Chapter 131: Saving the Young Writer (Part One)
After finishing the lunch made by Jima, George praised her lavishly, and Jima seized the opportunity to make him stay and continue painting until dinner time, after which they had dinner.
All the illustrations Jima wanted were finished. The cover depicted a crooked-mouthed, smiling version of George as a dragon, with a multitude of women drawn on the back, so many that their faces were indistinguishable due to limited space on the cover, and each piece of art needed to have a hierarchy.
Upon receiving the artwork, Jima was extremely satisfied and waved her hand to send George away.
After leaving the Dream Palace, Lianyuxi’s cat ears, which had been standing erect, finally relaxed.
Jima was very curious and asked, “Why were your cat ears up just now?”
“As long as there are bad people around the master, my ears will be up,” Lianyuxi said, her red cat ears perking up like airplane ears. “He has bad intentions, staring at the master’s backside several times; he must be planning to bully you. Hmph! I caught him.”
Probably watching the tail.
“Not bad, you have quite the vigilance,” Jima casually complimented, reaching out to pet her cat head.
Lianyuxi narrowed her eyes, and her ears twitched.
“Alright, you should head back now.”
Lianyuxi felt a bit dejected but still replied, “As you command, master.”
Her figure vanished in the next moment.
Jima organized the sheets of paper on the table, holding a thin stack of artwork that felt quite nice, like she had obtained a pass to the path of power.
She looked at the artwork on the cover and smiled; although it was colorless, it was highly recognizable. After all, this era could not print colored images, which would be a dimensional strike. Which popular novelist would even think to illustrate their own book? Especially the kitschy kind?
She was overwhelmed with excitement.
“I want to buy a publishing house right now.”
But it was just a thought; socializing could be quite troublesome. A publishing house is not a potato in a market with price tags, where you can exchange money directly.
At least she would need an introduction to find the owner of the publishing house. Wouldn’t she just walk there? She would need a carriage and a coachman as well. A carriage cannot be pulled by the coachman alone; it would need a horse, and raising a horse requires a stable.
Forget it, she would just rent a carriage. At this rate, she would have to acquire some real estate in Adolf, hire people… Spending like this, she had no idea how many gold coins would be left from her eight thousand.
“Tomorrow, I’ll be ready by then.”
Jima went through her preparations from yesterday. She had the ghostwriter’s address, had someone look for a publishing house, and even received financial backing from the emperor, although it was only five hundred gold coins, but more importantly, she obtained a publishing license.
“Let’s wait until tomorrow.”
Jima stretched lazily, placing the “pass to power”—the painting by George—away, spreading her wings and disappearing in place within the Dream Palace, returning to the real world.
If she could, she wished to rest in the Dream Palace, but unfortunately maintaining the Dream Palace consumed magic power, and she was not yet strong enough to ignore this magical expenditure.
The feeling of departing from the dream was something Jima would never forget in her life; it felt like falling from the clouds. When she opened her eyes, it was as if she had awakened, finding herself on the roof of a large building in a mansion.
The mansion was purchased by Jenna, who, as a newly rich member of the empire, had been granted a noble title; she had to buy a mansion in the capital that matched her status, as the emperor himself was quite generous.
As for why she appeared on the roof?
Because Jima had been cautious, originally planning to open the entrance to the Dream Palace in the basement, but then thought, what if enemies discovered it and lay in ambush nearby? She had nowhere to run or fly, so she chose the rooftop instead.
She stepped on the red tiles, her figure light as she leaped from the fourth-floor rooftop. With a flap of her wings, she landed lightly and took out a piece of paper from her pocket, on which was written the address of a ghostwriter recommended by a history professor of fish tail patterns.
In return, Jima introduced his family to settle in the city of Akali, hoping he would adapt to the peculiar class crossing of the magic races to make great contributions to peace between the two races.
She softly read out the name of the twenty-eight-year-old writer on the paper:
“Owen Green.”
“Owen Green! You’ve owed three months of rent!”
The attic door was knocked loudly, and Owen Green lifted his head, revealing a face without a beard, pale from years of neglecting sunlight, with small eyes perched on his little nose.
He was bent over his desk, writing, taking advantage of the last bit of sunlight shining through the window, scrambling to finish what he believed to be a groundbreaking masterpiece—at least he thought so.
Annoyed, he raised his head and pushed his glasses with his middle finger.
At that moment, the voice of the landlady outside grew louder, accompanied by the banging on the door, her characteristic voice reminiscent of a middle-aged woman’s: “This month makes it four months of rent!”
Owen Green jumped up, feeling constrained. Did it really need to come to pressuring one of the few conscientious writers on the market?
He raised his leg, stepping over the wooden basin in the narrow passage, opened his mouth, but only whispered, “Coming.”
The knocking continued, the door shook violently, looking like it was about to break apart.
“Still not opening the door! Just wait until I call my son-in-law to kick you out, and then you’ll know what you did wrong! Adolf is nowhere near as kind of a landlord as I am!”
