“Bring him here!
I demand a face-to-face confrontation with him!”
…
A few minutes later, Shisui fled the bookstore with a bright red face.
Recalling the exact words he had just spoken to Jiraiya, he couldn’t help but feel a lingering sense of guilt, as if he had brutally sold out his teammate.
He originally intended to honestly confess the entire incident to Uchiha Shingen, but after giving it a second thought, he immediately abandoned the idea.
He simply couldn’t afford to lose any more face!
Jiraiya, however, seemed to have firmly jotted Uchiha Shingen’s name down in his little black book of grudges.
He was absolutely dead set on having a showdown with this evil Uchiha brat.
He would show him what a true master author looked like!
Calculating the magazine’s release date, Jiraiya stood firmly outside the very bookstore Shingen frequented, right on schedule.
His eyes were locked intensely onto every single customer entering the store, patiently waiting for his prey to walk into the trap.
Just past 9:00 AM, right as the Konoha Military Police Force’s shifts were changing, Shingen strolled into his favorite bookstore, exactly like he did every other day.
The moment he stepped through the door, Shingen felt that something was off.
Why did it feel like he was being intensely stared at by something?!
Was it the fallout from the mess Shisui caused last time?!
No!
There was no killing intent.
It felt more like…
immense resentment?!
After a brief moment of thought, Shingen decided not to pay it any mind.
After all, even the Konoha higher-ups wouldn’t be bold enough to directly attack an Uchiha in a public setting like this.
Doing so would be equivalent to completely obliterating the fragile mutual understanding both sides had just painstakingly established.
Shingen casually strolled over to the section where Make-Out Hell was displayed.
Just as he reached out and was about to pick up a copy, his wrist was suddenly grabbed.
“You must be the ‘Captain Shingen’ that Shisui kid was talking about, right?!”
A low, unfamiliar voice sounded.
Shingen raised his head and looked toward the speaker.
Entering his vision was the long-awaiting Jiraiya.
“You are…”
“I am the author of Make-Out Hell!
From Shisui’s mouth, I heard exactly what you think of my work.
According to him, you have a lot of opinions about me!”
“I’d very much like to hear what ‘pointers’ you have to offer.”
“After all…”
Jiraiya’s eyelid twitched violently.
You can say my character is flawed, but you cannot say my book is flawed!
“Humbly accepting reader feedback is the very foundation of an author’s progress!”
“Shisui?!”
“That little brat came here to buy this book?!”
After a brief moment of thought, Shingen immediately figured out exactly what had happened.
He silently cursed Shisui’s ancestors up and down in his heart, then finally shifted his full attention to Jiraiya.
The guy’s aura was a bit strong, and his outfit looked remarkably familiar.
After all, there shouldn’t be a single sane shinobi who would abandon a perfectly good ninja career just to dedicate all their time and energy to writing banned adult books.
Having reached this comforting conclusion, Shingen immediately relaxed.
Talking trash behind someone’s back and getting caught red-handed was indeed somewhat awkward.
Shingen instantly began trying to save face:
“I’ve been following it faithfully from the very first issue to the present.
I haven’t missed a single one.
I can arguably be considered your core reader.”
“If you ask me…”
“It’s not like your book doesn’t have any redeeming qualities.”
The corner of Jiraiya’s mouth curled up.
He pricked up his ears, waiting with profound pride for Shingen’s next words.
“For example, these illustrations are exceptionally good!”
Shingen casually flipped a page open, pointing at the exquisitely drawn, revealing illustrations and beginning his critique.
“These curves, these legs, this skin texture…”
“And besides that?!”
“Nothing.”
Jiraiya laughed out of pure anger:
“Take a wild guess at which parts of this book were not created by me?!”
“…”
Shingen blanked.
Once he finally realized the implication, his old face flushed red:
“The illus…
trations?!”
