Tokyo: Earth Online Manga Artist.

Eri Aragaki brought over a cup of tea from the kitchen and placed it on the coffee table, steam rising gently from the rim.

"Wait a moment, I'll go get the artwork right away."

After speaking, Eri Aragaki turned and walked towards her studio. The studio door was open, and warm yellow light shone from inside. Some sketches and tools were piled on the workbench.

Masaya Sakurai picked up his teacup and took a sip. He leaned back on the sofa armrest, planning to wait for Eri Aragaki to bring over the manuscript, quickly flip through it to make sure there were no problems, and then take his leave.

I need to go back to the editorial office later; I need to finalize the follow-up arrangements for the short story section with the editor-in-chief as soon as possible.

As Eri Aragaki entered the studio, several manila document bags were neatly arranged on the worktable.

She's been drawing a lot lately, including the final draft of the Attack on Titan and a practice piece she drew before, which she also put in a file folder next to it.

The two file folders were similar in color and size. The only difference was that she had written the title and page number on the folder for the giant, while the folder for the practice book still had an empty cover.

She reached out and picked up a file folder from the table.

Then he turned and walked out of the studio, handing it to Masaya Sakurai, who was sitting on the sofa.

"Mr. Sakurai, the manuscript is here."

Masaya Sakurai placed the teacup on the coffee table, took the document bag, and untied the zipper.

He pulled out the paintings inside. The first painting was a landscape in the style of splashed ink, with varying shades of ink, completely different from the realistic and dark style of the giant.

He froze for a moment.

Then he turned to another page.

The second page depicts a tall man in ancient costume, dressed in coarse cloth, wearing a bamboo hat, with a angular face, and carrying a cudgel in his hand.

The character lines are drawn using a completely different system from Japanese manga. They are drawn with a brush, with both outlining and texturing techniques. The lines of the clothing are similar to the line drawing technique used in ancient Chinese paintings from the People's Republic of China, which is simple and neat.

Masaya Sakurai had seen some ancient Chinese paintings and calligraphy exhibited in museums, and he recognized this splashed-ink style of traditional Chinese painting at a glance.

However, the way the characters are drawn, such as the nose and eyes, is clearly a cartoon style.

So... is this a completely new painting style that blends traditional Chinese painting with modern comics?

Moreover, two Chinese characters are outlined below in the same bold style...

"Wu Song?"

Masaya Sakurai immediately recognized the meaning of the two Chinese characters and read them aloud.

After all, the four great classical novels of the People's Republic of China are quite famous in Japan. Among them, the most famous and influential is "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Even Japanese elementary school students know the names of Cao Cao, Guan Yu and Zhuge Liang.

Secondly... there's "Water Margin," whose stories of the Liangshan heroes have been translated into Japanese, and it was even adapted into a TV series that aired on NHK more than a decade ago.

The character of Wu Song is especially popular in Japan. His stories of fighting the tiger on Jingyang Ridge, drunkenly beating Jiang Menshen, and bloodshed at the Mandarin Duck Tower fully demonstrate what it means to be a martial god with explosive strength and fierce actions.

Especially the story of avenging his brother, you should know that the Japanese admire revenge and the supremacy of the strong.

Just like the Japanese drama "Hanzawa Naoki," the reason it was so popular is because of the famous revenge-themed line, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Wu Song, a strongman who embodies vengeance to the fullest, perfectly suited the Japanese taste, making him second only to Lin Chong in popularity in Japan.

Just then, Eri Aragaki heard Masaya Sakurai muttering a word and finally realized something was wrong.

She looked closely and realized she had taken the wrong manuscript, so she quickly said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Sakurai, I took the wrong manuscript..."

That's right, she drew the novel "The Star of Heavenly Wounds" that became a minor hit in her previous life. There was even a very popular comment online that said, "Little Western Paradise can't produce a real Monkey King, but the fake Water Margin produced a real Wu Song."

Of course, there are some special reasons for this book. She didn't draw the colored parts in the beginning of the story, and the image of Wu Song in the beginning and the later Wu Song is somewhat disconnected and he is too cowardly.

Therefore, in the beginning, she mostly depicted Wu Song in the comics as the real Wu Song from the later part of the story.

"Pear Teacher..."

However, Masaya Sakurai raised his hand and asked, "Can I continue reading this manga?"

"Um... okay."

What else could Eri Aragaki say? She could only go along with Masaya Sakurai and then said...

Meanwhile, Natsume Akane and Erina, who were standing nearby, also became curious and glanced at the manga from a distance...

It is clearly not a drawing of the giant.

Then they looked at Eri Aragaki, wondering when she had drawn this manga.

This was, after all, a work created on a whim by Eri Aragaki in her spare time, intended only as practice for her writing.

Moreover, she felt that there was no rush to submit the manuscript, so why should she ask Natsume Akane and Erina for help?

Therefore, Natsume Akane and the others were completely unaware of the creation of this work, "Wu Song".

And so, Masaya Sakurai began to patiently watch the novel "Wu Song" in front of him, from the young hero who returned after fighting the tiger to reunite with his elder brother's family, to the secret collusion between Ximen Qing and Pan Jinlian...

Then Wu Song went on another long journey, but when he returned, he could only see his little niece crying and his elder brother's memorial tablet...

Then, in a fit of rage, he drew his sword and charged toward the Ximen residence.

And what Sakurai Masaya saw next was...

Wu Song charged in from outside the door, his blade flashing in an arc under the moonlight. The entire drawing was rendered in pure black ink, without any halftone dots or grayscale; it was just pure black ink and the white of the paper.

But the overwhelming murderous aura and sense of oppression seemed to break through the artwork!

That really makes Wu Song in the comics look like "a demon lord descended from heaven, a true god of war on earth!"

The inevitable outcome was that the arrogant Ximen Qing, Wang Po, and Pan Jinlian were beheaded by Wu Song and their heads were offered as a sacrifice before Wu Dalang's spirit tablet.

Eri Aragaki was too lazy to draw those frustrating and boring plots, especially since she drew these in a super creative state, so she drew them very skillfully, directly hitting the enjoyable parts.

There might be some build-up at the beginning, but the rest of the film is non-stop entertainment until you're completely satisfied.

So even after watching it, Masaya Sakurai was unable to come back to his senses for a long time.

Because he felt a sense of exhilaration he hadn't felt in a long time, the kind of feeling of witnessing Wu Song go from being a spirited young man to the murder of Wu Dalang, whom he considered his elder brother like a father, and then the pent-up frustration he suffered, culminating in a complete release at the end.

He felt the exhilarating sense of revenge, a sense of satisfaction that resonated deeply with him!

He felt a long-lost surge of passion welling up in his chest, and he felt that no one could remain calm after reading this comic.

It took him several seconds to come to his senses.

Then Masaya Sakurai looked at Eri Aragaki and said, "Riri-sensei, you created this manga, right?"

"That's right..."

Eri Aragaki nodded, then said, "Mr. Sakurai, what's this...?"

She had a vague idea of ​​what was going on, and therefore felt a little expectant.

Masaya Sakurai then nodded and said, "It's like this... I'm in charge of next week's short manga section, but unfortunately, the manga artist whose work was scheduled to be serialized had an accident and is in the hospital..."

"I was thinking that there might be a temporary gap in this week's short comics."

He sighed and said, "So, teacher, you should have realized by now that I just read your 'Wu Song,' and it's of very high quality. I'm thinking of having your comic temporarily take over for serialization next week..."

Teacher, what's your opinion?

"sure!"

Eri Aragaki immediately nodded excitedly in agreement.