All-rounder Artist

Chapter 465: Chapter 443: Tonnage Crushing the Food Chain_1

It was 8 AM on the Qin Continent.

Inside the study room of a country villa.

Teacher Yuanyuan was sitting in the chair by the desk, receiving a fresh new novel from someone’s hand. On the cover was a striking illustration of two cute mice — the one on the left was sitting on a toy airplane, while the one on the right sat in a toy tank.

The title read “Shuk and Beta!”

And at the back, it says, “By Chu Kuang.”

After tearing open the sealed packaging, the woman who bought the storybook for Teacher Yuanyuan said with a smile, “The New Cathay Bookstore has a clever touch today. They promoted this book and Teacher Hu’s “The Aristocats” together, even claiming it to be the ultimate showdown in Long-form Fairy Tales.”

“They used the same marketing for me before.”

Teacher Yuanyuan casually replied, “But it seems like I’ve held the Qin fairy tale world back. Teacher Hu’s fairy tales are indeed more engaging, and the situation in the field is gloomy. That is, if Chu Kuang hasn’t released a new book…”

“Think Chu Kuang can win?”

“Why not read it and see?”

Teacher Yuanyuan shook the freshly unwrapped novel in her hand, deeply inhaling the scent of fresh ink, “I love the smell of new books. They smell wonderful. This book should be great.”

The woman next to her rolled her eyes.

Doesn’t ink smell the same everywhere?

Ignoring the thoughts of the person next to her, Teacher Yuanyuan cheerily flipped open the first page of the novel. The opening of the story jumped out: “Shuk was born in a family with a bad reputation…and it went on.”

Fairy tales do not strain the brain.

For an adult like Teacher Yuanyuan, reading a fairy tale mostly consisted of skimming through the plot. However, as she read through, she suddenly burst out laughing.

What an interesting story!

Shuk doesn’t want to be a mouse with a bad reputation, so he disguises himself as a pilot, going around helping others. In the end, he succeeds in earning the friendship of ants, bees, and sparrows. However, when he plans to have a dinner with these new pals, a cat shows up.

The cat reveals Shuk’s true identity.

Everyone hates mice, the cat thought that revealing Shuk as a mouse would turn everyone against him, but to its surprise, not being deterred by Shuk’s identity, they all plead the kitten to let Shuk go. In the end, the little kitty had to leave in disappointment…

That was why Yuanyuan laughed.

The main villain in the story is a cat.

Any sane person who comes across this plot might suspect Chu Kuang had a teasing intention behind it, since Teacher Hu’s fairy tale protagonist seemed to feature a cat.

Huh?

Teacher Yuanyuan suddenly remembered that her protagonist was also a cat, which made her laughter more hearty. Especially when she later found that the two protagonists of this book are actually two mice, and the other mouse, Beta, is proficient in commanding a tank.

We have two cats!

Chu Kuang has two mice!

But it is truly a coincidence, rats and cats are natural enemies, so it is granted that the cat serves as the villain in this fairy tale. Despite being the villain, the cat doesn’t really do anything atrocious after all.

That’s what Yuanyuan thought.

While Yuanyuan was reading “Shuk and Beta,” Teacher Hu, also clutched a copy of the same book, but he couldn’t easily burst into laughter like Yuanyuan while reading.

…

Many people purchased “Shuk and Beta,” but not everyone chose to read it immediately. Some bought it for their children, as adults usually don’t take an interest in fairy tales.

In comparison to the content.

The thing that most concerned everybody is whether Chu Kuang’s long fairy tale can win back the glory for Qin’s fairy tale circle as Teacher Hu’s fairy tales were quite impressive in terms of sales and reputation, and he even surpassed Teacher Yuanyuan.

“When will the result come out?”

“If it’s close, it might take a few days.”

“If there’s a large gap, one day will be enough.”

“We can put it this way. If Chu Kuang’s proficiency in writing short fairy tales is ten out of ten, then his long fairy tales would only have to reach eight-tenths of his short fairy tales to easily beat Teacher Hu.”

“Sounds about right.”

“He doesn’t even need eight-tenths. I feel that if Chu Kuang’s long fairy tales have even seven-tenths or even six-tenths of his short fairy tale’s strength, he can win. His short tales are of the one-to-nine level, officially recognized as the King of Short Fairy Tales by the Literature and Art Association!”

“Five-tenths will do already!”

“You guys are exaggerating more and more. The current issue is, how much worse are Chu Kuang’s long fairy tales than his short fairy tales? What if Chu Kuang’s long fairy tales are of the same standard as his short stories? That would leave no hope for Teacher Hu.”

“…”

You can tell at one glance that the above group of netizens are from the Qin continent. When it comes to the Yan Continent, opinions take a completely different turn: “Separately categorize short fairy tales and long fairy tales. Qin people love generalizations.”

“Exactly.”

“Long fairy tales require a more comprehensive outline and a more exciting storyline to connect. Otherwise, those acclaimed fairy tale writers wouldn’t distinguish between short and long tales. Everyone has their own strengths.”

“Victory for Teacher Hu!”

“Chu Kuang is dizzy from the victory over the nine opponents in the short fairy tale competition. I can understand. Just like when I won the championship in an amateur singing contest and thought I was unbeatable until I went to an entertainment company and discovered how little I know.”

