Chapter 65: A Tiny Bit of Shock

Xu Sansui picked up the storyboard drafts and began to look through them. Judging solely from the sketches, it was vastly different from comics with prominent muscle lines like *Fung Yun*.

Instead, it leaned much closer to realism. If she had to categorize it, it felt more akin to American comic styles.

The more she interacted with Zheng Fei, the more puzzled Xu Sansui became. How did Zheng Fei, an unemployed youth, manage to understand so many different drawing styles?

With her grandfather being a publishing house editor-in-chief and a relative working at a film studio, she herself had frequent opportunities to encounter foreign comics and occasionally visit the studio to watch internal reference films.

Yet Zheng Fei lacked even these conditions, and yet he knew far more than she did.

When faced with things she could not figure out, Xu Sansui was never one to dwell on them for long, nor did she care to ask.

Initially, she was quite amazed by Teacher Zheng Fei's versatility in art styles, but soon she was completely drawn into the story.

The ignorance of the villagers made her grit her teeth in anger. When she saw the villagers beating Teacher Li Baoku, and witnessed Xiuxiu being killed by the incompetent midwife, she was so furious that her hands trembled...

Yet after reading twenty-something pages, Xu Sansui felt extremely baffled. Was Teacher Zheng Fei joking?

This was merely a somewhat irritating rural story, filled entirely with ignorant villagers and various feudal tumors of the old society. Where was even a shadow of science fiction?

Just as she flipped past the fortieth page, however, the art style abruptly shifted, instantly transporting her into the vast and boundless starry sky.

Although they were still only rough sketches, the imagery before her eyes was truly breathtaking: a boundless expanse of stars, countless spaceships locked in fierce combat, and a colossal continent resembling a microchip.

As she continued reading, if she hadn't looked at the explanatory notes below, even someone as well-read as her would have found it rather strenuous to comprehend.

Things like light-years, silicon-based and carbon-based life forms, the Milky Way's second spiral arm, stellar leapfrogging, and so on...

By this point, the narrative abruptly halted, driving her nearly crazy with frustration. She was intensely curious as to why these two completely unrelated backgrounds appeared in the very same story.

"Teacher Zheng, does this rural story have anything to do with the alien story?"

Zheng Fei narrowed his eyes and said, "Are you dying to know?"

Xu Sansui nodded like a chick pecking at rice.

"Once I draw the next batch of storyboard drafts, you'll find out."

"Ah, how can you do this?"

"Teacher Zheng, just tell me, or I definitely won't be able to sleep tonight."

Zheng Fei replied, "I haven't even figured out the subsequent plot yet. How am I supposed to tell you?"

"Impossible, you must be lying."

Seeing how deeply interested Xu Sansui was in the ensuing plot, Zheng Fei felt that his *Village Teacher* might actually have a market after all.

Next, the drafts were passed around among everyone. When Li Ziwei saw the story, he sat frozen in a trance for a long time.

He suddenly realized a crucial point: before becoming an outstanding comic artist, one first had to be a formidable novelist.

Li Ziwei could not help but laugh bitterly. "Teacher Zheng, I only know how to draw and don't know how to write stories. Can I still become a comic artist?"

Faced with this question, Zheng Fei hesitated for a moment as an anime titled *Bakuman* suddenly flashed in his mind.

In that work, the manga was created through the division of labor between two male protagonists: one responsible for the script and the other for the artwork.

"Of course you can. You don't necessarily have to create stories yourself to become a comic artist. You can collaborate with others, or adapt someone else's novel into a comic."

Upon hearing this answer, Li Ziwei experienced a sudden epiphany. His drawing skills were quite decent, but when it came to story creation, he was truly completely clueless.

After finishing the manuscript, Zhang Mingzhu looked at Zheng Fei as if he were a monster, and suddenly blurted out: "Teacher Zheng, please confess honestly. Are you an alien? And are you one of those silicon-based life forms sent to destroy us Earthlings?"

Xu Sansui shot her a look of disgust. "If Teacher Zheng were an alien, he'd be the very first to wipe you out."

Zhang Mingzhu looked aggrieved. "Sister, why do you have so much hostility toward me?"

"Resign immediately and go back to your art academy."

"I won't."

Whenever they watched this pair of cousins bickering, the staff at the publishing house found it immensely entertaining.

