Chapter 30: One Day Without Trash Talk Makes Me Uncomfortable

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

The two authors were respectively named ‘Anxiously’ and ‘KeyboardsMakeMeSleepy’. Both were prodigy level novel writers. ‘KeyboardsMakeMeSleepy’ didn’t need an introduction—who would have that kind of name if they didn’t live up to it. Meng Fan was still painstakingly following his ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’ series. As for “Anxiously”, Meng Fan had previously heard of him. He even read one of his books, although he never finished it.

Meng Fan loyally followed “There’s a Spirit Underground”. He even read the beginning twice, so there was no need to read the book when he did the illustrations. At most, he would need to flip to some important chapters for details.

This was a horror novel about spiritual creatures. From a certain point of view, it fell in Meng Fan’s lap, as it would have been an easy task for someone who could draw most of the characters in the ‘Hyakkiyakou’ straight from his mind.

Anxious’s novel was a fantasy story titled ‘The Supreme Sword’. Based on the name alone, one could deduce this was a story about sword fighting. If he could bring ancient swordsman Li Chun Gang to life through his drawings, Meng Fan was confident in his ability to illustrate the flying sword.

As for the style of flying daggers, aside from its shape, the other details could be gathered from his knowledge of historical costumes, and small motifs like cloud prints, thunder prints, dragon prints, phoenix prints, etc could be slapped on. Add some more ancient creatures, and Meng Fan could draw for three days and three nights without repetition.

Besides, if it was related to swordplay, the clothing and design must lean towards historical style, which was also in Meng Fan’s field of expertise.

Buzz Buzz.

After the authors sent their book titles and social media handles, they also attached a money transfer of 1500 HXB each.

Meng Fan collected the money and followed their accounts. He browsed through their recent activity and easily found some earlier versions of book illustrations. But more than half of them were irrelevant to the context, and the ones that were, to be honest, were not very good.

It was just as Bee said, authors these days became more and more aware of their social media presence, or else they wouldn’t be bothered to look for a professional illustrator.

Fifteen hundred dollars a week was a considerable expense for most internet authors, but to these legendary tier writers, it was nothing. They probably made more from the sheer advertising fees their accounts received each week.

Meng Fan flipped through ‘The History of Ancient Chinese Weapons’ again to find the sword article. He then proceeded to download ‘The Supreme Sword’ and began reading.

That book was very exciting, and the rhythm was good as well. However, since Meng Fan’s interests didn’t fall in its category, his overall reading experience hadn’t been that good. By chapter thirty, he was struggling to continue.

But this was part of the job.

“Chubs, you’ve changed.”

The bell had just sounded, signaling the end of class. Zhang Zhou Wei slinked over to Meng Fan from where he had just been clinging to Wang Ya Nan. He was serious and asked Meng Fan. “You stopped Leaguing, PubGing, even Overwatch! You even left out a bottle of icy cola, and you run every morning. You look skinnier, even more handsome, but most importantly, you’ve become so hardworking and outstanding! You’re making us pale in comparison!”

Meng Fan packed up his untouched textbooks and notebooks and squinted at Zhang Zhou Wei. “Speak, how much do you need?”

“My parents birthed me, but only Meng boss truly knows me!”

Zhang Zhou Wei smirked and embarrassingly popped up two fingers. He then slowly responded, “Two thousand. I’m about to go shopping with Ya Nan at the luxury store.”

Meng Fan transferred 2000 HXB to Zhang Zhou Wei on WeChat, then remembered something. “Oh yeah, by the way, can you bring me back a phone stand? The kind that’s suitable for streaming. Doesn’t your girlfriend also stream art, maybe she can pick out a good one for me?”

“Got it.”

Zhang Zhou Wei turned around and pranced away.

“No wonder my mom asked me about my financial situation when she was interrogating me for a girlfriend.” Meng Fan muttered to himself. He packed up and headed back to the dormitory, but he didn’t continue reading the novels. Instead, he started preparing the content for the stream that evening.

He probably won’t be able to stream his illustrations for ‘The Supreme Sword’, but ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’ was definitely doable.

“Tonight is a psychic special—I’m drawing original manuscripts for ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’.” Meng Fan logged into 8th station and revised his header. Seeing that the sun outside had been covered by clouds before it set, he gratefully threw on his sportswear and headed to the track early.

He ran 8 kilometers in 1 hour and 6 minutes, with the first 6 kilometers averaging under 8 minutes per km. The last two kilometers took a bit more effort.

“It’s still early today, let’s run some more.”

He felt an unreasonable willpower to continue and picked up his pace that had just dropped.

