There is nothing wrong with the training method of the Justice Messenger

"My style of writing?"

"The male protagonists in your stories are very similar to you - you are the type who puts yourself into the protagonist's shoes. Are you not aware of this?"

Li Nian thought about it and nodded: "...Of course I am aware of it."

"You admitted it?"

"What's there to be ashamed of? In reality, I am a young man with upright values, good looks, good literary and martial arts skills, and lots of money. It's not shameful to be the protagonist, okay?"

As Li Nian spoke, he winked proudly at Wu Geng beside him, but the latter rolled his eyes and kept his mouth shut... This time the girl learned her lesson and was too lazy to complain about this guy about such things - because what this guy said was indeed true.

Li Nian smiled... Actually, I didn't think that the protagonist in the book would be the same as the feeling he gave to Kasumigaoka and others in real life.

Because if you ask why, his writing philosophy is to describe his [ideal self], so that these people can feel like him...that just means that the real him is close to his [ideal self].

"Since you've admitted it yourself, then I'm not wrong to say that this is a characteristic of your writing style, right?"

"I guess so... I understand what you mean. Do you think that whatever I write is based on myself as the main character?"

"That's it."

"Hahaha." Li Nian shook his head in a mocking manner. "That senior sister is looking down on me, isn't she? It's just that no one asked me to write a book according to my own temperament and create a protagonist who seems to have my own personality. But it doesn't mean that I can only write this type of character setting. Even if you have read hundreds of thousands of words, you should know that all the characters in a book are written by me, right?"

What was shown to Kasumigaoka was only the first draft and the revised draft, which totaled several hundred thousand words. Li Nian did not think that those words reflected the whole of the author "Mu Zi Jin Xin". Do you want to conclude that Li Nian can only write one kind of character based on just one book? There are more than a dozen characters in the book, but they were also written by Li Nian? Are those characters not outstanding?

Schizophrenia is the author's basic skill.

The upright person, the evil person, the cowardly person, the proud person, the cold person, the enthusiastic person... If it's more complicated, there is the person who hides a kind heart under his cold words and deeds, the person who seems kind with a smile but has a mind full of vicious thoughts, the person who has fallen into the devil and is full of evil nature but sticks to his principles, and so on. You have to be able to write about all kinds of people.

"A good writer is one who can write about everything and everyone. I don't need to teach you this, do I?"

"...Oh? Are you angry?"

"No, but I do feel underestimated. Let me be frank with you. If you think that I am only this capable, it will be difficult for us to continue to cooperate with you."

"Don't worry." Kasumigaoka stopped laughing and said seriously, "Of course I believe in your ability - I hope you can continue with this style on the premise that I believe in your ability. That's what you are best at, isn't it? I think you should stick to this style and write an excellent script with me."

Li Nian was stunned, then thought for a while, and then said: "As for my own ideas, I would like to try another way of writing. To be more specific, it is to fit the theme of this project proposed by An Yi, that kind of royal love story."

"So you don't want to use yourself as the hero?"

"It's not appropriate for someone with my personality to be the protagonist of a Japanese gal, right?"

Li Nian looked at the screen. The text displayed at this time was the inner monologue of the male protagonist. He was the type of person who was troubled by past failures and became so unconfident that he did not dare to confirm his love for the heroine. Sentimentality was the norm during adolescence - but Li Nian would never have such an idea.

"The sense of immersion is very important. For this reason, games for the general public are all downplaying the characteristics of the protagonist. Shouldn't the traditional gal be a faceless, ordinary, good-natured guy as the protagonist? The kind that is most convenient for otakus to empathize with themselves?"

“…Generally speaking, there is this concern.” Kasumigaoka nodded in agreement.

Most of the popular games on the market are indeed of the type that Li Nian mentioned. Not only gals, but all kinds of games with a user base of the general otaku have this commonality. In order to enhance the user's sense of involvement, the protagonist should not have too many identifiable characteristics.

For example, the cleaning captain in a certain game, the faceless doctor in another game... In short, this is a method that has been adhered to by the industry for many years and has been proven to be effective.

"So it's a bit inappropriate to use me as the protagonist..."

"Oh? Aren't you [an ordinary male high school student who can be found everywhere]? Why are you not suitable to be a gal protagonist?" Gogen finally caught the guy's weakness, and of course he couldn't wait to start mocking him.

Li Nian waved his hand and said, "No, no, I won't be one anymore. Can you please stop being one today? From now on, I will be an ordinary high school boy, but secretly a powerful exorcist and a best-selling light novel writer. Is that ok?"

"You don't look like it, okay?" Wu Geng spared no effort to complain: "And regardless of whether you are a powerful exorcist, you are dreaming of selling your book before it's even on the shelves?"

"...Anyway, do you really think that my type is suitable for being a gal male lead?"

