Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Ke Zheng drove to the high-speed rail station by himself. After he heard that Xiao Du had brought over the legendary Lady Ah Yu and Su Li, the comics and illustrator goddess, he was ecstatic. It would be a great honor to be able to dine with these two fine ladies.

Ke Zheng was a fat otaku whose mind housed every form of sexual fantasy known to humanity. It was the very reason why he was so good at what he wrote. However, he had also mastered the art of appearing decent in front of girls; they would never sense any form of creepiness coming from him. Of course, he had no luck with girls whatsoever… This world did not treat ugly people very kindly.

Some girls actually despised guys who would position themselves as low as possible, licking their shoes. Such guys would easily get cheated by their girlfriends. Those ‘bad boys’ who would treat women as if they were their toys were surprisingly popular among girls…

Perhaps the harder it was to get a guy made it all the more valuable and all the more worthy of ‘true love.’

Ke Zheng picked the group of four up in his car. When he caught sight of the two beauties – Lady Zhao and Su Li, his heart rate shot up. His really wanted to take a longer look at them, but instead glanced at them for a split second. On his face was the expression of a solemn monk in deep meditation, which made him look like someone who was not fond of women.

As famous individuals, Zhao Youyue, Su Li, and Han Leng did not make enough public appearances to be instantly recognized by others. They were creators, not some celebrities who always popped up in the spotlight in numerous television programmes. Even if they were huge celebrities, it was not their faces that sold. If they actually had fanatic groupies [1] as fans, someone might just come up for a group photo.

Ke Zheng politely greeted the three ‘big shots.’ He showered them with as much praise as he could muster. It did not matter if it was Han Leng or Su Li, but he acted as if he knew them well. After all, their masterpieces preceded them; it was best if he flattered them.

He was at a loss when it came to Lady Ah Yu, the master of all trades. Among the three, Lady Zhao’s aura stood out the most prominently. It was apparent that the other two treated Lady Zhao as their central pillar.

Ke Zheng quickly remembered that Ah Yu had been the voice of the iconic character – ‘Yu Shengfan.’ He jumped on the idea and said, “Lady Ah Yu, your voiceover for Yu Shengfan was too exemplary! You basically became her! That’s just mindblowing! You even won the Best New Voice Actress Award on your debut! It’s such a shame that you did not attend the awards ceremony…”

Ke Zheng was a hardcore voice-acting fan. It was too bad that the highly capable Lady Ah Yu never attended such events. She never once even participated in radio programmes that would attract many fans. Many fans would want to listen to how Ah Yu ridiculed Song Gang – the ‘Harem King.’

After all, many voice actresses loved to ‘eat, sleep and ridicule Song Gang.’ Song Gang was humble, hardworking, and was someone who absolutely feared women. It made him absolutely fun to tease…

Song Gang was an excellent voice actor in the voice acting world. The only voice actress he did not fear was probably Ai Yi, who won the Best New Voice Actress the same time he did. They had collaborated in numerous projects and shared great chemistry. In fact, they acted just like a cute couple in various broadcasting events. This led to the creation of a group called ‘Song Gang and Ai Yi matchmaking association.’

When Zhao Youyue heard Ke Zheng’s flattery, she fired back at him most skillfully. Flattering each other was part of business. You give me face; I’ll give you yours. Furthermore, she was an earnest reader of his. She had read all of his serial novels. It was quick to find memes and highlights of his work on the internet. Lady Zhao had used these highlights to arm herself with the knowledge needed to flatter him.

This left Ke Zheng weak in his knees. Damn, was he dreaming? This voice actress chick actually read his otaku-infested light novel that stank of sperm? On top of that, this was a beautiful voice actress!

At that moment, he had almost betrayed the ‘Ayane cult’ and switched to the ‘Ah Yu cult.’ Either way, these two names shared a great deal of mutual fans. Ayane Sakura [2] and Ah Yu were more similar than one might think. They were both rookie voice actresses who had quickly risen to fame. They were both as beautiful as they were talented. Furthermore, Ayane Sakura had won a lot of hearts with her excellent body figure. On the other hand, Ah Yu was mythical. It was not easy to search up for her images…

Finally, when it came to their talent pool, Ayane Sakura was no match to Ah Yu. The latter was basically a Goddess of Music.

“Please, that can’t be true. You are too kind, Lady Zhao. Actually, I can’t come up with anything new for this book. I’m caught in a perpetual cycle of traps – milking it like this would only buy me so much time. I was actually thinking of writing a new book…” Ke Zheng scratched his head, not daring to look at Zhao Youyue in the eye.

He was a light novel author; his work had even been adapted in anime form. He had an annual income of fifty or sixty thousand and also drove a branded SUV. Even so, Ke Zheng did not seem too impressed with himself. If anything, only the opposite could be true.

Zhao Youyue did not take him lightly. She had always treated those who meant her no malice with kindness and benevolence. This could also be a roundabout method of bending others to heel. As long as others had a favorable impression of her, they would quickly comply to her small requests.

Ke Zheng brought the group to an extremely lavish lunch. He followed it up with a tour to the city’s famous attractions. In the process, he had agreed to Zhao Youyue’s request for a cameo in his book. She had even requested for a cameo in Du Hang’s novel ‘Girlish Number’ [3]. More specifically, this character would be set in a way uncannily similar to the ‘Mysterious Voice Actress Ah Yu.’ Wouldn’t that be interesting?

No one had noticed anything unusual. Furthermore, Su Li even said that it was habitual, almost ceremonial for Zhao Youyue to make cameo appearances in the literary world…

Ke Zheng accepted without much comment. Anyway, his book no longer breathed life. Zhao Youyue quickly dove into the specifics. She wanted a special ‘sleepwalker’ female cameo appearance who is named so and so. This girl was a sufferer of Somnambulism, and she would [4] drown to death after her first appearance. However, this led to the rise of more ‘sleepwalker’ girls.

Ke Zheng was suddenly inspired. He had always written about characters who were buried in slumber, but then he forgot that sleepwalking was actually possible. A new, bold idea popped up in his head!

Of course, he did not dare to use the bold idea on Lady Zhao’s cameo character. He was a man of his word, especially when that word had been given to a girl.

And so, Zhao Youyue and the group departed to enjoy the rest of their time in Ke Zheng’s city. They took a few group pictures together. Ke Zheng had uploaded the images to his WeChat Moments, happily showing off and telling his fans how honored he was to have pictures with these big shots. Unfortunately, he did not have a Weibo account. If he did, those images would go viral in no time.

Sadly, he was too lazy to do get started there.

Most painfully, this amicable, fatty Ke Zheng was still single…

Lady Zhao jokingly asked she could grant him any wishes. Ke Zheng had excitedly expressed his hopes for Lady Zhao to participate in a voice-acting broadcasting programme and interact with Ayane Sakura, the Androphobic [5] girl with a yuri complex. That would be a dream come true!

Zhao Youyue had lost count of the times she heard Ke Zheng mentioning ‘Ayane Sakura.’ In her heart, she had started labeling him as a die-hard fan of Ayane Sakura. Well, looking at how cooperative he had been, she should probably call Ayane Sakura out to have a meal with him?

So what if Zhao Youyue did not know Ayane Sakura at all?

That would not be a problem. No chick is beyond Zhao Youyue’s reach!

Translation note:

[1] “Groupie” (追星族) is a person who likes a particular popular singer or other famous person and follows them to try to meet them.

[2] “Ayane Sakura” (佐綾音) is a Japanese voice actress from Tokyo. She is affiliated with I’m Enterprise. Some of her major roles are Natsumi Koshigaya in Non Non Biyori, Tsubaki Sawabe in Your Lie in April, Iroha Isshiki in My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, Suzuka Dairenji in Tokyo Ravens, Ochako Uraraka in My Hero Academia, Cocoa Hoto in Is the Order a Rabbit? and Nao Tomori in Charlotte.

[3] “Girlish Number” (少女编号) is a Japanese multimedia project. It launched in the March 2016 issue of ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki G’s Magazine as a serial novel written by Wataru Watari, with illustrations by QP:flapper and Yamcha.

[4] “Somnambulism” (梦游症) is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness. It is classified as a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. It occurs during slow wave sleep stage, in a state of low consciousness, while doing activities that are usually performed in a state of full consciousness.

[5] “Androphobic” (恐男症) is an abnormal and persistent fear of men.