The end of the first semester was approaching quickly, yet Zhao Youyue was still playing with her phone, her thumb flicking across the glowing screen in the dim light of the back row. Outside the classroom windows, the winter sky was a leaden gray, and a thin layer of frost clung to the glass.
Wait. Who was Zhao Youyue? Had this character ever actually appeared in this story?
She truly deserved the title of a protagonist with background character attributes. Even the loli author herself had almost forgotten about this young lady from the Zhao family who possessed absolutely no sense of presence among her peers. She sat there like a piece of furniture, overlooked by the teachers and ignored by the students as they hummed with the nervous energy of upcoming exams.
Recently, Zhao Youyue hadn't been in the best mental state. Her eyes often looked tired, and she found herself staring into space during lectures. Even though she knew that the world of Pure Love was only a fictional two-dimensional world, and that the characters inside it were obviously exaggerated and unrealistic, she had still invested genuine emotion into the experience. The weight of Xu Jing's grief still felt like a phantom pressure in her own chest. Otherwise, she couldn't possibly have shaped Xu Jing into such a memorable character that haunted the readers' dreams.
However, Zhao Youyue's possession of Xu Jing was not the same as acting in a performance in the real world. There were no scripts or stage directions to follow. Once she defined Xu Jing's abilities and personality, she could freely act according to that character's settings. She wasn't merely performing a role.
She had truly become Xu Jing.
The only difference was that her actions were more logical and convincing than the surrounding world. In works where characterization was usually average or thin, any character she possessed would shine like a firefly in the darkness. She brought a terrifying, grounded reality to a world made of ink and tropes.
Through her own influence, she had naturally affected the other characters as well. At the very least, Pure Love no longer had only Xu Jing standing out from the crowd. After Yang Ming's complete transformation into a scumbag, he had also become unforgettable to the audience. Not to mention his unforgettable "good boat" ending, which had left the forums in a state of absolute shock.
Besides him, both Liu Sha, the rich young lady who handled her hatchet like a seasoned professional, and Li Xiaotong, who always carried a sharp kitchen knife in her pocket, had become equally unforgettable. After all, those two completely took over the manga's bloodiest scenes once they finally snapped under the pressure of betrayal.
Of course, the real mastermind behind every twist and turn was the darkened genius Xu Jing. She had calculated every detail flawlessly, her mind working like a cold, precise machine to ensure the tragedy reached its peak.
Then there was Yang Qianqian, the girl who loved her older brother no matter what. This character was destined to be cursed by the readers for years to come. This was especially true for those readers who had strongly supported the yuri pairing between Yang Qianqian and Xu Jing. They felt a personal sense of betrayal in the girl's choice.
Yet in the end, Yang Qianqian would rather choose her older brother's severed head than the Xu Jing who was willing to do anything for her. That decision directly led to Xu Jing's irreversible, tragic ending on the beach.
After all, Xu Jing had no reason left to live in that world. Her parents were dead. Her best friend and the girl she loved had both left her for a ghost.
Was she really supposed to continue immersing herself in studying?
She had already lost any purpose for her academic pursuits. Even though she still claimed at the end that studying was what she loved most, the words rang hollow in the face of the encroaching tide. The darkened Xu Jing, Liu Sha, and Li Xiaotong all met miserable fates that mirrored their own choices.
In short, the main characters created during the later parts of Pure Love were all extremely memorable. They had been carved into the readers' minds with a sharp, unforgiving blade.
In another world, the infamous scumbag representative Ito Makoto had become unforgettable. In this world, someone finally appeared who could rival his legacy.
Yang Ming.
And all of that was thanks to Zhao Youyue's quiet intervention.
However, the Zhao family's young lady had always been extremely low-key. Even though she had successfully caused enormous chaos in the world of Pure Love, this time she hadn't lost control and caused the work to collapse into nonsense. In fact, she had very likely turned it into a classic that people would analyze for a decade.
But of course, she would never run around telling everyone that she was actually the root of all evil and the mastermind behind the bloodshed.
She had already brushed off her sleeves and quietly left after the deed was done. She hid both her merit and her name behind her unremarkable glasses and her quiet seat in the back of the room.
Looking at the screenshot saved in her phone's gallery, Zhao Youyue smiled happily. Her earlier feelings of melancholy and gloom eased slightly as she looked at the proof of her handiwork.
Now she was simply waiting for the official final chapter of Pure Love to be released to the public.
When that time came, she would post this screenshot into Su Li's fan group.
There was no helping it.
Society was just that dangerous.
In reality, Pure Love was still in the middle of a phase where it kept attracting fans through increasingly outrageous developments. The manga was simply too unique to ignore. It was the first harem manga where the male lead degraded into such an extreme scumbag, and readers found the novelty irresistible. They flocked to the series like moths to a flame.
Combined with Su Li's exceptional ability to draw provocative scenes, the effect was even more powerful. After all, the artist used to be a professional doujin artist. Even when she drew scenes without explicit nudity, the readers still found them impossible to stop reading. After finishing a chapter, they would often feel the urge to find certain materials and perform a bit of magic.
Of course, this also attracted criticism from self-proclaimed moral guardians. They believed Su Li had taken what could have been a normal harem manga and twisted it into something insane and harmful. In their opinion, it wouldn't corrupt the entire genre by encouraging more stories with scumbag male leads. After all, commercial works followed popularity, and anything popular would inevitably be imitated by lesser creators.
In truth, those worries were unnecessary.
In another world, although Makoto became popular for a time, male protagonists like him remained extremely rare. After Makoto, there was never another Makoto. He was a lightning strike that only happened once.
Makoto forever.
The phrase "Makoto died too early" didn't even come from a single work. It spread because in School Days, Ito Makoto was given the infamous "good boat" ending after cheating, along with an even more shocking fate afterward. Later, however, several romance series featured male protagonists with large harems who suffered no consequences at all. Their harems even lived together peacefully in a way that defied all logic.
So the masses began shouting things like: "Makoto, you died too early," "Makoto, your death was so unjust," "Makoto in heaven deserves justice," "Why does this guy get such a happy harem while Makoto got the good boat," "Why isn't that me," and "You jerk, hurry up and get good-boated too."
In truth, those cries mostly came from lonely otaku who couldn't build harems themselves and didn't even have girlfriends. Their frustration was channeled into a weird form of memes.
There was even a poem that circulated through the forums:
Makoto laughs at me for being timid.
I laugh at Makoto for dying too early.
You laugh that Makoto died too early.
Makoto laughs that you sleep with too few girls.
Makoto laughs that you sleep with too few girls.
You laugh that Makoto can't sleep with anyone anymore.
In any case, the direction Pure Love took was undeniably heretical. It was like a forbidden technique that burned everything for a burst of power. For a short time, it could attract enormous attention and popularity, especially since it was the first work in this world to feature a darkened scumbag male lead and hatchet-wielding heroines.
But if other works tried to copy it, readers who had already experienced such despair once might refuse to touch that kind of story again. Most ordinary readers simply couldn't endure an ending where nearly everyone died in a pool of blood.
After all, who deliberately seeks suffering when reading for entertainment?
Because of this, Zhao Youyue believed that although the manga artist named Su Li would become famous thanks to Pure Love, once the ending appeared, readers would approach her future works with constant anxiety.
They would always worry that some character might suddenly darken again, sending the plot into uncontrollable chaos and leading to another terrifying ending.
And Su Li's promises?
Not even a single punctuation mark of them could be trusted!