Starting as a Manga Editor-Chapter 9: Starting a Business… Maybe?

In the end—
More than half of Li Xue’s lunch ended up in Tang Yao’s stomach.
What could she do?
She’d been completely disarmed by the older woman’s loving feeding.
“You really full now?”
Tang Yao finished the last bite of her bread, then turned to look at Li Xue, who was beside her packing up her lunchbox.
“You gave me everything, didn’t you?”
“I’m full. I always have leftovers anyway, so it worked out.”
Li Xue shook her head, closed the lid of her box, and added, “Plus, I’m supposed to be on a diet.”
“You? Dieting with that body?”
Tang Yao looked her over—tall, poised, and dressed in a fitted professional suit.
“You’re just inventing problems for yourself… Here, have some tea.”
As she spoke, she handed over one of the green teas she’d bought.
“By your standard, yeah, I guess I’m inventing anxiety.”
Li Xue looked over at the girl beside her—youthful, glowing, curves in all the right places—and then glanced down at her own chest, her waist, and finally her arms, and sighed.
She wasn’t fat at all.
But when your "competition" was this ridiculous…
“……”
Tang Yao didn’t bother responding.
Her figure had nothing to do with her, thank you very much.
She hadn’t asked for it to be this long-legged or… this top-heavy.
It was a pain, honestly—her shoulders were sore as hell after running around all day.
“I heard you got into it with your chief editor again?”
Li Xue was used to Tang Yao always being evasive when it came to her figure.
She unscrewed the bottle cap, took a sip of tea, and casually changed the subject.
Tang Yao nodded.
Though she was a little curious, she asked,
“Yeah, but how do you already know about something that happened this morning?”
“Because everyone’s watching you.”
Li Xue looked at her pale, delicate profile and explained,
“Beautiful women are always a hot topic.
Plus, the whole ‘troublemaker constantly clashing with the chief editor’ angle? Super popular in the editorial gossip circles.”
“People have that much free time?”
Tang Yao sighed, then muttered with a helpless tone,
“But seriously, I’m starting to lose my patience with Chief Ding.
The guy completely misses the point—sales, sales, sales!
Doesn’t he get that improving the quality of the manga is what drives sales?
I told him to contact Mr. Ou, and he hits me with ‘a one-week hiatus will hurt circulation.’
I mean, if that’s how much you treasure him, why even assign an editor? Just put a broomstick at my desk instead.
And then what he said afterward? Unreal.
‘Accompany them for drinks’!?
If I weren’t worried about the fallout, I swear I’d have punched him in the face.”
She furrowed her brows, clearly fed up with her boss.
“I told you—when something hits close to home, that guy turns into a monster.
You don’t get to that position in a big company just by sucking up.
Either you’ve got connections, or you deliver results.
Your Chief Ding? He’s one of the latter.
I hate his methods, and yeah, they’re outdated now, but people always cling to what’s worked for them before.
And the truth is—he has succeeded in the past.”
Li Xue shook her head slightly.
“It’s almost impossible to change people who are still stuck in the old era.
So I’ll say it again, Yaoyao—come join my department.”
Tang Yao didn’t answer right away.
Instead, she asked curiously,
“Are you saying that while Ding Yilong was still an editor, one of the artists he completely let go of actually succeeded?”
“Yeah, the one now serialized in Young Comic—Mr. Rumi.”
“…That explains it.”
Even though she hadn’t been in this world for long, Tang Yao had definitely heard that name.
Mr. Rumi—he was like the parallel-world version of Eiichiro Oda.
Li Xue asked again,
“So… still not considering switching departments?
Even if you just want to take it easy, it’d be a lot easier over here.
And don’t forget—I am a deputy editor-in-chief.”
“Miss Li, I really don’t understand shoujo manga.
If I transferred just to coast, forget you—even I’d look down on myself.”
Tang Yao thought for a second and added seriously,
“And honestly, it’d be doing you a disservice.
