I turned reality into a romantic comedy.

The more Zhu Wenyun delved into the path of writing, the more she came to appreciate the truth that "there is a golden house in books." After all, before she began writing, she had never even left her small county of Guoning. But in just a few years, she had already been to Xuancheng, Hefei, and Beijing, and this year she even had the opportunity to go to Shanghai. For her, this was, in a sense, reading ten thousand books and traveling ten thousand miles.

But even if you have a golden house, what about a beautiful woman?

The girl on the back of the bicycle pressed her forehead against the back of the boy in front. Her complicated thoughts and strands of hair were blown long in the evening breeze, yet it felt as if the wind was pushing her towards him.

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This was probably the liveliest day in the entire club activity room since Chen Junqian founded the literary society at Ningzhong School.

If we only look at the issue from the perspective of romantic comedies, the club in front of him probably approaches or even surpasses the club settings in a series of romantic comedy works in terms of its members, such as the Service Club (My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As Expected), the Neighbors Club (Haganai), the Game Creation Club (Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend), the Girls' Club that Performs Their Own Lives (My Girlfriend and Childhood Friend's Tragic Love Triangle), the Far East Magic Nap Club (Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions), and so on. However, reality is obviously different from romantic comedies.

If you asked Chen Junqian, who can be considered an "anime expert," to summarize why a club is essential in a romantic comedy, he could probably write down several reasons as if he were writing an article.

First and foremost, it is a closed and intimate space, namely the club's activity room. This secret base, which is semi-isolated from the outside world but is indeed inside the campus, is usually the stage for characters to take off their disguises and show their true selves. The aloof beauties and eccentric people in the eyes of ordinary people, or even the socially awkward people who have no presence, can show different sides of themselves here.

Then there's the gathering place for eccentrics. If it were a romantic comedy set, then each member of the group would have to possess some kind of 'flaw' or 'uniqueness'. When these traits collide, they will create sparks of emotion and comedy.

Finally, the purpose of this club is likely to be vague and ambiguous, leaving people scratching their heads. For example, there's the Service Club to solve troubles, the Neighbor Club to help people make friends, and all sorts of other random clubs whose purpose and goals are completely unknown. This provides freedom for the wildly imaginative plot development, and then, as a certain romantic comedy protagonist said, after making a mess of everything, one can naturally say, "Hahaha, this is youth!"

However, on the other hand, after reading Maruto Fumiaki's latest light novel, "Saekano: How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend," which he and Gu Linguo both liked, Chen Junqian felt that a clear, at least superficially clear, goal was also necessary. Just like his previous goal of publishing a school magazine, it would at least effectively keep everyone busy during that period.

If everyone has nothing to do, they will most likely end up like the person in front of him.

Some were huddled under the bookshelves wearing earplugs, seemingly cosplaying as some kind of gloomy literary girl, but actually just reviewing Chinese characters and vocabulary. Others were operating the multimedia equipment in the classroom, trying to spread the charm and glory of anime and manga to everyone. Some were sitting there curiously looking at the bookshelves for any history books that interested them. Some were trying their best to act like hosts, bringing out snacks and drinks to entertain the new members. And some were doing nothing at all, just sitting on the sofa with their knees drawn up, chin in hand, lost in thought. In short, everyone was doing their own thing.

However, Chen Junqian was somewhat prepared for this, so after first going on stage to expel a girl who was about to give a speech on "Top 50 Anime You Must Watch in Your Lifetime" right there in the activity room, he cleared his throat and, as the head and minister of the entire club, put forward his idea:

"Let's make an animation!"

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Chapter 77: Their Own Jobs (Bonus Chapter 6/40)

Of course, unlike the male protagonist in a certain light novel who decides to make a galgame around the female protagonist just because of a momentary flutter of the heart on a slope, without actually having any other plans or preparations, Chen Junqian's ability to say "Let's make an animation" to a group of junior high school students at this moment still indicates that he has a certain plan.

However, for the other girls in the activity room besides him, these words were obviously a bit shocking. After all, in their minds, animation was mostly the kind that was labeled as a "52-episode long TV animation" and broadcast on CCTV's children's channel. It didn't seem like something that a group of students could make. But for Gu Lingguo, who had a little understanding of the animation production industry because of her interest in the Japanese animation circle, she quickly followed Chen Junqian's train of thought and began to think along the lines of what he said.

Regardless of their actual abilities, at least in terms of the members, it seems that each person is a perfect fit for their role.

