29 Chapter 29: Ultimate Outcas (1/2)
”What?” Dong Fang Yue Chu asked impatiently, hating the prospect of being held in suspense. I grinned at him, and with an imaginary drum roll, made my declaration.
”Ultimate Outcast.”
”…”
Dong Fang Yue Chu stared at me silently. I began to regret the moment I let slip the name from my mouth. Whoops…I should have known. What kind of stupid name was Ultimate Outcast? Was I suffering from second middle school syndrome or something? Ah, damn…this was so embarrassing. I couldn't believe that I allowed my inner child to take over for a moment. I was so ashamed of myself.
”Sorry. Forget it. Let's think of a better name…”
”That's amazing!” Dong Fang Yue Chu yelled, cutting me off before I could finish my sentence. I gaped at him, not believing what I was hearing. Before I could react, Dong Fang Yue Chu was grabbing my shoulders and shaking me excitedly. ”That's a great idea!”
”Uh…really? I thought it was cheesy…”
”Are you kidding? No, that's an awesome name! That's so much better than Great Eastern Society!” Dong Fang Yue Chu was practically drooling. ”Ultimate Outcast Society. Oh, wow…the name is giving me shivers! It has so much more impact! It makes us sound so cool and strong! Just the name itself will get us a lot of new members tomorrow!”
”I don't know about that,” I muttered under my breath. It dawned on me that Dong Fang Yue Chu was buying into this name precisely because he was a teenager. Of course they would love cool and strong-sounding names. It was the perfect wish-fulfilment title that allowed him to enjoy the illusion of power and coolness.
”We'll go with that!” Dong Fang Yue Chu was no longer listening to me. ”I'll make sure we get the name officially changed by today! From now onward, we're the Ultimate Outcast!”
Because I wore glasses, and used to be bullied? Now I needed to look for a master to teach me martial arts and hang out with his beautiful niece. Except that Dad already taught me martial arts, so there was no need for me to learn them from another person. Especially a dude who wanted eighty percent of my earnings.
I watched Dong Fang Yue Chu run off toward the staff's office, presumably to render the name change official. Then I began picking apart the broken pieces and setting up whatever I could. Hmm, the booth looked a little plain.
Pushing my glasses up, I studied the sorry-looking booth for a moment, and an idea came to my head.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
After sending Dong Fang Yue Chu a message by smartphone, I headed straight home, grabbed a pencil, an eraser and a sketchbook, and began scribbling something…
*
The next day, I posted my drawings all over the booth. They sucked, and were entirely in pencil – no color, no inking, nothing – but nonetheless I still put them up. It was better than nothing, otherwise our booth would look too plain.
There was no time to bring them to a store, get a professional artist to color them, and print them out on canvas. So I just tore out the sketchbook pages and pasted them all over the booth.
”You can draw manga stuff?” Dong Fang Yue Chu asked as he gaped at my hastily hand-drawn pictures. ”Since when?”
”Have you seen the cover illustration for this story?” I asked, rolling my eyes. ”I know my drawing skills are bad, but we've always been relying on manga art.”
”Hmm…” Dong Fang Yue Chu observed the sketches, and then shrugged. ”I guess this will do. People will go crazy over these if they realize you are the one who drew them.”
”Huh? Why would they?” I snorted. ”Wouldn't they be disappointed that my drawing skills suck?”
”Never underestimate the passion of fans,” Dong Fang Yue Chu told me sagely. ”In fact, I bet someone would take them and color them for you.”
”Oh, really?” I wasn't sure about that. After all, nobody bothered to color my cover illustrations on whatever writing websites I posted on, and everyone hated my art. Then again, I didn't have fans, unlike the super-popular Bai Si Wa, who had a fanbase of thousands willing to support him on *******.
I would be lucky if people don't demand that I pay them to read my stories, never mind getting people to donate, Spirit Stones or otherwise. My writing was that bad. I lacked the talent to write a decent story, my grammar was atrocious, I was utterly incapable of character development, I resorted to cliché storylines and my plot was non-existent, my vocabulary was laughably limited, and I brought shame to the websites. That was what readers told me over and over again, either through reviews, comments, private messages or Discord.
It got so bad that I was forced to delete my Discord account because readers would flood my channel with insults, abuse and threats, telling me to get rid of all my stories and leave the sites, or else. They probably had nothing better to do.
”Yeah! Not only did you pull off two team-kills in a row, your ranking has jumped a bit!”
”Oh, you're right.”