Zhou Nan and the Jealous Heroine

Qin Luming could not be considered a die-hard fan of My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou, nor had he read it carefully many times over, but he at least knew that the male protagonist of the book was named Gu Qing'an.

Like the vast majority of male-oriented novels, My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou had many female protagonists... Zhou Nan was merely one of them.

Another similarity it shared with other male-oriented novels was that it had only one male protagonist: Gu Qing'an.

If Ma Shilong's book had not met its end after going on hiatus and being hit with a 404, then, barring surprises, Zhou Nan in the novel would eventually have become Gu Qing'an's woman.

Ma Shilong's portrayal of Zhou Nan was exceptionally vivid, and he had devoted a considerable amount of ink to her. Going by the author's usual habits, female characters like this were all prepared for the male protagonist.

As he had put it in the author's notes of his other works: "Did I spend so much ink on a female protagonist just to leave her for a supporting character? Then what kind of protagonist would the protagonist be?"

There was some logic to that, mainly from the reader's perspective. After all, readers all had this mentality—who did not possess a little desire to claim beautiful things?

The key was "a female protagonist described with so much ink." That was where the reasoning lay. It did not mean that every female character who appeared, or even one who merely had a name, no appearance description, and virtually no interaction with the protagonist, had to belong to him.

There were still readers that extreme. If an author aimed to satisfy such readers, then they would be better off writing fewer female characters, or simply making it a harem-conquering novel... In truth, not many readers liked that style. The overwhelming majority could make reasonable trade-offs and would not demand, in such an extreme fashion, that every female character belong to the protagonist. Some even disliked that sort of thing.

Zhou Nan held an immensely important position in My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou. If she were truly written as a heroine on equal footing with the male protagonist, while her opposite-sex partner was another man, it would provoke intense resistance from readers. It was a way of writing that was bad for business... It was not wrong, exactly. Authors had their choices, and readers had corresponding choices as well.

Only after Qin Luming habitually considered the matter from both an author's and a reader's perspective for a while did he come back to himself and realize that the problem now was no longer something from a novel.

He turned the beef over.

Looking at the two little girls before him, Qin Luming's ability to accept events beyond reality was extraordinarily strong. It would not be an exaggeration to say he was used to them; he had experienced too much.

Both his hands could travel to another world and transform. What was strange about the male and female leads of someone else's novel both traveling to the modern world?

But the crucial point was... Gu Qing'an was not merely the male protagonist in a novel. He was also a real person... He had a younger sister, used a phone, and if he went missing, the police would come looking for him.

Was this also the Power of Order contained within Zhou Li's Emperor's Hammer, Great Dao Third: Stripping? For instance, had Zhou Nan also stripped Gu Qing'an away from the world of the Kingdom of Zhou and placed him in the real world?

Was this Power of Order strong enough to create a real human background for Gu Qing'an in reality?

That possibility was probably unlikely. Judging from the effects the Power of Order had caused when the Zinc Factory vanished, it merely controlled the chaos brought on by ripple effects. It did not make things impossible to notice... Qin Luming had discovered that Zhou Nan might have taken the Zinc Factory.

Or perhaps he had simply assumed too much from the start, and the real Gu Qing'an was actually unrelated to the novel's male protagonist?

This... was too much of a coincidence, was it not? The real Gu Qing'an had just happened to vanish without a trace in the very place Zhou Nan had appeared, yet he had nothing to do with the Gu Qing'an in the novel?

"Meat! Meat!"

"You're repeating yourself too!"

"I'm just chanting a slogan."

"You need a slogan just to eat meat. You really are a vicious little monster that cannot move when she sees meat."

"Spinach, spinach." Zuozuo looked at Caicai.

"Spinach! Spinach! Spinach!" Caicai immediately followed Zuozuo's rhythm, raising her hands and kicking her little legs as she shouted.

Qin Luming did not have a kitchen team specifically responsible for procuring ingredients, ensuring their freshness and hygiene, and tracing their sources... He generally bought them online, selected them from premium ingredient supermarkets, or acquired them through specialized food auctions. What those ingredients had gone through before reaching his refrigerator was anyone's guess.

Under such circumstances, Qin Luming always cooked meat thoroughly.

He flipped the three pieces of meat over, then used his spatula to toss them one by one onto three dinner plates, drizzling them with sea urchin and caviar.

In front of the teppanyaki counter was a long dining table. The three of them usually ate there in the kitchen. Qin Luming would generally stand behind the counter and cook while the two little girls sat there waiting to be fed, and Qin Luming would eat as he cooked.

Today was no exception. While eating the food on his own plate, Qin Luming began preparing the next dish: teppanyaki foie gras with potato slices.

Foie gras also tasted good with the sweet-and-sour flavor of black vinegar. Zuozuo handed Qin Luming the bottle of fifty-year-aged vinegar.

"The twelve-year one is more suitable for foie gras." Qin Luming waved his hand and had Zuozuo switch bottles. When vinegar was refined to the utmost, domestic and imported varieties had somewhat similar flavors.

Qin Luming recalled Gu Qing'an's harem in the novel. Interactions between the male and female leads inevitably involved all sorts of jealous scenes.

Of course, Zhou Nan would not be one of those caught up in jealousy... because by the latest chapter of My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou, Zhou Nan had not even met Gu Qing'an.

But if the story had continued and Zhou Nan got together with Gu Qing'an... would Zhou Nan become jealous? Qin Luming guessed that Zhou Nan would not be jealous. She would simply kill all of Gu Qing'an's other women.

She was the Empress of the Kingdom of Zhou. The imperial majesty and the other heroines serving the male protagonist together? Competing for his affection with female characters whose identities and abilities differed so vastly from hers?

Only an author like Ma Shilong, who would stop at nothing to satisfy readers' desire for the protagonist to have a harem, could write such a plot.

It had to be said, men's fantasies were truly simple and adorable.

Qin Luming sampled a few drops of black vinegar, plated the fried potato slices and foie gras, and thought that after eating, he needed to take another careful look at My Wife Is the Empress of Zhou... It was clearly a fantasy novel set on another continent, yet its title sounded like an urban harem novel.

Many authors simply could not come up with titles... Qin Luming suddenly tapped the griddle in front of him. The protagonists of fantasy novels set on other continents seemed to very often be transmigrators.

Transmigrators!

At that thought, the heavy doubts in Qin Luming's heart abruptly cleared.