You’re one of the few friends I’ve made here. I don’t want you to see me as some freeloader who’s just here to kill time.”
“……”
Li Xue opened her mouth to say something, but stopped.
Because it hit her.
That’s probably what she liked most about Tang Yao.
If she did turn into someone waiting to be spoon-fed every day…
Well…
Actually, that might not be so bad…
Wait—no! That wouldn’t be okay!
Tang Yao went on,
“Also, I’m thinking about resigning a little earlier than planned.”
That pulled Li Xue right out of her cozy fantasy of feeding Tang Yao lunch every day.
“Because of the manga award situation?”
“No. I’ve already resolved that.
It’s mainly because I’m completely disappointed in Chief Ding.
He probably won’t even read the submission I handed in.
He’s arrogant and self-important to the point of being disgusting.
Working under someone like that? The longer I stay, the worse it’ll get.”
She paused.
“And besides—I think I’ve found a talented person.
And… something important.”
“Wait, what? Resolved?
And what do you mean by ‘talented person’? You found a replacement mangaka?”
“Nope.
The talent I found is a guy who almost got himself thrown in jail over a card game platform.”
Tang Yao thought of the prematurely balding Kang Ming and added,
“Surprisingly, there’s already public cloud server rental available now.
Sure, it’s probably buggy at this stage—but it will get better.
If we do it right, we might actually be able to make something work with games.”
She recalled that in her past life, all of miHoYo’s games were hosted on Alibaba Cloud.
“???”
Li Xue was officially lost.
Wasn’t this about manga?
How did we suddenly start talking about cloud servers and games?
And what was this about someone almost going to jail over a PvP platform!?
“Not gonna lie—”
Tang Yao saw Li Xue’s stunned expression and scratched her cheek sheepishly.
“Miss Li, I… I want to start a business.”
“…Huh? That’s kinda sudden.”
Li Xue’s beautiful eyes widened slightly. She couldn’t quite keep up with Tang Yao’s train of thought.
“It’s just… right now feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Tang Yao gently rolled the green tea bottle between her hands, explaining softly,
“Especially with mobile games.
If I can pull this off, it’ll be a fast way to build up capital.
And—
It’ll finally ease all those worries my sister keeps bottling up.”
“Mobile games? You mean those crude, meaningless little games?
I don’t think you can really make big money from those.
There are only a handful that ever break out.
Like that endless runner one… or that flying bird thing?”
Li Xue studied Tang Yao’s expression carefully, but when she realized the girl was completely serious, she started looking concerned too.
She warned,
“It’s not as easy to make money in that space as people think.
If anything, online multiplayer games are way hotter right now.
Heck, I just read about a company boss who made it onto the rich list from that.
But that market’s already saturated.”
“I know.”
Tang Yao wasn’t surprised by her skepticism.
Because yeah—right now, it was hard to believe mobile games could be that profitable.
Despite appearances, Tang Yao had done her research.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so shocked.
In this world, the map was much larger than in her past life.
But its developmental trajectory? Strikingly similar.
Only this time, some previously overlooked industries—like manga—had gained prominence.
Right now, this world was basically at the same point as her past life, when the traditional internet was giving way to mobile internet.
4G had already launched.
Smartphones were starting to quietly take over.
But the internet giants were still pouring their energy into digitizing existing industries—like housing, food reviews, etc.
And of course, raking in huge profits from online MMORPGs.
As for single-player games?
…Yeah, not a big thing.
Mobile gaming was still in its infancy.
This era was equivalent to when games like Fruit Ninja were just starting to trend.
The mobile games Li Xue had mentioned?
Those were all tiny, casual games.
Realistically, there were probably already people beginning to notice the tidal wave of mobile internet that was coming.
But so far, no one had launched a true breakout product.
Which meant—
This was a goldmine.
Sure, the risk was high.
But Tang Yao genuinely believed there was money to be made here.
At the very least, it was a solid shot at building her seed capital.
This… was the best, most realistic plan she had to earn her first bucket of gold.