"Ah, this guy actually avoided the topic..."

"At first glance, he's not suitable to be a gal protagonist. It seems that the audience won't feel involved at all." Kasumigaoka agreed, chuckled and nodded, and added: "The most important thing is that he doesn't seem to want to fall in love?"

"Really? A straight guy like me who doesn't want to fall in love is only suitable for fighting and killing. Forget about being a gal protagonist." Li Nian put his hands on his head and leaned back. He was sure that he shouldn't be used as the protagonist character: "If you want to do a mainstream campus romance project like Amai, you should use the old-fashioned male protagonist. The focus of the script should be on the female character, and the character of the male protagonist should be more popular and downplayed."

"Are you satisfied with this? Are you satisfied with [the masses] [the kingly way] [routine]?"

"What's there to be dissatisfied about? I told you I don't hate this."

"You clearly spared no effort to stick to yourself when you were writing your own work?"

"How can changing the style not be asserting oneself? No, it's not even a change of style, it's just that the character design of the protagonist uses an ordinary and normal type, right? Let me make it clear first, I am confident that I can write that type of story - and it is also the easiest to achieve commercial success."

As he spoke, Li Nian glanced at An Yi.

An Yi had been listening attentively, and was carefully observing the reactions of the two scripts. He seemed to be thinking about something while listening to what they said. When he noticed Li Nian's gaze, he nodded slightly, but turned his gaze to Kasumigaoka.

"It doesn't mean much to me." Kasumigaoka said firmly, "If I just want to see the [commercially successful galgames] that can be seen everywhere, I can borrow a bunch of them from Amaki-san over there. But I've said it before, what I want to see is something different, something unique about you, Li Nian, the elements that prompted you to write those works and made Ms. Machida look at you with new eyes and full of expectations... So if you don't play the protagonist, it will be difficult for me to understand you. If you don't stick to your own style, I won't be able to learn the core of your creation through cooperation - this will bother me a lot."

This time it was Li Nian's turn to remain silent. Being stared at with an almost passionate gaze by Kasumigaoka, he felt a certain kind of deep madness in it. Even in a life-and-death confrontation with a monster, he would not be shaken at all. Now he felt a little creepy, which was a rare occurrence.

"Okay, now that there is a disagreement, the producer should come out to mediate and make a decision. So what is your decision, An Yi?"

Chapter 295: Opinions will eventually converge after adjustment

Kasumigaoka was stunned and frowned slightly. She probably thought that this kind of problem should be discussed and solved by her and Li Nian... But since Li Nian said so, she certainly would not object at this time. Instead, she remained silent and looked at An Yi, tacitly agreeing with Li Nian's practice of passing the buck.

An Yi nodded, coughed, straightened his expression, sat up straight, and said seriously: "That's right, then I will be the arbitrator."

Being able to stand up and fulfill his duties as a producer without hesitation at this time, it can be said that Aki understands his obligations and responsibilities to a certain extent, which is a kind of growth.

As the top leader of the production team, the producer should have the courage to make the final decision when there are differences in direction.

"But first I have to figure out what your respective views are... Senior Sister has made her ideas clear. What I don't quite understand is mainly what Li Nian thinks."

Li Nian was a little surprised.

"What? Compared to that inexplicable confession over there, shouldn't I have explained it more clearly? I just want to follow the right path and use the kind of male protagonist that most gals would use, with a more popular personality. Isn't that clear enough for me? Then let me explain in more detail. I think it's better to use a mortal protagonist. Don't you understand what a mortal is? It's the type who lives a normal campus life, whose minds are full of either love or games, but without any learning at all, instead of thinking about how to fight, how to protect world peace, how to become stronger, and how to make money when they have free time."

Wu Geng was almost stunned as he looked at Li Nian: "This person suddenly revealed what kind of unconventional things he was thinking about on a daily basis and how he looked down on the young people around him..."

"Well, the things you think about on a daily basis seem to be quite heavy... Anyway, that's what I don't quite understand. Most importantly, I don't understand why you don't stick to following your previous practices. As Kasumigaoka-senpai said, I can also see that that is Mr. Muzi's usual writing style. You have been writing so well so far, why do you suddenly try to change your style and return to the ordinary when writing a gal script?"

"In fact, I think the male protagonist written by the previous writing style, even if he is like me, is not too out of the norm..." Under the contemptuous eyes of everyone who seemed to say "this person is still saying such stupid things", Li Nian had no choice but to shut up. He really felt that he was not the type of author who took an unconventional approach, and he did not think that his normal self was that abnormal...

"Anyway, even I will make changes to the writing style according to the subject matter. From a commercial perspective, games for the general public should use relatively mild and easy-to-accept protagonists. Isn't the theme of your project, An Yi, about [the royal campus youth life of dating all kinds of girls in the academy]? To be safe, you should use this kind of mortal as the protagonist."

