Tokyo Soft Rice King

But the fact that he was willing to go to such lengths to keep Aizono Moeie by his side shows that his recognition of Aizono Moeie's talents has reached an unmatched level.

At least among the three people in the literature and arts club, Aizono Moe is the one that Kuroba Akira likes the most.

That is true impeccable talent.

He was able to praise her without hesitation.

Both of them showed envious expressions, and the fire of jealousy deep in their hearts was ignited.

When a man pays too much attention to one woman and ignores others, no matter the reason, the ignored women will become eager to prove their worth.

Thus, the female competition began.

Chapter 138: A rift appears between best friends

Seeing that Kuroba Akira only cared about Aiono Moe, Shirai Shiori felt very jealous and handed the polished manuscript to him.

"Mingjun, please take a look at the manuscript. I finished polishing the prologue and the first chapter yesterday. Take a look at what I've written... If it's not good enough, I'll take it back for revisions."

In fact, Shiori Shirai is a bit arrogant. She hates others to tamper with her work, but at this moment she is imitating Moe Aizono and putting on a humble attitude of "I am willing to accept all revisions."

"Oh? You've even finished the first chapter? You're pretty fast."

Kuroba Akira was also quite surprised. Shirai Shiori had just started polishing it yesterday, and she had already completed one-fifth of it today. This progress was almost the same as his own when he was rushing to finish the manuscript.

You know, polishing work is sometimes more troublesome than writing the original manuscript because it requires re-conceptualization, which is also called secondary creation.

After all, there are very few unknown story patterns in this world, and the light novel written by Kuroba Akira is not a particularly novel subject.

However, even if it is a similar story, it must be written with a different flavor, which is the so-called new wine in old bottles. The same applies to secondary creation.

Hei Yuming relied on his experience in another world to obtain an extremely large raw stone. Although it would be worth a lot of money if sold as it is, if it could be polished into jade or even carved into a handicraft, the selling price would be even higher.

This requires a strong writing skill that can make the story suspenseful, which depends on Shirai Shiori's writing skills.

"Team Leader, come and take a look too. After all, you are the supervisor."

Hitomi Asato leaned close to Kuroba Akira, put her arm around his shoulder and read the manuscript together, and spoke to Shiori Shirai with her signature smile.

"Okay, then, Shiori, don't blame me for being too picky, okay?"

"I'm not that petty. If you have any opinions, just tell me and I'll make corrections!"

Shirai Shiori pouted. She wasn't afraid of criticism, but she felt that Tong and Mingjun were too close... Although they were good friends, they were still too close.

After reading the chapters polished by Shirai Shiori, Kuroba Akira felt that he had chosen the right person.

After being polished, the fun of this light novel has been raised to a new level.

It also includes some idioms and memes that the time traveler Hei Yuming doesn't understand, but seeing that the squad leader's reaction was a knowing smile, it should be quite interesting.

Just like those storytellers who can interpret the content of the novel vividly, listening to it again has a different flavor.

"Isn't this well done? They didn't change the plot or dialogue, but instead used action descriptions to make the plot more interesting, and the scene transitions became more coherent. It's almost impossible to find fault with it."

In fact, seeing that Shirai Shiori is so serious and accepts things with such an open mind, Kuroba Akira is willing to give her full marks.

"I do have a few suggestions, for example..."

Because she wanted to perform well in front of Kuroba Akira, Anri Hitomi completely disregarded sisterhood and pointed out many problems in details without any hesitation, which made Kuroba Akira feel under great pressure.

Wow, is this going to be entered for an award?

Not really, it's just an entertainment light novel...

What I mean is, why should sisters make things difficult for each other?

Shirai Shiori carefully wrote down these revision suggestions, then turned to Kuroba Akira and asked.

"What about you, Mingjun? Don't you have any other opinions?"

She still cared more about Hei Yuming's opinion. After all, she wanted to show herself in front of him.

Hei Yuming really had no idea, so he could only scratch his head and say.

"Hmm... If I really have to nitpick, I'd just like you to control the word count, Shiori. If the later chapters add so much depth, the editor will complain that the volume is too long."

"Ah... word count... I didn't think this through... It's true that paperback editions can't be too long, otherwise the book will become very thick and the price will be high..."

Last night, Shiori Shirai was only thinking about how to write more excitingly and completely forgot about the issue of word count.

Feeling that she had made a serious mistake, Shiori Shirai snatched the manuscript back from Kuroba Akira with a look of regret and said.

“I’ll simplify it!”

"Well... don't be so anxious. There's still more than a month until the official publication. Just take your time."

On the other side, Aizono Moe also raised her hand and asked.

"Kuroba-kun, do you want to try coloring today?"

"No, let's talk about coloring it later."

At this time, Aizono Moeie frowned and said with an uneasy expression.

"Um... that... Kuroba-kun! There's one thing I must tell you. Although I told you I could color it, I'm actually not very confident in it..."

"Oh?"

It seems that coloring is Aizono Moe's weak point. It may be because she prefers reading comics, so she has less practice in coloring.

If she were even good at coloring, she would be the perfect illustrator.

However, if the coloring is not good, the effect of the illustration will be greatly reduced. After all, the cover and color illustrations are the highlights of the illustration.

But Hei Yuming didn't think this was a big problem. There was still a lot of time left, so he could focus on developing her coloring ability.

"It's okay. You can try to color it tomorrow and I'll take a look at it first, okay?"

