Chapter 18

Ye Zheng remained in the cemetery for a long time. The quiet atmosphere allowed her to contemplate many things.

The importance of the dragon bones needed no elaboration. They were the imperial family’s greatest trump card. As long as the Aston royal house possessed the dragon bones, the people would continue to follow them. In a world plagued by Aberrant Realms, who would not crave absolute safety?

For this reason, Ye Zheng did not believe the imperial family would truly allow the victor of the competition to share control over the dragon bones. This was bait deliberately placed just beyond the glass tank. No matter how fiercely the small fish inside fought and bled for it, they would never be able to reach the prize.

The one who devised this scheme must be immensely pleased with themselves, calmly watching people tear one another apart for an illusory reward. A faint curve lifted the corners of Ye Zheng’s lips, her eyes filled with mockery.

She would not be a fish obediently confined within the tank. She would wait for the moment when the tank’s owner was at their most triumphant and arrogant, then violently shatter the glass and ruthlessly devour the dragon bones, the most critical bait of all.

That alone would be enough to shake the very foundations of the Sacred Citadel Empire.

“System, thank you for the reminder. The manga’s main storyline truly is the correct path.”

Ye Zheng straightened her posture. Her expression was cool and composed, save for the faint trace of genuine tenderness she cast toward the gravestone.

She opened a black umbrella and turned to leave the cemetery. Amid the hazy rain and mist, the girl once again resumed her usual, perfectly measured gentle demeanor, as pure and intangible as drifting water vapor.

✧✧✧✧✧

Outside the manga.

“Throne of the Aberrant Realm” has updated.

Li Yixin stared at her phone with a troubled expression. She had once eagerly awaited every weekly update, but ever since the suspected female lead Ye Zheng appeared, her feelings had grown complicated.

She could only hope that the author would quickly abandon his talentless romance subplot and return to focusing on the bonds between men. Was that not far more appealing? Why did a hot-blooded shonen manga need a female lead at all?

With unease in her heart, Li Yixin opened the new chapter. Although the character Ye Zheng was undeniably beautiful, she did not particularly want to see her.

As soon as the chapter loaded, several figures cloaked in black appeared. Li Yixin almost failed to recognize them.

“Being too popular brings its own kind of trouble.”

“Let’s leave quickly. If we’re recognized again, it’ll be a hassle.”

“Zhao Mei should already be here, right?”

When the protagonist team mentioned Zhao Mei, Li Yixin’s eyes brightened slightly. Zhao Mei was finally making an appearance.

On the next page, the black-haired, green-eyed boy appeared like an elegant black cat, lightly stepping out from a street corner.

“Aaah, so beautiful. My destined wife.”

Li Yixin admired Zhao Mei’s breathtaking appearance again and again, thinking that compared to the Saintess whose beauty was constantly praised in the manga, Zhao Mei was in no way inferior.

Inside the tavern, the group entered discreetly. Seeing the underage protagonist team obediently drinking fruit juice, Li Yixin could not help but smile fondly.

Zhao Mei maintained his usual gentle demeanor. Even when the bartender spoke to him with ill intent, he continued to wear a mild, courteous smile.

“Where he comes from isn’t important. What matters is that he’s our friend.”

When she reached the panel where Pei Xi spoke up to defend Zhao Mei, even as a Xi-Sy shipper, Li Yixin felt a spark of excitement.

Though Xi-Sy and Xi-Zhao fans had been at each other’s throats recently, this moment was pure friendship between boys. It had nothing to do with background or identity, only the bond of kindred spirits. It carried a different flavor from Xi-Sy.

When the city lord suddenly died mid speech, Li Yixin quickly scrolled past the unimportant segment. Her finger moved rapidly until Sykes’s refined yet overwhelmingly oppressive face filled the screen.

Good. Her Xi-Sy pairing was about to be fed again.

However, Sykes merely announced the rules and left without interacting with Pei Xi at all. Li Yixin could only clutch her phone and continue scrolling in disappointment.

Then, a black-haired, black-eyed girl with a holy aura suddenly leapt into view.

“…Ye Zheng?”

The young man and woman confided in one another within the secluded cemetery, enveloped in an intimate and unusual atmosphere.

Watching Pei Xi gaze at Ye Zheng in a daze, Li Yixin felt her heart collapse once again. It seemed the author was truly determined to push this pairing.

She opened the comment section, and as expected, it was filled with anguished cries from CP fans.

