Starting as a Manga Chapter 22: Impact

That latest chapter from Mr. Ou, the one he staked his entire career on, really did shock the readers like never before.But… it wasn’t the kind of shock they wanted.

After all, while the system here is relatively mature, this world isn’t Japan from Tang Yao’s past life.This kind of abrupt twist and explosive developnt—readers here still aren’t ready for that.It just ca off as garbage.

So the readers’ outrage… ended up even worse than Tang Yao had imagined.They’d already started taking their anger out on the manga award.

The planning departnt at Wenxin Press had co up with what they thought was a great strategy: using the latest issue of big comic and the release days of other company magazines to have serializing mangaka promote the internally-hyped “Wenxin Manga Award” on their personal social dia.

This way, they could both use quality ongoing works to endorse the award, and also have respected mangaka help advertise it.Like, “Look, even the creators serializing in our company magazines are recomnding this award!”“If they’re backing it, the works submitted to the award should be worth checking out too, right?”“And if you want to beco a mangaka, why not try entering this award that veterans themselves are recomnding?”

It all sounded great.But then… their star manga blew up.

And that’s where things got ugly. big comic wasn’t just the best-selling magazine in the entire publishing house—it was the most important one.And The Girl, the Boy, and the Sword by Mr. Ou? Easily the most popular series in big comic.For a magazine that ranks top five in the industry in sales, imagine how many readers were following it just for that one series.

Now that The Girl, the Boy, and the Sword pulled a stunt like this, readers were absolutely losing their sh*t!

First, they flooded Mr. Ou’s social dia, racking up over ten thousand replies in just two hours.Then, probably because Mr. Ou’s last post was an ad for the manga award—and other mangaka were posting similar promotional content at the sa ti—those pissed-off, emotionally wrecked readers saw that Mr. Ou wasn’t responding, so they went off on the other mangaka’s social dia accounts too.Didn’t matter who it was—they just started cursing everyone!

These emotional outbursts were a huge pain to deal with... and by the end, the readers had even started organizing mass attacks on every post related to the manga award!

A prize that had basically nothing to do with it ended up taking all the heat just because of Mr. Ou’s “brilliant” move.So of the more rational readers were at least directing their hate at Ou Congquan and Wenxin Press under other mangaka’s posts.But the irrational ones? They flad everyone. Even the manga award itself! And the hate just kept spreading.

“Your top mangaka draws that kind of cr*p and you still have the nerve to hold a manga award?!”

Comnts like that were going viral fast.

Before long, several mangaka who’d posted those ads started noticing what was happening—and were completely dumbfounded.

By noon, the entire editorial departnt was ringing with nonstop phone calls.Editor-in-Chief Ding, who had just arrived at the office, was pulled away imdiately by an urgent call, looking absolutely grim.

No one knew exactly what had happened at first.But as editors picked up the phones and heard frustrated complaints from the mangaka who’d been asked to post ads, it started to click.

Sothing had gone seriously wrong.

And many eyes turned to a particular desk near the door.Tang Yao’s desk.

“If you want to delete your post, go ahead. I wouldn’t recomnd it, though. I haven’t received any official notice… Besides, they’re not cursing you or your work. Just pretend you didn’t see it.”

Tang Yao was on the phone too—talking to another mangaka under her care: Shao Changqing.

Obviously, his social dia had been affected too.

Tang Yao, however, was completely calm. After offering her advice, she hung up and slumped back in her chair, looking tired.

She knew a storm was coming.But she hadn’t expected to get caught in the bloodbath right away.

What a f***ing hassle.

“Editor Tang… do you think that damn old Ou guy has a twist planned later on?”

At that mont, Kang Ming, seeing her end the call, cautiously asked her.

“If you an the next chapter—no, there’s no twist.”

Tang Yao turned to him.

“I checked as soon as I saw the storyboard. Back then, our relationship hadn’t soured yet, so he gave

a rough outline of what’s next. The ‘escape arc’ is going to run for five or six more chapters. Then the male lead will return as a spirit…But even when he cos back, it’s not like things get better. Looks like Ou’s trying to explore so philosophical stuff about human nature or sothing.So for at least two months, this situation isn’t going to improve.

That’s also why I kept begging him not to go this route.If he could pull off a smart twist, I wouldn’t be against it.But he clearly never even considered that.”

Kang Ming hesitated.

“Then that tagline you wrote for promotion…”

“I was just trying to be professional and give readers a shred of hope out of pity. I can’t control what he draws—and frankly, I don’t want to.”

Tang Yao replied offhandedly.

“If he’s dead set on this path, then it’s not my problem… My guess? Mr. Ou’s going to double down. Arrogant people rarely wake up unless sothing external forces them to.”

“So the readers are basically gonna eat sh*t for two straight months…”

Kang Ming glanced at his phone, then looked like he’d seen death.

“Yeah, let them tear him apart then.”

“Honestly, reader pressure is the least of it. The real problem is that the manga award got caught in the crossfire. Managent pressure is going to hit hard soon… Let’s see how they deal with it.”

Tang Yao stood up, getting ready to grab so food.

“You should go eat too. You just joined—you can’t change anything right now. Thinking about it won’t help.”