Xu Yan had exactly one thought after finishing the popular novel "Crimson Hearts"- the author was insane.
He'd spent the most of the week binge-reading over a thousand chapters, staying up late most nights. The start of the novel was interesting , the middle was full of juicy campus drama, and endless misunderstanding that kept him hooked. By the final chapter, he genuinely believed everyone was finally going to get the ending they deserved.
Instead, the author somehow managed to completely fucked it up .
Xu Yan stared at the words "The End" for a long moment before quietly clicking over to the review page. Without hesitating, he left one star.
[Justice for Lu Yichen. He deserves better than whatever that ending was.]
Posting it made him feel a little better.
[If I'm miserable, the author doesn't get to be happy either.]
His phone buzzed almost right away — a friend who'd apparently just finished too, asking how the ending was.
He thought about it for a second, then answered honestly: Terrible. Everyone suffered. I suffered most.
A laughing emoji came back, followed by: So your favorite's still Lu Yichen?
Obviously, he replied. without thinking.
Because he's handsome?
Xu Yan glanced at the character's official art and went quiet for a few seconds.
...Fine. The face was part of it.
[Maybe thirty percent.] [Okay, forty.] [Fine — fifty.]
Lu Yichen was one of the only characters he'd actually liked. The novel called him the villain, but from start to finish, he'd never done a single villainous thing — just quietly cleaned up other people's messes, absorbed misunderstanding after misunderstanding, and carried the blame for everything right up until he died. The more Xu Yan thought about it, the angrier he got.
["If that's a villain, the protagonists are a natural disaster."]
Thinking about the protagonists reminded him of another unlucky soul — the cannon fodder character who happened to share his exact name. Every time those two words showed up in the text, Xu Yan paused for a beat before remembering the author wasn't talking about him.
That character's whole arc fit in one sentence: born, appeared, died. The narration had actually described him as "plain-looking" and "instantly forgettable." Xu Yan had laughed the first time he read that.
[Brother. We're sharing a name here.] [Why are you taking bullets for both of us?]
Three chapters later, Cannon Fodder Xu Yan got hit by a car after wandering into the middle of the protagonists' argument. No last words, no heroic moment — just wrong place, wrong time. Xu Yan remembered staring at that paragraph for a full minute before typing
[Can someone please keep the protagonists away from pedestrians?]
The comment received a few thousand likes. Turned out he wasn't the only one who felt bad for Cannon Fodder Xu Yan.
He yawned, shut his laptop, and flopped onto his bed. "If reincarnation's real," he mumbled, already half-asleep, "please let me be anyone except Xu Yan."
[Too unlucky.] [Absolutely not.]
The room went quiet.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been out when an unfamiliar ceiling swam into view. He frowned. The ceiling looked... expensive.
[...why does my dorm suddenly have money?]
A knock came from outside. "Young Master Xu, breakfast's ready — you'll be late for your first day at university."
Xu Yan blinked. "...What?"
His eyes drifted to the student ID on the nightstand. His hand reached for it before his brain caught up.
The name on it was painfully familiar.
Xu Yan.
He closed his eyes. Opened them again. Checked the ID a second time, just to be sure.
"...Author."
[I was joking.]
[This review can still be deleted.]