The story of Pure Love didn't end simply because the male lead, Yang Ming, was hacked to death by his childhood friend, Li Xiaotong. What followed was a twist that almost no reader could have predicted, a descent into a darkness that swallowed the school romance whole.
The first person to discover the gruesome scene was the rich young lady, Liu Sha. Originally, she should have been considered the victor of this brutal battlefield among the girls. At least for this stage, she had seemingly won his heart and his bed.
Of course, there was no guarantee how long that victory would have lasted. Yang Ming might have changed his heart again someday, just as he had abandoned Li Xiaotong when a newer, more exciting prospect appeared. After all, he and Li Xiaotong had once been extremely close. He had personally told her that having her alone would be enough, yet his promises were as thin as the paper his story was drawn on.
And yet the result was obvious. He had never truly treated her as his girlfriend. In his eyes, she had always been nothing more than a childhood friend to be used and discarded.
After killing Yang Ming, Li Xiaotong hid in her room, hugging her legs tightly while sitting on the cold floor. Her mind had completely collapsed, the walls of her reality crumbling. She remained like that until another message appeared on her WeChat, the screen's glow a harsh white in the dark.
The message came from Yang Ming's phone.
It said he was waiting for her at the nearby Hongmei Park.
Li Xiaotong understood almost instantly that it had been sent by Liu Sha. She felt no fear at all. Her heart was already dead. Following the shared location, she went straight to the meeting place, the winter wind biting at her skin. One of her hands stayed hidden inside her heavy coat, gripping the handle of her weapon.
Night had already fallen. The moonlight was bright and cold, casting long, skeletal shadows across the park's empty paths.
When she reached the park, she saw a large travel bag resting on a wooden bench. Just as she approached it, Liu Sha's calm voice sounded directly behind her ear, sending a chill down her spine.
"Did you go to the hospital yet? The doctors there are very skilled."
Liu Sha's eyes were hidden beneath her heavy bangs. Her head was slightly lowered. An indescribably terrifying aura surrounded her entire body, a weight that seemed to displace the very air.
"I didn't go," Li Xiaotong replied, her voice raspy as she forced herself to stay calm.
"Why?"
"I don't want to go to the hospital you recommended!" Her voice suddenly rose, cracking with hysteria.
"That's a lie, right? You just told Ming-ge you were pregnant so he would come back to you."
"That's not true!"
"What is wrong with saying it?"
"I really am pregnant..."
"Then you should properly go to a hospital and get checked." Liu Sha's voice remained unnervingly gentle. "Actually, you are not worthy of carrying his child anyway. Because Ming-ge's girlfriend should be me."
"What?"
"That's the truth. I'm the one he acknowledged as his girlfriend."
"I wanted to... I wanted to be Ah Ming's girlfriend too! That was all I ever wanted! I kept forcing myself to satisfy whatever Ah Ming wanted, so why did everything end up like this? Why!"
Li Xiaotong broke down in tears, her body shaking with the force of her sobs.
"Ming-ge is actually right here," Liu Sha said softly. "Why don't you ask him yourself?"
Her dark, bottomless eyes shifted toward the travel bag on the bench.
Li Xiaotong walked over. With trembling fingers, she slowly pulled open the metal zipper.
Inside the bag was Yang Ming's head.
No reader in the real world could have imagined that a perfectly ordinary harem manga would descend into something this horrifying at its conclusion. What made the audience grind their teeth even more was that Su Li deliberately used her exquisite drawing skills to carefully illustrate Yang Ming's severed head, his eyes still wide in shock. She satisfied her twisted sense of humor while terrifying the unprepared audience.
Inside the story, Li Xiaotong covered her mouth with both hands. Her body trembled uncontrollably as she began to vomit on the grass.
"You said something earlier. Let's test whether it was true or not," Liu Sha said.
She pulled out the woodcutting hatchet she had used to chop off Yang Ming's head. Fresh, dark blood still stained the metal blade. The young lady's skill with a hatchet was quite impressive. After all, she was talented in many things, and her IQ reached 250.
She rushed forward, her movements a blur of lethal grace.
At the same time, Li Xiaotong, who had kept one hand hidden in her coat all along, immediately drew the sharp kitchen knife she had used to stab Yang Ming. She had clearly come prepared for a final confrontation as well.
But she was a step too slow.
The moment she raised the knife, Liu Sha grabbed her wrist with a crushing grip. The blade fell to the ground with a dull thud.
