Big Life

Chapter 51: Follow Me If You Can (6)

“Ah, you’re not the editor-in-chief, I guess. I think I’ve got the wrong person. I’m really sorry. Please excuse me. Should I turn back and leave from the same route I took?”

Kwon Tae-Won slowly turned around to see that the person behind him was Ha Jae-Gun. Ha Jae-Gun was smiling mischievously at him with his phone held to his ear.

“Writer Ha? How are you… here?” Kwon Tae-Won was flustered. He wasn’t the type to get surprised by most things, so one could only imagine the shock he felt upon seeing Ha Jae-Gun.

Ha Jae-Gun kept the phone in his pocket and looked around while answering, “You mentioned that you lived in this area before, so I just recalled which apartment complex it was. It didn’t seem like you were going to answer the call, but my timing is impeccable, right? If I had gotten unlucky, I could have left without seeing you here at all.”

“Ah, Writer Ha. Please don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I didn’t want to answer your call, but I’m in a bit of a complicated situation right now…”

Ha Jae-Gun frowned lightly and waved his hand. “Why are you doing this? It’s unlike your usual self. I’m fine. But will you please check your email inbox?”

“My email inbox?”

“Yes, your personal email inbox.” Ha Jae-Gun pointed at Kwon Tae-Won’s phone in his hand.

Kwon Tae-Won looked down at his phone in a daze and accessed his inbox. An email with the subject titled Dragon Rider with three volumes of the manuscript was sent to him.

“Writer Ha, this is…?” Kwon Tae-Won was too stunned to continue his question. He knew very well why Ha Jae-Gun was here, but he still chose to ask the obvious.

He had bowed too much to the writers he had been meeting recently, begging for them to trust him that he would do his best and send their novels his way—he bowed as deeply as he could until he almost felt like his head would fall off.

But none of them, regardless if they were popular or not, responded positively. They all refused him for various reasons. Not one of them had trusted and followed him and his new management company.

However, Ha Jae-Gun, whom Kwon Tae-Won had never approached before, came to see Kwon Tae-Won on his own.

The very same writer, who was no longer an unknown writer but a popular best-seller, had approached Kwon Tae-Won out of his own accord, even to the extent of looking him up and going to his house.

“It’s my new novel. Please read it and give me your feedback.”

“Writer Ha…” A shaky breath escaped from Kwon Tae-Won.

He was all too familiar with Ha Jae-Gun, and that was the reason he had been putting off and keeping the news of his resignation under wraps. He didn’t want to see Ha Jae-Gun suffer any losses if he were to sign a contract with Ha Jae-Gun.

“I’ve come all the way here, so I’m not going back empty-handed,” Ha Jae-Gun said. He bent down to fix his shoelaces and added. “I’ll return after hearing your feedback. If you’d like to sleep early today, you’ll have to start reading now.”

Kwon Tae-Won’s eyes slowly looked at his phone. His vision was turning blurry, and it was getting hard for him to read anything on the screen.

Kwon Tae-Won adjusted his glasses and replied, “I’ll have to read it quickly then. Ah, you wrote it quite fast this time as well.”

“I guess I’m really on a roll this year.” Ha Jae-Gun grinned as he straightened up.

Not far beyond the nearest street lamp was an apartment complex. Ha Jae-Gun pointed in that direction and said, “Editor-in-chief, I still haven’t had dinner. If you haven’t had dinner as well, how about we grab a meal together over there? I see a pub on the first floor there.”

“Ah… Sure, let’s go.”

Kwon Tae-Won took his eyes off of his phone and led the way to the pub; he also needed a place to focus on reading Ha Jae-Gun’s novel.

“What would you like to have, Writer Ha? Please choose what you want.”

“What about chicken? It’s the easiest menu, so it’s often served fast.”

“All right.”

“Hello. Please give us a portion of fried chicken, and umm…” Ha Jae-Gun trailed off to ask Kwon Tae-Won, “Should I get a pint for each of us?”

“Sure.”

“Please give us two pints of beer.”

The two pints of beer were served first before their food. Ha Jae-Gun grabbed his glass to drink while Kwon Tae-Won started reading Ha Jae-Gun’s novel. Kwon Tae-Won’s eyes started shining like an actual editor-in-chief while he was reading it.

“Here’s your fried chicken.” Their food was served just as Ha Jae-Gun had emptied his pint of beer mid-way. Kwon Tae-Won, on the other hand, hadn’t looked up from his phone even once. The fizz in his beer was rapidly diminishing.

“Please give me another pint of beer.” Another pint of beer was soon served to Ha Jae-Gun. During that short period of time, Kwon Tae-Won had finished reading volume one and was now reading volume two.

Thirty minutes—no, even an hour later, the two still hadn’t talked to each other. It was only after two hours when Kwon Tae-Won finally looked up with a smile.

“I’ve enjoyed it a lot,” he said.

“How was it? What do you think?”

“First of all, it’s really interesting.”

Kwon Tae-Won’s first words made Ha Jae-Gun uneasy. He had expected those exact words from him, and he also expected that Kwon Tae-Won’s compliments would end there.

After all, Kwon Tae-Won wasn’t the type to give unnecessary praise.

‘First of all? Which means that he’ll be pointing out all the problems from now on.’

At least, Kwon Tae-Won was the only one whose eye of judgment for fantasy and martial arts genre novels he could trust the most. Ha Jae-Gun nervously took a huge mouthful of beer while Kwon Tae-Won showed him three fingers.

“There are three problems.”

“Keugh, that’s a lot. Please go ahead.”

“I’ll start with the least problematic one. First of all, the title isn’t all that appealing. As far as I know, there’s another writer who has published a fantasy novel with the same title.”

Ha Jae-Gun chuckled upon hearing that. Of course, changing to a better title wouldn’t be that huge of an issue. Ha Jae-Gun continued listening with glistening eyes and perked ears.

“Secondly… Writer Ha, you know that the management I had just set up would be focusing mainly on paid serializations, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Paid serializations refer to releasing chapters with roughly 5,500 characters, so the pace would be different compared to paperback books. And if possible, every chapter needed an introduction, development, turn, and conclusion; the ending of each chapter would also require some sort of cliffhanger, like a drama—it would pull people in to read the