Starting as a Manga Chapter 25: Intuition

Bang—

Tang Yao had just turned around and walked a few steps when she heard the crash of papers, folders, and other items being slamd off the desk behind her.

Clearly, Ding Yilong had lost it.

But Tang Yao didn’t even bother to look back. Honestly, even though she had ntally prepared herself, knowing this Editor-in-Chief was a despicable person…

She still didn’t expect him to be this shaless.

Just two days ago, she had personally reported the problem with Ou Congquan, and not only did he ignore it, but now he had the nerve to dump the bla on her?

And with that ridiculous attitude of, “What the h*ll did you write? Explain this to

right now, and co up with a fix.”

As an Editor-in-Chief?

Readers have already been fed sh*t.

Now that the pressure’s mounting, now he wants to deal with it?

What a f***ing joke!

Elsewhere.

Shang Tao looked at Tang Yao’s departing figure, then turned to look at Ding Yilong, his face full of shock. It was hard to tell whether he was more stunned by Tang Yao daring to challenge her superior, or by Ding Yilong’s blatant refusal to read the manuscript—even after being warned by the editor.

“You saw that, right?”

Ding Yilong seed to notice Shang Tao’s gaze, his body suddenly tensing. Then he slowly turned his head, panting with rage.

“This is the kind of editor I have under ! Completely out of control! I don’t know what HR was thinking, assigning soone like her to the editorial departnt. But the kind of plot Mr. Ou ca up with—there’s no way she’s not involved! My biggest regret is putting her in charge of our magazine’s star mangaka. I’ll be pushing for her dismissal imdiately.

People like her are a cancer to the entire editorial departnt! When there’s a problem, she doesn’t think of fixing it first—no, she just shirks responsibility and talks back to her superior. If the Vice President saw an editor like this with his own eyes, I bet he’d imdiately understand why everything went to sh*t!”

“……”

Shang Tao frowned as he listened to Ding Yilong’s rant.

He could understand the instinct to cover one’s own a**.

After all, people are selfish by nature.

But to completely lose an argunt just now—unable to get a word in edgewise—and then, the mont the other person leaves, start deflecting bla like nothing ever happened?

It was just… laughable.

Does he think everyone else is blind?

Shang Tao couldn’t help but say, “I rember you personally interviewed every editor before they were hired.”

No legit company would allow soone to be inserted into a departnt without the head knowing.

“That was a misjudgnt on my part.”

“……”

Shang Tao didn’t respond after that.

Because combined with what Tang Yao had just said, it made him realize sothing.

This Ding Yilong… might actually be the most unreliable person in the entire editorial departnt!

So he wasn’t interested in engaging with him anymore. Instead, he turned his gaze to Tang Yao’s retreating figure and fell into deep thought.

He had poured so much effort into this website project. Saying he wasn’t pissed about this situation would be a lie.

At this point, he felt like killing both Ding Yilong and Ou Congquan!

Releasing a controversial plot right now, stirring up readers’ emotions—what kind of dumb*ss move is that?

Even if they had just waited one more week—just one f***ing week!

But what’s done is done. Complaining now was pointless. The question was—how to fix this?

He really, really didn’t want to delay the website launch. Because internally, not everyone in the company supported the new dia direction… if it weren’t for Vice President Zhao Fangsheng standing his ground, the site wouldn’t have even gotten this far. The whole project might’ve been killed in its cradle.

If they really had to delay now, so many variables could arise. Who the hell knows what might happen next?

But at the sa ti… the publishing house prioritized content above all else. Profit above all else. He had no authority—nor the right—to interfere with how the content departnt’s mangaka created their work. But he also couldn’t just pretend nothing was happening. Especially not if Ou Congquan’s next chapters kept heading in the sa sh*tty direction.

If they went ahead with the big “AORI” teaser that Zhao had planned, to try calming down readers…

And the next issue still turned out to be garbage?

Then he’d be the one strung up next.

