Chapter 168: The Stricken Ji Ma
The figures on the bill were accurate. “Jojo’s Adventures in Another World” had only netted Ji Ma one hundred and eight gold coins.
After confirming this several times, Ji Ma felt as if on a bleak winter day, someone had stabbed a slaughtering knife deep into her stomach, leaving her heart cold and her fleeting sleepiness vanished without a trace.
“Has someone banned my book?”
Ji Ma practically grabbed the maid from the bed, pressing her hands on the maid’s shoulders as she asked.
“No, no one’s banned it.”
“Then why are the sales so low?”
“Ma’am, I don’t know anything.”
“Go back to sleep.”
Ji Ma’s face turned pale, her whole body felt weak, and she walked hunched over. The feeling of despair filled her chest.
How could this be? How could the sales suddenly drop so much? Is someone sabotaging my book? Clearly, I had conducted market research; could it be that the book I wrote is trash, and I just manipulated the sales briefly through underhanded methods?
Ji Ma felt like a walking corpse as she climbed the stairs, suddenly realizing how cold the winter in Adolf truly was.
She was so dejected that she momentarily forgot that she had less than a month left to legally earn ten thousand gold coins. Otherwise, she would be facing dire consequences.
Because writing books is different from ordinary goods; for creators, a book feels like their own child.
Ji Ma felt as if she had carried a child for ten months, giving birth to a lovely doll that everyone adored. The next day, that doll suddenly morphed into an ugly goblin, festering with sores, making everyone who saw it want to vomit.
Ji Ma found it hard to accept such a stark contrast.
Returning to the room that Jenna had left for her, she lost all desire to visit the “Dream Palace.”
She knew she had to investigate the sudden drop in her book’s performance, but she had to wait until daytime. Yet, as she lay in bed, tossing and turning, unable to sleep, she kept muttering:
“What on earth is going on?”
Turning from the left side of the bed to the right, and back to the left again, her horns repeatedly bumped against the bed frame as she moved.
“Get some sleep; thinking about this is pointless.”
She changed to a more comfortable position, curling up against the wall, forcing herself to close her eyes.
But she couldn’t help thinking about the manuscript left in the Dream Palace.
During this time, she hadn’t been idle. After her sudden success, Ji Ma was full of motivation and wrote feverishly.
She provided numerous job opportunities for Mr. Owen Green as the holidays were about to end.
She was quite pleased with the plot as well.
Now lying in bed, recalling the storylines she had written, no matter how she thought about it, they felt utterly horrible, flat and devoid of tension, and the characters were bland and annoying—even a piece of used toilet paper would be a better read—paper meant for printing books is not good for wiping.
“I can’t do this; I need to revise the text!” Ji Ma abruptly sat up in bed, directly opening the entrance to the Dream Palace and crawling in.
Upon entering the Dream Palace, she hopped on a Nimbus and zoomed to her study; as soon as she pushed open the door, manuscript papers flew out of the drawer and landed on her desk.
Ji Ma pulled out a pen, sat down, and began to read her original script.
“This part isn’t engaging enough.”
“These pages are too flimsy; I need to remind the readers repeatedly of the protagonist’s current goal, or lack of one.”
“How did I write this outline?”
Before she knew it, Ji Ma had fallen into a global dilemma of how to write something that readers would actually appreciate.
Without feedback, she had no idea if her written words were well received. Ji Ma felt like she was searching for a destination in the dark; she couldn’t even discern the direction of the end, and with each step she took, her doubt grew larger.
“Am I moving one step closer to the end or further away?”
Who knows?
When the first false dawn’s light fell upon Ji Ma’s face, she raised her eyes, noticing faint dark circles around them.
The desk was cluttered with a pile of manuscript papers, one sheet filled with an outline, each line crossed out with a strikethrough.
Ji Ma felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her; all that lingered in her heart was frustration.
“What’s the point in revising? Just revise!”
Ji Ma, feeling defeated, swept the manuscript papers off the desk; they flew everywhere. She yawned, angrily marched toward the bed, “I’m done writing!”
As she lay down intending to sleep, she felt that her magic was only half left. Maintaining the Dream Palace required magic, and leaping through dreams required even more. Given that they were in a war phase, it was best to keep her magic fully charged.
Ji Ma sighed heavily: “Ah~~~”
Reluctantly, she crawled out of bed, returned to the real world, climbed onto her cold bed, wrapped herself in a light-colored blanket, and drifted off into a heavy sleep.
“Knock knock knock.”
“Knock knock knock.”
The door was being knocked on, each sound knocking away her desire for sleep.
Ji Ma tightened her blanket, but the knocking showed no signs of stopping.
“What is it?” Ji Ma shouted, “I want to sleep!”
The relentless voice of the maid came from outside, “Miss Ji…”
“Go away!”
After Ji Ma shouted, much of her sleepiness vanished. By the time she fell back asleep, it had been almost half an hour.
When she finally woke up from a full bladder, it was dark outside, leaden gray clouds covered the sky.
Disturbed from her deep sleep, Ji Ma still felt groggy.
“Do they really have to disturb me? Is the apocalypse upon Adolf?” Ji Ma complained.
