Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Eating Books in Reality

Zhao Youyue could not be any less bothered about Lin Shiya's fate. What she did previously was just to ensure that "Bakuman" produced an iconic character.

After finding out that "Wen Qingyu" had achieved an iconic scholarly girl image, she laid back in contentment. The efforts she had put in for the entire semester had finally paid off

Was everything that transpired between Shi Jingnian and Lin Shiya any of her business?

She had once again obtained a new wife, the scholarly girl Wen Qingyu, and it was most satisfying.

With her amount of experience in this field, she was bound to succeed!

If she did not boost the characters to fame through the "death" method, she could only rely on spending a long time, as well as riding on the waves of creativity and bursts of inspiration of genius creators. In a sense, this was also a "sleeping victory."

If the creator was not Shi Jingnian, then Zhao Youyue would definitely have struggled to obtain the iconic character card so easily. Therefore, Zhao Youyue was still grateful to Shi Jingnian. Fortunately, he did not leave the book "Bakuman" incomplete. Otherwise, all of the efforts that Zhao Youyue had put in would go down the drain.

If things were that way, why would she even help him solve so many of his problems?

This was actually a fair, equal exchange. Nobody knew if this was because Zhao Youyue had been influenced by the "Two Dimensional Gate." She was now a strong advocator of equal exchanges. No one owed anyone anything.

Of course, Shi Jingnian still owed Zhao Youyue a lot of money. However, in her eyes, the money was nothing, compared to the iconic character card of Wen Qingyu.

After she obtained the iconic character card, the first thing Zhao Youyue did was to buy a lot of literary classics and other books. Obviously, she wanted to roleplay as Wen Qingyu. She wanted to know for sure how the books would taste like with the character card activated.

In the fictional world, she would feel slightly disembodied. Although the dreams had been very vivid, it was still, just a dream. Reality, on the other hand, was completely different. For novel characters, the real world was like the realm of Gods. Regardless of color, taste, or whatnots, every level was more abundant.

If characters from fictional worlds came into the real world, they would surely be enthralled by the richness of the real world. Their reluctance to leave might even show…

Previously, when Zhao Youyue was using her iconic character cards, she felt that after the activation of a character card, the experience and sensation of becoming a "superhuman" was much stronger than it was in the world of works!

Of course, for Zhao Youyue, every experience in the world of works was also a form of luxury. If she did not go through such long-lasting experiences, she felt that she would definitely not be able to activate the character card instantly…

Those experiences helped her to "get into the act" quickly.

Moreover, the works that she had read in the world of works were also stored in her memory. As long as she continued to familiarize herself with them, she might be able to master them, even without the character card activated.

In fact, Zhao Youyue has always been pursuing the state of having great power and skill, even without any character card activated. Although she might not be able to match 100% of the character's card ability, 30% to 40% was still possible. That way, even without activating a character card, she would be able to handle some situations through her own power. She would only need to activate a character card during critical moments.

If she was able to solve certain problems, even without a character card activated, it would make her feel a sense of accomplishment. It was like playing a game without using any cheats, and depending entirely on her own abilities to secure the victory.

At that moment, Zhao Youyue was alone in her extensive study. It was filled with several books, but her father had basically bought most of the books in order to create a decorative facade. She had not touched the books much.

Of course, she could not directly activate the "Wen Qingyu card" and eat those books on the spot. If her parents came back home to see an empty study, it would be bizarre. Thus, she bought a lot of new books and was ready to use them to experiment with the "Wen Qingyu card."

In addition to the literary masterpieces, there were also some professional and boring academic works, as well as university science textbooks like "Mathematical Analysis." The book was filled with theories by Lagrange, Leibniz, Gauss and more. It was particularly good at giving people headaches.

Zhao Youyue had actually eaten textbooks before, while in the world of works. They had been tasteless, as if she was eating hardtacks. Hardtacks may be tolerable to eat at the beginning, but too much of them would quickly become revolting!

After all, Wen Qingyu was clearly a right-brained person. If she were to be fed science textbooks, her appetite might just disagree!

However, Zhao Youyue wanted precisely this to make things difficult for Wen Qingyu!

Making things difficult for herself, only a drunkard would do this…

Zhao Youyue skillfully activated the "Wen Qingyu card." At that point in time, she felt as if she had been filled with a scholarly temperament. If she were to dress up like a learned person and wear something like canvas shoes, then go on to take an artistic picture of herself and caption it, she would outrightly overtake Lin Shiya.

After all, compared to the so-called scholarly and artistic young lady Lin Shiya, Wen Qingyu was a genuine scholarly girl who lived for books from the bottom of her heart. She had nothing else in her stomach, other than books!

She could place a recliner right under the Sun and lay down on it, with her stomach facing the Sun. If anyone asked her what she was doing, she could respond confidently and say, I'm basking my books in the Sun[1]!

Zhao Youyue then picked up a washed apple, which was on her desk, and took a bite out of it. As expected, she found that the apple had actually lost its taste…

This was probably the side effect of the "Wen Qingyu card." In the novel, she was set to have no sense of taste for ordinary foods. Only when she ate books, did her tastebuds react, but this was obviously a trifling plothole[2]. Since she could not taste ordinary food, how could she possibly be able to describe the various flavors of different cuisines and fruits to draw an analogy?

Most of the readers did not explore this book in-depth. In their opinion, this was probably the price she had to pay, eating books to be able to taste ordinary food. If not, why would she like to eat books so much…

Zhao Youyue put the apple aside, and tried eating other items like candy and chocolate. All of them were tasteless. That finally convinced her. It seemed that the mysterious power of the character card was also acting on the body, and it might even affect her mentally. Of course, her body was still healthy and was free of problems, but the taste of these things were already unable to be conveyed to her soul.

Then, Zhao Youyue began to eat "Mathematical Analysis." She felt that it was best to do it a "bitter first, sweet later" order…

She tore a small piece off the "Lagrange's mean value theorem" page and put it in her mouth. Her face turned pale!

It tasted awful. How does she even put this in words? It just felt as if her body vehemently rejected this type of food. If she persisted, she would definitely suffer an allergic reaction and enter a state of shock!

Science… "Mathematical Analysis" or whatever, was not fated to be with her!

After all, she was much more into literature!

Translation note :

[1] The term "basking books in the sun" () originated from a poem written by Du Mu, a leading Chinese poet of the late Tang dynasty. During the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (years 1662-1722), Zhu Yizun, a very knowledgeable author and poet during the Qing dynasty, would bask in the sun while baring his chest and stomach. He was said to have a "stomach full of knowledge". He basked in the sun on the 6th day of June according to the Chinese calendar. He called it "basking books in the sun", and did it in order to show off the amount of knowledge he had in his stomach.

[2] "Bug" here takes the meaning of "an error in a computer program or system" out of the word's many meanings, but specifically referring to an error in the character settings of Wen Qingyu.