“…”

They say the mindset depends on where you stand.

During the discussion between Qin people and Yan people, this argument was proven most fair. However, even fairer than the Qin and Yan netizens would be the netizens from Qi Continent and Chu Continent. Yet, their view was:

“”It’s a fifty-fifty shot!”

Both sides have unpredictable outcomes!

But is the outcome really unpredictable? The answer to this question became clear by evening, because not everyone was chatting online without reading the book. Many people bought ‘Shuke and Beta’ and took it home to read.

Not necessarily out of interest.

Just out of curiosity.

As a result, this curiosity turned into the first batch of readers’ reviews of ‘Shuke and Beta’, which appeared one by one on the main novel comment section of Starry Sky Network, attracting netizens who hadn’t read the book to the site:

“Chu Kuang is so interesting!”

“I originally bought it for my son. I just flipped through it casually but I couldn’t put it down. Shuke flying planes and Beta driving tanks have outsmarted kittens in various ways. I have burst into laughter several times. Now my son wants to compete with me for the book.”

“I really like Shuke and Beta!”

“Isn’t the most interesting one is the cat? The protagonist of Teacher Yuanyuan and Teacher Hu’s fairy tales are kittens. But Chu Kuang changed the protagonist to two mice. The kittens became villains who were beaten up at the beginning.”

“Shuke and Beta are such great pals.”

“These two Zhi star people are so handsome. I remember I liked model toys when I was a child, which could let my hamster get in and start moving with a remote control. I’m a model enthusiast even now. Shuke and Beta have fulfilled my childhood dream!”

“It seems like kids really like it.”

“I haven’t finished reading the book yet, so I quickly came online to make my presence known. This round, Teacher Hu is out. Shuke and Beta is probably the type of fairy tale I liked most when I was a child. It’s thrilling and doesn’t make people feel clichéd. With two mice as the main characters, flying planes and crashing tanks directly hits the sweet spot for kids!”

“…”

It appears to be quite good?

These early comments on the Starry Sky Network formed the first impression for those who hadn’t read ‘Shuke and Beta’, and this impression didn’t change as more comments appeared. On the contrary, there seemed to be even more excitement.

Meanwhile.

Inside many families with children, the little ones were engrossed in ‘Shuke and Beta’, flipping the pages from time to time, their faces full of tension and excitement, as if worried about another adventure of Shuke and Beta, yet excited for another victory of theirs.

…

Still in Qin Continent.

Having read half of ‘Shuke and Beta’, Teacher Yuanyuan sipped her tea and smiled at the woman next to her: “Cats and mice are indeed natural enemies. But cats usually dominate the food chain and mice can only scurry away when cats play with them.”

“So?”

“There are exceptions.”

Teacher Yuanyuan narrowed her eyes.

The woman next to her slapped her head and said, “Speaking of mice and cats, I saw a very funny animated picture a few days ago. It was probably the situation you were talking about. Let me send it to you.”

The woman took out her phone and operated it.

Teacher Yuanyuan was taken aback, then picked up her phone to open the image the woman had sent. As a result, she was stupefied when she saw the picture: a mouse bigger than a cat was eating cat food.

The cat cautiously approached.

The breed of this cat is bluish-white.

The mouse looked back at the cat and continued eating its food, its tail swung once, which instantly scared the cat away. The cat hid in the corner, trembling while looking at the mouse eating its food, leaving a very adorable impression.

“What the hell…”

Teacher Yuanyuan laughed back and forth. This seemed to be a larger species than cats, so it was quite normal for the cat to be scared. “Your picture is good, but it’s mine in the next second.”

While talking, Yuanyuan logged into the tribe.

She didn’t say anything else, but uploaded this funny animated picture. As soon as the post was published, many fans began to leave comments underneath.

“Poor cat.”

Jin Shan reposted the dynamic picture.

Qiqi also reposted it.

Turtle Master followed by reposting the dynamic picture, and left an online comment: “I always thought that cats were the natural enemy of mice, but I didn’t expect that there are cats in the world that can’t beat mice. Does this count as the food chain being crushed by the tonnage…”

A cat and mouse war?

Where is the promised war?

Lastly, in the Yan Continent, Teacher Hu, with a change of expression after a few seconds, abruptly sneezed: “Why does the smell of the new book’s ink irritate my nose so much!”

Then, there was silence.

Teacher Hu had a dream. His dream was to have a time machine, even a one-time consumable would work. All he needed was to adjust the timeline a bit. Well, this was actually a dream he had just five days ago, when he hoped he could come five days later ——

Now he wants to go back to five days ago.

Saving face is possible, but revenge isn’t.

The heated regional competition seems to be drawing to a close in an almost humorous manner. From Chu Kuang’s penetrating through nine to the final unique “Cat and Mouse War”, it’s as interesting as a long fairy tale.

——————

ps: Thanks a lot to big boss [Zinc Luan] for the reward, becoming the 31st Alliance Hierarch of this book. Additional updates will come, but I owe you guys quite a few updates. I have to jot it down in a notebook and pay it off slowly. I somewhat regret the three-updates-at-least promise I made before (＞﹏＜).