Starting as a Manga Editor

Chapter 117: Sold

Late November.Cai Quan and Wen Fei arrived together at Avalon Studio.

As soon as they stepped onto the floor where Avalon was located, they were greeted by a large sign reading “Mingyu Tech.” The two of them hesitated, wondering if they’d gone to the wrong place…

Just then, Yuan Yanbo appeared at the door.

“Hello, are you the founder and co-founder of ANF? I’m Yuan Yanbo—the one who contacted your company a while back.”

Yuan greeted them proactively and subtly gave them a once-over.

The contrast between Cai Quan and Wen Fei was pretty stark. Cai Quan was the textbook otaku type—black-rimmed glasses, buzz cut, plain-looking but clean.Wen Fei, on the other hand, was completely different. While she wasn’t as stunning as their own boss—or that legendary investor lady—she had a soft, pleasant look. Very much the “girl next door.” Also, her legs were… long.

“H-hello, nice to meet you!”

Cai Quan was clearly not great with these situations—nervous but trying to hold it together. He stuck out his hand and shook with Yuan, blurting out: “I’m a big fan of FGO—your game is amazing. And you’re really quite the talent—no wonder you could pull off a project like that…”

“……”

Yuan Yanbo fell silent, listening to his nonsense rambling. Wen Fei rolled her eyes at Cai Quan and jumped in quickly, “How can you say he’s quite the talent? He’s drop-dead amazing!”

“...You’ve misunderstood,” Yuan replied with a half-laugh, half-sigh. “I’m just an employee, not the boss here.”

He gestured at the Mingyu Tech sign behind him. “In fact, I just joined Avalon not long ago—I was originally part of this company here. That sign’s being replaced soon. I figured you might think you’d come to the wrong place, so I came out to get you.”

“……”

The two froze, then realized they’d totally misunderstood. Their faces flushed red on the spot.

Yuan smiled again, not wanting to drag out their embarrassment. “Come in, have a seat. Our boss is waiting for you in the meeting room.”

With that, he turned and led the way.

Cai Quan and Wen Fei exchanged a glance, quickly pushed aside their awkwardness, and followed him into the company.

Their first impression walking into Avalon Studio?There were so few people.Despite all the available desk space, barely anyone was there.

The second impression?

Everyone was busy.

Each person was fully focused on something. Even when they did talk, it was quick and to the point. But there was real energy here.

So this is what a real company looks like… Cai Quan thought as he walked.

They arrived at the meeting room, and Yuan gave him a nudge to snap him out of it.

Since Mingyu Tech had leased the whole floor, of course they had a proper conference room.

Yuan knocked, then led Cai Quan and Wen Fei inside.

Inside the room—

Tang Yao was hunched over an A4 sheet, jotting down ideas—still working on the card game proposal.

Though the acquisition was important… she’d promised Xun she’d head home early today, so she was trying to finish as much as she could beforehand.

But upon hearing footsteps, she paused out of courtesy and looked up.

Just as she did, Yuan introduced her: “This is our studio head—Tang Yao.”

Hearing this—

Cai Quan and Wen Fei both froze mid-step, eyes wide as they looked at the young woman across the room.

That refined, gorgeous face.That sweet charm straddling maturity and youth.That figure that could put magazine models to shame.

She was the boss?!

They looked completely stunned.

She really was… drop-dead amazing.

Tang Yao was used to this by now. After a moment of awkward silence, she took the initiative, “Hello, you're ANF’s founder, Brother Cai, right? And this must be… ‘Warm Heart’ the co-founder?”

Clearly, she’d done her homework.

Hearing her say that—especially the “Brother Cai” part—Cai Quan’s face went red. He quickly replied, “Yes, yes, that’s us…”

Wen Fei was a bit more composed. She just nodded, but her eyes never left Tang Yao.

It was too unreal—how could a girl this bright and beautiful create such a deep-in-the-weeds otaku game like FGO?

“Please, have a seat,” Tang Yao offered.

Then… silence.

Tang Yao wasn’t exactly a master of social situations either.

In some ways, she was a shut-in too.

Good thing Yuan Yanbo was there.

