Hearing the voice, Qin Zhao looked over and saw a man of about fifty years old with tobacco-stained teeth grinning at her.
This face was unfamiliar. There was no impression of this person in the original host's memory.
But it was easy to guess. Anyone who could call out Qin Zhao's name and mention Min Village must be from Min Village.
Qin Zhao took a sip of her sparkling wine and swallowed the food in her mouth. She said, "You've got the wrong person."
But the man didn't believe her. "That can't be wrong. You ran away from your engagement to the silly son of the Sun family. They're still looking for you."
"A spirited girl like you, our village only has one. I can't be wrong!"
Qin Zhao slowly wiped her mouth with a napkin and said, "If you don't leave, I'll call security."
The man still wanted to continue speaking, but a burly man walked over to him and heavily patted his shoulder.
When the man turned back in pain, he saw the newcomer was a head taller than him. He could only crane his neck to look up. "Who are you? What do you want to do?!"
The other person didn't speak. He covered the man's mouth and dragged him out.
Qin Zhao turned to Nan Yue and asked, "This guy looks a bit familiar. Is he one of your people?"
Nan Yue nodded. "I don't want anyone to disturb our meal."
Qin Zhao knew Nan Yue was trying not to admit she was helping her, or make her feel ashamed.
Anyone with eyes could hear at least eighty percent truth in the man's words, not to mention Nan Yue had already investigated Qin Zhao.
Although Qin Zhao would not feel ashamed, she was sincerely grateful for Nan Yue's kindness.
Qin Zhao recalled there was no description in the book of the original host encountering someone from Min Village. From meeting the male lead until her death, the original host had no further contact with the Min Village people.
So the appearance of that man just now should be due to this world's Heavenly Dao trying to correct the storyline that Qin Zhao had disrupted.
It wanted to use the entanglement between the Min Village people and the original host to make Qin Zhao stay away from the male and female leads.
Qin Zhao told her guesses to the system. The reply she got was: "Host, our system can only try to help the host complete the tasks as much as possible, and cannot influence the Heavenly Dao of the small world."
Qin Zhao said, "Fine, I didn't have high hopes for you anyway, silly system."
502: "Host, you've gone too far! Wah...
Then the two of them chatted while eating. Nan Yue did not ask about the Min Village matter. Qin Zhao could see that she was very curious.
But Qin Zhao had no intention of talking about it, because she didn't know how things would develop.
After dinner, Nan Yue offered to take Qin Zhao home. Qin Zhao declined several times but Nan Yue insisted.
Qin Zhao belatedly realized that Nan Yue wanted to send her because she was worried Qin Zhao might encounter danger. Thinking of this, Qin Zhao smiled as she looked out the window.
Nan Yue's portrayal in the book was not lacking, but only through actual interaction could one truly appreciate that she was a three-dimensional person.
Before today, Qin Zhao had only regarded Nan Yue as a paper cutout character she had to win over.
Not far away, the man who had been hit by Nan Yue's bodyguard sat on the ground, looking a bit disheveled.
The bodyguard had not been heavy-handed. He just warned the man not to approach Qin Zhao again, as per Nan Yue's orders.
Even so, the man was now full of hatred towards Qin Zhao.
As he tried to stand up, he found his legs a little soft, scaring him.
Just then, a hand reached out to support him.
He looked up to see a man with slightly curly hair expressionlessly meeting his gaze.
Back home, Qin Zhao sat in front of her computer reading the comments under her comic.
It could be said to be a torrent of praise. More and more people were reading it, but Qin Zhao still felt it wasn't enough.
Before the Min Village person appeared, she could slowly update, let things take their course, then earn enough money once the comic became popular.
But now an uncontrollable situation had already occurred. She had to move faster.
Qin Zhao called the HR manager. She wanted to ask for a week off.
The HR manager picked up the call and asked about Qin Zhao's reason for leave. He said, "Are you sure? You just joined the company not long ago. Taking such a long leave will annoy your supervisor. You might get targeted later."
If this was in reality, Qin Zhao certainly wouldn't do such a thing. Apart from upsetting her supervisor, she would feel disgusted with herself.
But this was just a world inside a book. Her sense of morality was not as heavy.
Qin Zhao nodded. "Thank you Manager Wang for the reminder. I'll be careful in the future."
"Okay, I'll send the e-leave form to you. Fill it in and submit it to me."
"Got it."
After completing the leave procedure, Qin Zhao began a week of staying home.
Every day apart from eating, sleeping, and occasionally getting up to move around, she never left her computer. She was working on the comic non-stop.
During this time, to avoid disturbance, she kept her phone switched off.
On the seventh day, the 25th chapter of the comic was published. The story stopped at the early stages of the first climax.
