Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 10: Bishoujo Game

Truth be told,
Tang Yao didn’t have many options right now.
Sure, it looked like there were plenty of ways to make money,
but considering her current situation, most of them were unrealistic.
Mainly because she didn’t have the confidence—or resources—to take big risks.
And with her past-life knowledge skewed by the differences in this parallel world, there were too many variables at play.
She figured there were only two somewhat reliable directions.
The safe route: become a mangaka and serialize her work.
The risky route: try making a mobile game.
If she were alone, she wouldn’t mind playing it safe—maybe draw manga for two years and see what happens.
But she wasn’t alone.
And playing it safe… was just too slow.
Even if she quit her job immediately, won a newcomer award, got greenlit for serialization, streamlined the entire prep and production process, and somehow survived the dreaded “first ten chapters of death,”
she’d probably have to wait until volumes were being printed to see any real money.
And by then?
Kaoru would have already graduated.
No way her sister could go that whole time without working—
they wouldn’t survive off savings alone.
On top of that, by the time she completed all that, the mobile internet boom would already be in full swing.
That’s why Tang Yao leaned toward the riskier option:
Build a mobile game before the masses catch on, leverage the first-mover advantage, and cash in fast.
Do that, and everything gets solved.
Whether she liked it or not was irrelevant—this was the fastest way she could think of to make serious money.
And she needed money.
Honestly, ever since she’d accepted her new identity, Tang Yao had been thinking about possibilities.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have looked into this world’s tech landscape as deeply as she had.
Her obsession with that year-end bonus?
Yeah, it was because she wanted more savings.
With more money in the bank, she’d have more courage to take risks.
But plans never keep up with changes.
Then she heard from Kang Ming about cloud servers…
Now that was a rare opportunity.
Because once cloud services went fully commercial, renting server space would be way harder.
Why?
Because once the system stabilized, the company footing the bill—Changli Group—would prioritize their own internal use.
Wanna rent then?
Get in line.
But now?
The cloud system was up and running but still in testing.
For some reason, even though they funded the whole thing, Changli’s internal departments didn’t want to be guinea pigs.
They were testing it through public access instead.
This was a once-in-a-lifetime window.
Which meant:
If she really wanted to make a mobile game, she could skip the nightmare of building physical servers from scratch.
And if Kang Ming’s janky card game could rent servers, then the price must be very affordable.
Low cost + no physical setup = cloud bugs?
Not a big deal.
This was the real reason Tang Yao had impulsively blurted out her startup dream to Li Xue earlier.
Of course—
Dreaming was easy.
Actually doing it? A whole other beast.
For starters…
Convincing anyone that mobile games could make money was tough.
Tang Yao only believed in it because of her past-life experience.
To people from this world, the idea of mobile games being cash cows was hard to swallow.
Take Li Xue, for example.
She was proof of how hard it was to get people on board.
Pioneers were rare.
And if you counted all the ones who failed halfway, there were even fewer.
Even in Tang Yao’s past life, most people who made money from mobile gaming weren’t visionaries.
They were just sharp enough to jump in while the market was hot.
Still, that alone made them damn impressive.
“Just as I thought…”
“What ‘just as you thought’?”
Li Xue glanced at Tang Yao, who looked deep in thought, then reached over and gently shook her arm.
She was getting worried that Tang Yao was spiraling.
She knew Tang Yao was seriously short on cash.
But still—
That didn’t mean you could just chase any wild idea that popped into your head.
“I’m fine, Miss Li… But haven’t you noticed?”
Tang Yao pulled her phone from her pocket and waved it in front of Li Xue.
It wasn’t the newest model, but aside from screen size, it was clearly a fully functional smartphone.
“Phones are getting more powerful, right? And they’re only gonna get better.
So if we’re just using them to make calls and scroll social media… isn’t that a huge waste?
Most importantly—
Everyone has a phone.
Unlike PCs, phones are always on-hand.
