comic adaptations to differ from the original work. The Douluo Continent comic has been serialized for almost a year, and it has been changed quite a bit. All of Oscar's soul skills and even his martial soul have been completely changed. There's nothing we can do about it."

As someone who personally experienced the early days of online novels, Chen Junqian is well aware that most online novels from the early 2000s were no different from Liu Bei's works, even Douluo Continent and Battle Through the Heavens were no exception. Therefore, when adapting them into comics, the comic artists themselves made drastic changes.

Moreover, judging from the results, it's actually not bad. "Douluo Continent" mainly stems from Tang Jia San Shao's own quirky sense of humor. After all, his earlier works like "Mad God" or "Zodiac Guardian" were even more outrageous. It's quite an achievement that Mu Fengchun managed to change Oscar's martial soul and Ma Hongjun's original settings to what they are now.

Battle Through the Heavens is actually not too bad. The main focus is on the adaptation of the characters. As far as Chen Junqian is concerned, apart from the character design of Yao Lao, Ice Emperor Hai Bodong seems to have been drawn as a young boy. Judging from the results of the two works, the adaptation is actually not bad. It's just that it was a bit hard for fans of the original work to accept at the beginning.

Thinking back, he was reading the novels "Battle Through the Heavens" and "Douluo Continent" when he was in elementary school, and the comics when he was in junior high school. More than ten years later, it seems that the next generation of children are still reading these two works, but the subject matter has changed to animation. At least Chen Junqian himself really did give up on this during the Chinese New Year at the request of his relatives' children, and then he was shocked by the extremely high number of views on Tencent Video.

"That's what they say, but the comic updates are so slow! Although Zhiyin Comic says it releases one comic a week, not every week's issue has the comic I want to read. That means it only comes out about once every two weeks. In other words, I've only seen the annulment of the engagement and Yao Lao's appearance in the last two weeks. When will the three-year agreement finally come out...?"

Perhaps feeling it was a waste to spend five dollars on a weekly magazine and only read a few pages of a single comic strip, Zhong Yu said this while starting to browse through the other serialized works.

Compared to "Stealing the Stars in September," which had already reached the final battle (at least at the time), had nearly thirty volumes published, and had sold over fifteen million copies, and "Star Sea Escort," whose story was gradually getting on track and had been serialized for quite some time, Zhong Yu, who was just getting started, would naturally prefer to read the latest works that had just begun serialization. And just like Chen Junqian remembered, he fell into the pit of several other new works.

At the end of 2011, the domestic print comic magazine industry was in its golden age of rapid development. After successfully defeating Manyou (whose representative magazines are Comic Show and Animation World) in the same field, Zhiyin Comic became the undisputed leader in this industry. Compared with Sa Comic, which is more female-oriented, and Comic Party, which is comedy comics, Zhiyin Comic undoubtedly has a wider audience and its sales have been rising all the way.

If Chen Junqian remembers correctly, at its peak in 2013, Zhiyin Comic magazine sold an unprecedented seven million copies per month. However, after the peak, it naturally declined, but that's a story for many years to come.

For readers like Chen Junqian and Zhong Yu, the main appeal of "Zhiyin Comic" in the past two years has come from its pursuit of adapting top-tier online novel IPs. It has successively acquired the comic adaptation rights to well-known works such as "Douluo Continent", "Battle Through the Heavens", "Ya She", and "Dragon Raja", attracting a new audience from outside the circle.

However, it seems inappropriate to simply attribute the success of "Zhiyin Manke" to the popularity of web novel adaptations, because during this period, "Zhiyin Manke" also continuously produced a variety of original comic works of good quality.

However, for a long time, adapting online novels into comics was indeed a good approach. Just like how web dramas and even traditional TV dramas began to target well-known online novels for adaptation more than a decade later, it was indeed able to attract a stable audience from the very beginning.

In Chen Junqian's memory, "Shenman", which will be officially launched and published next year, follows this path. Almost all the comics published in it are adaptations of well-known online novels, including but not limited to "The Throne of Gods", "Martial Universe", "X-Dragon Era", "The Best Housekeeper", "The Kind-hearted Grim Reaper", etc., and it has also achieved good results, with monthly circulation exceeding one million at its peak.

