The more Xia Jing looked at the freshly finished manga page in his hand, the more he liked it.
Even though it wasn't in color, and unlike an anime it had no voice acting or background music to boost the mood—
In his eyes, the emotional impact of a manga's simple black-and-white lines often hit harder than an anime.
He'd already felt this deeply in his previous life whenever he read a manga and then watched its anime adaptation.
I wonder if readers here in Xia will feel even more shaken by this manga version of 5 Centimeters per Second than I did watching the movie back then.
Thinking of that, Xia Jing couldn't help but curve his lips in a small smile. Being emotionally wrecked by it in his past life had sucked, sure—but watching other people fall into the same pit he had… that sounded pretty fun.
Reborn and drawing manga again was technically just picking up his old trade to solve his financial crisis, but he really was enjoying himself.
…
The night passed. Early the next morning, Xia Jing got up, washed, and made breakfast.
Entrance pressure for high schoolers in China wasn't nearly as brutal as in his previous life. The industrial structure of society was relatively healthy; whether or not you got into college, most people could still find work that covered their basic needs. That was also why, even as first-years, his school still ran as a day school instead of a boarding one.
He walked into the classroom. As usual, the stronger students in the front rows were chatting about sports and studying, while the students in the back were focused on manga, anime, and games. Even though the school forbade it, plenty of students still snuck manga and novels into class to read.
From that alone, you could tell how deeply the domestic anime and manga industry had penetrated daily life in China.
The two morning math periods went by quickly. In his previous life, Xia Jing had been a flop of a mangaka and illustrator, but he'd actually graduated from a science-and-engineering major. He'd gone to an ordinary key university, and although he hadn't touched this stuff for a few years after graduating, the foundation was still there. Learning first-year high school material now was basically effortless.
On top of that, high school here wasn't nearly so cutthroat, and the average academic level of the students wasn't that high.
"At this rate, maybe I could even get into a top university in this world," he thought as the bell rang for the end of class.
But his train of thought was quickly interrupted.
At the classroom door, the lively, graceful silhouette of a girl appeared, drawing the attention of all the boys in the room.
Every school had one or two girls who were the natural focus of the student body.
And Su Qingxiao was obviously one of them.
Otherwise, there's no way he would've recognized her at a glance on the rooftop yesterday.
"Xia Jing… yeah, you. Come out for a sec."
Su Qingxiao stood at the classroom door, smiling and waving at him, her voice loud, clear, and pleasant to listen to.
At the same time, the attention of the whole class shifted from her to Xia Jing—the guy whose presence usually barely registered.
He was good-looking enough, but his grades at the end of last term had only been middling, and he wasn't exactly outgoing, so no one paid him much attention in daily life.
When Xia Jing looked up and saw it was her, he immediately had a rough idea why she was here. He stood up and walked toward the door.
"Last night I talked with my sis—"
"Uh, we're talking about this here?" he asked.
Su Qingxiao glanced around and was met with a sea of faces full of gossip and curiosity.
"Let's go to the rooftop," she said with a light laugh.
She was willing to reveal her identity as a mangaka to Xia Jing only because he was clearly someone of like mind.
If that got out to random classmates, who knew when the homeroom teacher would show up at her house to bother her parents about it. What a hassle.
As the two of them left, the classroom immediately burst into chatter.
…
On the rooftop.
"I talked to my editor. She said she can set up a time to look at your submission, but she won't give your work any special treatment just because of me," Su Qingxiao got straight to the point.
"In fact, I might as well be honest: because I'm recommending you, her review standards will probably be stricter than usual. If the quality of your manuscript isn't clearly better than the stuff that comes in by mail, she most likely won't accept it."
"I'm fine with that," Xia Jing replied after a pause and a nod.
After all, this was 5 Centimeters per Second. If a submission aimed at a third-tier manga magazine in Xia couldn't even pass the screening of some unknown editor, then that editor's eye for talent was probably the problem. In that case, not working with them might actually be for the best.
And the reason he wanted to submit through Su Qingxiao's connection wasn't to get any special perks—it was to make sure the editor would take his manuscript seriously.
With over a billion people in Xia, and tens of millions in Shanghai alone, who knew how many people out there were dreaming of becoming mangaka. Every day, untold numbers of manuscripts were mailed to these magazine offices.
A responsible editor might carefully sift through the slush pile and discover a genuine gem among the mountains of "newbie garbage."
But an irresponsible editor who only thought about clocking out on time… that was another story.
Skimming a few pages and then tossing a manuscript that took one or two months to create into a storage room was about as normal as breathing.
Xia didn't lack people with dreams of becoming mangaka. What it lacked was geniuses.
"So when should we go?" Xia Jing asked.
The magazines were closed on weekends, and he had school Monday through Friday. He was already mentally prepared to ask his homeroom teacher for a day off to go submit in person.
"When can you finish your draft?" Su Qingxiao asked.
"It's actually already done. The full manuscript is in my backpack in the classroom," he said.
Once he'd slipped into that mysterious flow state last night, he'd worked like a machine, staying up until two in the morning to finish what he'd originally thought would take over two days.
He still wanted to spend a bit of time polishing some of the earlier pages and tweaking details, but as it was now, it was already more than good enough to show an editor.
"That fast?" Su Qingxiao said, surprised.
"In that case… let's go this afternoon."
"Eh? But we don't get out until five-thirty. Illusion Dream Group's headquarters is downtown. Even if we head out right away, we won't get there until after seven. Making an editor stay at the office that late just to wait for us…" Xia Jing said hesitantly.
"We're not going to Illusion Dream's editorial department," Su Qingxiao said with a playful smile.
"We're going to my house."
Xia Jing looked up at her, and she quickly explained with a grin:
"The editor I mentioned is actually my sister. I can't make her bend the rules when it comes to judging your manuscript—but getting her to work overtime tonight is no big deal."
"Your sister?"
"Yup, that's right. Surprised?" she said cheerfully.
"But don't get the wrong idea. Like I said, my sister is really strict with me. The only reason I'm serialized under her is because my work is objectively better than the other submissions at my level. I fought for that serialization slot fair and square."