Liu Sha's expression twisted into something monstrous. The innocent and charming girl she once appeared to be had completely vanished. Her dark eyes grew even deeper and blacker, devoid of any humanity.
She swung the hatchet.
The moonlight reflected brilliantly off the arc of the blade.
At that moment, the battle scene drawn by Su Li rivaled the most intense panels from the best mainstream action manga. The speed and power were palpable.
The hatchet sliced open Li Xiaotong's abdomen.
Blood burst out wildly, splashing onto the snow and the bench. The scene was even more violent and brutal than when Li Xiaotong had stabbed Yang Ming. After all, Liu Sha was far more skilled and decisive.
Who would have guessed that this was supposedly a campus harem manga, a work the author herself had described as relaxing, cheerful, warm, and healing?
Under the cold moonlight, Li Xiaotong's expression turned grotesque. Her eyes rolled upward before she collapsed into a heap.
Liu Sha looked down at the girl lying in a widening pool of blood. She crouched beside her and used the hatchet along with her bare hands to tear open her abdomen.
At last, she saw the inside of Li Xiaotong's stomach.
It was completely empty.
"Just as I thought," she murmured calmly to herself, her voice a soft whisper in the night. "You were lying. There wasn't any child inside."
At that moment, Yang Qianqian suddenly appeared from the shadows.
Without hesitation, she grabbed the travel bag containing the head and began running away like a madwoman toward the harbor.
Liu Sha's expression became even more terrifying as she realized what was happening.
"Don't take Ming-ge away from me!"
With that piercing cry, she raised the hatchet again and charged after Yang Qianqian, intending to kill her and reclaim Yang Ming's remains.
But someone stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
It was Xu Jing.
"Stop," Xu Jing said. Her face remained expressionless, her eyes cold as flint.
"Get out of my way!"
"The police are coming."
"That's impossible!"
"I calculated the time it would take you to finish all of this. I also calculated how long it would take the police to arrive after I reported it. So it won't be wrong."
The moment Xu Jing finished speaking, the wail of police sirens sounded right on cue, the red and blue lights flashing in the distance.
Liu Sha attempted to resist arrest. She even tried to attack the officers with her blood-stained hatchet, her mind lost to madness.
She was shot dead on the spot.
…
On an endless sea, the sunset covered the entire ocean in a deep, bleeding amber. The scenery was breathtakingly beautiful, the water shimmering like liquid gold.
On a good boat, Yang Qianqian lay on her side on the deck. She was holding the head of the older brother she still loved so deeply, her fingers stroking the cold hair.
The golden glow of the sunset covered the entire vessel, making the scene feel unbelievably warm and gentle. Not a trace of the blood or the horror of the park remained.
Her expression was peaceful. A satisfied smile rested on her lips. It was completely different from the strained, forced smile she wore when she was with Xu Jing.
"So nice," she murmured softly, her voice carrying over the waves. "Now it's finally just the two of us, Gege."
She truly felt happy.
No one could ever take her older brother away from her again.
She no longer needed any substitute.
The good boat sailed slowly toward the burning sunset.
The scene changed.
On the beach, Xu Jing stood facing the distant sunset. The wind caught her simple white dress, making it flutter like the wings of a moth. Her ordinary single ponytail remained unchanged, and her expression was still a blank mask.
A heavy book rested in her hand.
At that moment, Xu Jing might have been the most beautiful girl in the entire manga. Her sorrow gave her a transcendent grace that no one else could compare to. The orange light highlighted the delicate lines of her face, turning her into a living masterpiece.
She began to walk slowly toward the sea. The wet sand pulled at her feet, and the cold water surged over her ankles.
Two lines of hot tears finally broke through, sliding down her cheeks.
Yet she smiled faintly, a small, fragile thing. She said, "Qianqian was only second place among all the things I like. My number one love in the world is studying."
She laughed while she cried, the sound swallowed by the roar of the surf. The lie was the only thing she had left to cling to, a desperate defense against the void in her heart.
Her lonely figure gradually disappeared beneath the endless sea, the waves rising to meet her waist, then her chest, until the water claimed her completely.
The sunset remained as beautiful as ever.
It was beautiful enough to break one's heart.
Xu Jing's final silhouette would remain forever in the minds of every reader, a ghost of a girl who had tried to calculate her way to happiness.
The girl who had calculated everything in the end gained nothing at all.
And that was the grand finale of Pure Love.
A perfectly happy ending.
Wasn't it?
In the real world, the creator Su Li finished drawing everything while still in a dazed state. The song The Far Shore of Sorrow continued looping over and over again in the background.