Just like traditional television animation, which is about to be crushed by the emerging online animation, the biggest challenger of print comics is also the booming emerging internet industry, namely online comics.

In fact, U17, which will become the largest original online comic platform in China, has been quietly online and running for more than two years. However, in 2015, when Tencent Comics and Kuaikan Comics were advancing side by side and dividing up the market, Zhiyin Comics, like Guoning's walnuts, belatedly tried to keep up with the times and launched its own online APP. Then it was completely wiped out.

In fact, after becoming an anime expert for two years, Chen Junqian had a clear understanding of the complete industry chain in Japan, from light novels to manga to anime adaptations. However, unlike the well-developed system in Japan, the adaptations in China were quite fragmented.

The print comics industry has seen the adaptation of online novels into comics, but the adaptation of comics into animation has not officially appeared until the last two years. This is the U17 comics platform he just mentioned, which is the biggest difference between it and the former.

To paraphrase a line from Zhuge Liang in the TV series "New Three Kingdoms," which aired over a year ago but remains controversial and will likely be revisited and criticized by various people on Bilibili more than a decade later, it would be: "Instead of adapting an IP, it's better to create one."

In fact, at this time, U17, which has been quietly developing under the shadow of the print comic industry, has already quietly produced excellent works such as "100,000 Cold Jokes", "Chrysanthemum Bee" and "Soul Street", and will officially kick off the era of online comics being adapted into animation in just over a month in 2012.

And judging from the results, the effect was even better than everyone imagined.

Even in his junior high school days, when Chen Junqian no longer watched cartoons much, he would still watch "100,000 Cold Jokes" with Zhong Yu. It was still updated monthly at the time, but it still managed to garner 800 million views across the entire internet. They would play with the jokes in it, such as "King Kong Barbie" and "100% of being caught by a blade barehanded." Together with the rage comics that were popular at the time, it filled their rather abstract junior high school life.

After U17 pioneered this approach, Tencent Comics, which possessed the Sharingan replication technique, naturally wouldn't lag behind. A year later, in 2013, they simultaneously launched their first web animation adapted from a comic, "Corpse Brother" (My Name is Bai Xiaofei), and also acquired a large number of web comic artists to begin subsequent IP development (represented by Xiaoxin's "Fox Spirit Matchmaker"). This pushed the concept of Chinese animation to a new stage.

Of course, all of the above also came from that senior figure in the domestic animation industry whom Chen Junqian had met in his previous life.

To be honest, for someone like Chen Junqian who only watched cartoons and comics as a child but never paid attention to the stories behind them, the familiar names mixed with the changes of the times did give him a sense of disorientation, especially after being reborn and standing at this crucial juncture again.

If the system hadn't made him the male protagonist of some romantic comedy, he might have actually wanted to personally participate in this era of change.

After all, look, he now has Xu Youwei who can draw, Zhu Wenyun who can write stories, and Mu Mu who can be a sugar daddy. With him on the side, it feels like they could star in a light novel with the theme of comic creation and animation adaptation right here and now, don't they?

And there really was such an entry in his list of unlocked achievements:

Of course, there are clubs in this world surrounded by beautiful girls.

In our most orthodox romantic comedy, there certainly won't be any big, muscular guys in the club who are drunk and naked. After all, who doesn't like club activities where all the girls are beautiful and only I am surrounded by them?

Whether it's the sharp-tongued, black-stockinged, famous light novel author senior, the blonde, tsundere, twin-tailed childhood friend illustrator, or the female lead candidate with a weak presence, or the noisy older sister and junior characters, they should be the classic characters and best actors in romantic comedies.

Condition for achievement: Found a club with at least three female protagonists who are suited for romantic comedy.

After watching Zhong Yu's recent issues of "Zhiyin Manke" with him, while he complained, Chen Junqian was surprised to hear about the same thing from Lin Mu again a few days later, after school at noon.

But it's actually quite normal, since Mu Mu has always been someone who reads whatever is popular and goes with the flow. It just so happens that during this period, because of Zhong Yu's big opening, "Zhiyin Manke" was all over the class, so she picked up the comic magazine again and continued to read it.