"it is good……"

Aizono Moeie nodded silently, then lowered her head and remained silent, her expression looking a little gloomy.

Because Aizono Moe exposed her weakness herself, the other two actually felt relieved, as she was finally not the only one favored... but then they felt guilty about this dark mentality.

The strong sisterhood between the three girls in the literature and art club is slowly and silently beginning to crack.

However, the instigator, Hei Yuming, was no longer interested in the literature and art club.

The illustrations are basically done, the polishing is very good, and the team leader is helping to supervise. There is nothing special that I need to worry about in the light novel.

Everything is ready, just waiting to be published.

Next, we can focus on Murasaki no Miyabi. Of course, the most important thing is to win over Tashiro Hongxiang and make her Murasaki no Miyabi's agent.

Previously at the family restaurant, Miss Hongxiang said that she would give me an answer within this month, but as September is almost over, there is still no news from her.

Hei Yuming originally wanted to ask her actively, but recently Miss Hongxiang has become like before and rarely appears during the day.

For example, the day he went to Shiori Shirai's house, Kuroba Akira finally had the taste of fried rice from his hometown after a long time. He originally wanted to thank Miss Hongxiang in person, but she was not at home. Shirakawa said that Miss Hongxiang had received a work notice and had to go out urgently.

Is it that the unscrupulous company has started assigning her too much work again?

Hei Yuming didn't understand.

Miss Hongxiang clearly hates this job so much, why does she force herself to do it?

Is it really because of livelihood issues?

To be honest, even if she really quit her job, she wouldn't be unable to survive. After all, she was also a member of the Kobayashi family and a fellow time traveler. At least she wouldn't have to worry about food and accommodation... although she would have to eat curry every day.

So there must be some reason that forces her to continue being a corporate slave.

Maybe she also has a huge debt like Hijikata-san?

Hei Yuming decided to find an opportunity to have a good talk with Miss Hongxiang.

Chapter 139 She Really Has Two Personalities

September 30th.

The last day of September happened to be a Monday. On this day, Kuroba Akira did not go to the literature club to advance the progress of the light novel as usual. Instead, he told the class monitor that he had something to do today and went home early.

The purpose is to 'arrest' Tashiro Hongxiang.

Yesterday and the day before yesterday were holidays, so Tashiro Hongxiang should have been at home, but Kuroba Akira didn't even see her during the two weekends.

Moreover, Kuroba Akira also discovered that when Tashiro Hongxiang had to go out for work, she would wear her beloved red high heels, but on weekends, the high heels were placed in the shoe cabinet, which meant that she was not working overtime on weekends as Murasakimiya had conveyed.

Then Hei Yuming realized that overtime was just her excuse and she was clearly avoiding him.

This made Hei Yuming feel a little nostalgic. He remembered that when they first met half a year ago, Miss Hongxiang always avoided him and tried to avoid having too much contact with him.

Maybe she felt insecure because there were young men among her cohabiting partners.

So in fact, Kuroba Akira became familiar with Miss Hongxiang after the drunken incident some time ago, but for some reason he returned to his old ways.

He already had some vague guesses about this in his mind... but there was no conclusive evidence yet.

In short, in order to have a good talk with Miss Hongxiang, he rushed home earlier than usual.

After returning to Kobayashi's house, Kuroba Akira entered the house and first observed the shoe cabinet at the entrance. Tashiro Hongxiang's high heels were still there, which meant that she had not gone to work yet.

"Mingjun, you're back really early today."

Zi Zhigong was like the NPC that would refresh at the door every day, coming out to greet her the first time, and her mood today was better than ever.

During this period, Kuroba Ming would not get home until 8 o'clock because of the literature and arts club activities. Shizhimiya was a little dissatisfied because she had less time to spend with him.

So she was very happy to see him come back so early today.

Hei Yuming raised his index finger to his lips, signaling her to be quiet.

"Shh..."

Zi Zhigong quickly covered his mouth with both hands and nodded, his expression becoming nervous.

Although I don't know what happened, I just have to do what he said.

Then Hei Yuming leaned close to Zi Zhigong's ear and asked in a low voice.

"Ziyin, is Miss Hongxiang home?"

"Well……"

Feeling the heat on her ears, Zi Zhigong felt her body becoming soft and she wanted to just fall into his arms.

"Ziyin?"

Murasakimiya quickly cheered up, put aside the pink thoughts, thought for a moment and replied.

"Um...well, she should be home. Miss Hongxiang went home in the morning, and I haven't seen her leave the house since then."

"Okay, I see."

"Mingjun, do you have something to do with Miss Hongxiang?"

"Yes, it's about asking her to be your agent. Has she mentioned this to you?"

"Ah, actually, I asked Miss Hongxiang before... but she didn't give me a direct answer, saying that she hadn't made up her mind yet."

"No positive response..."

If you really don't want to change your career to become an agent, just refuse directly. Why hesitate for so long?

She must be waiting for something.

But it’s already the last day, and she still hasn’t made up her mind?

No, it's definitely not that I haven't thought it through, but rather that there are "differences in ideas".

Hei Yuming thought for a moment, then turned around and took out the pair of red high heels from the shoe cabinet.

Then he instructed Zi Zhigong, "I'm going upstairs to find Miss Hongxiang now. Ziyin, you stay here. If she escapes later, help me stop her."

"it is good!"

Murasakimiya nodded obediently without any hesitation. Between Tashiro Hongxiang and Kuroba Akira, she would definitely choose to help her sweetheart unconditionally.