Chapter 18-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Ye Zheng stayed in the graveyard for a long time. The quiet environment allowed her to contemplate many things.
The importance of the Dragon Bone was self-evident. It was the royal family's biggest trump card. As long as they held the Dragon Bone, people would follow the Aston Royal Family. Who wouldn't want absolute safety in a world full of Demonic Domains?
Therefore, Ye Zheng didn't believe the royal family would really allow a winner of the competition to share the Dragon Bone with them.
This was bait placed outside a glass tank. Even if the little fish inside the tank fought tooth and nail for the bait, they would never be able to reach the fruits of victory.
The person who came up with this idea must be very pleased, watching the struggling people clash with each other for an illusory reward.
The corners of Ye Zheng's mouth curled into a slight, mocking arc.
She would not be a fish that stayed in the glass tank and followed the rules. She would take advantage of the owner's most conceited and arrogant moment to violently break through the glass tank and devour the most crucial bait—the Dragon Bone!
This would be enough to shake the very foundation of the Holy Sei Empire!
"System, thank you for the tip. The main storyline of the manga is indeed the correct path."
Ye Zheng straightened her body, her expression calm and cold, with only a hint of genuine tenderness in her eyes as she looked at the gravestone.
She held up a black umbrella and turned to leave the graveyard. In the misty rain, the girl once again returned to her usual, perfectly soft demeanor, as pure as the water vapor.
Outside the manga.
King of the Demonic Domain has been updated!
Li Yixin held her phone, a look of worry on her face. Originally, she had looked forward to the weekly updates, but ever since the appearance of Ye Zheng, who was suspected to be the female lead, her mood had become complicated.
She could only pray that the Old Uncle would quickly abandon his talentless romance plot and focus on depicting the bonds between men.
Wasn't that better? Why did a passionate shounen manga have to have a female lead?
Li Yixin opened the new chapter with a mix of anticipation and anxiety. Although the female character named Ye Zheng was very beautiful, she didn't really want to see her.
As soon as she opened the new chapter, several figures wrapped in black robes appeared. Li Yixin almost didn't recognize who they were.
"Being too popular is also a kind of trouble."
"Let's go. It will be a hassle if we get recognized again."
"Zhao Mei should have arrived by now, right?"
Seeing the main squad mention Zhao Mei, Li Yixin's eyes lit up slightly. Zhao Mei was finally going to appear!
On the next page, the black-haired, green-eyed boy appeared lightly around a street corner, like an elegant black cat.
"Ahhh, so beautiful! My destined wife!"
Li Yixin repeatedly admired Zhao Mei's stunning beauty, thinking that he was not at all inferior to the Saintess, whose beauty was always praised in the manga.
Inside the manga, the group quietly entered a small pub. Seeing the underage main squad obediently drinking juice, Li Yixin couldn't help but show a loving smile.
Zhao Mei still had his good-tempered demeanor. Even when the bartender spoke to him in a hostile tone, he maintained a gentle smile.
"Where he's from doesn't matter. It's enough that he's our friend."
When she turned to the part where Percy spoke up to defend Zhao Mei, Li Yixin, as a member of the PerSy fandom, felt she was getting a little serviced too.
Although the PerSy and PerMei fandoms had been fighting fiercely lately, this was just the friendship between boys. It had nothing to do with background, only a bond of kindred spirits! It was a different flavor from PerSy.
Seeing that the mayor who was giving a speech died inexplicably, Li Yixin quickly flipped past this unimportant plot. She swiped her finger until Sykes's refined and extremely imposing face came into view.
Excellent. Her PerSy couple was about to do fan service again!
However, Sykes disappeared after announcing the rules and had no interaction with Percy. Li Yixin could only reluctantly hold her phone and continue flipping through.
As she did so, a black-haired, black-eyed girl with a saintly aura suddenly jumped into her sight.
"...Ye Zheng?"
The boy and girl were talking in a secluded graveyard, creating a special atmosphere.
Li Yixin watched the dazed expression on Percy's face as he looked at Ye Zheng, and her heart broke again. It seemed the creator was determined to sell this couple!
She opened the comments, and as expected, they were full of heartbroken shippers.
[I'm done. The plot is becoming dumber again. I'm already annoyed with this woman.]
[I was grinning like an idiot seeing PerMei in the same frame just now, but after flipping to this page, I'm just begging for them to be left alone...]
[I'm a PerSy shipper, and I was just unhappy seeing the PerMei interaction, but now I'd rather see PerMei, two boys who truly understand each other, interact. At least the characters aren't OOC!]
Li Yixin could only console herself that it was normal for male-oriented works to have a female lead. They were just tools to help the creators get past censorship by masquerading brotherly love. Their roles were usually insignificant, so she could just hold her nose and endure it.
