The human brain could have fertile imagination, so it was difficult for one to concentrate on one thing. Even if he concentrated on painting only the character he wanted, there were always external factors that would interfere with him, especially when he hit a bottleneck, because under this condition, his thoughts would wander off the point, and he would feel confused.

In Star Card Storm, the image on a card couldn't be in a mess.

Thinking of the cl.u.s.ter of white Tuberose at the auction, Xie Mingzhe suddenly admired Tang Muzhou to some extent.

Legend Tang was truly an awesome player – he created such a vivid flower card as [Tuberose], and incomparably complex plant card as [Thousand-year-old G.o.d Tree] – a huge tree covering the sky. Tang Muzhou must use his Inner Spirit to draw every branch and leaf without making any mistakes. His Inner Spirit must exceed 300.

Xie Mingzhe felt it a little hard even though his Inner Spirit was 300 high…

Xie Mingzhe took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on thinking about the type of card he wanted to make.

Tang Muzhou excelled at creating plant cards, so there was hardly any room for him to make new plant cards. As for animals, there had been pet cards such as [Nine-tailed Fox] and [Long-eared Rabbit] in this game. Card designers with active imagination made a lot of pet cards. When he searched for information in the hospital, he found various realistic Persian cats, Teddy dogs, giant pandas, etc. Lions, tigers, and other animal cards were just too corny, and he had no idea for new ones.

Character…

Yes, characters! Senior brother Qi said that the approval standard for character cards was the character's facial features. The official standard stated that players couldn't take examples from people in the real world to draw the character's facial features. What if he drew comic-style characters? Wasn't that unique?

He didn't learn painting in vain – he could draw comic-style characters easily.

Xie Mingzhe clenched his fist excitedly for finding a way.

What character should he draw?

A scene suddenly came to his mind.

A slim girl sat by the river, strewing petals over the ground. She gave a little cough, her face bathed in tears.

——Daiyu burying the flowers¹.

The night before his rebirth, when he went out, one of his roommates, who was arty, was watching the 1987 version of the Dream of the Red Chamber in the dormitory. At the time, Xie Mingzhe joked, “Seeing Cousin Lin crying bitterly, how do you feel? Do you want to cry too?”

The roommate laughed a little and replied, “Get out! My girlfriend sent the video and asked me to go over the cla.s.sic.”

Xie Mingzhe glanced at the computer screen and sighed, “Lin Daiyu in this version got real cla.s.s.”

The scene was so beautiful that it was imprinted on his mind. It made one's heart ache to see such a delicate and touching girl with tears filled in her eyes. Even an otaku like Xie Mingzhe would feel worried when seeing her crying.

So the scene stuck in his mind.

So clearly.

Xie Mingzhe's eyes lit up - what if he turned this scene into a card? He didn't know if there was such a card in the world of Star Card.

Thinking of this, Xie Mingzhe immediately started the card-making system.

He put one Nebula paper on the Card Console, closed his eyes and carefully depicted the picture in his mind… Please support original translation from w.a.n.gmamaread.

Green trees, flowers, a beauty standing by trees, buried petals, and tears on her face.

The picture got clearer, more detailed, and more complete as he was depicting in his mind.

After he concentrated on picturing the image in his mind, the game system reminded, “Congratulations! You have created the card. Please insert the card into the card slot in the upper left corner and connect to the star card database to verify your card.”

Xie Mingzhe immediately inserted the card into the slot as the system prompted.

— After the cards were finished, the first step was to see whether the cards could gain official approval or not. It was also the key point.

Probably, there were too many cards in the database, so the examination took a long time.

Five minutes later…

Ten minutes later…

Xie Mingzhe thought the system had crashed. When he was about to restart his game helmet, a voice suddenly rang in his ears, “The card has been approved. You can print a unique LOGO on the card as a copyright certificate.”

Approved! Xie Mingzhe was extremely excited. He decided to use the word “Zhe” directly and print it in the lower right corner of the back of the card – to imitate Tang Muzhou's style because his word “Tang” looked really decent and cool.

However, after he entered the word, the system prompted, “The LOGO has been occupied. Please choose another one.”

Xie Mingzhe felt helpless. It seemed that there was a high rate of name repet.i.tion. Star Card Storm beta had been in operation for ten years and all kinds of LOGOs must have been enrolled earlier. Now that to apply a cool logo failed, why not use the ID in the game? So Xie Mingzhe simply entered “月半” (月 and 半 are two parts of the Chinese character 胖, which means chubby. In the future chapters, we will write Xie Mingzhe's logo as “Chubby”). It finally pa.s.sed.

On the back of the approved card, the pure white Nebular paper gradually shined soft and green l.u.s.ter.

The green cards are one-star cards, the lowest star cards in the game. All original cards players created were one-star cards. It didn't matter – the cards could be upgraded and evolved. The cost of producing one-star cards was the lowest. As long as it had excellent attributes, he had the patience to level up Daiyu to a seven-star card slowly.

Rubbing his hands, Xie Mingzhe picked up the card on the Card Console and looked at it carefully.

As a painter who was adept in painting good-looking people, he painted Lin Daiyu beautifully in a cartoon style. A lovely and pathetic ancient beauty of distinctive disposition stood by a tree, burying the petals into the ground. The composition of the picture was also awesome as it had depicted 90% of the artistic conception of Daiyu burying the flowers.

Then Xie Mingzhe shifted his focus to the card's attributes.

Lin Daiyu (Wood)

Card Level: 1

Evolution Level: ★

Available Times of Use: 1/1

Base Attributes: Health 100, Attack 0, Defense 15, Agility 1, Critical Strike Chance 0%

Additional Skill: Daiyu Burying Blossoms (To inflict huge damage on flower and plant cards, 10% chance of triggering immediate death effect)

Xie Mingzhe was completely confused by the attributes.

What was this skill? Causing huge damage to flower and plant cards?

Daiyu Burying Blossoms, as its name suggested, could only be used to fight against his adversary's flower and plant cards? Wouldn't the card be useless if his opponent had no flower or plant cards.

Its defense was 15, however, Xie Mingzhe remembered that Tang Muzhou's [Tuberose] card of the highest level had a defense ability of 50000.

There was an enormous gap between these two cards.

Even his [Icy Snake] card given by the system had an initial defense ability of 50. Wouldn't the [Daiyu] card be smashed as easily as a piece of paper since its defense was just 15? "Poor sister Lin, you couldn't change your destiny even if you were made into a card in the game," Xie Mingzhe thought.

Xie Mingzhe felt disappointed.

The data of this card was by no means good, it seemed that he was not destined to make a fortune overnight.

Would anyone buy it in the black market?

Translator's Notes:

1. Daiyu burying the flowers:

Lin Daiyu is one of the princ.i.p.al characters of Cao Xueqin's cla.s.sic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. She is portrayed as a well-educated, intelligent, witty and beautiful young woman of physical frailness who is somewhat p.r.o.ne to occasional melancholy. The romance between Daiyu and Jia Baoyu forms one of the main threads of the book.

One of the enduring images of Daiyu, often portrayed in Chinese art and re-enacted in Chinese operas, is that of Daiyu burying the flowers. One day, overcome by a spell of melancholy after a misunderstanding with Baoyu, Daiyu goes to bury some fallen petals at a hillside and falls in deep weeping at the demise of the flowers. She composed a long, elegiac memorial poem for the dead petals, which triggers off a similar grieving response in the eavesdropping Baoyu.