【I’m done. The intelligence-dropping plot is starting again. I’m already annoyed with this woman.】

【I was just grinning like an idiot at the Xi-Zhao frame, and now I’m begging for mercy the moment I turned the page.】

【As a Xi-Sy fan, I was already unhappy seeing Xi-Zhao interact. Now I’d rather watch Xi-Zhao. At least the characters aren’t acting OOC.】

Li Yixin could only comfort herself with the thought that in male oriented works, female leads were normal. They were usually tools to bypass censorship while disguising brotherhood. Their presence was typically minimal. She could pinch her nose and endure it.

✧✧✧✧✧

Ye Zheng left the silent cemetery, and the clamorous noise of the lower district surged back around her. The entire area buzzed with renewed hope. Yet louder than the voices of the people was the system.

『As the manga’s female protagonist, you should of course follow the manga’s plot. It’s good that you understand this.』

『But so far, you’ve done quite well. Look at your popularity value.』

【7500.】

The system sounded jubilant. Ye Zheng guessed that her popularity value was closely tied to the system’s own interests. The system’s existence itself intrigued her.

“The last time I checked, it was 5000. I haven’t appeared much in the manga lately, yet it’s risen surprisingly fast.”

“Seventy five action points. It seems I can change quite a few plot points.”

『If you paid even a little attention to the forums, you’d know why your popularity surged recently.』

『Shipping wars. Fan abuse.』

Hearing these unfamiliar terms, the studious Ye Zheng silently opened the forums. Under the system’s guidance, she read several threads with hundreds of replies and gradually grasped their meaning.

As the name implied, shipping wars referred to fierce rivalry between two factions. Recently, fans shipping Pei Xi with Sykes had clashed violently with those shipping Pei Xi with Zhao Mei.

As for fan abuse, it appeared that during these intense conflicts, many people insulted Zhao Mei, which only caused others to pity and adore him more, steadily increasing his popularity.

“…Is this really worth arguing over?”

Both pairings were fictional. As a paper character inside the manga, she could personally confirm that.

『It started when Xi-Sy fans invaded Xi-Zhao territory to provoke them. Then a popular Xi-Zhao artist indirectly mocked them, and both sides escalated into full scale war. Wait, what are you posting?』

Ye Zheng typed a sentence into her phone and sent it into one particularly active thread.

It posted successfully. Her eyes lit up slightly. So she was able to communicate with real world readers this way.

The system glanced at it and nearly fainted from anger.

【789L: Please stop arguing. Both CPs are fake. On that basis, all arguments are meaningless.】

A reply came instantly.

【790L: Which product sister is trying to stir trouble here? You think this will break us? Yours is the fake one. I won’t break. May the rival ship dominate you forever.】

Ye Zheng looked up innocently.

“The truth is always met with doubt.”

The system shrieked.

『Don’t dismantle Xi Zhao yet. you haven’t reached the stage where you abuse the fans to ‘purify’ the fandom!. Besides, only live action BL dramas do this. 2D fandoms don’t have purification.』

“I simply can’t understand why everyone wastes time on such meaningless arguments.”

Ye Zheng lowered her gaze in thought. People in the real world likely had no survival pressure, which allowed them to quarrel so fiercely over trivial matters.

『Stop trying to break up fights. After the new chapter, the Xi-Sy versus Xi-Zhao war has already cooled down.』

Recalling the chapter’s content, Ye Zheng suddenly understood.

“They must be analyzing the dragon bones. That seems like a crucial setting.”

『No one cares about some bones.』

『The war died down because of you, our female protagonist, vividly appearing in the latest chapter.』

Ye Zheng tilted her head in confusion.

『No matter how loudly they insist their CP is real, this isn’t a BL manga. Xi-Sy and Xi-Zhao can never be real. But you actually might.』

She finally understood. So everyone had redirected their hostility toward her.

『I suggest you avoid Ye Zheng related threads for now. Many people are not thinking rationally when it comes to you.』

The system felt relieved that Ye Zheng had created a male alternate persona. Otherwise, appearing as the female lead would make it nearly impossible for her popularity to recover, no matter how she altered the plot.

Ye Zheng ignored the warning and opened a trending thread titled 【Why Are We Boycotting the Female Lead? Boycotting the Romance?】.

After patiently reading for a while, she asked calmly, “They’re boycotting the romance between Ye Zheng and Pei Xi, but why is all the hostility directed at me?”

“Pei Xi’s popularity is far higher than mine, yet he’s completely absent from this discussion.”

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Authors Note

┻━⁠━━━━⁠━━⁠━━━⁠┻

Whenever shipping wars target a male female pairing, only the female side is attacked. The male side remains invisible. Thus is born the scapegoat female lead.

(PS: Some parts may carry a strong local flavor and feel uncomfortable to read, but I believe they are necessary. Later, our girl will explosively transform this 

male frequency story into a true female lead power fantasy manga. Only when her popularity flips both inside and outside the manga will it be truly satisfying.)