All the main characters had appeared. The character settings of the two leads were already very fleshed out.
The fans who followed the updates every day had never chased a comic that updated so quickly before. They were surprised and praised it in the comments.
@Yang Honey's Girlfriend Outside the Circle: Which immortal came down to earth to draw comics?!!
@Where's My Wife That Big: To be honest, I suspect the author is an octopus that gained intelligence...
@Ultraman Hell Body: This is the most addictive comic I've chased. The author drives faster than a race car!
......
Apart from praise, there were also some sour grapes comments from the author's alternate accounts.
@Floating to Your Heart: It's impossible to draw so fast with just one person participating. Just casual talk, don't take it too seriously. Apart from the exceptionally fast updates, and somewhat filler plot, it's quite good.
@Borrowing Another 500 Days From Heaven: The artist should reveal themselves. Even the fastest comic artist can't update this quickly. There must be a catch!
@Don't Mind What You Think, I Mind What I Think: Those above, just be sour. Every artist has their own unique style. The art style in this comic is highly consistent. Anyone with eyes can see it's drawn by one person!
@Ugly People Make Trouble: I support the above. Sour chickens just love making trouble. Instead of being jealous here, go practice on your own. Being sour is useless.
......
Qin Zhao roughly looked through the praising and sour comments. They were all within tolerable range.
As she read, she fell asleep.
After burning the midnight oil for several days, she could finally get some rest. She slept until 8:30 the next morning.
Qin Zhao got up in a panic and hurriedly washed up and tidied herself. Then she took a taxi to rush to the company.
Taking a week off was already not very moral. Coming in late would be even harder to explain.
Qin Zhao's position in the company belonged to the unimportant category. Her absence for a week did not affect the company at all.
What concerned her more was there were two missed calls from Nan Yue among the missed calls on her phone. Ye Chenxi had called seven times.
There were also two WeChat messages from Nan Yue.
Nan Yue: What are you doing?
Nan Yue: Why can't I reach your phone?
They were sent five days ago and three days ago respectively.
Qin Zhao replied to Nan Yue on WeChat: Something came up at home. What's the matter?
Nan Yue replied very quickly: We agreed earlier I would treat you to a meal. I found a pretty good restaurant. Would you like to try it out?
Qin Zhao: It would be my honor.
The company WeChat group was much livelier, with 999+ messages. Something had clearly happened.
Qin Zhao clicked in to see everyone discussing the game "Wilderness" recently launched by the company. A competitor in the same genre called "Prairie Fire" had emerged.
The reviews for Prairie Fire were also exceptionally good. It was even suppressing Wilderness.
If the situation was allowed to develop, Wilderness would definitely suffer a miserable defeat in the competition.
Ye Chenxi demanded the design team come up with a solution as soon as possible.
As a member of the design team, Qin Zhao was also assigned work.
The main audience for Wilderness was males under 30 years old.
They were tasked to design a new character to attract males between 30 to 40 years old.
Three other people from the design team were also participating in this task.
Seeing the names in the document, Qin Zhao had a bad premonition.
Before she could mentally prepare herself to work with this person, the scent of a man drifted into Qin Zhao's nose, causing her to frown slightly.
"Qin Zhao, you've finally deigned to come. Our team just lacks you now." Zhang Zhen held the document, his expression unfriendly.
Zhang Zhen had the most seniority among the four. So he was the team leader.
Qin Zhao slowly said, "Team leader, how far along is the progress? Could you let me see the documents? I'll catch up as soon as I can."
Zhang Zhen smiled faintly. "Come with me."
The two of them walked forward one after the other and arrived at the temporary office area of the working group. Zhang Zhen pointed at the half-meter tall pile of documents on the table and said, "Go through all these materials and then summarize the more interesting character settings from them."
The other two people in the workspace, Zhang Lin and Chen XiaoYong, looked over with somewhat surprised expressions on their faces. They both had materials in front of them, but far less than what Zhang Zhen had given Qin Zhao.
Zhang Zhen was deliberately making things difficult for Qin Zhao. The two of them quickly lowered their heads to continue looking at the materials after just a glance, neither daring to speak up for Qin Zhao.
Zhang Zhen was known in the company as a sly old fox with a bad temper and not great work skills. Relying on his family's connection to the Ye family, ordinary people didn't dare provoke him, so he often bullied newcomers in the company. Everyone was angry but didn't dare to speak up, just turning a blind eye.
Seeing that Qin Zhao hadn't moved, Zhang Zhen added, "Finish this within three days, don't play any tricks with me. Young people need to learn to endure hardship and work hard, so get to it!"
After saying this, he walked out.
Shortly after, there was a cry of pain from the workspace!