"In other words, your reason is that [a mortal protagonist is more in line with the project theme]... This reason is indeed sufficient."

"Also, according to Senior's idea, my personality as a gal male protagonist doesn't fit the theme of the project."

"I don't think so. I think that if it's you, you can still write a good work even if you use the usual style to write gals. In fact, there are excellent works with this unique style on the market. Because I believe this, I should say that my original idea is the same as yours. I think you will naturally stick to your original style, and I never thought that you want to make a new attempt... So even if you want to use you as the male protagonist, I don't think there is anything wrong with it, because that is the originally planned development. On the contrary, it is more surprising that you suddenly said that you want to write in an ordinary style..."

"The reasons are clear enough. There's no need to repeat them, right?"

Nazhi Anyi shook her head: "With just these two reasons, I don't think they are enough."

Li Nianqi asked: "...Do you need more reasons?"

"Hey, my friend, don't I understand what kind of personality you have? Although you usually pretend to be humble and cooperative, and don't care about anything, your essence is just like what Kasumigaoka-senpai said, and just like your writing style - you are the type who is self-centered and does whatever you want."

"Yeah, Amaki-san sometimes says something that is absolutely right." Of course, it was Gogen who said this and nodded in agreement.

"…Why am I being criticized all of a sudden?"

Li Nian didn't understand why he was said to be so bad... Forget about Wu Geng, why did everyone else nod their heads as if An Yi was right? Did they really think that he was like that? He couldn't help but wonder if he had done something to offend others when they weren't paying attention? Besides always teasing Wu Geng, he hadn't done anything to anyone, right?

Seeing his blank expression, Kato suddenly said, "Mr. Li Nian usually gives people the impression of being a person who does things his own way. He doesn't care much about what others say or do, and has his own clear ideas and practices. I think that attitude is very dignified and looks quite handsome."

Li Nian understood a little and felt relieved. He felt a little embarrassed to be praised so bluntly and scratched his chin: "Thank you for the compliment... So what does this have to do with the current topic?"

"If it was something that you didn't mind, when the senior sister said this and showed an attitude of not wanting to give in, you should have put on an indifferent expression and taken the initiative to give in... The fact that you kept competing with each other shows that it was you, Li Nian, who had the idea of ​​"having to use a relatively ordinary protagonist to write the script" - you are looking for other reasons based on this idea, and I agree with it."

"Why do you have to agree to this?"

"Because it's not like that. Your reasons can't be equal to Kasumigaoka-senpai's, because emotionally, she seems to be more obsessed."

“…Shouldn’t the producers first consider the practical factors that are more beneficial to the production and the final results?”

Without hesitation, An Yi said firmly: "I'm sorry, I'm just a half-baked producer, so I still have the naive idea that passion is the most important component of a creator, and that a truly excellent work must be created under the impetus of the most passionate emotions. In this case, I agree more with the senior sister who is more obsessed."

Hearing these words coming out of the mouth of this hardcore otaku, Gogen looked over in surprise, as if he had gotten to know Tomoya Aki all over again.

Even Kasumigaoka was impressed by Aki. She didn't expect that this plain-looking otaku with glasses would have such thoughts - it really touched her heart.

She also believed that no matter how many reasons she gave, if she didn't show corresponding enthusiasm, she would not be able to agree with Li Nian's ideas.

"Haha." Suddenly, Sawamura sneered, "Tomoya, you really have the talent to be a producer. You learned to speak sweet words so quickly? Are you sure you are not afraid that if you don't meet the requirements of Kasumigaoka-senpai, she will run away in anger?"

“…! Are you stupid, Eriri? Shouldn’t this be a place where you should pretend to be ignorant even if you know the situation?!”

After being exposed, An Yi suddenly became flustered.

"...It seems so."

Wu Geng, whose empathy was aroused by words like creation and passion, finally calmed down a little. He realized that there seemed to be a reason for this in reality, and looked at An Yi with a little disappointment in his eyes.

"...Well, I'm a little scared half of it." Amaki looked at Kasumigaoka secretly.

The latter was a little confused at first, but then came to his senses and answered very seriously: "I will not run away because of such a small matter, and I will respect the producer's judgment. In the end, if you agree with Li Nian, I will not raise any objections - this is the basic rule, isn't it?"

"That's good." This made An Yi feel more at ease. He was a little afraid that the senior sister would run away if they didn't agree with each other. Then he faced Li Nian and said seriously, "But of course, what I said before was very serious. There was no falsehood at all."

"I know."

Li Nian shrugged. He never doubted An Yi's motives and did not think that his judgment was not from the heart - this guy was originally this type of otaku, and was no weaker than anyone else in doing his own thing. This was itself a manifestation of the word "passion".

