I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 39

?Received?

?Editor, is it necessary to go in person? Can’t we do it by email like before??

Seeing the editor’s message, I forgot about the table full of food, grabbed the bowl of chicken soup, and rushed into the bedroom. I pressed the computer’s power button and hopped onto the computer chair.

“Ding—”

Before long, the computer was fully powered up, and I anxiously opened QQ, double-clicking on the editor’s profile picture.

?Because the Great East District in Shenzhen is a bit far from my side, I thought… maybe we should send it by express mail??

Shenzhen’s Great East District is located at the far east end of Shenzhen, which is the last stop on the map. My rental house is in the Central District, right in the middle of Shenzhen. Slightly to the right is the “Eastern Silicon Valley” artisan area, where high-tech professionals work. It has the most cutting-edge research equipment in all of Shenzhen, including the development and assembly of computer chips, smartphone camera components, spaceship parts, and more. The fastest supercomputer in the country and the only particle collider are also located in the center of the artisan area.

To get to the “Tourism Special Zone,” the Great East District, you have to go through the entire artisan area, cross Shenzhen Lake, the largest lake in Shenzhen, and head east. There is a ring road that goes through the Central District and the Great East District, but because the distance is too far, even taking a taxi along this road would take at least 40 minutes.

Moreover, given my current appearance… if possible, I’d rather not leave the house at all. I attract too much attention, and it’s best to avoid places with a high concentration of otaku, like the anime convention.

What’s in an anime convention? Stalls selling merchandise? Cosplayers? Casual attendees? Camera-toting folks who can snap my picture and upload it online at any moment?

All of the above.

?Can’t you come? Aren’t you on vacation for Labor Day these days??

Just as before, even though it was already evening and past the editor’s working hours, the editor replied to my message:

?Originally, I already talked to the guy in charge of contracts over here, and he even had your contract printed. But during lunch, the boss called for a meeting, and the contract guy had to leave on a business trip. He won’t be back until the end of the month.?

?Over here, our suggestion is that if you can make it, just come over to the anime convention. We can change your novel’s status to “signed” backstage the same day. If you really can’t come, we’ll have to wait for the contract guy to come back and send it to you by express mail. We don’t have the authority to do that.?

What kind of weird division of labor is this?

Looking at the editor’s reply, I felt a bit speechless.

Is it really necessary to have permission to send a novel contract? Can’t you just sign it in person?

If the person responsible for sending the contract won’t be back until the end of the month, and I don’t even know whether the Grim Reaper will acknowledge the novel signing tomorrow, by the time I receive the contract and sign it, it’ll probably be June. That means I’ll lose all my May income and the perfect attendance bonus.

This is definitely a losing deal!

Speaking of which, Honeydew Light Novel Company is also located in Shenzhen City?

Realizing this, I tried searching online for the location of the company on their website.

“Shenzhen Qinyue Network Co., Ltd… Company Address: Suite 702, Nanhu Building, Great East District, Shenzhen City.”

As expected…

A few days ago when I submitted my work, I was basically in a “desperate attempt to find a cure” state, where I dug up all the contact information for novel web editors I could find and sent my novel and outline to their emails one by one. I didn’t pay attention to where the Melon Bun Novel website’s company headquarters was located.

Is this fate?

?Well then?

?I’ll go directly to the convention center to sign the contract tomorrow?

Seeing that I had no other options, I had to honestly confess to the editor Tuzi.

?But I have a small issue on my end, can a minor sign the contract??

In no time, Editor Tuzi answered my question: ?For a minor to sign a contract, they need to obtain the consent of their legal guardian.?

?Do I need to bring the legal guardian with me??

?It’s best to bring the legal guardian along. Is that inconvenient??

?He… He hasn’t been feeling well these past few days and is still in the hospital.?

?Can you bring his ID card with you??

?I can.?

?Alright, bring your legal guardian’s ID card tomorrow, and you can come to sign. Is that okay with you??

?No problem, thank you, Editor!?