At least the animators and screenwriters are easy to find here; the rest are voice actors and animation production staff...

Before Gu Lingguo could begin her brainstorming session, Chen Junqian once again offered further explanations to the still bewildered group:

"Don't think that this is something we can't accomplish. Actually, animation isn't just the kind of animation we see on TV. There are many different forms of animation. Of course, we can't start by doing something with particularly high standards and high difficulty. If I were to give an analogy, you can think of it as doing a dubbed version of a comic."

In September 2013, before the original feature-length anime "Shirobako," produced by PA Works and depicting the behind-the-scenes aspects of animation production, was even born, Chen Junqian was naturally unaware that the last animation club that dreamed of creating an animation during their student days had produced an 'anime' with chaotic dubbing, mostly PowerPoint presentations, extremely rudimentary characters and battle scenes, and that failed to attract much audience interest at the cultural festival. However, he did have more social experience than students, so he never thought of achieving success overnight.

The most important thing in anything is to play to your strengths and avoid your weaknesses. The barrel effect is not always applicable to everything. If Chen Junqian were to find a real-world template for the animation he wants to make, it would probably be something like the black-and-white stop-motion animation "Kou Shui San Guo" that will be released online around this time next year. It tells an interesting and memorable story with low cost and low technical capabilities.

As I said before, the current era has been transforming from television animation to online animation. The internet is indeed a huge stage where you can come and use any meme you have, and this vast blue ocean has great potential in this regard.

Moreover, he wasn't entirely without technical equipment or professional support. The three fierce squirrels that had begun to grow were Chen Junqian's strongest backing. From the moment they chose the three cartoon squirrels as the company's brand logo, the path of animation was already laid out in front of them. This path of integrating IP creation, research, production, and sales is one of the most common phenomena of this era, and animation is the most convenient adaptation.

Toy manufacturers can produce animations, such as those for four-wheel drive cars, yo-yos, or more complex pinball launchers. Mobile game manufacturers can also produce animations, such as "Burning Vegetables," which is currently sweeping the domestic tower defense market. Even offline physical theme parks can produce animations. For example, Fantawild theme parks in Wuhu, which Chen Junqian himself often visited with his family when he was a child, have their parent company, Fantawild Holdings Inc., which has already developed "Boonie Bears" in recent years and will further integrate and market the two in the future.

The Three Fierce Dogs were no exception, so the company had also begun to set up relevant departments. As a result, the problems that were most difficult for ordinary animation enthusiasts to solve, such as equipment, venues, and funding, were the easiest to solve for them. They had readily available solutions, and all they needed to do was...

"It's just a matter of writing a decent story, designing decent character designs, drawing them, and then doing decent voice-over. You can leave all the post-production work to me, and then everyone can see an animation that we made ourselves."

Children's literature and animation are always inseparable. After all, a significant portion of children's animated films are adapted from children's literature and have become classic memories for a generation. Whether it's "Shuke and Beta," which Chen Junqian still regrets about, as it was only a small part of the original work that was adapted and there was no sequel, or "Magic Cube Building," which became a childhood nightmare for many children, Yang Hongying's "Naughty Boy Ma Xiaotiao" and Ge Bing's "Blue-skinned Mouse and Big-faced Cat" also have animated adaptations. Therefore, when discussing this topic, Chen Junqian is definitely full of enthusiasm, and can even be described as beaming with excitement.

However, his behavior was interpreted in various ways by the girls.

For Lin Mu and Chen Xi, although they still didn't understand what role they should play or what responsibilities they should bear in this job or club activity, seeing their childhood friend/brother so happy and enthusiastic was enough as a reason. After all, neither of them had any lofty ideals, and this daily routine was the best situation. Moreover, compared to this matter, they were now more concerned about how to wake up.

In Xu Youwei's eyes, this was undoubtedly Chen Junqian's response to her confession at the beginning of last year. His original words were, "If Youyou wants to be a comic artist in the future, I will be your screenwriter. If you want to be a game illustrator, I will be your copywriter. Any other profession is fine, as long as I can help. But if I need Youyou's help in the future, you are not allowed to refuse me." Now he has mentioned something that can be seen as comic voice acting, and she is trying to move in the direction of comic artist. It is hard not to think about the implications when they are combined.