People use them on the train, before bed, during breaks…
If we can offer something that fills those little gaps of time, don’t you think the potential is massive?”
“……”
Li Xue frowned slightly.
“You’re saying mobile platforms will blow up?
Someone else mentioned something like that to me too—how mobile would be the future.
But games…?
Isn’t that kind of a leap? PCs are huge.”
She raised her arms and made a “this big” gesture,
then pointed at Tang Yao’s phone.
“And phones are tiny. If all you can do are little mini-games, people will play once and never open them again.
In that case, only a few games will ever make money…”
“Who said anything about throwaway mini-games?”
Tang Yao smiled.
“Why not mobile MMOs?”
Li Xue instinctively shook her head. “That’s not realistic, is it? MMOs are massive…”
Tang Yao patted her shoulder and cut her off.
“Then why not make a game designed for mobile?
Like… a bishoujo gacha game.”
Li Xue blinked.
Then, half-jokingly, asked,
“Let me guess—you’re the selling point?”
“Absolutely not!”
Tang Yao’s face flushed. “I meant a game where players collect cute girls!”
“Collect cute girls… how does that work?”
“That brings us to the infamous gacha system—
And that accursed Square Enix.”
Tang Yao seemed to recall something amusing, shaking her head.
She gave Li Xue a quick rundown of how gacha games worked—
A genre totally different from PvP-heavy online games, built around character collection rather than rankings.
This was a model she’d considered for a while now.
Why?
Because in her past life, Tang Yao had literally made a living drawing beautiful girls for crappy gacha games.
And this kind of game… had relatively low production costs.
“……”
As Tang Yao spoke, it was like Li Xue was stepping into a whole new world.
She stared in amazement.
When Tang Yao finally finished, Li Xue gasped,
“No way! That’s just… making people pay for love.
You’re telling me someone would actually spend money on a 2D character?
No way anyone would take that seriously…”
“Same reaction, huh.”
Tang Yao wasn’t surprised—only a little nostalgic.
When Square Enix launched Million Arthur, the OG gacha game,
no one believed in it either.
It went completely against the prevailing logic for online games.
But once the revenue figures dropped—
Everyone was stunned.
A flood of copycats followed.
The industry exploded with low-effort gacha clones—everyone wanted a slice.
Still, Tang Yao didn’t argue.
Adapting to new things was hard.
She didn’t want to push Li Xue into overthinking it either.
“Anyway… this is why you need a popular IP.”
She shifted the topic, glancing at the folder she’d brought with her.
“Like… a manga with really appealing characters.”
Yep.
One reason she chose gacha as her model was because of her background as a manga editor.
If she could draw—or reboot—a manga from her past life that had a strong cast,
she might be able to use that to promote the game.
Originally, her plan was to leverage her contacts to find someone else to draw it.
But now?
Maybe she could do it herself.
She’d already proven she could handle it…
It could definitely generate hype for a character-based gacha game.
And as for what to draw?
Tons of options.
“An appealing manga series, huh…”
To be honest—
Li Xue was starting to lose track of Tang Yao’s thought process.
She sighed, looked at the serious expression on Tang Yao’s face, and gently gripped her arm.
“You’re saying… manga readers will shell out money?
Tang Yao, this is way too risky. It’s all over the place…”
“I know.”
Tang Yao gave a helpless smile.
“Honestly, it’s all just a plan right now.
I can only think about it.
I don’t have any money. No investors.
Sure, I could draw most of the characters myself. Even the manga—I could do that solo.
But without enough startup funds, it’s just not feasible.”
Yeah.
It all sounded great.
But without capital, it was just a dream.
Tang Yao looked at the concerned office goddess across from her and half-joked:
“Seriously though, Miss Li…
If you know anyone in venture capital, introduce me sometime.”
She was totally joking.
But to her surprise—
Li Xue went quiet for a moment.
Then said softly,
“Actually… I do know someone in VC.”