Feeding Us Shit

At the same time, Kang Ming wasn't the only reader who'd been pushed over the edge by the manga's shocking turn.

There were plenty of readers just as furious as he was.

In fact, many were even more worked up than him.

After all, Kang Ming had Tang Yao, his nominal editor, to tell him what was going on and fill him in on this and that. The other readers had no such insight.

Su Deqiang was one of them...

He'd just graduated from high school and was about to start college.

Now that the entrance exams were behind him, he no longer had to face test papers day after day, and he didn't have to worry about an uncertain future during the summer break.

He'd been in a wonderful mood. In fact, this was probably the most carefree time of his life.

And now it was Thursday, which meant he had two reasons to celebrate.

The latest installment of his favorite manga, Girl, Boy, and Sword, was coming out that day.

That's right.

He loved the manga. Girl, Boy, and Sword had kept him company through the hardest stretch of his senior year. He hadn't been able to read much—only once every two weeks, and always in secret.

But the thrilling story and the sexy heroine had comforted him through those days... People often remembered the works they'd read during hard times, and remembered them through rose-colored glasses.

So even though he was on break, Su Deqiang had gotten up early and gone with a friend to the station to buy the latest issue of Big Comic.

That's right.

His friend loved the manga too. After all, everyone went through a phase of raging hormones, and the female characters drawn by Give It Your All were undeniably sexy...

Anyway.

They'd gone to the nearby station early that morning and bought the magazine. While they were there, they'd also spotted a super pretty girl in business attire... She had to be a girl, anyway, because she looked really young.

At the time, the boys had harbored a few unspoken thoughts. When they saw the latest issue of Big Comic in her hands, they'd deliberately started discussing the story, hoping to catch her attention...

Unfortunately, it hadn't worked. For some reason, the girl had sighed and walked away.

"What good does it do to talk about male-oriented manga in front of a girl like that?"

Su Deqiang thought back to the dumb things he and his friends had done. His face reddened, and he shook his head hard to clear away those pointless thoughts. Then he carried Big Comic back to his room.

In the end, they'd only been strangers who'd crossed paths.

No matter how pretty she was, it made no difference.

He should just read his manga.

The reason he'd gone out so early to buy the magazine wasn't just that Girl, Boy, and Sword had kept him company throughout high school, or that secretly reading manga had given it a special place in his heart.

It was also because... after accompanying him through his entire senior year, the third major arc of Girl, Boy, and Sword was finally about to reach its finale.

The protagonists had made their way to the depths of Hell, where they'd come face-to-face with the final boss—the Demon King who ruled over Hell.

The previous installment, released two weeks ago, had revealed the final boss's appearance. She was a little girl.

After reading that, Su Deqiang had been eager to see what would happen next. Otherwise, he wouldn't have gone out to buy the magazine so early. It wasn't as though the magazine would stop being sold later.

"Little girl... hehehe."

Su Deqiang looked at the latest issue of Big Comic in his hands, excitement bubbling up as he slowly opened it.

But he didn't go straight to Girl, Boy, and Sword. First, he read the other installments he was interested in. He was the type who liked to save the best for last.

About half an hour later,

he finally finished the last manga he was interested in and turned back to the contents page. He grinned. "Here we go!"

Su Deqiang eagerly flipped to the pages for Girl, Boy, and Sword and dug into the main course.

The story picked up right where the previous issue had left off.

The protagonists came face-to-face with the boss in her little-girl form.

The story began to unfold at a steady pace.

Smiling, Su Deqiang watched as the male lead spoke gently and cautiously approached the final boss in her little-girl form. Then he turned the page.

And then.

His smile froze.

Because on the next page,

the final boss, who'd been motionless until then, slowly raised her head.

Immediately after,

Shhk—

The male lead looked stunned... and his head fell off.

In an instant, he was decapitated.

Then,

invisible threads streaked through the air.

The male lead was sliced into pieces, head and all.

In the stark black-and-white artwork, he was cut into little cubes.

The fear and shock on the protagonist group's faces seemed to leap off the page and strike Su Deqiang right in the nervous system.

His expression froze completely. Relying on muscle memory alone, he turned to the next page.

The protagonist group escaped in all directions using a teleportation device mentioned earlier in the story.

The heroine landed in the same place as the second male lead. Neither of them had been prepared for the male lead's death, and two whole pages were devoted to their shock, fear, and other emotions.

But Su Deqiang wasn't in the mood to read any of that. He just wanted to know whether what he'd seen a moment ago had been some kind of illusion.

Anyway, his excitement over the main course had vanished without a trace. Now it felt more like he'd been served a plate of shit.

He began flipping through the pages faster.

But the story only got more outrageous. The second male lead used his detection skill to tell the readers again and again that the male lead really was dead.

The heroine broke down.

[Even if he's dead, he'd still want us to get out of here. Let's leave first.]

The second male lead said this, then took the heroine's hand.

The heroine, feeling unsafe, held his hand in turn. Fingers interlaced, the two of them began looking for their other companions and made a temporary retreat...

And then.

The manga ended there.