Similar thoughts weren't limited to Xu Youwei. After all, Zhu Wenyun also had a similar agreement with Chen Junqian to write a book for her later. Thinking about it this way, the script for this animation seemed more like a test given to her by the other party. Of course, she knew that Chen Junqian was very interested in and fond of animations adapted from children's literature. After all, compared to words, images and sounds would undoubtedly enhance the viewing experience. Even she herself sometimes wondered what it would be like to see the stories she wrote about herself and the other person become animated, and what it would be like to hear those lines spoken by the real people.

Unlike Zhu Wenyun, who had almost never been exposed to Japanese anime, Gu Lingguo's first thought was naturally the world of anime and manga. She couldn't draw, wasn't good at writing, and wasn't good with computers either. So, the most suitable position for her was voice actress (voice acting). She had recently been reading the manga "That's Voice Acting!" by a husband-and-wife manga artist. In addition, Gu Lingguo liked to watch various TV animations related to voice actors and their behind-the-scenes stories. She had even asked Chen Junqian to translate many related clips herself. So, almost as soon as she heard that Chen Junqian was going to make an animation, she immediately put herself in the position of a voice actress.

"As for the subject matter, historical stories and myths are all possibilities, such as the Three Kingdoms or Journey to the West. In terms of style, we can lean towards the nonsensical and humorous direction of 'Unexpectedly.' Everyone should first think about what they are willing and able to do in this area, and then come to me and talk to me. That's all I have to say for now."

For Chen Junqian himself, besides needing to give the restless female protagonists around him something to do—whose "battleground in progress" achievements would flash faster when they were together—the main reason was that he genuinely wanted to try more things during his middle school years that he had wanted to try in his previous life but hadn't been able to. In this respect, he was probably the kind of "normie" who, under the guise of "youth," could recklessly and carelessly make a mess of everything, just like in Hachiman Hikigaya's essays.

But so be it. The male protagonist of the romantic comedy, in reality, would be the ultimate socialite who easily attracts everyone's attention, and a super scumbag who has ambiguous relationships with multiple girls at the same time. Otherwise, the system wouldn't have specially prepared achievements like "Campus Popularity" for him.

Of course, since Chen Junqian and Zhu Wenyun also had to prepare for the final competition of the "Chinese Character Dictation Competition" this month, the remaining four people were the first to talk about this new animation production activity.

Xu Youwei's position as an illustrator is beyond doubt. However, the group was quite curious about her current drawing skills and the style she was good at. After all, unlike companies that have more than a dozen illustrators, their small group could only rely on Xu Youwei herself as their sole illustrator. In fact, the style of the entire group and the works produced afterward depended entirely on Xu Youwei.

"Although I don't know much about your anime and manga culture, I can still draw basic chibi style drawings."

As she said this, Xu Youwei picked up her pen again and sketched a chibi version of herself on the drawing board in front of her. She then drew Chen Junqian's version as well. Since these had already been exposed to him, there was no need to hide them.

"Are these Weiwei and Qianqian?"

It must be said that Xu Youwei truly possesses a talent for capturing details and achieving a high degree of accuracy in reproduction; she is at least among the best of her peers. Moreover, she put a lot of effort into these two characters, so as soon as she finished drawing them, Lin Mu recognized them with a look of surprise. Xu Youwei nodded proudly and then casually added Mu Mu's image as well.

"And Mu Mu too, the three of us—"

"It's so cute! I've decided! I'm going to pre-order this from Vivi for my birthday next year. It's even cuter than the Heart's Egg from before."

"What, the Egg of the Soul?"

Gu Lingguo, who was extremely sensitive to topics related to anime and manga, immediately caught the word and quickly asked a question.

"It's those Heart Eggs from 'Shugo Chara!' I used to love watching that show, so one year for my birthday, Qianqian and Weiwei went to find two super big goose eggs, painted them to look like the ones in the anime, and secretly put them on my bedside table. I was so happy! But after incubating them for a whole day, none of them hatched into the little spirit that I could transform into..."

"and after?"

"It broke and was thrown away, which was a real shame."

"That's such a pity."

After confirming that Xu Youwei's painting skills seemed to be fine, Gu Linguo then proactively brought up the job she wanted to participate in:

"I want to be a voice actor!"

"Voice actor?"

The other three people, who were completely unfamiliar with the term, tilted their heads in unison, so Gu Linguo had no choice but to switch to a more common domestic term:

"It's voice acting, voicing characters in animation. After all, we're not making a silent film or anything like that, so there will definitely be voice acting. That's what I want to do. Although voice actors in China aren't very famous and people don't usually pay much attention to them, Japanese voice actors are quite famous. There are even fans who specifically watch anime voiced by their favorite voice actors."