“Should I try the energizing chews?”

Meng Fan had been eyeing the energy chews in the equipment row on his [Travelling Deity] progress bar for a while now.

Energy Chews: Restores 20% of physical strength, relieves 50% of fatigue (Repeated use should occur a minimum of 10 minutes later, effects diminish throughout the span of one day)

The energy chews weren’t expensive and only cost 5 points in exchange for one piece. Meng Fan had 73 points, so it didn’t cost him too much to try just one. Nonetheless, he was still too stingy.

Guess I’ll rely on willpower alone!

19 minutes later, Meng Fan survived the final two kilometers.

He had run 10 kilometers in one session!

Although the system didn’t reward him with any achievements, Meng Fan felt in his heart the warm sense of accomplishment.

Before he was reborn, Meng Fan hadn’t dreamed that he would be able to do this.

After thoroughly stretching and showering, Meng Fan poked his fat once again. Not sure if it was an illusion, he continued pinching around; it really did feel harder.

After wolfing down the dinner Chen Da Qiang had brought for him, Meng Fan walked by the convenience store and resisted the urge to go in and buy a bottle of cola. He also resisted the idea to weigh himself on the scale outside of the store.

Even though he had been crazily running recently, he was well aware that it would be a while before he dropped below the 100 kg mark.

Unsure if it would drop below 100 kg, Meng Fan refused to step on the scale. The numbers displayed would be too similar to crossing a weighbridge.

His evening stream would once again begin at 7:30. Similarly, he would draw ten pieces.

The first five were gods from ‘Yin Yang Master’. From beginning to the end, he had drawn the fat sorcerer, the Backhanded nurse, changing YuZao, Duo Ying Hua and galaxy skinned Hui Yue goddess. They were all girls and all seductress big sister types.

In his lifetime, he would never be able to find a real one, so he could only rely on drawing them!

The last five were all related to ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’; three characters and two scenery drawings.

Since he already told Mr.Sleepy he would be streaming illustrations from ‘There’s a Spirit Underground’, Meng Fan didn’t bother updating the header. This didn’t stop him from opening a tab and asking around for food stamps. He also sent his stream link to all the fan club chat rooms. In addition, FlatHeadBro had also recommended him on his social media platform when he published his latest chapter, so the number of viewers reached a new high that night.

It reached 4600 people!

There were more people from Mr.Sleepy’s group chat than there were from FlatHeadBro’s. Aside from people spamming 666s and small gifts, there were also live comments rushing the novel for updates and asking Meng Fan to send the author knives and sharp objects and draw only one character a week to speed up the process!

The speed of update was so slow, yet the fan base remained massive. Aside from the high quality of the novel itself, Meng Fan guessed that Mr.Sleepy definitely had some old-timer experience, otherwise his fans wouldn’t have such incredible trash-talking abilities either.

“I’m gonna end it here for today. Tomorrow will be weapons special. The first five will be cold weapons, and the last five will be illustrations from the novel ‘The Supreme Sword’.” Meng Fan said before he logged off.

He checked the progress bar in his mind. Today’s total viewer count had reached 7300, another new record.

Meng Fan’s progress on task phase 2: 20,400/100,000

Such progress was not bad.

“You’re off early today?”

The first five drawings Meng Fan did today had been ones he had already drawn before. Although the last five were secondary creations, Meng Fan was still familiar with them; hence, it didn’t take him as long as previous nights to finish all 10.

When he left, the studio administrator had specially gone out of her way to greet Meng Fan.

Meng Fan used the studio a lot, so it was beneficial to be on good terms with the administrator. He smiled and replied, “Did you trash talk Er Qing today?”

When the caretaker had mentioned that name, Meng Fan had searched it out of curiosity. He now knew what kind of player Er Qing was, as well as understanding the lingering fear she left on the WeiBo community.

“Er Qing is your girlfriend, Fan Sheng Mei is your daughter, Rong Momo is your Mother-in-law, Xie Guang Kun is your father, An Ling Rong is your best friend, Zi Ling is your sister….”

That was the most creative way of trash taking someone he had seen on WeiBo so far.

The lady heard him and laughed. “Of course I did. Just one day of not trashing her makes me uncomfortable.”

After seeing Meng Fan away, the administrator smiled and realized that the fatty was pretty likable.

She then turned to look at the corner where Meng Fan often sat. She thought to herself: You don’t come by such a hardworking fatty often. What if one day he came in late and the seat is taken? That would hurt his enthusiasm for sure. I’ve gotta keep this spot for him.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep