Chapter 6: A Character Reborn
Cheng Xiao Xiao, of course, had no intention of indulging Lu Xiao Lin’s wild speculation.
As she saw it, the blind date with Lu Xiao Shan was, at most, a minor interlude during the New Year holiday. Their plastic “brotherhood” had shattered ten years ago, and they hadn’t been in contact for years. Her desire to reminisce was born from the feeling that, with the foolishness of youth now behind them, some things weren’t such unforgivable grievances. She had made a gesture of goodwill, hoping to restore their acquaintance and curry favor with the big boss.
As it turned out, she had been mistaken.
She had seriously offended him during the blind date. A man of his stature probably had no interest in letting her ride his coattails, so why would she bother trying? More importantly, she felt that Lu Xiao Shan now had it in for her.
He might not have before, but after this blind date, he certainly did. It wasn’t some deep, unrequited love, but the fury of a man who’d lost face and was determined to get it back.
If the enemy doesn’t move, I don’t move. If the enemy moves… let him stew. She had no delusions of developing Lu Xiao Shan into a boyfriend. One gesture of goodwill was enough. Since he hadn’t appreciated it, she didn’t have the energy to constantly try to win his favor. Why go looking for trouble?
They weren’t on the same path. The road ahead was wide; they would each go their separate ways.
After that little episode, the rest of the holiday passed uneventfully. Cheng Xiao Xiao stayed home for three days, but she couldn’t stand her mother’s pointed nagging any longer. On the morning of the third day of the Lunar New Year, she packed her things, using a company event as an excuse, and returned to City B. Taking advantage of the holiday break, she began to outline her next novel. This was another reward from her blind date with Lu Xiao Shan. Thanks to his transformative change, inspiration for her new book flowed endlessly. The words came without pause. After finishing the outline, she wrote thirty thousand words in one go and calmly published the first chapter in the week following the New Year.
Not long after the chapter went live, Cheng Xiao Xiao’s dedicated fan group exploded. Their favorite author was notoriously lazy; two novellas a year was considered a burst of productivity.
For her to release a new work right at the start of the year was like the sun rising in the west. The group couldn’t help but be shocked.
What excited the long-time fans the most was that the new protagonist was named Cheng Yi, and he made his entrance as a formidable figure.
The group administrator, “Miss Worry-Free,” fully displayed her astonishment by spamming the chat with a series of shocked emojis.
In everyone’s mind, the admin was always a calm, composed, and cultured young woman. This was the first time she had ever spammed the chat with emojis, leaving all the online fans completely bewildered. A long, neat line of question marks followed.
Only after the question marks had stretched for a considerable length did the admin excitedly start typing.
[Miss Worry-Free]: Aaaah! It’s that Cheng Yi! The expression, the looks, the way he talks—that’s my Brother Yi, no doubt about it!
[Just Asking]: I can see how excited you are, Admin. To be honest, I really like the new male lead, too. He feels different from the past few. I guess Author Xiao Chen is trying a new style. But… Miss Worry-Free, which Cheng Yi is this?
[Procrastinator]: Aaaah! I remember now, it’s that Cheng Yi!!!
[Sunshine Girl]: I know! I know! It’s my Brother Yi! Brother Ze’s unforgettable white moonlight and cinnabar mole!
[Simply Charming]: Baffled! Paging the experts for an explanation!
[Little Rascal]: Explanation +1
[Xiao Chen’s #1 Fan]: +2
[I Love Xiao Chen]: +3
A crowd followed suit, flooding the chat with various “+[number]” replies. Dozens of messages poured in at once, nearly causing the chat interface to freeze.
Cheng Xiao Xiao silently watched the screen, propping her head on her hand and smiling for a long while, a calm observer.
Finally, another, more composed veteran reader emerged to clear up the confusion.
[Dustlight]: Cheng Yi was the male lead of Author Xiao Chen’s very first novel. You can all go look it up.
With this information, the crowd instantly dispersed, everyone rushing to open a new tab and verify.
Barely ten seconds later, the group was once again in a state of bewilderment.
[I Love Xiao Chen]: Hey, that’s not right. I’ve scoured the author’s page and can’t find any novel with a protagonist named Cheng Yi! Did she use a different pen name before?
[Exam Today]: Popping in from my study session. For a second there, I thought the world had gone mad. This is too good to be true! A once-in-a-lifetime event! To the sisters upstairs, I’m not trying to be contrary, but I have to ask from the bottom of my heart: are you guys really veteran fans? Author Xiao Chen’s debut wasn’t on this site! Her first novel was published on another platform!