Seeing Jiraiya’s face growing darker by the second, Shingen quickly changed the subject and started genuinely discussing the craft of writing:
“If you ask me, there really are a lot of areas in your book that need massive improvement.”
In his past life, Shingen had read countless novels.
From male-oriented fantasies to female-oriented romances, from harem comedies to overbearing CEOs, from pure vanilla fluff to agonizingly tragic love triangles—he had read the good, the bad, and the completely unreadable.
His literary reserves were absolutely overflowing.
Now that he had finally met an actual author, his inner critic was completely unleashed.
“The plot is way too straightforward!
Your male lead is always either having a one-night stand at an izakaya or bumping into a drop-dead gorgeous landlady at a hot spring inn, spending the night, and pulling up his pants the next morning to move on to the next round!”
“It’s so rough it’s practically unreadable!”
“If you want to satisfy the readers’ desires, you can’t just write about desire!
You have to write about emotion!
You have to write about them struggling agonizingly on the razor’s edge between morality and lust!
You have to write about them completely surrendering to their desires while simultaneously being tortured by their conscience!”
“You have to make them go from absolute resistance to total degradation, from desperate struggle to passionate embrace…”
“For example, the starting point of this chapter is actually really good, but your execution is incredibly sloppy.
If you ask me, you should have…”
Pointing at a specific volume, Shingen launched into a full-blown critique.
He rambled on and on, frantically dumping all his accumulated personal preferences and critiques. New chapters come out on g.com first.
He had no idea if any of this nonsense would actually sink in, but just being able to vomit all his frustrations directly onto the author of Make-Out Hell was satisfying enough.
Who knows, maybe this guy might actually write something halfway readable in the future.
Jiraiya stood quietly to the side.
His eyes shifted from initial disdain, to shock, and finally, to absolute, unadulterated awe!
He had met many readers before, but what he heard was almost exclusively endless praise.
Many even revered Make-Out Hell as a divine masterpiece, treating it as required daily reading.
But now, listening to Uchiha Shingen’s words, he finally realized that he had been far too shallow all along!
The tiny bit of resentment Jiraiya originally harbored vanished into thin air in an instant.
He squatted quietly beside Shingen, furiously taking notes, even occasionally taking a second to hand Shingen a cup of water to soothe his throat.
His attitude toward Shingen had morphed from initial disdain and fury into absolute amazement!
This man was born to write books with him, not waste his life rotting away in the Police Force!
By the time Shingen actively stopped his tirade, it was already close to noon.
He glanced at Jiraiya’s notebook, which was densely packed with furious scribbles, and nodded in satisfaction:
“That’s about all I wanted to say.”
“Do you have any other questions…”
“Shingen-kun!”
Jiraiya grabbed Shingen’s hands tightly.
He looked like a man who had finally found his soulmate after a lifetime of searching:
“It wasn’t until I met you today that I finally understood!
There is an entirely different, infinitely more profound way to write taboo adult literature!
You were absolutely born to eat from this bowl of rice!”
“Why don’t you consider a career change?!”
“Don’t stay cooped up in the Police Force anymore!
Come with me!
We’ll travel the entire shinobi world and create the greatest masterpiece in history!”
Shingen politely declined.
The only reason he was willing to say so much was purely because he had been thoroughly disgusted by reading this man’s book previously.
He just hoped to see something marginally readable in the future.
As for giving up his cushy nine-to-five job at the Police Force for this?
That was absolutely out of the question!
“Is that so?
That truly is a shame.”
“I was originally planning that if we could create this new book together, I would gladly put your name on it as a co-author, and even split the manuscript fees with you fifty-fifty.”
“But since your mind is made up, I won’t bother you any further.”
“It really is a tragedy.
It’s so incredibly hard to find someone who resonates on the exact same wavelength as me.
Sigh…”
Jiraiya let out a heavy sigh.
Seeing that Shingen was resolute, he didn’t press the issue any further.
“Wait…
Did you just say a fifty-fifty split of the manuscript fees?”