Has Qianqian visited your new house recently? How's the renovation going?

"The main renovation is almost complete. I've been buying other small pieces of furniture recently. This weekend, my mom and I went to buy bedding. The bed is much bigger than before, and we can't use the old quilts anymore. But since it's a new house, it's definitely better to replace everything to give it a fresh look."

"Oh, I see. When Qianqian goes there this weekend, remember to check out your neighbor's house. Maybe it's some kind of cartoonist's studio, just like in the comics, umm."

"Mumu is talking about the plot of 'The Neighbor's Rampage,' right? But that's just in the comics. How could such a thing happen in real life? My mom told me that the neighbors next door are just an ordinary family. They bought the house in the school district specifically so that their child could attend Ningzhong High School, just like me. That's all."

"Wow."

"...Wow?"

"It's the female lead's verbal tic, you know. Don't you think these little verbal tics are actually really funny, Qianqian? Hehehe—"

After making those two adorable imitations, Lin Mu shifted the topic back to Xu Youwei:

"Actually, after I finished reading the first two chapters of this comic, I specifically asked Vivi, since she's a really good artist and takes art classes. So I asked her if she wanted to be a comic artist in the future."

"Well, then what?"

"She said she hadn't decided yet, but that's normal, since I haven't decided what I want to do in the future myself. But if Weiwei becomes a cartoonist, I can ask her to create a character for me, just like when I asked Wenyun to write our story. Hehehe."

“Being a cartoonist isn’t easy, and Yuwei isn’t even studying cartoon-related courses right now.”

“It’s okay. I’ll just pay for Weiwei to draw it myself. How about Qianqian joins me too? I heard from Dad that the brand you’re involved with is doing very well now. We’ll just ask Weiwei to do the work and let her be a cartoonist who can make a lot of money with just the two of us as readers.”

"That depends on whether she agrees or not."

After answering Lin Mu with a smile, Chen Junqian's tone also unconsciously lifted slightly.

Unlike the current transformation in the domestic animation and comics industry, he has genuinely seized a certain opportunity amidst the wave of internet development.

It's the end of November 2011. During the recently concluded Tmall Double Eleven promotion, [Sanzhixiongxu], which had only been established for a little over four months, achieved a total transaction amount of over eight million yuan on the day, winning the championship in the nut category. In the subsequent delivery period, it successfully shipped all 100,000 orders, creating a major breakthrough in the history of the domestic online food industry. Its total sales also successfully topped the list of nuts on Taobao and Tmall.

Judging solely from the speed and results, this is undoubtedly a miracle in the history of e-commerce, and it has indeed proven to others that this industry is indeed, as he and Zhang Xinghuo said, one of the next big opportunities of the era.

Considering the subsequent development of the three fierce creatures, it is no exaggeration to say that Chen Junqian only needs to sit here and do nothing to achieve one of his life's goals.

in other words.

He can now finally focus all his efforts on becoming the male lead in a romantic comedy.

Chapter 40: The Sixth Female Lead (Two-in-One)

When Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun were discussing Yang Hongying's Mischievous Ma Xiaotiao series, they had a conversation about the naming of the characters.

In fact, when a writer creates a character, he always puts some extra thought into the character's name, and in this respect, Yang Hongying seems to particularly like homophones in English.

For example, the kind and innocent Angel is directly translated as the English word Angel, while Xia Linguo, who is elegant, beautiful, proud and sensitive and ranked first on Ma Xiaotiao's list of most desirable deskmates, is translated as Shiny girl.

However, this conclusion is clearly invalid for another girl with the same name as this character, who would squat half a floor below the entrance to the building where the two of them were located at a fixed time after class, eavesdropping on their conversation.

Gu Linguo was well aware of the origin of her name. It had nothing to do with any homonym of English words, nor did it reflect any clever idea from her parents. It was simply because her father's surname was Gu and her mother's surname was Lin, with one character added at random.

If he really had to find an English word to use for a phonetic match, Gu Linguo found Grim after flipping through the Oxford English-Chinese dictionary in his hand.

