Chapter 82
Chapter 82
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Art and Love (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Three years into becoming a novelist, a lot had happened.
First off, Geum Yeongyeong got dragged away to the Golden Quill Sect.
One day, while ignoring her assignments and partying like there was no tomorrow, reality she'd been avoiding came crashing down.
It was Geum Yeongyeong's parents.
The two had come all the way to the Black Bamboo Sect and hauled their daughter off, gripping her from both sides.
Geum Yeongyeong shouted as she was dragged away kicking and screaming.
“Seoran, I have a favor to ask! Return the books in my room for me! And make sure to burn the poems in the back of my drawer! Don't peek at them behind my back?!”
And so, the long reign of the reading champion Geum Yeongyeong came to an end.
Seoran was thirty-five this year, and Geum Yeongyeong thirty-eight.
It wasn't easy to look that pathetic just shy of forty.
Seoran faithfully carried out her friend's request.
Then she sat at her desk and racked her brains.
She wasn't happy with what she was writing now.
Over the past three years, Grandmaster Ryu Seoran had been truly busy.
She'd serialized three full-length novels and over twenty collections of short stories.
And all the while, she never skipped her daily training.
The popularity of the 'Puppet Master Boy and Puppet Girl' series—shortened to 'PuppetPuppet'—showed no signs of fading.
Thanks to that, interest in puppetry had risen right alongside it.
It was the exact result Seoran had desperately hoped for.
So Seoran moved on to the next phase.
Free giveaway of super-simple puppet-making kits.
Opening of 'PuppetPuppet' author's puppetry hobby class.
And countless other efforts to promote puppetry.
It was a one-source-multi-use strategy.
Seoran rowed diligently.
Thanks to her, readers who became fans of 'PuppetPuppet' gradually started taking interest in puppetry itself.
The rise and fall of fringe puppetry began just like that.
The reason it was a rise *and* fall was simple.
Puppetry's popularity soared sky-high.
It rivaled the Dutch tulip bubble in growth.
And it met the same historical end.
There weren't a few readers who, after completing a puppet-making kit, thought, 'Puppetry seems doable.'
But making a meal kit didn't suddenly make you a fugu chef.
They snapped out of it after witnessing real puppetry.
'Let's just enjoy puppetry through novels.'
In the first year of serialization, the bubble burst in an instant.
The ambitiously published revised edition of the puppetry primer flopped too.
What pissed her off even more was that only the puppetry stuff tanked.
The 'PuppetPuppet' series' popularity showed no signs of cooling.
That was why Seoran kept serializing her novels.
No one loved puppetry...
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so this is how you felt...
Should I just stick to 'Sherlock Holmes' too?
Seoran looked down at her manuscript paper.
They say Arthur Conan Doyle killed off his novel's protagonist, then got whacked by an umbrella while walking, so he brought the character back in the sequel.
But Seoran had no one to whack her.
Her hand moved on its own, writing words.
Companions sacrificed one by one to a wicked villain.
The protagonist barely wins but gets caught in the villain's self-destruct.
The puppet master boy dies, leaving the puppet girl alone.
It was bleak drift, rapid plot, and total annihilation ending.
Reading her own writing, Seoran snapped to her senses.
She tore up the manuscript paper and yelled.
“Get out of my head, you demon!”
It was truly a blessing for the readers.
But Seoran felt like dying.
Her story was still stuck.
She sat there twisting and turning, then thought.
Should I just wrap this up and quit?
It wasn't even a paid serialization from the start.
She'd refused all reader donations too.
Her thoughts gradually tilted toward stopping the serialization.
Truth be told, if Seoran set her mind to it, no one could stop her.
A free serialization with donations closed was invincible.
Seoran stood up.
It was too hard to decide alone.
She figured she'd discuss it with someone else.
Seoran began searching for a suitable confidante.
'Speak to Damcheong?'
Seoran headed to the central pond.
She found Damcheong right away.
His horn was stuck in a rock crevice, and he was groaning alone.
Damcheong, struggling away, spotted Seoran.
“Seoran, perfect timing. Help me out.”
“Sure, I'll get it for you.”
Seoran maneuvered Damcheong's head this way and that.
The horn popped out cleanly.
“How'd your horn get stuck in there?”
“It looked like it'd fit, so I tried, but it wouldn't come out.”
“Ahh...”
Seoran's curiosity was satisfied.
'Get advice from Ho Hye-mun instead.'
And she left the house.
*****
Seoran arrived at the writing studio.
