Chapter 192-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Li Yixin had entered winter break. Although she faced the college entrance exam and carried heavy study tasks during the holiday, she was at least somewhat more relaxed.
Unfortunately, before she could relax for even a few days, the manga King of the Demonic Domain made her anxious again.
Sometimes she really wanted to go back in time and stop herself from clicking on the first chapter of King of the Demonic Domain. What lay ahead was hell!
Li Yixin became nervous from the Creator's statement. An important character would die soon? It couldn't possibly be Ye Zheng, right?
Ye Zheng clearly seemed like the type of big villain who would survive until the end and stir up storms. Li Yixin was inclined to think it would be a Cloud-Soaring Squad member other than Percy. After all, using a teammate's death to push the protagonist's growth was a very common trope, and they were in the dangerous state of being wanted.
Li Yixin did some mental preparation and clicked into the latest update.
Last week, Percy accidentally entered a Demonic Domain while fleeing to the West District, obtained the real Divine Sword, discovered the truth about Ye Zheng forging the sword, and at the same time, Ye Zheng officially became the Empire's Pope at the coronation ceremony.
Just when readers thought this week's plot would develop the confrontation between Percy and Ye Zheng, unexpectedly, this week's protagonist was someone else entirely.
The manga explained that after Percy saved the train passengers and obtained the Divine Sword, he finally reached the West District. He found the West District in chaos with unknown forces running rampant. They took advantage of the chaos to contact Lucy.
Li Yixin hadn't seen Lucy in a long time. Seeing her again on screen, she found Lucy's temperament had become much more subdued. She had shed that overly lively and naive feeling. Looking at those bright, large eyes, she surprisingly couldn't see through what Lucy was thinking anymore.
She had been following the manga since early on and suddenly realized that Lucy seemed to be the member of the protagonist group who had changed the most.
Although she didn't know if Lucy still counted as part of the protagonist group, Li Yixin suddenly really wanted to understand what Lucy had been doing during this time away from the Cloud-Soaring Squad. It definitely wasn't just accompanying family as she told Percy, right?
Just as she was curious, the next page suddenly cut away. A bird flew past the Imperial Palace, and the golden-haired, golden-eyed Crown Prince immediately occupied an entire vertical page.
His golden eyes were bloodshot, his gaze suppressing complex emotions. Dressed in a dark red uniform with boots stepping on an intricate carpet, he looked even more sharp and imposing.
"Whose dog ran out?"
Tang Mingxi quickly held her phone farther away, her face showing disgust.
She rapidly scrolled down, skimming through Sykes's plot section at a glance. Only when she scrolled to the bottom did she realize this entire chapter was completely Sykes's spotlight.
While suppressing his new ability to summon Demonic Domains, Sykes investigated the Emperor's affairs and discovered that Roy from the Cloud-Soaring Squad was actually the Emperor's illegitimate son. The Emperor was using Roy to monitor Percy, seemingly protecting Percy.
Then he received the Emperor's order to temporarily reside in the lower district shelter.
With his mentality unbalanced, Sykes ran to his mother's cemetery, recalling fragmented memories. He seemed to hear his mother singing lullabies, those worried and blessing words, warm as if returning to his mother's body.
Heavy rain suddenly came, washing away the last bit of warmth. Sykes returned to the palace to confront his father.
During the confrontation, the Emperor recalled the former Empress's voice and smile and the promises between them, feeling guilty and sorrowful.
On screen, the young former Empress had long, smooth brown hair, looking tenderly at her own abdomen.
Under the Emperor's humble persuasion, Sykes superficially agreed to temporarily stay in the lower district, but inwardly he was brewing reckless madness. He even cruelly threw a servant who genuinely cared for him against the wall, life or death unknown, then left readers with a lonely silhouette.
Tang Mingxi was speechless. After waiting a whole week, comparable to seven centuries, she wanted to see how Pope Zheng would show her skills, but instead got a troubled youth's darkening mini-drama.
Entering the forum, Tang Mingxi was shocked to discover that the darkening mini-drama had sparked a wave of discussion. Some people were actually drawn to the angst?
And they even dared to compete with her girl for the title?
[Old Uncle finally remembered our Sykes's positioning, Your Gui's number one villain is coming!] [hot!]
[#1: Old Uncle finally remembered our Sykes's positioning, Your Gui's number one villain is coming!]
[#2: Finally not a plot of my boy getting beaten up and fanservice. Do you know how hard Sykes stans have been waiting for this day?]
[#3: I've been saying Sykes is a deep character all along. Mindless followers only slap on toxic masculinity labels. He's clearly also a victim of the Hope Project! Sykes didn't want to be a Dragon Bone creation either. The real culprit is clearly the Emperor.]
[#4: I was really hit when little Sy secretly went to the cemetery to see his mom. He's not incapable of loving, just no one taught him how to love.]
[#5: No one taught~ him~ to love~ (pink beaver emoji)]
[#6: What's with the passive-aggressive tone upstairs? Isn't this the truth? How many people genuinely care about Sykes?]
[#7: Two people who genuinely cared about Sykes—one he jinxed to death, one he threw to death in the new chapter. How do you still dare to genuinely like him? Aren't you afraid he'll repay kindness with enmity across dimensions?]