Grim girl.

Of course, this modifier can also be used to describe her mother's face right now, that always serious face, as if all the suffering had befallen her, staring right at her.

Although she had specially invited a good friend from her class to her home today, and her mother had also cooked a large pot of hot pot to entertain her, there was still a strange atmosphere in the house, which even Chen Xi, who was visiting her friend's house for the first time, could feel.

She had just picked a slice of lamb roll out of the pot when she heard Aunt Lin next to her suddenly call out:

"There's chili oil on the side you can dip your food in."

"Okay, I understand. Thank you, Auntie. I'll dip it in later. I want to try a couple of bites of the lighter broth first to taste the original flavor of the soup base."

Chen Xi nodded, and just as she was about to put the meat in her mouth, she heard the other person continue to persuade her:

"This chili oil looks spicy, but it's not actually spicy. It's mainly because I fried it at home. It's very fragrant and would definitely taste good with it."

"Yes, Auntie."

Having said all that, Chen Xi had no choice but to comply. She picked up another piece of enoki mushroom with her chopsticks, dipped it in the chili oil placed beside her under Aunt Lin's eager gaze, and then ate it.

"delicious."

"Of course, the chili peppers I use are good quality, and besides, I didn't add any other weird stuff when I fried it at home. It's different from the junk food you guys usually eat outside. It won't cause pimples, so you don't have to worry about it."

Chen Xi nodded again upon hearing this, and then politely reached out to scoop some more chili oil. But as soon as the spoon was handed over, the other person craned their neck and instructed:

"Hey, hey—you scoop out the chili oil, remove the chili bits, that layer of oil is the most fragrant, hey, right, you scoop it out again... no, no, it has to be right up to the top layer, or give me the spoon, I'll do it."

Being directed at without knowing what to do, Chen Xi could only obediently accept the other woman's mother's kindness along with her best friend. Then she heard the mother turn around and start talking about her daughter:

"It's normal for you to have pimples during puberty. Don't keep thinking about it. Besides, this is the most important age for studying. It has nothing to do with your appearance. If you really care, then eat less junk food outside. We're not short of food or clothes for you. Just tell Mom what you want to eat and don't buy junk food outside."

Then, just like the scene that had repeated countless times at this dining table, the middle-aged woman once again sighed as she looked at the boiling hot pot:

“When I was a child, we didn’t have such good conditions. You guys eat better now than we used to eat during the New Year, but you’re still picky about food and won’t eat this or that.”

Completely at a loss for words, Chen Xi could only watch as her good friend passively accepted another large mouthful of food, including cilantro, which Gu Linguo had clearly told her she couldn't eat. But perhaps because she was a guest there today, Gu Linguo was able to silently swallow those things.

"That's right, you have to try something yourself to know what it's like. There's no such thing as liking or disliking something. If I threw you back in my childhood and you went hungry for a few meals, you'd know. Your dad and I both like this, so why don't you like it? Now you know what it tastes like, right? Would I harm you? Would your family harm you? We only think of giving you good things to eat, don't we?"

Having probably eaten quite a bit, Gu Lingguo subconsciously reached out to grab the orange juice next to her and pour herself a drink to calm down, but just as she picked up the bottle, she heard her mother's words again:

"Pour the drinks for the guests first. Your classmate's cup has been empty for so long, can't you see? How did we raise a girl like you? People will say we have no manners when we go out."

"Ah, I can do it myself."

Chen Xi quickly took the bottle of orange juice from her friend, poured herself a glass, and then instinctively wanted to pour one for Gu Lingguo, but was stopped by Gu's mother:

"Let her do it herself."

As she spoke, the woman reached out and slapped her daughter's back, which had slightly bent as she reached out to help Chen Xi hold the disposable paper cup.

"How many times have I told you not to hunch over? You're growing up now. If you don't take care of yourself now, you'll be happy when you're old and have a hunchback like your grandfather!"

Although it was Gu Linguo being mentioned, Chen Xi also instinctively straightened her back, not daring to bend it at all.