(Honeydew editor “Tuzi” has shared their location: Great East District, Shenzhen City, Xiangyang Road International Convention Center)

?We have booths 67 and 68 on the second floor of the convention center. Contact me when you arrive, or just tell the booth owner that you’re here to sign the contract.?

?Okay?

?For the next two days, from 9 AM to 7 PM. Make sure you get the timing right.?

?Understood?

?If there are no issues, I’ll add you to the signing group.?

“…”

Sipping my chicken soup and watching the computer notifications in the bottom right corner, QQ soon showed that the editor “Tuzi” had added me to the group “Dove Spicy Hotpot Restaurant.”

Wow, that name… Is this really the signing group?

?A new author again, Group Status -1?

?Group Status bottomed out, unable to go -1, I’m worthless?

Before I could say anything, several people in the group posted a bunch of emojis, and at the same time, a group notice appeared on my screen for this signing group.

• Don’t ask if the editor is here. If you have something to say, just say it. Don’t send “Are you there?” without a response.
• The weekly application for promotion time is from 3 PM to 6 PM on Monday. If there’s no response, it means there’s no promotion. If you urgently desire promotion, update daily with at least 10,000 words for half a month.
• Forbidden content: anything related to sex or politics, sibling relationships, describing anything below the neck, any BL, Yuri, and straight R-15 romance with kissing or more are not allowed. For authors already signed with the group, if your new book is a male lead story, you can contact me directly after starting the book. Transformation, BL, Yuri, and female lead stories signed with the group are increased by a factor of five on top of the base rate. Starting such genres is not recommended.
• Currently popular genres: Cultivation master-disciple, System-based, Breakup (Chasing the Ex-husband to the Crematorium), Simulator-based. Novels with these genres have higher signing criteria.

—

After carefully reading the group notice and understanding the general rules here, I changed my group nickname to my author name, “Uncle Loves Loli.”

Finally, after scanning through the group files and confirming that there were no major issues, I switched to the group chat window of this signing group, which had over 700 members.

?Brothers, I’m thinking of dropping this book. I can’t continue writing it.?

?Serves you right! How many times has “Tuzi” said not to write transformation stories? Don’t you know that transformation novels have the lowest pay rate on the entire web??

?Write a male lead story, and with just 10,000 collections, it’ll skyrocket. What’s the use of 20,000 collections for a transformation novel? Can the subscription money pay your rent??

It seemed like the people in the group didn’t shift their topic just because a new, ordinary author like me had joined. They were still discussing the same things they were talking about before I entered:

?Is anyone going to the convention tomorrow? I’m planning to go and see if I can take photos of any cute loli.?

?I’ve lost hope. How can you find cute loli in the three-dimensional world? Two dimensions are better.?

?Why isn’t the new author saying anything??

?He’s probably a pro. I bet he’ll shoot up to the bestsellers list in a few days, then come back to mock us amateurs.?

Seeing the discussion in the group shifting towards me, I decided to send a panda emoticon I found in the collection, with the text “This isn’t something a guy with a 3,000 yuan monthly salary should be concerned about.”

?Uncle Loves Loli? That’s an interesting pen name for a new author. Pretty creepy.?

?Is the new author a guy? Why is he using an anime girl’s profile picture? What’s going on with his thinking??

?Why do you care about someone else’s profile picture??

—

I spent some time monitoring the group chat of the signing group and felt there was nothing I needed to respond to. With my chicken soup in hand, I returned to the dining table.

For some reason, as I ate my meal, I felt a sense of emptiness while looking at the illuminated computer screen in the room.

“…”

I had always lived like this, alone…

My gaze shifted to the dining table. On the table, there was a figurine of a girl, Yoshino, from “Date A Live,” sitting obediently on a small chair and holding a rabbit doll, which represented her ideal self. This girl… when I felt lonely while alone, I would talk to the rabbit doll in her hand, treating it as her ideal self.

And it seemed like I had been alone for most of my life…

With that thought in mind, I lifted the bowl of chicken soup. It still had plenty of chicken and small white mushrooms, as it appeared the Miss Grim Reaper from earlier hadn’t eaten much. I could see my current form in the soup – a little girl living in a small world.

“……”