[#8: Don't go too far upstairs. The former Empress voluntarily gave birth to Sykes to save the apocalypse. That servant, although good to Sykes, was always the Emperor's person. For Sykes to break free from the Emperor's control, he had to eliminate the eyes around him. It's the first step in resisting patriarchy. Don't take things out of context.]
[#9: #7 is clearly a certain female lead stan. Only allows her girl to be decisive and ruthless, but also wants to steal Sykes's title of first villain. Fans follow their fave in loving to secretly steal.]
[#10: Can you even say this upstairs? Although our little Sy has been attracting fans in the anime lately, let's not randomly start wars with other characters.]
[#11: The title scared me. So bold, not afraid to die?]
[#12: We Sykes stans are just more rational and don't like fighting, not that we can't win. I've wanted to say this for a while—Sykes and Percy are Your Gui's core characters.]
[#13: Just entered from the anime, saw spoilers and feel so bad. Sykes doesn't want to be a natural villain, but everyone has decided he's a brutal antagonist...]
...
[#59: Stop being ridiculous. Sykes's only title is "Percy's nemesis." "Your Gui's number one villain" was invented by Zhengzheng's mom fans. Don't play the revisionist history game.]
[#60: #Ye Zheng Your Gui's unqualified big top##ACE among villains##No rivals only subordinates#]
[#61: Please continue chanting with Percy fans that nemesis is nemesis. The subordinate duo, the weak duo CP is too good to ship.]
[#62: Sykes and the Emperor performed daddy-son literature, and Sykes stans can even blow "resisting patriarchy." If Sykes hadn't thrown that servant to death, I bet you could blow anti-feudalism too.]
[#63: Ahh upstairs please see my screenshot, there really are people blowing Sykes resisting patriarchy and anti-feudalism, saying he doesn't want to go to the lower district because he doesn't want to bring Demonic Domains to civilians.]
[#64: Can't understand what you're analyzing about Sykes. Isn't it just that his inheritance rights were threatened and he became more toxically masculine?]
[#65: Next door there are people analyzing father-son feelings, all that ruler-subject father-son stuff. The Emperor's eyes are what Sykes least wants to look at in this life.]
[#66: Fast forward to not daring to look at father's horse eyes.]
[#67: I'm laughing so hard. As soon as the Emperor's image appeared, I knew there'd definitely be father-son shipping.]
[#68: I don't see many Sykes stans genuinely cursing the Emperor. I only see people conspiracy-theorizing that the princess sister deliberately provoked Sykes, and accusing the former Empress of being too selfish, bringing Sykes into this cruel world for her own world-saving ideals...]
[#69: People accusing the former Empress are too outrageous. The former Empress is clearly this royal father-son duo's blood bag, ultimate tool character, one of Your Gui's most tragic female characters.]
[#70: How dare they say anything. The former Empress died so miserably just to render Sykes's tragic backstory. After death she still has to take the blame for Sykes's brutality, and even now doesn't have a name.]
Tang Mingxi read through the Sykes stans' forum masterpieces, momentarily speechless. The anime really gave these people too much confidence. Did they really think their fave leveling up meant they could distort black and white?
Although she knew Old Uncle's predicted important character death was unlikely to be Sykes, she sincerely hoped for a miracle. She never wanted to see such an exasperating group again.
However, Tang Mingxi hadn't expected that Sykes stans would soon contribute an even more jaw-dropping heavyweight statement!
[Please stop Zheng fans from trampling other female characters as tools, loving women is your lie!]
As soon as this post naming names appeared, it quickly became a hot post on the forum. Various parties mixed in, and it was soon pushed to the forum's top spot.
[#1: Please stop Zheng fans from trampling other female characters as tools, loving women is your lie!]
[#2: I'll post screenshots of dragging first, lest Zhengzheng's mom fans come to distort facts again (screenshot) (screenshot)]
[#3: Okay, now I'm going to start cursing. Although trampling other female characters to praise Zheng is Your Gui forum's political correctness, don't think you can randomly drag just because other female characters have no fans.]
[#4: After watching Sykes's plot, what touched me most wasn't Sykes's transformation, but the former Empress. For the Empire's future, she used her body as a vessel to nurture hope. Knowing that bearing Sykes meant death, she was still full of anticipation and love for Sykes, without a trace of resistance or fear. As Empress, she fulfilled her responsibility as the nation's mother. As a mother, her maternal love is unquestionable. In both righteousness and personal feelings, she was so generous and resolute, undoubtedly a noble and strong woman.]
[#5: Unexpectedly, looking at the comments, in some people's mouths she's actually a tool, blood bag, soulless male-oriented female character...]
[#6: The former Empress isn't flat. You're the ones keen on slapping malicious flat labels on her. In the name of loving women, you despise and belittle female characters. It's not the Creator who deprives the former Empress of personhood, it's you malicious nitpickers!]
Author's Note:
Our domestic entertainment industry really spoils me. As soon as the Spring Festival films went online, they contributed material to me again. I only ask that the internet stop praising how feminist those male-centric Spring Festival films are. The only place they touch feminism is providing ridiculous forum material for boba tea drinkers who only drink light sugar.
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