This trip to the editorial departnt was supposed to help him get so clarity from the managing editor.

Instead, he’d walked into that scene…

Co to think of it.

Can one little AORI line really calm readers down and shift their attention to the manga awards? Or the upcoming site launch?

Doesn’t seem likely.

Delaying still feels like the right move—wait for the dust to settle, then regroup…

Shang Tao rubbed his temples, ready to throw in the towel.

But just as that thought surfaced—

The faces of those high-level executives who had strongly opposed the online manga site flashed through his mind.

“…No.”

Shang Tao imdiately lowered his hand and fird up his resolve again.

The launch schedule for the website and the manga award must not be delayed.

He looked once more in the direction Tang Yao had gone, then ignored whatever Ding Yilong was still babbling about, striding away purposefully.

He didn’t know much about the editorial departnt, and this editor nad Tang Yao—this was the first ti they’d ever t.

But he did know Ding Yilong… and just like Tang Yao said, once you’ve worked with soone long enough, it becos obvious who’s competent, who’s cunning, who’s a slacker, and who’s just a complete a**hole…

And Ding Yilong? No doubt about it—he’s the a**hole type!

And that whole exchange just now? It only confird that.

He wasn’t deaf or blind—he’d heard everything Ding Yilong said, and he didn’t want to hear another word. Compared to him, the “villain” Tang Yao sounded way more trustworthy.

At least Tang Yao had caught the problem back in the storyboard phase. She even tried to persuade Mr. Ou to revise it. Combine that with the AORI teaser… maybe—just maybe—she had a solution?

Whether it was convincing Ou to make changes or sothing else… it was worth a shot.

It was just a gut feeling—but there were no better options right now.

As he mulled over this, Shang Tao picked up his pace and headed toward Tang Yao.

anwhile.

Ding Yilong was still offloading bla when he suddenly noticed Shang Tao had left. He froze for a mont, then quickly turned around—only to see Shang Tao heading directly toward Tang Yao.

His face instantly turned black as the bottom of a pot.

He realized imdiately: Tang Yao’s words had swayed Shang Tao.

And Shang Tao was sent here by Vice President Zhao…

The thought made Ding Yilong’s breath catch. His expression twisted with rage, and after glaring daggers at Tang Yao’s empty desk, he snatched up his phone.

Then—

He unlocked it, opened his contacts, and stared at Ou Congquan’s na. His expression dark and uncertain, as if weighing his next move.

anwhile again.

Tang Yao had returned to her desk. After taking a mont to collect herself and push aside the unpleasantness, she pulled out her sketch paper.

She’d run into plenty of ssy office drama in her previous life too—just not quite this intense, and the bosses back then weren’t this much of an idiot.

Maybe it had sothing to do with that Sakura Prefecture Autonomous Region in this parallel world?

Tang Yao didn’t get it, and didn’t really want to waste ntal energy figuring it out. Thinking about it too much would only confuse her. After all, she’d lived over twenty years in her previous life… and absolutely nothing about this world’s geography lined up. Better to absorb it all slowly and subconsciously, or one day she might say sothing totally absurd by accident.

Anyway, she didn’t want to waste more ti on that idiot Editor-in-Chief. Her current tasks were wrapped up—might as well focus on drawing Fate/Zero.

Now that even the publishing house was embracing new dia, Tang Yao was seriously worried this parallel world might eventually spawn a gacha mobile ga too. If she lost first-mover advantage, it’d be ga over.

Fate/Zero wasn’t easy to draw, after all.

Most people didn’t know this, but Fate/Zero did have a manga version. But honestly… maybe because the ani was so good, and the manga format had to differentiate itself—it just didn’t hold up by comparison.

The biggest problem? The story was too long…

Tang Yao didn’t have ti to draw fourteen whole volus and slowly unravel the entire story.

By then, forget mobile gas—hell, even the chrysanthemums would’ve withered.