Indeed, emotionally speaking, Kasumigaoka was obviously more eager to stick to her own opinion, and it was Li Nian's reasons that were not strong enough in this regard - but Li Nian, who understood Kasumigaoka's obsession, did not give in, also because he did have his own ideas about script writing.

"So, as Amai-san said, you want to write this kind of story yourself?" Kasumigaoka looked Li Nian in the eye and asked, "Are you really interested, obsessed, and have the idea to write a protagonist of this type of [ordinary male high school student]?"

"Yeah, isn't that what I always say? Now is the time to show you that I understand [ordinary high school boys] as well as anyone else!"

"... Is that your understanding of a high school boy who only thinks about love and games and has no interest in studying? That's very condescending, and it's obvious that he's just being arrogant and looking down on others."

"... Of course I know that there are many types of ordinary high school boys... But the type I used as an example is the one that is most familiar to me and that I understand the most."

"…Are you serious? I can't see any angle in you that seems to reflect this understanding."

"You can't tell now, but I used to be like that."

"what?"

Kasumigaoka looked like she had just heard the most ridiculous thing she had heard today, and even Sawamura, who was lying on the sofa over there, looked over in surprise.

Li Nian recalled the past and said with emotion.

"He's addicted to games, comics, and anime. In short, his mind is full of fun things. As for studying, he just does it casually. He doesn't really listen in class, and he even secretly writes novels... Of course, he still cares about his grades occasionally, after all, it's tied to his pocket money, but he doesn't like studying at all. He doesn't even think about boring things during school breaks... Isn't that what high school boys are like? Yeah, it makes me miss it when I think about it. It's the youth time that will never come back."

Li Nian's lips curled up into a natural smile inadvertently, and she looked very nostalgic.

"Uh...you used to be like that...?"

The high school boy that Kasumigaoka knew was indeed like what Li Nian said, but she still couldn't connect that impression with the exorcist in front of her, who had a strong physique, excellent grades and a capable style.

Sawamura, who was silently glancing at Li Nian, had the same feeling as her.

As Li Nian's classmates, An Yi and others knew what he was like before the summer vacation. They felt that it made sense, but at the same time, there was a sense of incongruity - especially An Yi.

Indeed, speaking of Li Nian in the past, An Yi did often lend him games, and Li Nian seemed to be quite addicted to them, playing them very enthusiastically. At that time, Li Nian was not very serious about studying. If he slacked off to the point of secretly writing novels during class, it seems that this can barely explain his current writing style?

But that gloomy personality, and the fact that he, An Yi, felt that it was a terrible experience... could it be considered a happy life? And is it worth remembering?

"Something is strange... Oh, right." An Yi discovered a blind spot: "Love! Aren't you completely uninterested in love?"

"I'm not interested in real-life romance, but romance in stories is another matter... Especially since I was in puberty at that time, I still had some youthful impulses, especially after reading too many comics, animations, and novels... It's the so-called yearning for the beautiful love in the second dimension? You should understand what I mean, Amaki?"

"You sound like you're not in puberty anymore... Of course I understand what you said, but that's not what I want to say..."

"Then what exactly do you want to say?"

"Well... never mind, it's okay." An Yi's sense of disharmony did not disappear, and he was still muttering in dissatisfaction, but in the end he gave up and nodded to Kasumigaoka, saying, "Is it true that Li Nian in the past was like what he said? In general, he was an ordinary high school boy."

Li Nian's old acquaintance An Yi said so, and Kasumigaoka could only accept it. He looked at Li Nian for a while and said in amazement: "If that's the case, how did it become the humanoid Gundam it is now?"

Li Nian calmly replied: "It was because of a series of force majeure and coincidence that I went astray in my life."

"What kind of force majeure and what kind of coincidence makes people curious."

Li Nian didn't answer, but looked at the game running on the screen: "... In short, it's because when I play the game, I miss the past. I think about what kind of plot I would write if it were me. I can't help but start to think further - if I hadn't gone astray in life and lived a normal life, what kind of future would it have led to."

Wu Geng couldn't help but shake his head: "He started to sigh in an uncle's tone again, lamenting that he had this person in his life."

"…Maybe what An Yi said is right. I am still a very self-centered person. I said I wanted to write about ordinary things, but in the end I still wrote from my own perspective. It's just that this time I suddenly wanted to change the style and write about my past self, just as a commemoration of my lost youth?"

"Then I understand." Kasumigaoka smiled, "In the end, aren't your ideas the same as mine? The only difference is that you want to write about your past self, while I want to write about your present self."

"I guess so." Li Nian asked An Yi: "In this case, can the reasons be considered equal? ​​Can our boss make a judgment now?"

An Yi thought about it, looked at Li Nian and then at Kasumigaoka, and finally took a deep breath and said it with determination.