[The main story was completed on April 16, 2024. It will go behind the paywall starting from "The Twenty-Third Piece of Fried Tofu" on April 20, with a 10,000-character update on release day.]
[Inline comments are always enabled. Please feel free to use them.]
★ A female international student struggling to survive far from home x Inari Okami, a great deity of rice and prosperity stuck in a little shrine, enjoying a quiet retirement
The female lead is an undergraduate student suffering through her studies in Tokyo, tormented by her thesis every day until she feels she'd be better off dead.
One day, after her thesis-writing finally drives her over the edge, she crawls gloomily into a dilapidated building near her home that looks like a shrine and immediately makes a wish: O gods, please let me graduate smoothly and painlessly!
After finishing her thesis, she goes out late at night to find something to eat and encounters a will-o'-the-wisp. She assumes she's hallucinating after spending too long on her thesis.
Who knew the will-o'-the-wisp would launch itself right at her face? The female lead faints on the spot.
When she wakes up, she finds herself at home, with a handsome white-haired man beside her.
As she wonders how to thank this kind stranger, he speaks:
"I am the god who governs harvests and fortune."
The female lead scoffs. Great, another lunatic!
The handsome man says, "So if you want to graduate smoothly, you'll just have to work hard yourself!"
The female lead's vision goes black, and she faints again. Orz
[Reading Guide]
1. A Japanese-style, anime-inspired story.
2. The male lead is a god, not a human. Don't imagine him as a Japanese man! Don't develop unrealistic fantasies about Japanese men!
3. There aren't any difficult cultural references, so it's an easy read.
4. Who doesn't go a little crazy?! This is a madcap story, all feelings and no logic.
5. The worldbuilding is based on widely held folk beliefs, with author-created details and some unofficial history thrown in. If you're a research-and-fact-checking purist, please turn left and leave.
6. Happy ending! Everyone gets a happy ending! Sweet and fun, guaranteed!
*
As the autumn wind blows softly through the rice leaves, a person appears in the ear of the grain, and I find myself longing for them.
Ki no Tsurayuki
★★Please add my other work, [Otome Game] University in Turmoil, to your to-read list!
Personified elite universities in Japan
[Premise, early version]
You're a top student with a stack of offers in hand during application season.
As you're debating which university to attend, you get hit by a car and sent flying.
You wake up in a hospital bed. Before you can remember what happened, a crowd gathers around you, overcome with emotion and tears:
"Miss, you've finally woken up!"
You're completely bewildered.
From their conversation, you learn that in a recent plane crash, the entire family of the ruthless president of Koaes Group's Japan division, a monopolistic organization, died.
As the illegitimate daughter the president abandoned years ago, you've been appointed heir by the company's top executives.
After hearing all this, you shout, "Let me go back! I've made up my mind, I'm going to Tokyo University!"
Just then, a tall young man steps up to your hospital bed.
His features are clean-cut, and his manner is cool and reserved.
"I'm Todai. I hear you want to go to me?"
You: ???
This world must be crazy!
*
In short, you inherit Koaes Group's Japan division in a daze.
The executives tell you your job is to lead Japan's many prestigious universities and get them into the top 100 of Koaes's World University Rankings.
And so you're forced to begin trials alongside handsome men representing Todai, Waseda, Keio, and other universities...
★★My other work, Tokyo Bay, will be featured in July!
Premise
At 24, Fu Xiliu parachutes into her family's Tokyo branch, drawing everyone's attention and causing an uproar in the media.
Men from every walk of life swarm around her, racking their brains to win her favor and hoping to marry into wealth.
She looks down on them.
But Fu Xiliu doesn't mind treating them like dogs. When she's in a good mood, she tosses them a bone, and someone will happily scurry off to fetch it.
She feigns being touched and praises them for being so considerate, then turns around and spends a fortune at an exclusive members' club.
She's a VIP, and the club does everything in its power to provide impeccable service.
But someone knocks over the champagne tower at her birthday party, completely ruining her mood.
The manager brings the culprit over and makes him apologize.
The young man keeps his head down. His tailored white shirt is buttoned up, with just two buttons left undone, and blood stains his pale chest.
Fu Xiliu tells him to look up, only to meet a pair of captivating, doe-like eyes glistening with tears.
Her anger mysteriously fades. She asks the manager why she's never seen this man before.
The manager bows repeatedly and says he's a new arrival, not yet qualified to serve her.
Fu Xiliu smiles. "That's all right. He'll be qualified in a moment."
That night, she spends ten million yen on him, making him the club's top earner of the day.
As she leaves, she smiles and presses hard on the wound cut by the broken glass, watching his face turn pale with pain. "You knocked over the champagne tower on purpose, didn't you?"
He smiles candidly. "It's a business with a huge return. Would you pass it up, Miss Fu?"
Very blunt.
And very interesting.
CP: A ruthless heiress who has sworn off love x A host who'll do anything to get what he wants
I didn't expect Yuzuki to leave the stage so quickly. At first I thought he was a humanoid form of black air, but I didn't expect he was just a shikigami. Now I'm thinking that the person behind it is actually this Zhie Shrine. When people didn't repair it in the big earthquake and it was left in ruins, there may have been resentment of being abandoned, and then the resentment of being forgotten by believers. Originally, at least Qingchen was still there, but he was captured without any help. For Zhie, it was the final critical blow, and then he turned into a powerful resentful spirit or something. On the other hand, this curse is really vicious. The lychees are no longer sweet and I almost fall into the rhythm of nihilism. It is really miserable for the heroine.
It's so wonderful... It's so wonderful... The fate between the two people was forged thousands of years ago but they didn't know it... It really makes my scalp go numb 😭 😭
Ahhh, goosebumps arose. In the past, Li Zhi was melancholy about the origin of Qingchen's name, but little did he know that it was his former self who named him...
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh writing of me. [Love Heart Eyes] It's so astringent. !!!!!
Could it be that Ayako was the same person who stayed in Heian Kyo?
Help hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha thanks to Heiyan for assisting the little expert! Seeing how greedy the child is, treat him to a hot pot meal. Hahahahahahaha, I've been thinking about it for a long time.
Fox fur, does it hurt? Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
Hey hey hey!!!!! So that's it!
Absolutely amazing!!! If Ayako's line is closed, there will definitely be a follow-up! Sprinkle more sugar in the extras, ah, ah, ah, ah, I didn't have enough of the main story!
Hug the teacher, I hope all the troubles in the third dimension will go away! And Qingchen has become more and more fond of playing straight balls recently, hahahahaha