The Cannon-Fodder Manga Artist Has Lost His Mind

Before the new semester began, Tang Ning became so obsessed with drawing comics that he tripped and slammed his head against the corner of a desk.

His childhood friend and neighbor thought he was done for and rushed him to the hospital.

The doctors examined him for half an hour but couldn't find anything wrong.

Just as they were baffled, Tang Ning woke up.

He looked at the doctor and saw floppy black tentacles with suction cups sprouting from him. Horrified, he shouted, "Clay octopus monster, stay away from me!"

Doctor: ?

The doctor pulled out a notebook. "I see. This is a mental breakdown."

Back home, Tang Ning went back to his hobby: drawing comics.

But he knew he could never return to his peaceful everyday life.

After a serious illness, he discovered that he was actually living in a world where the protagonists of all kinds of comics and novels had been thrown together. Sweet, naive bottoms, aloof CEO-type tops, and ace mecha students, both tops and bottoms, would all show up in his world.

And he was just a nobody whose comics couldn't sell...

Still, there was one thing different about this world.

Though it was a world made up of characters from all sorts of novels and comics, their kinds were reversed. In other words, those familiar characters weren't actually human. They were monsters with tentacles, that spat slime and occasionally grew tails.

Tang Ning: I'm stunned. No wonder nobody reads my comics. It turns out I'm the only human here. (A sudden revelation.)

He decided to change the direction of his comics.

His comics used to be bland and boring because he based them on the everyday lives of people around him.

The rich kid was rich in an utterly unremarkable way, the old janitor practiced tai chi day after day, and the office worker trudged to work with a hangdog expression.

But after he came back from the hospital, his fans following the series noticed that their favorite creator had changed!

The understated, everyday art style vanished overnight, replaced by enormous beings that made you lose sanity just by looking at them, gods of the boundless sky too terrible to behold, and colorful black paint clinging to people's bodies.

Even the wholesome plot became profoundly sanity-shattering beneath this intensely terrifying art style.

Fans: ?

Fans: Where's our adorable favorite creator? Please don't do anything rash!!!

Tang Ning didn't react.

Every day after finishing the latest update, he would quietly fret: Everyone around me turned into monsters overnight, and I'm the only one who doesn't fit in.

That's not the problem.

But how do I convince my roommates not to put their black-mud tentacles on my shoulders after I've just showered?

Asking online, urgently.

But the people around him were worried too.

Childhood friend: ...Did Tang Ning forget to take his meds again today? He's still not over his mental health problems, is he?

(A world where Tang Ning is the only one with something wrong in his head.)

Note:

1. This blurb was posted on December 30, 2023. Please don't copy or plagiarize it. It has been archived.

2. I'm not sure what else to add for now. I'll think about it.

Theme: Work hard, stay optimistic, and keep striving forward.