However, thinking about the memories of the Demon King Ji Ma back on Earth as a mortal named Wan Ziqi, working a job known as a corporate slave, she recalled being woken up in the early morning by her phone after a long night shift, needing to rush to the company to deal with a server explosion.
The pain she felt during that time, even as someone else’s memory, resonated within Ji Ma.
This made her feel a bit more balanced in her heart.
“At least I don’t have to crawl out of bed to work.” After getting up, Ji Ma cast a spell to open the entrance to the Dream Palace, “I can work whenever I want, free.”
Jumping into the “eye of the storm”-like entrance to the Dream Palace, after washing up.
Ji Ma suddenly remembered the task of legally earning ten thousand gold coins, and her head started to ache again.
“Thank goodness for the gambling house’s dividends as a backup.” Ji Ma wiped her face with warm water, “If worse comes to worst, I can transfer my shares and sell them for a good price.”
How could a casino not make money?
Ji Ma put on her tight pants, fastened her belt, donned her cloak, and when she finished fastening her belt, the feeling of anemia from holding the blood horn cup in her hand was unwelcome.
Once fully armed, Ji Ma didn’t go to investigate because she remembered she would be scouting with George to engage in extraordinary battles.
Though the army had just set out, and there weren’t many beastmen around, larger packs of beastman warriors had already been annihilated by young knights eager to make a name for themselves.
But still, she needed to meet at least once a day.
“Forget it; I’ll investigate tomorrow.”
After making this decision, Ji Ma felt relieved, like a student avoiding a test.
Half an hour after having dinner.
In the vast wilderness, a group of knights eager for honor, led by George, was camping out in the wild.
Under the night sky, the campfire illuminated the faces of the knights, with a tall elf leaning against a distant old tree.
Ji Ma appeared in the darkness with her heavy orange cat, her slightly curled black hair falling from either side of her hood, the firelight casting a glow on her face.
The knights by the campfire all turned to look at her, one of them, a knight named Sam, with a bear-like build and a thick black beard surrounding his chubby face.
Ji Ma lifted her hood, revealing her jet-black horns.
Immediately, the knights understood her identity; some suppressed their urge to express praise, as George was also by the campfire.
Ji Ma took a folding stool from behind her and sat beside George.
“You’re a whole day late.”
The firelight danced on the polished armor of George, which was the best way to preserve the visual appeal of his plate armor.
“I understand, I understand.”
With others present, Ji Ma had no intention of making lewd jokes, nor was she in the mood; “Anyway, it didn’t require me, and nothing went wrong. Just a small matter of choosing a few knights.”
George turned to carefully examine Ji Ma’s face and asked:
“Have you encountered any issues?”
Ji Ma felt warmed inside and said, “You actually noticed; not bad, not bad.”
“I saw your dark circles.”
“I knew it.” Ji Ma reached out, grabbed a piece of red coal from the campfire, and the surface of the coal dulled upon contact with her finger.
“What’s the matter?”
“You can’t help much.”
“But I can comfort you.”
“Forget it.” Ji Ma idly played with the red coal with her bare hand, “You might as well lend me your shoulder to lean on.”
George leaned closer, and Ji Ma rested against him; his body felt solid and stable like a mountain. Ji Ma gained a sense of security, as if a hand was supporting her heart, which kept falling.
Ji Ma squinted her eyes: “Yeah, just like this.”
After a while, she began to hear voices of conversation.
George was discussing something with a few knights; she recognized George’s voice, steady and calm, resonating in her ears with a peculiar melody, gradually inducing her drowsiness.
She didn’t know how long had passed.
When Ji Ma opened her eyes, she saw the dark red flames of the campfire, and a blanket was laid under her. George was preparing to cover her with a quilt.
Only the two of them remained around the campfire.
“Wait.” Ji Ma, now quite alert, asked, “Can you listen to me complain for a bit?”
“Sure.”
George sat cross-legged on the ground.
“It’s so annoying, you know? Yesterday I checked my writing income; it plummeted from two thousand gold coins to one hundred and eight. I suspect some blind person banned my book.”
“Then I spent the entire night revising; it was useless. Who knows what readers like?”
George played the role of a faithful listener, as he didn’t know how to comfort Ji Ma.
Ji Ma rambled on with her complaints, feeling a bit better, and asked George: “Have you ever had a similar experience?”
George shook his head: “To me, being able to write a book is quite impressive because I only read, not write.”
“Have you sold any works? For example… paintings; have you tried selling paintings?”
“I have.”
“Then doesn’t it feel like one day your paintings become worthless, and no one looks at them? You have to figure out what readers like.”
“I can understand that.”
“By the way.” Ji Ma poked his shoulder armor, “You must have worked hard to sell paintings but ended up not being able to, right? Tell me so I can cheer up.”
After pondering for a moment, George shook his head: “No, my paintings were once very popular, so I bought myself a helmet and even got Jenna a gift.”
“Later I realized that being too immersed in painting due to its popularity affected my training, so I stopped.”
Ji Ma felt pain as if her feet had kicked a steel plate.
“Ah.” Ji Ma took a sharp breath, “A big shot. But don’t be too happy.”
Ji Ma leaned against George’s shoulder, whispering softly into his ear: “I still have shares in the casino; selling them will definitely cover the ten thousand gold coins. So, don’t worry about the dire consequences; that’s impossible, hee hee.”
