Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

 Lady Zhao got berated

Another message from Zhao Youyue arrived, “While you consider your options, I will take the time to have a look at the ending of the story.”

Actually, maintaining a calm composure akin to that of a saint is how she rolls. Zhao Youyue might have a temper, but it goes as quickly as it comes.

At this point, Zhao Youyue could not care less if she does not find out why Han Leng wanted to keep his true identity a secret. It is not the first time she had encountered something like this. In the beginning, Su Li had also put up a facade and had claimed to be a male mangaka; it was honestly not really a big deal at all.

According to Su Li, she had to act as a male mainly because her work was more catered towards males. It was an effective way to approach the male readers, so that she could communicate with them, and get a hold of their unreserved opinions.

As juvenile romance novels would naturally have a large number of female readers, acting as a female author is actually quite a reasonable thing to do. However, if Han Leng had revealed his identity from the very start, Zhao Youyue might not have put that much thought into her opinions and suggestions before sharing them with him.

Even so, it is still unclear whether “Beautiful April” is more catered towards males or females. Technically, it should be catered towards males, considering how the male protagonist is living such a good life. Not only did he have the perfect relationship with his first love, he also had the luxury of being prioritized by a goddess-to-be who was willing to sacrifice anything for him…

Fortunately, Zhao Youyue is a tolerant girl. The only people who could rile her up would be those who are really close to heart. An example is her tsundere mother Wang Hua, who sometimes drove her so mad that she just wanted to leave the house for good!

At that moment, Han Leng was not really capable of doing that yet.

That did not mean that Zhao Youyue would easily let him off the hook, though. When you do something wrong, you have to face the music.

In the midst of looking through the ending of the story written by Han Leng, Zhao Youyue started feeling euphoric. Even though she had previously experienced everything personally when she had transmigrated into that world, reading about it was just so much more exciting.

Zhao Youyue could not deny that his unique style of writing was worth being praised with every fiber in her body. By being naturally talented with words, all of his sentences would almost inevitably end up being capable of becoming notable quotations.

If not for that, why would “Beautiful April” even be named as “April is your full mark essay”?

Some loyal fans of “Beautiful April” have even extracted certain remarkable sentences, and have compiled them as “Leng Zi’s Classic Quotations.”

“My world is one that is quiet, and incapable of accommodating the presence of another.” That was the mentality of the male protagonist at the very start of the story, before he had the chance to meet Chu Luoxun. After they met, however, his world was slowly but surely filled with the beauty of her music.

“Inside everyone’s heart, is a city, where they take refuge in, when life gets too hard. Some people hide for a long time, and some only for a short time, but for me, I have never managed to walk out of my city… The city in my heart is nothing more than a dead wasteland in the eyes of others.” This fear had been haunting the male protagonist for the longest time, up until he received the help of Chu Luoxun, which helped him overcome it.

“A lot of people who are in pain merely wish for their pain to be known by others. Nobody in this world can really understand the pain of another.”

“Compared to those who speak loudly of how they seek to oppress the will of others, someone with a soft voice who is able to make the world fall dead silent, just to listen to what they have to say is much more worthy of admiration.” When Han Leng wrote this very sentence, the only thing on his mind was Lady Zhao.

…

In juvenile novels, the more charm the writing style has to it, the better it is. Juvenile novels are not the same as web novels. The main selling point about web novels are mostly the parts where they feature things like how great the main character can be or tries to be but fails badly, or action-like plots where the main character gradually becomes stronger with every battle. Most juvenile novels, however, have no interesting parts which capture the attention of the readers at all, it’s main selling point would lie on how it makes the readers feel, how the story unknowingly resonates through them! Although this sounds stupid, sometimes, the more atrocious a story is, the more readers would tend to like it.

If a particular juvenile novel can do so much as to make a reader sigh, or make a reader yearn for more, or even make a reader feel sudden waves of sadness, then it is a success!

One way of achieving this is by using sentences with a lot of substance, mainly those that would fit perfectly into a full mark essay.

As Zhao Youyue lacked talent in the writing department, it was only natural that she would admire Han Leng’s written works. This admiration extended to the point where she would even read his works word by word, and never get bored of them, because she genuinely enjoyed them so much.