Sensing the awkwardness, he looked at Cai Quan and got the conversation going: “So about your plan to sell the site…”

“Oh—yes! We are planning to sell,” Cai Quan finally snapped out of it and started introducing their platform. “Our site targets a niche with great potential. Vertical, focused, and with no competitors. Right now, we have over 200,000 users. It’s the biggest anime community and video site in the country…”

He was a little stuttery. Clearly this pitch was memorized.

Yuan patiently let him finish—then called him out, plain and simple:“But you don’t have a broadcast license yet, right? Plus the site’s got tons of issues. Frequent server failures, no content moderation, and didn’t it go down for over two weeks recently? The user complaints were everywhere.

Sure, you might be the biggest anime platform right now—but compared to mainstream video sites, you have zero advantages. And as for monetization... it’s practically nonexistent.”

“……”

Cai Quan was speechless. After a long pause, he muttered, “That’s mainly because our team is too small… and we’ve hit some financial snags…”

“And your monetization strategy?”

“…No comment.”

Even Wen Fei, who’d been about to speak up, went silent.

If they had a viable plan, they wouldn’t be desperate to sell the site.

At that moment—

Tang Yao could see how awkward Cai Quan looked. She understood how shut-ins could struggle with this kind of thing, so she gave Yuan a look to ease up and asked, “Are you two sure you want to sell?”

“We’re sure…”

Cai Quan looked over at her, and seeing her gentle, beautiful face made him feel a bit less nervous. “To be honest… I can’t even make payroll next month. Server costs are killing us. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t be doing this…”

“Then why not accept investment?”

Tang Yao was curious—and wanted to get a better sense of their actual situation.

“…Because we’re not capable.”

This time, it was Wen Fei who answered.

She looked at Tang Yao, who seemed even younger than her, and said earnestly, “We’ve tried. But we realized we simply don’t have what it takes to run a company. Neither of us had any real business experience—we were just hobbyists. We don’t know what direction the site should go, or how to make it profitable.

Professionals should handle professional things… and we’re just not cut out for it. Even if you invested, we’d probably just burn the money on servers and hiring a few staff to improve user experience. But beyond that, we wouldn’t have a clue.

We’ve already been through this once. That earlier investor gave up on us, angry and frustrated.

If we had a real plan, we wouldn’t be here. But we don’t. So instead of wasting your time and money, we think it’s better to sell outright. Maybe with your expertise, the site can actually thrive. That would be the best outcome for our users.”

Cai Quan gave a bitter smile. “Yeah. That’s the truth…”

Tang Yao couldn’t be 100% sure they were being totally sincere, but it seemed like they really did want to sell.

So she asked, “You mentioned an earlier investor—can you reacquire the equity?”

“Yes. Actually, I think he’ll be thrilled to let us buy it back at the original price. He once told us our site looked like something that could never become a real business…”

“So how much are you looking to sell for?”

“Uh…”

Cai Quan and Wen Fei exchanged a glance. Then, very nervously, he said:

“Five million? The two of us hold the majority stake. The rest belongs to the angel investor, who put in one million. So total… six million.”

Tang Yao: “……”

That figure was tiny—FGO had made more than that on Day One.

But even with such a small ask, the two of them were clearly lacking confidence. It was obvious they didn’t have much faith in the site’s future.

Hearing that number—

Tang Yao suddenly thought of something.

Back then, the founder of AcFun, Xilin, had sold the site for just four million to Chen Shaojie, who later founded Douyu and then sold AcFun again to Yang Xinmiao.

That began AcFun’s long decline into chaos. The company changed hands multiple times, each funding round shaking up management.

Yet it had started earlier than Bilibili. In fact, Bilibili was originally just a backup of AcFun.

But their fates diverged completely.

In the end—

AcFun… truly died. Even its top-ranking videos barely got 10,000 views.

It was tragic.

Would ANF become the AcFun of this world?

…No.

Forget FGO, which had already set them on a path to IPO.

As long as Avalon Studio kept making anime-style games—

Then this already-budding anime community and video platform… could absolutely soar.

With that in mind—

Tang Yao looked at the two cautious, nervous founders and suddenly smiled.

“Alright. I’ll buy it. Just sort things out with your investor—I’ll handle the money.”