Ho Hye-mun was out briefly on some errand.
Listening to the students chattering, Seoran pondered.
Should she keep serializing from now on?
Puppetry promotion had flopped too.
Was there any reason to endure the agony of creation?
She wasn't even getting paid—what for?
Or should she just quit like this.
What about the readers waiting for the novel?
Shouldn't she at least write it to the end?
Was there really no meaning in continuing?
Deep in thought, she heard a sound.
“Gasp!”
One female student stared at Seoran in shock.
Among the things scattered on the floor was a 'PuppetPuppet' volume by Seoran.
She seemed to be a fan of Grandmaster Ryu Seoran.
“R-Ryu, Ryu Writer!”
Seoran responded deftly.
“No fuss, troublesome.”
“Hup!”
The girl swallowed her bursting cheer.
She cautiously glanced around.
In a tiny whisper, the girl murmured.
“Writer, I'm really enjoying your books. Especially the third full-length novel, the 'Worn Gear' arc—I've lost count of how many times I've read it. I pulled so many all-nighters that I dozed off in every class for a while.”
Seoran nodded and asked.
“For reference, what part did you like?”
The girl answered instantly.
“The scene where the warrior puppet fights the villain to protect the child was so moving. It means puppets can have emotions too. I can't forget the line after the villain threatens with 'Make a rational judgment.' 'Looks like my gears are so worn they've glitched out.' How did you come up with that?”
“Read a lot, write a lot, think a lot.”
“Ah, so how do I improve at puppetry?”
Seoran shot up from her seat.
“Are you interested in puppetry by any chance?”
“Yes! I even collected your puppetry primer. I just had to pay printing and binding costs to get it. It wasn't too pricey, so I bought both the first and revised editions.”
“How was the content of the primer? Not too hard?”
“The first edition was a bit tough, but the revised one was super easy to understand. Maybe my skills improved, though. The super-simple puppet bundle helped a ton.”
Seoran said, moved.
“You really studied hard...”
“Yeah, I did! Look at this.”
The girl pulled out a puppet she'd made herself.
It had plenty of rough spots, but it was impressive.
The design resembled Seoran's animal friends.
“Cute, right? The animal friends are so adorable, I copied them exactly. But why haven't you released any more puppetry books lately? I've read the primer cover to cover—nothing left to see.”
Seoran was at a loss for words.
“Well...”
She'd completely forgotten about puppetry books.
She figured no one was reading them.
Plus, she was busy writing novels.
Seoran strung together lame excuses.
“I'm about to... Been busy lately, so...”
“I knew it! I always cheer you on! Novel or technical book, I love everything by Ryu Writer!”
The girl picked up her dropped school supplies and left.
And Ho Hye-mun returned, her business done.
“Seoran, what'd you want to talk about?”
After a brief silence, Seoran replied.
“Hye-mun, sorry. Something came up I have to do. Sorry for calling you out just to say this.”
Ho Hye-mun smiled and said.
“It's fine, go on ahead.”
“Yeah!”
“Ah, umbrella...”
Seoran bolted out without hearing Ho Hye-mun's afterword.
Late spring rain was falling outside.
But it couldn't stop Seoran's passion.
A human thermal power plant, through and through.
Running through the rain, Seoran thought.
It wasn't meaningless.
It didn't matter if it was technical books or novels.
As long as there were people who loved her books, her creations!
Seoran realized.
To an artist, a work was like their child.
Seoran hadn't loved her children until now.
It was a cruel thing to do to the works she'd labored to birth—and to the people who loved them.
Why had she watched so many movies in her past life?
They were fun, sad or surprising, and ultimately enjoyable.
As long as it was enjoyable, genre or artistic merit didn't matter.
Something stirred in Seoran's heart.
Soaked to the bone, Seoran returned and immediately grabbed her brush.
She felt like if not now, she never would.
Pouring in her love for her work.
Pouring in her utterly unhideable sincerity.
Pouring in thoughts she couldn't express in words.
Seoran wrote through the night.
A villain who kills people to turn them into puppets.
A mad puppet master obsessed only with his own aesthetic.
He said.
'You would understand my art!'
The protagonist, the puppet master boy, replied.
'Art is for people—you're just a murderer!'
The protagonist's group triumphed with the power of love and friendship.
The fourth full-length novel of 'Puppet Master Boy and Puppet Girl.'
Subtitle: 'Art and Love.'
Readers went wild for this one too.
And Seoran announced a hiatus.
'Going on hiatus and a research trip.'
She left just that single note.