"Is a voice really that captivating? I don't think I ever really noticed it before. If I had to say, I'd only ever thought of foreign animated shows like 'Jackie Chan Adventures' or 'Detective Conan' where there are so many people with the same voices talking back and forth..."

"This is because there are too few voice actors. One person often has to voice several characters. However, some voice actors have very nice and distinctive voices, and their acting skills are also very powerful and expressive. Sometimes you can't tell that two completely different characters are voiced by the same person, and then you feel very shocked."

As she spoke, Gu Linguo lowered her voice again and whispered:

"Actually, I like voice actors and voice acting because of my senior. He said a long time ago that he wanted me to say the same lines as the characters in the anime. That would definitely require similar tone and acting skills, so I would sometimes secretly learn from him."

Lin Mu and Xu Youwei, who knew very little about animation and voice acting, still looked like they only vaguely understood. However, Chen Xi, who had been to a comic convention once, suddenly remembered that Gu Lingguo seemed to have said something similar on the way back, except that at that time it was about cosplay.

Why does my brother like Lin Guo to wear the same clothes as in the animation and say the same lines in the same tone and with the same emotions?

However, among all the anime series, Chen Xi seems to only know the name of Sword Art Online, which she learned about after seeing her brother wearing a cosplay outfit at a comic convention.

Hmm...it seems there were others too.

I remember there was a guy at the entrance that day whose phone's memo page was always lit up and scrolling around. I think he was selling pirated anime resources. What were the names of the two anime he wrote down there?

Is it fate or emptiness?

P.S.: Thank you for reading and subscribing.

PS2: As mentioned in this chapter, you can refer to the production standards and presentation style of "Kou Shui San Guo" for the first animation of this book club. This is also a work that I really liked during my middle school years.

Chapter 78: It's done, bro!

In September 2013, besides studying and club activities, Chen Junqian also had a great time with his friends, making up for the entire summer he missed.

While in romantic comedies, best friends or close buddies are usually either reckless, lecherous characters who only briefly appear at crucial moments to advance the plot, or they become the "Hey, fellow countryman, you have a sister too" kind of brother-in-law, such scenarios are rare in reality. After all, in an era before the two-child policy was officially implemented, almost all of Chen Junqian's classmates and friends were only children like him, and none of them had a sister.

It's tiring to always hang out with girls. Guys have their own topics to talk about. After all, he's not some real-life romantic comedy protagonist living in a two-dimensional world. He won't just revolve around girls. That's what this weekend is all about.

This Saturday was the day Zhong Yu had arranged to have a three-hundred-round battle with the League of Legends team from the next class. However, due to the performance of a certain reborn person who was a pity not to save Chinese e-sports, after using Zed and Riven to combine fifty stacks of the Bloodthirster, the opponent was already defeated within an hour, their Dao Heart shattered and they surrendered. So Zhong Yu simply invited Chen Junqian and Lu Cheng to his house to watch the World Championship with him tonight.

That's right. By mid-September, the World Championship had already started. In 2013, which was the S3 season of League of Legends, the two teams from the Chinese region were Royal Club and OMG. However, Zhong Yu didn't really like either of them. His favorite team was WE. The main reason was that when the three of them first started playing League of Legends, it was right when the "Ultraman Team" had just won the IPL5 World Championship and was being heavily promoted everywhere. This made Zhong Yu think that WE had won the S2 World Championship last year. But after waiting for a year, there was only one WE icon in the client, and the champion skin was named Assassin Star.

Of course, for Zhong Yu now, although WE failed to make it to this year's World Championship, the five best players in the world, including Meishen, Nuodao, Ruofeng, Dawang, and Juanmao, will definitely be able to make it to the World Championship again next year. As for Royal Club and OMG, one is a team with a ridiculously flamboyant style from its name to its players, and the other is a team with a strangely rustic style. It's really hard to have any expectations for them. After all, this year, from the Asian Indoor Games to the All-Star Game to the WCG, domestic teams have lost too many times and too badly. It's almost become a habit.

However, for Chen Junqian, who already knew what was going to happen, looking at those familiar IDs on the computer screen at this moment and thinking about their future careers and fates naturally made him feel a little sentimental, especially since Zhong Yu and Lu Cheng beside him were still completely unaware and were discussing whether OMG, which was in the same group as SKT, could beat them.