Ye Zheng left the quiet graveyard, and the noisy clamor surrounded her again. The entire lower district was excited about the new hope.
However, the system was even louder than the human voices.
[As the female lead of the manga, you should, of course, follow the manga's plot. It's good that you understand this!]
[But so far, you've done pretty well. Look at your popularity value—]
[It's at 7,500!]
The system's voice was joyful. Ye Zheng guessed that her popularity value was likely tied to the system's benefits, and she was very curious about the system's existence itself.
"Last time I checked, it was 5,000. It seems I haven't appeared much in the manga lately, but my popularity has surprisingly increased quickly?"
"That's 75 action points. Looks like I can change quite a few manga plots."
[If you were more active on the forums, you would know the reason for this rapid increase in popularity—]
[It's fandom infighting! And gaining devoted fans through suffering!]
Hearing the new terms, the studious Ye Zheng quietly opened the forum. Under the system's guidance, she read several threads that were several hundred replies long and roughly understood the meaning of "fandom infighting."
As the name suggested, it was a fierce struggle between two fandom factions.
During this time, readers who shipped Percy and Sykes were fighting with readers who shipped Percy and Zhao Mei.
As for gaining devoted fans through suffering, it was probably because many people insulted the character Zhao Mei during the fierce battle between the two sides, which made many people cherish Zhao Mei even more, causing his popularity to rise steadily.
"...Is this something worth fighting over?"
Both couples are fake, she could personally confirm that as a character in the manga.
[It started with the PerSy fandom trolling the PerMei fandom's space. Then, a big fan of the PerMei fandom started making snide remarks about the other side, and a full-on brawl ensued...Wait, what are you posting?!]
Ye Zheng tried to type a sentence on her phone screen and sent it to a particularly lively thread.
It was sent successfully. The girl's eyes lit up slightly. It was true that she could communicate with readers in the real world this way.
When the system saw it, it almost fainted from anger.
[#789: Please stop fighting. Both couples are fake, and any argument based on this is meaningless.]
Someone immediately replied to this post.
[#790: Which couple are you from to come stir up trouble here? You think we'll get mad if you post something like this? The couple you ship is the fake one! I won't get mad. I wish you get your face stomped on(means being bullied in the face by the other party) by the rival fandom for the rest of your life...]
Ye Zheng looked up innocently. "The truth is always questioned."
The system shrieked: [Don't break up the PerMei couple yet! It's not time for you to gain devoted fans through suffering! Besides, that's what actors in domestic entertainment's danmei adaptations do. Fandom purification isn't a thing in the anime and manga community!]
"I just can't understand why everyone would waste their time on such a meaningless argument?"
Ye Zheng lowered her eyes thoughtfully. People in the real world probably had no pressure to survive, which was why they would fight so fiercely over something like this.
[You don't need to mediate. The fight between PerSy and PerMei has already died down after the new chapter came out.]
Ye Zheng recalled the content of the latest chapter and suddenly realized, "Everyone must be analyzing the Dragon Bone, right? It should be a very crucial setting in the manga."
[No, who cares about a bone?]
[Everyone stopped fighting because of you, our female lead, who just appeared in the latest chapter so sweetly.]
Ye Zheng tilted her head in confusion.
[Even though everyone claims their couple is real, this isn't a BL manga after all. PerSy and PerMei can't really be together, but you actually can!]
Ye Zheng understood. So everyone's firepower had been redirected to her?
[I suggest you don't open any threads related to Ye Zheng recently. Many people's attitudes toward you are not very rational.]
The system was glad that Ye Zheng was smart enough to get herself a male persona; otherwise, no matter how much she modified the plot, it would be difficult for Ye Zheng's popularity to turn around while appearing as the female lead.
Ye Zheng didn't listen to the system. She clicked into a hot thread titled [Why do we resist the female lead? And resist the romance plot?] and started browsing.
After reading patiently for a while, Ye Zheng couldn't help but ask, "They're resisting the romance plot between Ye Zheng and Percy, so why do they only have an issue with me, 'Ye Zheng'?"
"Percy's popularity is so much higher than mine, yet he's invisible in this topic."
Author's note:
When fighting against a BG(boy-girl) couple, people always attack the female side, and the male side is always invisible... This is how female lead fans are born.
(P.S. Some parts of what I wrote have a strong flavor (referencing Chinese internet culture), which might make some people uncomfortable, but I think it's necessary to write about it. The later chapters will be even better when Babe-Sis Zheng changes the male-oriented manga into a great female-lead power fantasy manga, and her popularity outside the manga turns around.)
👏👏👏👏
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