Chapter 48.1

A Script, A Cooperation

Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil

Cheng Zhaoci will have to ask the Zhou brothers beforehand for time to help detailing work with his third chapter.

Well, Zhou Luoluo is pretty much free. Unexpectedly, Zhou Xiaobao also says he’s free whenever. According to his cousin, he wasn’t feeling on top of his game from his comic’s comments.

There are always things one thinks they would be able to handle well until it turns out not. Case in point, Zhou Xiaobao, who was said to have just sat sulking with a body pillow after reading a few unfriendly comments in a row.

Cheng Zhaoci decides against cheering him up on this, as it is only going to become the new normal. Zhou Xiaobao will have to learn to just deal with it and ignore them entirely.

He is actually adapting surprisingly well, too, as Zhou Luoluo also reports that Zhou Xiaobao decided to take a few days off before returning all the more ready with renewed plot holes and contrivances. It should be noted that Zhou Luoluo appeared distraught when telling this part of the recollection.

Cheng Zhaoci “…” He knew it. Nice one, Zhou Xiaobao!

Meanwhile, Cheng Zhaoci is already drawing up plans for what to follow after this short romance comic is done. He’ll begin his actual long-term serialised work. He already has a story planned out in his past world – he simply died before seeing it to fruition. So it’s time to finish off the short comic.

During this, though, he has an audience while working on his comic – Lu Yao, the Grand Marshal whose daily activities suggest the post actually has no responsibility nor tasks to do.

“I don’t actually have much work. I’m actually in a de facto retirement. Unless the insectoid is being threatened to its core, I don’t expect to get called up at all,” explains Lu Yao as he holds a cup of warm drink while watching him draw.

He thinks Cheng Zhaoci’s drawing is very skilled, but then, being someone who might pass away at any time, he isn’t so easily moved to bawling like young ones, or is going to beg for updates or anything.

In fact, he even has constructive opinions, “if the purpose of this separation is to show how the male’s feelings for the demi run more deeply than everyone thought, that no other insectoid can understand, you can arrange for the male to become more mature before they meet up again.”

“Sometimes, telling is far weaker and shallower compared to showing with the characters’ actions – consistent actions over time, that is.”

“You mean…” Cheng Zhaoci looks at Lu Yao.

“Like he could be rather meek when he first starts to work remotely, making him a pushover, reflecting his upbringing as a typical, somewhat spoiled male. He had to become more assertive and capable over time.”

“Forcing himself to become more independent and assertive after losing everything he relied on?” Cheng Zhaoci thinks about it, and finds it quite plausible, that said, “such a change would have to have happened over years. If the demi was actually fine during all this, where could he be? He could have called even if he were healing in a hospital.”

Here, having a Grand Marshal by one’s side proves its benefits, “just wait a little bit. I remember some wars where aliens carried strains and possible infectious agents we had no immunity for, and thus quarantine and sector lockdowns were imposed. I have some examples of those. Communications in and out would also be heavily restricted, both for intelligence and avoiding general panic.”

Lu Yao had his examples ready soon enough. They feature some of the classic wars the insectoids once fought with other species. There are also details inside of the quarantine measures imposed, if any.

It sure is nice to have an expert who’s also experienced in such things by his side. He didn’t even need to go look up information or make up excuses.

Lu Yao then watches Cheng Zhaoci continue to refine his script for the third arc, and finally, form a complete, coherent story, with the two insectoids finally back together after all the hurdles they overcome. He can’t help but comment, “this really is nice.”

It’s a shame real life is no escapism like in comics, with happiness to follow easily enough after tragedies, like the tragedies were trials that guaranteed happiness when overcome.

In the comic, the male started living alone in the third arc, staying in the small house he and the demi owned. He has never known house chores or even a callous, but he slowly came to be able to keep the house in good condition.

He also started to become less of an ‘ideal’ insectoid.

At first, to avoid trouble, the male never revealed his male identity. His soft personality meant he didn’t know how to say no to work piled onto him. There are often times he had to do ‘favours’ he’s not compensated for, even if it meant overtime for him. It was painful.

Eventually, he learned to refuse what was unwarranted. He learned that not everyone was a friend, and in fact, started only valuing relationships on what he could gain and lose.

He is no longer hopelessly naïve, or, at least, he was forcibly sharpened into a rose with thorns. All so he could maintain a living.

Even so, the male never forgot his demi, not even after there has been no news for a long, long time.

No matter how much he matured, how bad he changed into, how fluently he could negotiate and talk with other insectoids now, the demi was the only one he opened up to, and who opened up to him warmly, accepting him for all he was, when he was loneliest.

He could never forget him.

This is the first chapter of this last arc, detailing the changes the male undergoes. They are certainly not growth others would appreciate seeing on a male, and if the demi was still here, he would probably still be the nice, meek male that didn’t know how to refuse, and would never calculate the worth of relationships and others.

During this time, the male’s family will also finally come to realise, through how drastically the male has changed in their eyes, that this wasn’t at all the simple relationship they thought this was.

They would try to reverse the male’s course and make him go back to them, but only be met with abject refusal.

In the final part, the male will be eating alone on the dinner table. He is no longer the simple, lonely male who knew nothing. There is a clear change in his countenance.

Opposite of the male is a bowl. The demi’s bowl.

The final panel of the chapter is the close-up of the bowl…
Which leads in to the start of the second chapter, which is a close-up of a similar bowl held in the demi’s hands.

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