[Xiao Chen’s #1 Fan]: o((⊙﹏⊙))o oh my god, I thought I’d read all of her books, but I missed one! It’s over, it’s over, I’m too embarrassed to call myself a veteran fan anymore!
[Simply Charming]: @Exam Today, hey expert, it’s just the start of the year, the exam is ages away. Stop studying and drop a link for us!
[Big Eyes]: @Dustlight @Exam Today, begging for a link +1
And so, another long string of “begging for a link” replies followed.
Shortly after, Dustlight posted the link in the group. The once-bustling chat instantly fell silent, leaving only a few true veteran readers to sigh with emotion.
Cheng Xiao Xiao felt a little embarrassed by her fans’ excitement, and a bit emotional herself. After a decade, she was writing about the same protagonist again.
She had started writing fiction in high school, a time when online novels were still in their early stages. Paid models weren’t well-established yet, and major websites hosted a vast number of free serials. The genres were diverse, and the quality varied. In her spare time, she loved to go “book hunting” with her friend Song Nian. She favored mystery and detective stories, while Song Nian was an omnivore who read everything—except horror.
After meeting Lu Xiao Shan, for reasons she couldn’t quite explain, she was suddenly struck with the idea to write a novel. It was probably because Lu Xiao Shan was so different from the people she usually interacted with, sparking a curiosity to figure him out.
The impulse was so strong that she found herself endlessly entertained just by plotting out the story. Eventually, she began her sporadic writing journey, using Lu Xiao Shan as a prototype. Of course, it was definitely not a romance! Romance was the last thing she’d associate with Lu Xiao Shan, and besides, she could never write all that sappy stuff.
She chose one of her favorite genres—crime fiction. The basic plot, which seemed incredibly clichéd now, featured a protagonist whose image and personality were based on Lu Xiao Shan. The name, Cheng Yi, was chosen at random. As for his identity, the plot demanded something different from reality, so she fabricated it, making it as twisted and complex as possible.
The final version in the novel was this: Cheng Yi was an angsty teen who, in a moment of reckless impulse after his sister was bullied, accidentally injured someone. He was imprisoned for intentional assault. By the time he was released, the world had changed. His friends had grown distant, his education was derailed, his parents had aged, and his sister was gone. It was all very tragic.
The novel opened shortly after Cheng Yi’s release. He was selling vegetables at his parents’ stall when some local thugs came to stir up trouble. A conflict arose, and just as one of the thugs was about to draw a knife, a passing police officer intervened. But in a twist of fate, the troublemaking thug turned up dead the next day. Because of their argument the day before, Cheng Yi was inexplicably implicated in the murder. During the case, he met the other protagonist, a police officer named Gao Ze. He cooperated with Gao Ze to solve the crime and was eventually recruited as an informant, going undercover in a drug trafficking ring. The rest of the book was its core plot: Cheng Yi infiltrating a criminal organization, working with Gao Ze from the inside and out, and engaging in a battle of wits with the drug cartel.
Originally, the book was planned to have a happy ending. But because her friendly relationship with Lu Xiao Shan had abruptly ended for certain reasons, the story’s conclusion also became a tragedy. She had… oh, no, the protagonist, Cheng Yi, was written to have died.
Of course, considering the readers’ feelings, she had written it rather ambiguously, leaving plenty of room for imagination.
To this day, a few of her old readers still couldn’t get over that ending. Whenever it was brought up, they would sigh with regret, firmly believing that “Brother Yi” wasn’t dead.
To illustrate just how high a pedestal Brother Yi occupied in the hearts of her old readers, if you were to rank all the characters she had ever written and let the old fans vote, Brother Yi would likely top the list by a landslide. It’s an eternal truth that you only appreciate what’s gone. Everyone loves a tragic character.
As for why there was no distinction between male and female characters, it was because she only wrote male protagonists. Having focused on crime and mystery novels for over a decade, Cheng Xiao Xiao’s books had plenty of female characters, but not a single one was the protagonist. The main characters were, without exception, men.
And now, ten years later, she had met Lu Xiao Shan again under such dramatic circumstances. With her muse back in her life, she decided to let Brother Yi make another appearance, fulfilling the long-held regret of her old fans. Thank goodness she had written his death so vaguely back then; otherwise, orchestrating this reversal would have taken far more brainpower to pull off logically.
About two or three hours later, the group members who had scattered began to pop up again.
[Shadowless]: Hahaha, finished it! I can’t believe the author had such an unpolished phase. That writing style is truly… indescribable. Even more unbelievably, I was completely captivated!
