Shift! The Side-Character Heroine Chapter 259

The Quarrel Amongst the Aestheticians.
The internet was currently being swept away by two matters. One of them was “Beautiful April” which had just finished its publication. Many readers had finally walked out from their sorrow following Goddess Chu’s death. Now, it was the analysis and quarrel amongst all kinds of “aestheticians” stage.
The first person to cause an uproar was an “aesthetician,” a Doujinshi writer from the ‘Chu Luoxun’ fan club. He had written something about the so-called “True Ending.” It could also be considered as a fanfic continuation of “Beautiful April.”
His writings would be incomparable to the genius writer, Leng Zi. However, his had treated the male protagonist and heroine far worse than Leng Zi. It could have been said to achieve what most members of ‘Chu Luoxun’ fan club was hoping for!
He made a direct deduction of the true ending, according to the original. The male protagonist and the heroine would never ever be together! It was too early for the Lin Meiyue fan club to be happy!
Within this “True Ending,” the heroine Lin Meiyue was exposed for usurping Chu Luoxun’s original works. Even though she had insisted that it was Chu Luoxun who entrusted them to her, she had no proof. She ended up losing all her standing and reputation. The title “Genius Composer” belonged to her no more.
Gu Yuan did not care if the heroine Lin Meiyue was not a genius. He was simply very disappointed. She had actually kept such a secret from him…
The male protagonist Gu Yuan increasingly missed Chu Luoxun. He started sorting out all her compositions. Through these music compositions, he finally realized that Chu Luoxun had loved him deeply. As she was too ill to finish a journey together with him, she had chosen to send Lin Meiyue in as a substitution of herself. She had allowed Lin Meiyue to love Gu Yuan on her behalf. Only then could she rest in peace.
Her feelings had already been exposed through the song “Angel’s Wings.” Only Gu Yuan had been dense about it. Even the song “Sweet,” was a love song dedicated to Gu Yuan. It was certainly not written according to the sweet first love between Gu Yuan and Lin Meiyue.
Chu Luoxun’s heart had always been experiencing endless pain, yet she was too strong for her own good. Therefore, she had composed the song “Leaving Sorrow to Myself.”
The song “Happened to Meet You,” she left to Gu Yuan, was actually her confession, in the form of dying message. She had loved him for ten years, yet eventually, “The wind blew, the flowers dropped, tears like raindrops.” She never wanted to be separated from the male protagonist, yet she was forced to leave
In short, this “True Ending” had been written entirely according to the analysis of many members of ‘Chu Luoxun’ gang on her original songs. It was further analyzed according to the foreshadowing left by Leng Zi. This was extremely uplifting to the Chu Luoxun fan club.
The Lin Meiyue fan club was understandably furious about this matter, “You guys are too much. You’re all mad because the male protagonist and the heroine ended up being together!”
“You guys even destroyed Chu Luoxun’s image entirely. She sincerely hoped for the two of them to be together. She was totally selfless!”
“Thanks to your imaginations, she has become a female supporting role who had loved the male protagonist. What’s the point of her being Chu Luoxun? Are you saying that she would be the ‘antagonist mistress,’ had she been healthy?”
‘Lin Meiyue’ fan club harbored its own “aestheticians”. They started to retaliate with their own Doujinshi articles. It had been a hypothesis, according to Chu Luoxun fan club’s analysis. It was about how the plot would have developed, if Chu Luoxun was not sick…
Undoubtedly, Chu Luoxun had become a ‘mistress’ who had the appearance of Madonna, while hiding an insidious heart, eventually managing to destroy the perfect first love between the male protagonist and the heroine. She had successfully become the ‘mistress,’ at the cost of her perfect image!
In short, even if the Lin Meiyue fan club dies off or gets nailed shut in their coffins, they would still cry out the name “Chu Luoxun, the mistress”!
The Chu Luoxun fan club would never let go of the matter of Lin Meiyue usurping Chu Luoxun’s original compositions. They kept repeating the phrase “Meiyue B*tch,” ignoring the fact that it was Chu Luoxun who gave all the songs to Lin Meiyue, willingly.
It was all-out war. “Beautiful April” soon attained great fame. After all, there have been so many lurkers on the internet. They needed to make some preparations before joining the battle.
Therefore, they must read the novel. Among these lurkers, there were some Weibo big Vs[1], Douban[2] bosses, and high Gods of Zhihu[3]. Su Li was not the only person who knew how to gain attention. Since this youth novel was now so famous, it was evident that a movie adaptation would soon follow. How will they be worthy of their own public identities, if they do not take the opportunity to share the spotlight?
“Beautiful April” had been wonderfully written. Its depictions of classical music were incredible; it was as if the readers could actually hear the music from words!
With the inclusions of so many bosses, the flames of war would turn into rapid nukes. For example, a certain famous literary critic soon wrote an article with a grand theme – ‘what is true love?.’ It had been written according to “Beautiful April.” The conclusion was that only Chu Luoxun’s forever selfless dedication could be considered as ‘the’ true love. Lin Meiyue would only be expressing a secular desire of possession.
The literary critic was eventually categorized into the ‘Chu Luoxun’ gang. Why not just admit being a fan of Chu Luoxun? There is no need to take things by such a roundabout fashion.
Don’t you ever think that the Lin Meiyue fan club is so easily fooled!
Some ‘aestheticians’ were ever more outrageous. After conducting some analysis, they concluded that Chu Luoxun’s true love was actually Lin Meiyue. She had written those songs to Lin Meiyue, not Gu Yuan, since the beginning. She actually hated Gu Yuan for stealing Lin Meiyue away from her!
A number of readers actually found such an analysis reasonable. Master Leng Zi is the one to be blamed. He had never clearly stated Chu Luoxun’s innermost thoughts, only her actions.
Perhaps only Leng Zi himself knew Chu Luoxun’s thoughts.
Such ambiguity is destined to bring forth various readers’ analysis on Chu Luoxun’s intentions, resulting in different conclusions. After all, ‘there are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand readers’ eyes[4].’ Therefore, it is not an exaggeration at all to have a thousand Chu Luoxuns as well!
Such is the charm of an iconic character. Even if she died within the literary world, she would live forever within the readers’ hearts, always receiving their support.
As “Beautiful April” experienced a spike in sales, another matter rose, causing similarly great waves. This matter was closely related to Zhao Youyue as well!
It was a headliner on the media, mentioning that the VA for the most well-known female character ‘Yu Shengfan,’ chosen by the animation production group of “The strongest King,” was not the experienced VA ‘Ding Hui’ from the rumors, but an unknown, completely newbie VA!
The Xiao Yu fans took up arms. They asked the production group to justify their reasons for choosing a newbie as Xiao Yu’s VA. Wouldn’t she ruin the character instead?
Translation Note:
[1] Weibo Big V – Weibo Big V refers to the authenticated users on Weibo. There are two types of authenticated users, the orange and blue. The orange ones refer to personal authenticated users, whereas the blue ones refer to institutional authenticated users.
[2] Douban – Douban is a community website that provides information about books, movies, music and other works. No matter the descriptions or comments, they are all user-generated contents. Douban has been aiming to help urban population discover useful items in life.
[3] Zhihu – Zhihu is an online Q&A community that connects users from all walks of life. Users share their knowledge, experiences and insights with each other, providing a variety of information for the Chinese internet.
[4] There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand readers’ eyes – An inspirational quote by Shakespeare, meaning every reader has their own perspective towards something (a character).