In a thoughtful touch, the final panel showed the two of them searching for an escape route with their fingers interlaced.

Seeing that,

Su Deqiang froze completely.

His face slowly turned red, then pale, then ashen.

The most carefree days of his life, spent reading his favorite manga. It was like getting two wonderful things at once...

That was what he'd thought

not long ago.

But now, looking at the declaration about finding an escape route and that panel of their fingers interlaced, he felt like a clown!

Then,

a furious rage rose up in him, so intense it seemed ready to burst out of his chest.

"What the hell is this supposed to be!!!!"

Su Deqiang flung the magazine from his hand, incandescent with rage.

He hadn't done anything strenuous, but he was already panting with anger.

He'd never imagined that the finale he'd been looking forward to for so long would turn out like this!

The protagonist had died for no reason!

And then the story had gone out of its way to show the second male lead and the heroine sharing an ambiguous moment!

What was that supposed to mean!?

Was the author out of his mind?

The previous chapter had built up the atmosphere so well. The male and female leads had expressed how much they supported each other, and the tension of the coming storm had practically taken shape. He'd waited two weeks for this, and this was what he got?

Besides, the story had already established that the second male lead had feelings for the heroine.

What did it mean to stop even pretending now? Were they switching protagonists???

Was this some kind of joke!?

What about all the magazines we bought before?

The more Su Deqiang thought about it, the more twisted his expression became. Teacher Ou didn't draw gag manga—he drew serious dramas. And after following a story for so long, readers inevitably became deeply invested in the male lead.

Besides, the male lead's actions earlier in the manga had made the story feel a little like a power fantasy.

But after the shock of this chapter, identifying with the male lead had suddenly become a disadvantage... And what pushed him over the edge even more was that final panel of their fingers interlaced.

Never mind whether the heroine was devastated. Never mind whether the story would turn things around later. That was already enough to make readers feel like their place in the heroine's heart was being taken over, filling them with unbearable anxiety.

It was like being NTR'd.

This was awful.

It was really awful.

"Fuck!"

The more Su Deqiang thought about it, the angrier he got. He cursed viciously again, trembling all over with rage.

His hands shaking, he pulled out his phone and opened the mobile app for a recently popular social media platform. He tapped his following list and found the user with a picture of the male lead and the username 'Give It Your All.' Then he opened the account.

[The first Wenxin Manga Award will open next Monday at Wenxin Hall. If you're interested, come take a look. Website: --]

The latest post was an advertisement for the Wenxin Manga Award.

Tang Yao hadn't contacted Ou Congquan, but Editor Ding had.

And Teacher Ou had agreed to do the editor-in-chief a favor.

But.

The advertisement had clearly done nothing to promote the event. If anything... it had only made the readers angrier.

You draw a chapter that's complete shit this week, and you still have the nerve to advertise? And a manga award, too! You draw a dogshit story like that and still have the nerve to promote a manga award?

That was exactly what Su Deqiang thought. He immediately opened the comments and started typing out his insults.

He made them as nasty as he could.

After posting more than a dozen comments,

he finally calmed down a little and realized that plenty of other people felt the same way.

The post usually got only a few hundred replies, but now it had more than five thousand.

"What the fuck is this!? The male lead is dead!?"

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!!! I can't accept this! Change it back!!"

"You old bastard! Are you crazy? Have you even looked at what you drew?"

"Teacher! I can't understand why you wrote the story this way! Why did the male lead suddenly die!? Why are you making the heroine and the second male lead act like that? Give me an answer right now! I don't want to wait two weeks!"

"You draw a story like this and then promote a manga award? Go to hell! And this stupid manga award, too! You turn your own flagship series into this mess and still have the nerve to hold an award ceremony!?"

"Change it! Change it back! Otherwise, the manga award can go eat shit!"

"Idiot! Go die!"

"..."

There were far too many readers who'd been pushed over the edge.

Seeing all of that didn't make Su Deqiang feel any better. If it had been a manga he'd heard of but never followed, he would've just enjoyed the drama.

But he'd followed this manga for three years!

What the hell had they done to it!

The more Su Deqiang thought about it, the angrier and more agitated he became. Looking at the advertisement for that manga award, he felt a surge of disgust.

What a joke!

How dare you advertise this?

And the organizers of this lousy manga award—how could they hold an award ceremony when their own flagship series had turned out a story like that? Were all the entries going to have NTR scenes, too?!

Su Deqiang began taking his anger out on everyone.

Keep calm and look at it rationally? Screw that!

Su Deqiang scrolled through the comments again. Ou Congquan still hadn't shown his face. Annoyed, he tossed down his phone, then picked up the magazine he'd thrown to the floor. He looked at the final panel again and felt even more devastated.

But just then, he noticed a line of promotional text he'd missed earlier because of the manga's 'explosive twist.'

"What does this mean..."

Su Deqiang stared at the words on the last page. He froze for a moment, and then a faint, almost pathetic hope rose in his heart. Clinging to wishful thinking, he murmured:

"...Is there going to be a twist? Does this mean there'll be a twist?"