Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Subsequent to the release of “Pure Romance” ending, the number of followers for Su Li’s Weibo had skyrocketed. It was not that her ending was alluring, instead, it had ticked off numerous readers. Having followed her Weibo, they could then lash out on her whenever they wanted. Below her latest Weibo post, there were vigorous responses from the readers as such —

“The ending of ‘Pure Romance’ is like feeding us sh*ts! I won’t read the works written by this bastard mangaka anymore! But I’ll still be in your Weibo to troll you everyday!”

“Just let that scumbag hero Yang Ming die… I detest scumbags anyway. But… why not giving Xu Jing a good ending? Come on mangaka, she had been suffering so much, can’t you just sympathize with her?”

“I think this Su Li must be a hardcore fan of Urobuchi Gen. That’s why she had deliberately come out with such an ending where almost everyone are dead. Is she trying to play with the innocent readers like us? Still I’ve to admit, she had successfully created a big news, I’m afraid I won’t forget this ‘Pure Romance’ for the rest of my live! Full support for my Goddess Xu Jing!”

“I’m so pissed off! This dramatic change of drawing style is totally unpredictable! It’s almost poisonous!”

“The ending scene of Xu Jing in a lily white dress, standing by the sea was perfectly beautiful! I had cried a river upon seeing it. Sob, I really want to give her a hug…”

“The character of Yang Xixi was deplorable. To forcefully give Xu Jing a wistful ending, you have specified that Yang Xixi would only love her brother deadly till the end of time. I’m… speechless. If this could happen in reality, for sure there won’t be a ridiculous ending like ‘nice boat’. Hugging someone’s chopped-off head while sailing towards the sunset? Ugh, that is gut-churning! You must have done it on purpose!”

“I will just laugh, and share out the promises you’d made to the readers on Weibo. Haha, everyone let’s see how sketchy is this hateful mangaka. For all the times she promised a happy and complete ending for ‘Pure Romance’, it was just to trap more and more readers, then rip them all apart abruptly! I have seen through your scheme, mangaka. Well, well, this society is dangerous indeed! Wait, why don’t you just go and eat sh*ts? Broadcast it live to everyone!”

…

Looking at the widespread criticisms of Su Li on Weibo, Zhao Youyue’s mouth curved in a smile. Ultimately, all of this was Su Li’s fault. Why would she suddenly pay attention to the character of “Xu Jing”? Why would she decide to abuse “Xu Jing”? This had deprived her of the opportunities to study. Thus as Xu Jing’s “master”, Zhao Youyue had to launch a fierce counter attack!

Besides railing against Su Li on Weibo, everyone also discussed about “Xu Jing”, and it seemed that the discussion would only get more intense by time. Almost seventy percent of the readers were on Su Li’s side. They were so sympathetic towards Xu Jing, and reckoned that Su Li was flying in the face of the readers by drawing her dead. Some readers commented that they would be down in the dumps for at least half a month upon this ending…

Meanwhile, there were some eccentric readers who liked to do gimmicks. They had condemned “Xu Jing” with these unorthodox viewpoints —

“Within the entire ‘Pure Romance’, the biggest troublemaker was actually Xu Jing. Yeah, this female character was the culprit who led the manga down the path of a miserable ending! It was just that some people were blinded by their emotions. Deeply moved by Xu Jing’s poor background and so-called passion in studies, they had inadvertently fallen heads over heels for her. In fact, this girl was subtle and full of schemes, not to mention that her morals were twisted, thus she always resorted to extreme approaches to achieve her aims. Had she not stirred up so much troubles, the hero would not go rogue, then all the characters would be able to live happily, right? Hence, Xu Jing’s wistful ending was of her own making. She deserved to die, and she had brought death upon herself.”

“Every pathetic person must have something despicable about them. A girl like Xu Jing was too scary, and akin to the natural enemy of guys. As a straight guy, I’m bothered by her yuri character which competes with the guys for pretty girls. Also, I couldn’t bear the sight of her plotting against the hero Yang Ming. I’m not sure what Su Li was thinking, how could she come up with such a troublemaking character at the first place? She was not even a member of the hero’s harem, this had completely deviated from the conventional route of a Harem manga. Luckily my heart was strong enough to endure this, otherwise I must have given up this manga long ago. Anyway, what’s so bad about Xu Jing’s death in the end? Wasn’t it delightful? Now, our eyes no longer need to suffer from seeing her pathetic face in this world.”

…

Following the appearance of these comments, without a doubt, the loyal guardians of Goddess Xu Jing had become restless. They surged out to support Xu Jing —

“Xu Jing did everything out of true love. What’s wrong with plotting against the hero? Could the hero Yang Ming be more responsible and more impervious to seductions, he would not be thinking with his penis. Then Xu Jing’s scheme would be futile. Don’t make it sounds like everything was Xu Jing’s fault, some people really have incredible logics! Yang Ming was a natural scumbag, so he had to die, but Xu Jing was innocent! Unfortunately, Xu Jing was blinded by her love towards another scumbag Yang Xixi. Sure enough, these two were brother and sister, as the same type of persons live under the same roof. Yang Xixi had been making use of Xu Jing as a substitute all the way, yet kicked her away in the end. To think that there would be some who had complimented her faithfulness in love. If she loved her brother that much, why didn’t she reject Xu Jing since the beginning? Just let Xu Jing go dating with her studies. I had strongly believed in Xu Jing’s adamance, but eventually, she was sinking deeper and deeper. At last, I could do nothing except heaving a long sigh over the miserable ending. In any case, I want to emphasize, that the soul character of “Pure Romance” is Xu Jing, and only Xu Jing’s name could match the title “Pure Romance!”

“Support my Goddess Xu Jing forever! Putting it bluntly, if it was not because of Xu Jing, could such a second-class Harem manga possibly set the world on fire? I can’t believe there are people who could say that Xu Jing deserved death. She reaped what she sowed! The hell is that? Do you guys have no conscience?”

“Without Goddess Xu Jing, there wouldn’t be you bunch of clowns who had cooked up all sorts of exaggerated remarks solely to seek attention! I suspect that you guys had lost your mind after reading the horrific ending, thus you intentionally made those remarks to look for rebukes.”

…

The war of comments between the readers over Xu Jing’s ending was unstoppable, that it might even last forever. Seeing that, Zhao Youyue realized that she had successfully crafted an iconic female character. Subsequently, she saw one picture of a two dimensional character with a basic ponytail, appearing above the miraculous “Two Dimensional Gate” in her mind. It was the character card of “Xu Jing”. She was still holding a book, expressionless.

Touching this character card with her spiritual sense, Zhao Youyue discovered three uses of the card for now, as more uses would probably be unlocked in future. For the present options, the first was the normal usage to inherit all character abilities of “Xu Jing”; the second was one-time sacrifice of the character card to select a literature world of equivalent energy level; the third was also one-time sacrifice of the character card, but to enter a literature world of higher energy level! Of course, this world of higher energy level would be random, not selectable…