So she leaned toward following the ani’s structure—introduce the main characters in the most concise way possible, then have them summon their Servants together.

But that wasn’t easy.

The Fate series had way too many settings, too many characters. The first episode of the ani was over forty minutes long for a reason. A lot of longti fans probably still rember that infamous “duo exposition scene”… they had no choice but to cram all the info in there.

Tang Yao felt a headache just thinking about it. Thankfully, she had the ani as a reference.

In her previous world, the manga ca after the ani—so adapting the ani directly wouldn’t make much sense. And with how popular Fate/Zero was, who’d even want to read a comic that was identical to the show?

But here, things were different. There was no Fate/Zero ani.

That ant more room to experint.

Still, as she thought about it—comics don’t move. The ani could do “duo exposition,” but how was she supposed to handle that in manga?

Tang Yao was still struggling with that. Her current idea was to do a “duo exposition” scene… but still.

“Editor Tang?”

Tang Yao was deep in thought, staring at her sketch paper.

Suddenly, a voice called out.

“……”

She snapped out of it and found Director Shang Tao standing beside her.

“Director Shang, what can I do for you?”

“I’d like to ask about the future direction of Mr. Ou’s series,” Shang Tao said, pausing to choose his words carefully. “If possible, could you tell

a bit about it?”

“…Sure.”

Tang Yao had issues with that good-for-nothing Editor-in-Chief, but she had no problem with Shang Tao. He’d been polite, so she didn’t hesitate and started explaining Ou Congquan’s upcoming plans.

Put simply—it was going to suck.

“……”

Shang Tao went silent after hearing the absurd plot Ou had in mind. After a long pause, he finally asked, “So what were you thinking, when you wrote that promotional tagline?”

“Soone just asked

that a while ago. Honestly, it was part editor’s duty, part pity… readers are getting screwed.”

Tang Yao didn’t hide anything, speaking casually: “I thought there were better ways to handle this plot. Without even changing Ou Congquan’s ideas, there were more suitable ways to present it. But unfortunately, neither my suggestions nor anything else I gave him were read.

Reporting it to our Editor-in-Chief did nothing either.

Which led to this ss.

That AORI line was a last resort. I knew the readers were going to explode, but I had no way to stop it. So I added that AORI—to give them a shred of hope. It was also a subtle warning, a potential lifeline. If Ou sees the readers’ reaction, sees how bad the story is, maybe the AORI could nudge him into rethinking things. After all, it’s a biweekly series, and there’s still ti. The chances are slim—but not zero.”

“……”

Shang Tao was briefly stunned. Then he sighed in admiration. This Editor Tang… was way more dependable than Ding Yilong. By a mile.

And seriously—Ding Yilong was such a f*ing ahole.

But before he could dwell on that thought, his energy drained like a popped balloon. “Slim chances, huh… So you don’t think he’ll change?”

While sketching on the paper, Tang Yao replied offhandedly, “Unlikely. He’s a stubborn and arrogant mangaka.”

“Then that ans we’ll have to delay after all…” Shang Tao rubbed his temples again. “So all the effort we’ve put in up to now… will just go down the drain? The website and manga award are about to launch. All the channels are ready. And now this…”

“……”

The pen on Tang Yao’s sketchpad suddenly paused.

That one seemingly ordinary comnt from Shang Tao suddenly made sothing click in her mind.

She looked at the word “Promotion” scrawled at the top of her page, tilted her head, and suddenly—bing—a spark went off in her mind. Her eyes lit up.

“Director Shang.”

Tang Yao’s thoughts surged. After a while, she forced herself to calm down, then slowly looked up and asked, “You’re the Director of New dia, right?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

Shang Tao looked down at the young, beautiful girl in front of him, a bit puzzled by her sudden question.

“Actually…”

A warm smile slowly spread across Tang Yao’s fair and flawless face. “I have a suggestion. Would you be willing to hear it?”

Promotional windows.Distribution channels.Copyright issues.The answers to all of these might be right in front of them.