Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Zhao Youyue could finally sleep soundly after receiving the iconic character card “Xu Jing”. But elsewhere, a poor mangaka had to stay up the whole night.

Definitely, it was Su Li.

The moment the grand finale of “Pure Romance” was successfully published onto “Wind Manga”, it was as if Su Li woke up from the “demonised” state. Suddenly, she recalled herself picking a fight with her editor Wei Suo for the grand finale. She couldn’t help but to put her hand on her forehead, feeling that she had lost her senses at that moment. According to her style, she should have go along with the editor, after all she was still a newbie mangaka…

“What in the world was I thinking? Threatening to terminate the agreement with the magazines upon disagreement? That’s not something coming out from a newbie mangaka, that’s something wilder than God!” Slapping her own face, Su Li felt great remorse of her actions. She did not know why she would have that impulse at that moment. She actually had a degree of respect for her editor Wei Suo.

Su Li decided to take a good look at the “Pure Romance” grand finale published on “Wind Manga”. As she had recalled, the finale was quite satisfying. It was the crystallisation of her highest level of creation in the manga world. That was why she strongly demanded the magazine to publish this finale.

A question suddenly popped into her mind as she was about to open the magazine sample. Why would she decide to end “Pure Romance” this early? It was high on demand previously and even already had a confirmation plan for animation. She should have ended this at least after the anime have been aired.

As a matter of fact, the greatest benefit animation brings to the mangaka is the increased of sales in the manga booklet. This happens when the anime gains a significant name for itself. At the same time, leading to a boost in fame for the serialized manga. Hence, there is rarely any artist who will end the manga before the anime was even produced and aired. They would rather wait for a month or even as far as 3 months to publish new chapters, rather than ending it. Waiting for a step up in the popularity of their work after the animation…

The kind of animes re-animated from completed mangas were mostly old iconic manga remakes. For instance, “Parasyte”, which probably at that period of time, was unable to be perfectly replicated for certain special effects due to the lack of animation technology. Only after upon advanced technology, the animation could only then be remade.

For someone such as Su Li who seek for sales, popularity and treats the readers as Gods, had she not lost her senses, she would continue adding nonsense to drag on the story. At least it will last till the airing of anime, only then she would need to think about whether to end the manga based on its popularity. That is why regardless of which universe, there will always be some long-life manga which serialized for more than 10 years.

The reason was that after realizing the popularity of their manga maintained at a steady pace or increase in demand, they will definitely choose to continue. This will either last till the story collapsed or there were no more nonsense to add. Even the great mangas like “Dragon Ball” and “Bleach” are suspected to have a story collapse, but even if they are collapsed, there will still be a bunch of loyal fans. From these, it can be concluded that an old manga filled with continuing nonsense will be a lot stable than creating a new manga. What if the new manga drop dead?

Su Li increasingly felt unnatural about her initial self. It was as if she was not herself anymore. She shook her head and opened “Wind Manga”, starting to read on the finale part. For the first few pages, she couldn’t hold herself but to praise “Wow, I was truly awesome back then. Look at this drawing skill and this storyboard. This is really something I could have only drawn during my peak condition. That was why I wanted the finale to be published so badly. Seems like I too understand well that drawing under peak condition is something hard to come by. I wouldn’t be able to replicate with that initial feeling even if I had copied from the current masterpiece now.”

After praising herself, she could not restrain herself but to burst into laughter. It felt like there was this great satisfaction. After all, she was truly awed by herself for being able to draw something this good.

Nevertheless, she could smile no more when she read through the finale. With a serious mode, she held her head with both hands, scratching vigorously on her messy head, as if she was already broken. “What crap is this! How could I have drawn such a thing! I’m really not the type of mangaka who gives crappy storylines to readers!”

Su Li felt that she was so innocent. All she wanted was just to create a great happy ending, but in the end nobody survived. Even the most popular girl Xu Jing was also a goner. Although she was yet to login to her Weibo and QQ fan group to spy around, she could already foresee the reactions of the readers. What she drew and what she promised was on opposite poles!

Immediately, Su Li logged into her Weibo account with her phone. As expected, she found that topics of her “Pure Romance” grand finale was on the hot topic section. And then, her Weibo account was flooded with angry readers. Plenty of readers swore to send her cutter knives, and a lot of them turned to the darkside because she broke her promise…

Quickly, she scrolled through and saw comments from some reader who turned to the darkside. According to the reader he was nearly being hit to death because of AMWAYing his friends “Pure Romance”. After that, he scolded Su Li as a heartless person, tricking everyone by promising them a great happy ending. Only to depress everyone deeply when the popularity reaches its peak. That was just too much!

The final conclusion certainly was – Not even a single punctuations can be trusted from the words of Su Li the liar.

Seeing the dense compilation of feedbacks, Su Li felt as her scalps were tingling. She also knew that she is now infamous in the whole manga sector. Everyone now knew that Su Li was someone who was tricky and without mercy. Probably she had spiritually be friends with good old Uro for some time. That was why she added this unexpectedly depressing ending in a harem manga. This elevated “Pure Romance” into a legendary masterpiece, leaving everyone an unforgettable impression on it.

Of course, this “legendary masterpiece” was still full of crap in it. No matter how impressive the finale was, the lack of characterization and the conventional story in the early stages could not be ignored. However, the story did have some icons like “Ming the Scumbag”, “Cleaver”, “Darkened” and “Nice Boat”. And most importantly, it had this iconic character – Xu Jing, this was far more than enough.

Su Li hid for nearly an entire day like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand. Only at the night of the second day, she went into her QQ fan group and noticed that the notifications were already “999+”. Without even reading the posts, she was already sure that most of the fans were criticizing her disgusting act. That was why she appeared in the group and the first thing she posted was –

“I’m sorry for being late, everyone… But I’m innocent, this was all Xu jing’s fault!”