The Rise of Otaku

Edited by Esperanza

There was an online post about Zhou Yu’s information, which was being updated constantly.

In this post, Zhou Yu’s past was gathered by the people online and listed out in chronological order, even the girls he had a crush on when he was still a kid, was also listed out one by one. Fortunately, Zhou Yu did not see this post, otherwise, he would definitely kneel down and beg them to leave some privacy for him.

However, even after all his information was listed out, people noticed that his history could be summarised in one word, ordinary.

His father, grandfather and any relatives that people could find, none of them were rich people or senior government officials. In the early twenty years of Zhou Yu’s life, he was just an ordinary reclusive otaku.

The novel he used to write was not that great, the rest of the time, he just spent on anime, comics, and games like an ordinary otaku. The entire post actually wasn’t that long. According to a person, who was familiar with him, he rarely left the house for more than a year when he just returned to the village, so he could be described as a person, who had little contact with society.

But then what happened later surprised everyone. He was like a cultivator, who had been in the closed-door training for many years, when he finally came out of the house, he flew into the sky and became an immortal.

Soon after he came out of the house, an extremely talented manga artist appeared on the internet. And with the remarkable drawing skills, that artist instantly became famous. And later on, there was the manga artist The fast-handed Wang, and his work “Assassin” was also extremely popular in the anime and comic industries.

During that time, he also made a fortune from selling a game, and became a small celebrity in the village he lived in.

In terms of what game it was, no one knew about it, but based on the time he got rich, it was exactly the time when the Taoist appeared. Because of this, it was reasonable to suspect that, the Taoist had some connections to Zhou Yu. It was just that people have never been given a clear answer.

After that, as if no one could stop him, he built an amusement park and made animated movies. Beidou, Qin Zhuan, Muli, many miracles appeared one after another, making his ordinary Otaku’s life extremely colorful, as if he had suddenly become the god of the ACG world.

However, after having the connections and the wealth that others envied, he didn’t want to show it off. Instead, he just stayed in the amusement park he created and refused the attention from all the media.

To be fair, this was something that not many people would do. Normally, when a person, who had nothing, suddenly had everything, more or less the person’s mindset would change a little bit. However, Zhou Yu was obsessed with small activities such as playing movies and making toys for children, and his life was very simple and dull as if his wealth had nothing to do with him.

This was not normal.

What was even not normal, even more, was the relationship between Zhou Yu and those talented people behind him. So far, no studios or companies have been set up, and all the profits were obtained by Zhou Yu alone. And most of that profit was spent on that strange amusement park.

Why did these talented people trust Zhou Yu so much? And what was in it for them?

And it was also a really strange amusement park. It seemed like there was no overall plan. It started with a water park, then added a little kingdom and then a Colosseum, and then a fantasy city. It was like whenever something came to his mind, he would add it to the park, everything was randomly added.

And the latest news in the post was that Zhou Yu went to a city in the south to watch a concert. Moreover, he even did something that caused a lot of attention at the concert.

Later on, someone uploaded a video clip of the concert online. In the video, people could see that in the concert, Zhou Yu was holding a camera in his hand. Originally, it was a normal scene, but when the camera zoomed in, people discovered that he was actually filming the sky. There was no sign of him wanting to video the celebrity who was trying her best to perform on the stage.

This short video has been bookmarked by many people and made into countless memes and funny gifs. And that new celebrity was also mercilessly made fun of by countless people.

“Behold! The emperor’s disdain!”

“Yep, yep, keep it going, dance a little bit harder, maybe he will film you later.”

“It is not that this elder brother doesn’t want to film you, but after seeing your performance, this elder brother found that the lonely sky is much more wonderful than your performance.”

….

But this “emperor”, who used a strange way to disdain the performance in the concert, later, returned to the amusement park to work as a chef, and it was even captured by other people.

Regarding this incident, it also related to Mu Zi’s TV program crew.

This was a parent-child variety show. The show had invited some celebrities and their children to camp in the fantasy city, and during the camping period, the celebrities and their children would need to complete several special tasks. However, during the shooting, Zhou Yu never showed up once. It was as if those celebrities were not as important as the children of Luhua primary school, after all, he had held a grand graduation ceremony for the children.

Speaking of Zhou Yu, the people in the program crew all thought that he was more arrogant than those celebrities. But after one incident, their impression of Zhou Yu changed a lot.

No one knew whether it was because one of the little actors couldn’t acclimate to the new environment or something else, but the little actor couldn’t eat anything in the amusement park. No matter what he ate, he would always vomit it out. The celebrity father, who was also worried about the heath of his child, said that he wanted to stop the shooting and take his child back home.

Mu Zi was also worried, but he couldn’t do anything.

At this moment, an employee of the amusement park, who was watching the shooting nearby, suddenly said, “try some food from Tung Fook mansion, maybe the dishes there will work. The food cooked by the little boss is delicious.”

The little boss was Zhou Yu’s nickname, because he did not like to be called boss by other people. But adding the word “little” seemed to make the word boss sound a little less formal. Mu Zi also knew about this name, but he was still surprised that Zhou Yu would cook for the staff.

“Mr. Zhou often cooks at Tung Fook mansion?”

“Not often, but every once in a while. You don’t know, the little boss’ dishes are too popular, every time, if you don’t get there on time, there will be none left.”

Maybe Mu Zi really ran out of all the ideas, and he just wanted to give it a last try, or it was also possible that he wanted to find out if the dishes that were cooked by Zhou Yu were really that tasty, so he found Zhou Yu personally, hoping he would cook some dishes for the little actor. If Zhou Yu also couldn’t help, then they could only send the kid back home.

Zhou Yu was not a real cook after all. He only occasionally cooked for his employees to practice his cooking skills, and the ingredients he used were also from the ordinary farm, not his little farm. The ingredients from his little farm were all for himself. If those adult celebrities had problems, Zhou Yu might not have the time and mood to help them, but if it was a kid, that would be different.

“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m a mediocre cook and these employees have never tried some actually good food. So to them, many foods are very tasty. My advice is that it is still better to send him home and find him a doctor. I am not a doctor, why do you think I will be able to help him?”

No one could guarantee that Zhou Yu would be able to cure the kid, but Mu Zi still wanted to try it. After all, it would not take too much time. If he was really able to help, it would save them a lot of trouble. But if Zhou Yu also couldn’t help, of course, he would not delay it any longer and would immediately send the child back to the city straight away to find a doctor.

Helplessly, Zhou Yu could only go to the little vegetable farm to get some fresh ingredients. In front of the enthusiastic eyes of Mu Zi, he made a few dishes and sent them to the little actor, who was still crying in the tent in the fantasy city.

Whether it could work or not, it would depend on fate now.