Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

  Zhang Zian quickly went downstairs and planned to visit Sun Xiaomeng’s clinic to see what she was doing. He also wanted to refresh himself by taking a walk outside, now that his brain had been filled with endless English letters.

  Passing the checkout counter, he casually said, “I’m going out. I’ll be back in a minute.”


  When he spoke, he didn’t look at Lu Yiyun because she was always immersed in painting when there weren’t any customers in the store.

  As he walked past the checkout counter, he suddenly felt a strange look come from behind him, and he stopped walking to look back at Lu Yiyun.

  She was staring at his butt.

  “Is there a stain on my trousers?” Zhang Zian patted his behind, wondering if the chair he had sat on up on the second floor was dirty and had stained his pants.

  “No, no! Nothing! Nothing!” Panicked, Lu Yiyun came back to senses and hid her head into her digital drawing board, pretending to draw.

  Zhang Zian thought her expression was off, but he couldn’t tell why. Having no time to think about this issue, he rushed out the door.

  After he left, Lu Yiyun patted her chest and felt relieved.

  “He almost found out,” she muttered to herself, now that she was alone in the store.

  “Quack! What did he find out?”


  A voice suddenly sounded from above her head.

  “Ah!” She screamed and looked up. It turned out that the talking grey parrot had landed on the shelf above her head and was staring at her painting on the computer screen.

  On the screen, she had drawn a handsome young man. The style of the young man was like the common heartthrob from Japanese manga, but the outline of his face resembled Zhang Zian’s to some extent.

  The young man in the painting was handsome indeed, but for some reason, he seemed to look a little gay.

  “No… nothing…” Lu Yiyun couldn’t help but want to conceal her intentions, even if the one who asked her a question was just a bird.

  “Quack! What a handsome guy. Yiyun, is he your dream lover?” Richard flew to the desk, looking closer at the character sketch on the screen.

  “No, he’s the protagonist of my comic,” she replied.

  “The protagonist of a comic…” Richard squinted and opened its beak, revealing a narrow arc. “What’s his name?”


  “Well, I haven’t thought about that yet.”


  Lu Yiyun was so bad at naming her characters. Every time she needed to name a character in her comic book, she would have to search for names desperately on the internet.

  “Quack! In that case, I think I can tell you a good name.” Richard’s smile carried a dangerous implication. “Would you like to hear it?”


  She nodded. “What’s the name?”


  Richard solemnly said, “Nowadays, everything is in line with international standards, especially comics. Because comics are image-based and only have a small number of words, they’re easier to understand for people of different languages.”


  Lu Yiyun gaped in surprise. She thought that this gray parrot was intelligent and its words were making a lot sense, so she listened to it more attentively. This was indeed the case with comics. By simply translating the dialogue between characters, a Japanese manga could be easily understood by Chinese, American, and German readers, and vice versa.

  Seeing her falling into its trap, Richard continued. “Now, there are many people who come to China to study and travel. For instance, the exchange student Masanori Suzuhara who was here a few days ago. If you want to make your comic’s audience bigger, you should give a Chinese-Western name to the protagonist, so that the readers abroad can better immerse themselves in the story.”


  Lu Yiyun nodded vigorously. “What would be a better name then?”


  Richard was about to reveal its real intentions. It excitedly fluttered its wings and cried, “Quack! How about Billy Zhang?” (Translator’s note: Billy Herrington is an American pornographic film actor.)

  Billy Zhang?

  Lu Yiyun thought that this name sounded a bit familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she had heard it from.

  “Oh? How do you know his last name is Zhang?”


  She suddenly realized that she’d never told Richard that she planned on using the last name Zhang for the protagonist. How did Richard figure it out?

  “Quack! Don’t mind the minor details!” Richard carefully observed the styling of the young man, shook its head, and changed the subject. “This styling isn’t going to work.”


  “Why? What’s wrong with it?” Lu Yiyun felt a little upset from Richard rejecting her design.

  Richard raised one wing and pointed at the screen, “You’ve done a good job with painting, but this style is too Japanese and slender, which is really common on the internet, but isn’t easily recognizable.”


  Lu Yiyun stared thoughtfully at the screen and re-examined her sketch objectively. Indeed, as the grey parrot said, the protagonist’s styling was handsome, and had been painstakingly designed by her. However, this Japanese girly styling was extremely rampant on the internet, and her design was simply more elegant than others, but it had no distinctive features to make it recognizable.

  “Then, what styling would be better?” she humbly asked for advice.

  Her mind was immersed in the comic world and she’d forgotten that she was talking to a parrot. Since she often talked to her cat Jasmine at home, Zhang Zian often talked with the cats, dogs, and parrots in the pet shop, and Little Celery often talked with the hamster and lop-eared rabbit, she didn’t feel like talking to animals was unusual.

  Richard rolled its black eyes and said slyly, “Why not paint him as a muscular guy? A muscular guy with a good-looking face? What do you think?”


  Lu Yiyun immeditaely became inspired!

  Right! Another identity of Zhang Zian’s was a prestigious Master of Wing Chun Kung Fu. She heard that he practiced boxing almost every day. Under his ordinary clothes, he definitely had huge hidden muscles!

  With the protagonist’s beautiful face and over-developed muscles, he could rip his shirt apart from time to time. The contradiction in his looks and personality would easily leave a lasting impression on the readers!

  As for why the protagonist would have to tear up his clothes in a pet shop, Lu Yiyun figured that she could worry about it later.

  Her thoughts were occupied with images of an attractive and muscular guy ripping up his clothes and she’d forgotten to focus on why the gray parrot had come up with this idea in the first place.

  “It seems very reasonable,” she said nodding. “Thank you.”


  Even though this meant that she had to recreate the protagonist, she felt like it was worth it.

  “Quack! You’re welcome. If you have any issues, feel free to ask me for help.” Having successfully gotten revenge on Zhang Zian, Richard happily fluttered its wings and flew away. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”


  It landed on the shelf above the doorway. “Just concentrate on drawing and don’t worry about anything else. If that idiot Zhang Zian returns, I’ll let you know.”


  “Uh-huh.”


  Lu Yiyun gratefully picked up her pencil and started working on the protagonist’s design. Without her realizing, the decision between no couples or boy love for her comic had also faded from her mind.