Gu Lingguo straightened her back and poured herself a drink without saying a word. The label of the orange juice clearly said "shake well for better taste", but her posture was very serious and meticulous. After pouring her own drink, she even got up and refilled her mother's half-finished cup.

When she reached into the hot pot with her chopsticks to pick up a slice of lotus root, Chen Xi, sitting next to her, unfortunately snatched it away first. She froze for a second, her chopsticks lingering there for an extra second, and then she heard that familiar lecture, which felt particularly awkward in the presence of her friends:

"How many times have I told you not to pick and stir the food! Think about what you want to eat before putting your chopsticks in the pot. It's fine when you're eating at home with your own family, but now that we have guests, if you do this in front of outsiders when you visit your classmates' houses, your boyfriend's houses, or your in-laws' houses, what will people think of you? What will they think of our family?"

It's almost like triggering a finishing move in a fighting game, followed by a barrage of lectures:

“I work myself to the bone with your dad every day, and then I have to take care of you when I get home. Isn’t it all because I hope you can do better? I even bought you a house so you could get into the best junior high school in the city. I was even planning to quit my job and focus all my energy on taking care of you when you take your high school entrance exam. So you need to put more effort into your studies, okay?”

As she spoke, she hadn't even forgotten Chen Xi standing beside her.

"Chen... Little Chen, right? Since you are my daughter's good friend, you should also communicate and help each other with your studies so that you can make progress together and get into a good university. That's what good friends are."

"Ah, oh, um."

Chen Xi, who usually complains to her brother about her mother, now had the urge to rush home and sing her praises. It felt like she was just answering on instinct.

However, Gu Linguo remained calm about the situation.

At least on the surface, that's how it seems.

After all, she never considered her home and bedroom to be safe places, since her mother had the key and she could open the door anytime, anywhere.

I want to see if she's doing her homework diligently, if she's going to bed on time, and what she's actually doing...

For her, one of her most frequent nightmares was probably waking up in bed one night, only to see her mother's face so close to hers, clear even in the darkness, yet expressionless. Her mother was there to check if she had gone to bed on time.

The other person was standing by her bed, bent over, with their head bowed low and their face very close.

If viewed from the perspective of a third person outside the door, it might look more like a monster clinging to a child and sucking at some kind of life force.

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This weekend, Chen Junqian visited his future new home after a long absence. Just as he had told Lin Mu a couple of days ago, he was checking out the renovation progress and also helping his mother buy some items. After all, there weren't many days left in 2011, and they were expected to move here after the New Year next year, so it was important to prepare things in advance.

What he was going to buy today was bedding for his room.

Compared to the rooms in the dormitory building for the wear-resistant factory employees, Chen Junqian's new room was undoubtedly more than twice the size. Therefore, the size of the desk and bed was also increased accordingly. However, it was still empty at the moment. What Chen Junqian had to do next was to fill them in little by little, so that he could save some effort when he moved in later.

Although she really wanted to be the first girl to enter Chen Junqian's house, it was a bit of a pity that the timing was not right, as it coincided with Lin Mu's tutoring class. So the two of them had to make an appointment for next week, and Chen Junqian would have to take care of everything this week.

After busily moving some of his books from his old home to his new one, Chen Junqian turned his attention to his bedding, which was drying on the exercise equipment downstairs.

Unfortunately, since his balcony was already filled with the new bedding from his mother's room, he had no choice but to temporarily use the fitness equipment provided by the community downstairs.

After estimating that the time was about right, Chen Junqian went downstairs to put away the quilt. The thick winter quilt was folded into a high pile in his hands, carrying the unique smell of sun-dried quilts, which made people feel refreshed.

It's already early December, and Christmas and his birthday are just around the corner. Zhu Wenyun mentioned this to Chen Junqian a couple of days ago. After gloves, her next challenge this year is scarves.

According to her plan, the year after next will be the turn to knit sweaters. In fact, Zhu Wenyun can already knit a sweater quite skillfully with her grandmother. However, she does feel that a scarf is more suitable, since it is something worn on the outside that others can clearly see.

Because he was thinking about this, Chen Junqian, carrying his blanket upstairs, didn't really notice that there was another girl, equally preoccupied, walking downstairs ahead of him.