Zhao Youyue almost literally finished reading the entire ending in just one breath. Any part which involved Chu Luoxun was written precisely to whatever she did when she transmigrated into that world. The quality of his work was simply perfect; it could not get any better than this.

However, there was this one thing which did not satisfy Zhao Youyue, and it was the ending for the male and female protagonists.

Even though Zhao Youyue was not particularly good at analyzing the works of others, this time she had easily read between the lines and captured the true meaning behind the words. Although the male protagonist, Gu Yuan, showed his everlasting love and affection and continues to care for the female protagonist unconditionally, it all seemed lackluster, giving the impression that he was just going along with the pace. On the other hand, the male protagonist’s wistful longing for Chu Luoxun could be seen in detail throughout a few small parts nearing the end, which might suggest that the one he truly loved was actually Chu Luoxun.

That is so misleading!

As someone who had personally gone through everything in that world, Zhao Youyue knew clearly that the one Gu Yuan really loved was Lin Meiyue. Despite that, when Han Leng puts his words in such manner, everything got messed up. Zhao Youyue also acknowledged that anything Han Leng has written was purely based on the events that have occurred in that world, and this cannot be denied…

Is this how dangerous a scholar can be? Just by the use of different words, or the use of additional words in some parts, or even by totally leaving out some parts, facts could be so easily altered!

So, this is what they call “Spring and Autumn Annals”[1].

To make matters worse, the ending also seemed to suggest that one day, the truth of how Lin Meiyue was only able to become a “Genius Composer” through accepting the gift of music from Chu Luoxun will come to light.

This was totally against Zhao Youyue’s wishes. When she was Chu Luoxun, she had genuinely wished for Lin Meiyue to be able to live better. She had willingly granted Lin Meiyue with the gift of music, in order to make up for the music skills she lacked. She had hoped that Lin Meiyue would become a better match for Gu Yuan, if she becomes well-known, as a musical genius in the eyes of others.

In Zhao Youyue’s opinion, such information should never be let out into the light. Even if Lin Meiyue’s future works do not gain as much recognition anymore, she could still bring up and reminisce the good times when she was considered a musical genius.

If such crucial information is revealed, wouldn’t Lin Meiyue’s reputation go down the drain?

Moreover, Gu Yuan would never be able to accept and forgive Lin Meiyue’s shameful act of taking undue credit over the works of Chu Luoxun. Their beautiful relationship would be over!

Even though Chu Luoxun is dead and gone, she could still be the very thing that undoes this pure relationship…

The mere thought of this triggered Zhao Youyue. As a loyal supporter of Lin Meiyue, from the very beginning, she had only hoped for the male and female protagonists to end up together and have a happy ending living their best lives, but now, the tables have unexpectedly been turned against her.

Now, just because Han Leng had deliberately made some parts more intricate, it had not only made Chu Luoxun appear as a home wrecker, but had also turned Lin Meiyue into a b*tch who was willing to go as far as to take undue credit for Chu Luoxun’s original works, just for love.

Earlier, as she did not dwell on it too much, but after thinking over it, Zhao Youyue truly realizes how sly Han Leng was!

Although the ending of the story appeared to be a perfect one, anyone putting in a little thought would instantly realize that the relationship of the male and female protagonist might not last long at all!

Zhao Youyue immediately messaged Han Leng to tell him straight up about how inappropriate the ending was. If it was still Leng Zi that she was talking to, she would definitely have put more thought into it and phrased her words more tactfully.

Almost instantly, Han Leng replied. He has no objections to doing something like cross-dressing as an apology, but for the ending, there is no way that he would edit it!

“I just don’t understand why you are so insistent on Gu Yuan and Lin Meiyue ending up together. You have been acting this way since the start! What has Chu Luoxun ever done to deserve such treatment from you?”

In Han Leng’s attempt to defend his beloved goddess Chu, Lady Zhao got berated!

Translation note :

[1] “Spring and Autumn Annals” refers to a writing style where the author tends to beats around the bush and does not express his thoughts or opinions straightforwardly, but instead conveys them through the use of euphemism, or by leaving subtle hints using minor details throughout the story.