[Taste of Green]: +1, I’m suddenly starting to get Brother Yi’s charm! I was a bit depressed by the ending, but thinking about him being in the new book, I’m over it. The seamless transition feels so good!!! Aaaah! Brother Yi’s entrance in the new book is just insanely cool! I’m in love!
[Perennial Lurker]: What’s happening? A ten-year-old abandoned story is actually getting a sequel! Am I seeing things??!!
[Fruit Tree]: The sister upstairs isn’t seeing things! I can’t believe I’m seeing my Brother Yi again in my lifetime!
[I Want First Place]: Just finished binge-reading it. I’ve decided, Brother Yi has replaced Brother Ze as my favorite! Author Xiao Chen is my second favorite!
[Snail Girl]: Sisters upstairs, are you guys scanners or something? It’s a nearly 200,000-word novel, and you finished it in less than three hours? I’m not even halfway through!
[Rou Rou]: @Snail Girl, hahaha, girl, I can tell you’re a reader trained by our author—the rations are so scarce, you can’t bear to eat them all at once! When a new chapter drops, you have to read it word by word, trying to trick yourself with time into thinking you’ve read a super long chapter, when in reality o(╯□╰)o it’s only a few thousand words!
[Perennial Lurker]: @Fruit Tree, correction, I’m not a sister, I’m a brother!
[Fruit Tree]: Oh my, a brother! My apologies! Speaking of brothers reminds me of Brother Ze, who makes an appearance in almost every book! I wonder if he’ll show up in this one. The bromance between him and Brother Yi was so deep!
[Master of Chat]: Ahem, speaking of which, aren’t Ze and my Kai the true pairing?
[I Want First Place]: NO! NO! NO! I stand firmly with YiZe!
[Taste of Green]: YiZe +1
[Rou Rou]: I’m Team ZeKai!
[Sunshine Girl]: YiZe!
Just like that, the group chat’s topic shifted from tracing a character’s history to shipping CPs. After a long line of fans declared their allegiances, a message that broke the pattern popped up, but its content was… hard to describe.
[Village Just Got Electricity]: Alright, alright, manually starting a betting pool. Don’t miss out, folks. Pick your ship and place your bets now!
Cheng Xiao Xiao had just finished writing her new chapter. She had been observing quietly, but seeing the crowd shipping CPs, she couldn’t resist and started typing.
[Lazy Xiao Xiao Chen]: It’s clearly a bromance! Can you guys not let your imaginations run wild and randomly pair them up!
[Procrastinator]: Hahaha! The author herself has come down to refute the rumors!
[Master of Chat]: Author, you don’t get it. That’s clearly love!
[Taste of Green]: Author, you don’t get it!
[Xiao Chen’s #1 Fan]: Author, you don’t get it!
With that one sentence, the group’s focus immediately shifted from shipping wars to collectively refuting the author. A neat line of “Author, you don’t get it!” spammed the chat more than twenty times. Finally, a reader with a cool head and a logical mind popped up to analyze the connection between the two books.
[Peerless]: Do you guys think Brother Yi might be based on a real person? Otherwise, why would Author Xiao Chen come back to continue an old story after ten years? It doesn’t seem scientific! She’s so lazy, she usually just drops vague hints about abandoned plots and lets us guess!
This message was quickly buried under a long string of “Author, you don’t get it.” Cheng Xiao Xiao almost burst out laughing at her computer. Now this was someone who understood! But alas, the truth is usually known only to a few. For now, she would let them have their fun.
[Lazy Xiao Xiao Chen]: Hey, hey, hey, pay attention! The author herself is still online! Can’t you wait until I’m gone to roast me?
[Shadowless]: @Lazy Xiao Xiao Chen, the author can basically be ignored!
[Fruit Tree]: Ignore +1
[Xiao Chen’s #1 Fan]: Author, you should go write. Stop wasting time in the chat! Updating weekly is a disease that needs to be cured!
[I Want First Place]: Exactly! Author, writing the new book is what’s important! As for all the plot holes in your brain, please let us use our imagination. At least leave some room for us to do some fan creation! What bromance? We understand perfectly!
And so, in the battle of veteran readers vs. lazy author, the author was defeated.
Cheng Xiao Xiao slammed her keyboard and sent back a string of gibberish to show her frustration.
Before she signed off, the group admin, Miss Worry-Free, sent her a private message: “Author, I suddenly have a bold theory—Brother Yi… he wouldn’t happen to be your ex-boyfriend, would he?”
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