"Although SKT is only the third seed from Korea this time, they are the Summer Split champions. They are the KTB who came back from 0-2 down to win 3-2. Faker completely dominated YueLun. That video of the double Zed combo has been on LOL Box for over a week and it still hasn't been taken down. I think they are the world champions this year."

For Zhong Yu, KTB, who defeated his team WE at the Asian Indoor Games this year, was undoubtedly a formidable opponent that he was still brooding over. Therefore, SKT, who had defeated KTB twice in the Summer Split Finals and the Regional Finals, was naturally the strongest of the strong. So he started by predicting that OMG would lose.

"But you can't predict the outcome of a match. I think OMG is very strong. They have the leader Gogoing, the cunning strategist Lingyao, the reliable Wutai, and the stable bot lane duo Xiaosan and Youzi. The Korean team isn't invincible, and it's a best-of-one match, so it's hard to say who will win or lose."

Unlike Zhong Yu, whose home team is WE, Lu Cheng has always been the type to support whoever represents the region. So he immediately refuted this kind of talk that boosted the morale of others and diminished his own. When neither side could reach an agreement, they both turned their attention to Chen Junqian, who was eating potato chips, wanting to hear the opinion of this LOL expert.

"SKT is indeed very strong, and I agree that they are likely to be this year's champions, but OMG certainly has a chance to win."

"...It feels like I said nothing at all. Give me a straight answer. I bet SKT will win this game. If they lose, I'll give you guys a skin so you don't have to keep using the skin-changing function on the app to fool yourselves. If you lose, you'll have to feed me until I get a godlike streak in the next ranked game. How about that?"

"Then I'll bet on OMG to win, but it's too hard to feed you to godlike status. Last time I finally got a seven-kill streak, and then someone flashed in the wrong direction and got hit by Caitlyn's ultimate. Speechless."

After Zhong Yu and Lu Cheng each placed their bets on one side, Chen Junqian nodded in agreement.

"Then I'll bet on OMG. As for skins, wait until next year when you can buy me the SKT championship skin."

"Damn, I don't even understand which side you support anymore. If OMG can beat SKT, then they also have a chance to win the championship, right? Okay, okay, the match has started, let's watch the match."

Forty minutes later, accompanied by Zhong Yu's painful cry, "Damn, SKT can really lose! No way, Faker's 4-1-2 record, and they still managed to feed us to defeat with these idiot teammates!" the first match of this year's World Championship group stage came to an end. Chen Junqian simply grumbled about it with a hint of annoyance:

"Stop with 4-1-2. Even though I killed 19 people with Ahri last night, I still couldn't win with you. This time, SKT's top and jungle only managed a 0-10 combined kill. You and your girlfriend died more than 10 times each last night."

"Ahem, I think it's related to our team's tactics. The squad leader always protects you in the mid lane, while Xu Youwei in the top lane never uses her ultimate skill on me, the ADC. So what can we do?"

"Well, there's nothing I can do about it. Ever since I teamed up with you guys, the advice I've received has been 'Mid lane is the boss.' You should probably just call yourself the AD carry, since I've never seen you carry before."

"Don't rush, once I've mastered Vayne, I'll easily carry you to victory."

"Is this your first time playing Vayne with E max? That's impressive, just like when I first saw you play Miss Fortune with E max. If you don't know how to allocate skill points next time, ask Chen Junqian. Promise me you won't say something like 'Let's hunt down those people in the darkness' while you're crawling on the ground like a dog. Your idols, WeiXiao and Uzi, would cry if they saw that."

After a noisy chat about the competition, Lu Cheng, who had just gotten a new skin, leisurely lay on the sofa and started talking about something else that happened at school:

"We should be able to move into the chemistry lab next month."

After entering the second year of junior high school, they had to take physics and chemistry as additional subjects. As the class monitor, Lu Cheng also served as the class representative for chemistry, so he was definitely the first to know about this subject.

"Damn, I've heard that our school has a chemistry lab, but I've never been inside. What are we going to do in there next month? Is there concentrated sulfuric acid in there? I remember reading in some novel that the villain used this stuff to disfigure people."

Chen Junqian rolled his eyes at Zhong Yu's sudden burst of energy.

"You really didn't listen to a single lesson? According to the course schedule, you should be doing experiments related to oxygen production and ignition, right? Even if there was concentrated sulfuric acid, they wouldn't let you touch it, so don't overthink it."