Owen Green felt a surge in his temples and reached for the lock, yanking the door open with force. The round figure of the landlady appeared at the doorway, and in an instant, Owen Green’s anger vanished without a trace.
After all, he didn’t want to end up sleeping under the bridge.
He lowered his voice, saying, “Once my manuscript fees come in, I’ll make sure to pay the rent first. It’s just that this payment is a bit late; it used to be at the beginning of the month, but the latest regulation has pushed it to the end of the month.”
The landlady glanced at him with her yellowed face, sneering:
“Don’t think I don’t know. The neighbors say none of those books you write are selling! Only when there’s a promotion at the bookstore do people buy them to wipe themselves; you’ve self-published; you must be quite wealthy, yet you don’t pay your rent.”
“I promise, I promise.”
“Do you even have a manuscript fee? No one is buying your books at all.”
That statement struck at his soft spot, and Owen Green felt his temples throb again.
Readers now have increasingly poor taste; the hard-written good books go unnoticed, and they have no patience at all. They’d rather read shallow, lustful, poorly written tripe filled with grammatical errors.
He whispered, “I assure you, I have some. I’ve also taken on some ghostwriting jobs.”
“If you don’t pay the rent, you can get out,” the landlady shot back, leaving with a parting shot, her footsteps creaking on the wooden floor.
Owen Green couldn’t help but start imagining the landlady breaking the floorboards beneath her feet, falling through the rotting wood and dying, becoming a frog or something and getting squashed—that would indeed be magical realism.
It seemed he could hear Owen Green’s inner thoughts as the landlady’s footsteps halted, the heavy steps approaching.
He felt a panic rise, and the landlady’s face reappeared at the door, this time holding an envelope, one hand extended towards him: “I almost forgot, here you go.”
The envelope bore a wax seal with a war hammer insignia.
Owen Green’s heart raced; the sender was clearly of high status, and he had no connections with high-status friends, so it could only be…
He took the letter:
“Thank you.”
“Remember, even if you starve, you must pay your rent.”
Saying that, the plump landlady left, stepping on the creaky floor.
Owen Green immediately shut the door, took the letter to his desk, knocking over the obstructing wooden basin with his foot. He didn’t bother to pick it up, sitting down on his unsteady chair and tearing open the envelope with his bare hands, revealing spotless white paper inside, carrying a faint fragrance.
He pulled out the folded letter, his hand trembling.
A letter from a noble could likely imply one thing—that his hard work had finally caught the eye of an insightful and tasteful noble or rich person who decided to support him.
Every sponsored writer or artist would be flush with excitement, something Owen Green had long envied.
Owen Green unfolded the letter quickly, reading the contents in the fading sunlight. The paper was written in beautiful cursive (Jima had hired a ghostwriter).
In essence, the writer was looking for a capable ghostwriter, and someone had recommended him…
Owen Green couldn’t help but feel disappointed. He thought finally someone was recognizing the beauty of his work.
He continued reading.
The letter stated that if he agreed, he should meet at the Xuele Publishing House at noon tomorrow, and a fifty-gold voucher was included as a token of goodwill.
Owen Green immediately grabbed the tattered envelope tightly, pressing down with his fingers until he felt the solid paper, feeling relieved as he pulled it out.
Sure enough, it was a fifty-gold voucher from the local bank.
As long as he took it to the bank, he could exchange it for fifty gold coins.
Thump thump thump…
Owen Green’s heart pounded against his chest; he even forgot to breathe. Thinking the bank would close soon, he immediately stood up, knocking his chair to the ground. Grabbing the gold voucher, he ran, tripping over the chair and falling, but he quickly got back up and dashed out the door, the wooden floor creaking beneath his hurried steps.
At the stairwell, the plump landlady approached, loudly questioning:
“What’s going on? What’s all this noise?”
“Someone is sponsoring me!” he shouted without looking back, sprinting out the door towards the bank.
He ran swiftly, just in time to enter the bank before it closed, exchanging the voucher for fifty gold coins and paying the rent.
“Wow, you’re quite capable,” the landlady beamed, “it’s not easy; finally, someone recognizes your work.”
Owen Green smirked coldly.
What a vulgar little citizen, only seeing money.
He remained silent, turning around, gripping the pouch tightly as he walked up the stairs.
Behind him, the landlady’s voice called out, “I have larger, cleaner rooms available downstairs.”
Owen Green still said nothing, standing tall and straight as he went upstairs, the floor creaking beneath him.
Once back in the narrow attic, Owen Green calmed down and felt he had been disrespectful to the plump landlady. He worried it might anger her, fearing she might secretly call some criminal in the night to steal his gold coins.
She was definitely the kind of crass citizen who was drawn to money.
Thinking this, Owen Green tucked the gold coins under the straw bedding, pressing down with his back to sleep soundly.
——————
Alright, 2077 has finally cleared.