Zhou Weiguo, however, frowned deeply upon viewing the drafts. During his years as an apprentice, he had always drawn those formulaic children's anti-Japanese serial pictorials, sticking entirely to repetitive themes.

First he drew Little Gada, then the cow-herding boy... and then the heroic little Eighth Route Army. Suddenly encountering science fiction comics of this caliber gave him an absolute shock, as if a door to a new world had swung open before him.

At this very moment, he felt an extraordinary surge of excitement, realizing how wise a choice it had been to break ties with his master back then.

...

In the blink of an eye, it was mid-May.

The second volume of *Fung Yun* began rolling off the production lines like dumplings, with boxes of full-color comic books being loaded onto trucks and hauled from the printing plant to Xinhua bookstores everywhere.

This time, the Xinhua Bookstore on Nanjing East Road did not hold any promotional events; they simply pasted a poster on the door.

It read: *Fung Yun* Comic Book Volume 2, Full-Color Edition Now in Stock.

Shortly after this simple poster went up, a long queue for purchases formed instantly. Someone held money high in the hand and shouted:

"Comrade, I want a copy of the *Fung Yun* full-color comic!"

The price of the full-color edition was as high as forty-five cents, yet the number of buyers remained remarkably high.

That freeloading youth named Li Ziming was also dying to read it, but forty-five cents was a price he genuinely could not afford.

What annoyed him the most, however, was that the chibi clay figurine he had won last time actually harbored a hidden secret.

The bottom bore the author's autograph. When he had sold it for three yuan back then, it was now being resold within the circles for fifteen yuan, and it felt like the price would only climb higher.

Seeing so many people buying the new comic, Li Ziming figured his chances of freeloading this new release today were quite slim.

Just then, a junior high school student who had paid for a copy of *Fung Yun* walked down the street reading it as he went.

Unable to hold back, Li Ziming stepped forward and asked, "Little buddy, I'll give you two cents, how about we read it together?"

The junior high school student gave him a look of utter disdain, then held up two fingers: "Twenty cents, and I'll let you read along with me."

"You might as well just go rob someone."

The junior high school student sneered, "Trying to read my book for free with just two cents? In your dreams!"

His own remark, however, sparked an idea for a lucrative enterprise: henceforth, whenever classmates borrowed books to read, he would charge them two cents.

Li Ziming muttered curses under his breath, itching to teach that junior high school student a lesson.

Due to the established reader base, the moment Volume 2 of *Fung Yun* hit the market, its sales were explosive.

The Xinhua Bookstore on Nanjing East Road sold over three thousand copies in a single day, and that was even under strict purchase limits.

Scalpers had already begun peddling the second volume of *Fung Yun* right outside the bookstore entrance.

"Comrade, I just bought this *Fung Yun* full-color comic. Original price forty-five cents, and it's about to go out of stock. I'm just making a bit for standing in line, eighty cents if you want it."

"You people are ruthless, I'm going to report you."

Upon witnessing this scene, Jiang Weishan gnashed his teeth in fury. He simply couldn't swallow his pride to stand in line and buy books; if he were recognized, where would he save face as an elder?

Yet ever since the financial separation and the publication of *Fung Yun*, neither the printing plant nor the Xinhua Bookstore would reserve copies for them anymore.

If he wanted to read it, he had to line up and purchase it just like everyone else. In the end, finding his pride too heavy a burden to drop, he had no choice but to seek out a scalper.

"Eighty cents a copy, is that right?"

The scalper smiled and said, "Boss, how many copies do you want?"

"Just one copy, what do you mean *how many*?"

"Alright, thank you, Boss."

Hearing these scalpers casually addressing people as "Boss," Jiang Weishan felt an urge to have them all arrested on the spot.

Yet upon second thought, by buying books from them, wouldn't he be equally guilty?

Sigh!

Upon returning home, Jiang Weishan secretly opened up this volume of *Fung Yun* and discovered that this installment was actually printed in full color.

He desperately wanted to find some point to criticize, but for the moment, he simply couldn't find any flaws.

The artwork was exceptionally exquisite and pleasing to the eye, and as for the storyline—though it wasn't to his personal taste—it seemed entirely unobjectionable.

When he flipped to the back cover and saw that long list of comic assistant credits, a heavy frown creaked across his brow. "How on earth did even Mingzhu end up over there?"