Chapter 74 - Curse Of A Romance Novel (1)
The following days were filled with the news about the tragedy that befell at the city hospital. Several humans had lost their lives due to the spider demon, but they were reported as casualties of the great fire that started later after Shen Minyao and Mu Qing managed to kill the real culprit.
While humans were preoccupied with the recent events at the hospital, several ghost stories started to circulate around the school. Anyway, this meant that Shen Minyao also needed to lie low as the nine-tailed fox… because the shamans would be proactively searching for her no doubt.
Because the weather today wasn't good as it had been raining, Shen Minyao had no choice but to stay in the classroom. She was there when Li Fei'er took a seat and sighed dejectedly during their lunchtime.
"I wonder what just happened at the City Hospital. I have yet to fulfill my promise to Jin Qian, but the authorities have decided to close the hospital for non-visitors."
"You better give it some time. It's not safe at the hospital right now. You'll be overwhelmed by the ghosts," Shen Minyao replied, her eyes glued to the screen of her phone.
"What are you doing? You've been busy looking at your phone these days," Li Fei'er asked and took a peek at what's on Shen Minyao's screen.
"I'm reading webnovels to kill time." Shen Minyao yawned behind her hand, lazily commenting as Li Fei'er looked on. "I have enough romance webnovels. It seems like they are all following the same format."
"And that is?" Li Fei'er blinked. She was more of a reader of comics than webnovels.
"Support him at his lowest and watch him cheat on you at his best." The fox woman scoffed. "Please. Don't tell me women these days are dumb like that. How people treat you depends on how you tolerate their actions."
Li Fei'er laughed awkwardly, but she couldn't help but agree with Shen Minyao's opinion. Most of the romance novels and comics she had read so far had the same theme: a pitiful woman was being cheated on by her fiance with her sister or best friend, whom she had built up in the past. Even if the female lead delivered retribution, she was still blinded by love.
"I guess you could say a popular trope with female readers." She paused as she remembered something. "Hey, you can't possibly read the web novel entitled 'The CEO's Moonlight Love', right?"
Shen Minyao placed down her phone and stared at Li Fei'er blankly. Couldn't Li Fei'er tell that wasn't her cup of tea?"
"No," she said with disgust, "I can't tolerate reading novels like that."
Who would have thought the literary arts of this era had sunk so low?
"Oh, then that's good to hear. Actually, rumors are circulating about that webnovel. Readers say it is cursed because many had fallen ill and lost their lives once they read the content of that webnovel." Li Fei'er tapped her chin, wondering if it was even possible.
She had read several cases where a book had been cursed by its owner, but this was the first time she heard a cursed webnovel that was capable of killing its readers.
"What about its author? Shouldn't she be in the hot seat if that's the case with her book?" Shen Minyao inquired curiously.
"Well, that's made the story weirder, Shen Minyao. Apparently, the author killed herself three months ago, and the curse started to affect her readers. It is as if she cursed her readers to die with her."
Shen Minyao narrowed her eyes at that. Authors were weird humans by nature; that was why most of them felt isolated from society, but for them, readers were precious and held importance in their hearts.
It was hard to believe that a human like that would curse their readers, not unless the author felt betrayed and hurt by them. One's passionate love could easily turn into an intense hatred anyway.
The fox woman picked up her phone again and searched for that particular title.
Seeing what she was doing, Li Fei'er gasped and held onto Shen Minyao's arm.
"No, Classmate Shen! Don't read it!" She begged Shen Minyao.
"Who says I'm going to read it? I only want to check the reviews and the reader's feedback on her book." The fox woman furrowed her brows and freed herself from Li Fei'er's hold.
"Oh. Thank goodness." The young shaman sighed in relief. She certainly didn't want Shen Minyao to be affected by the curse of the web-novel if it really existed. "Let me see it, too."
As Shen Minyao scrolled at the reviews section of the book, she noticed that many readers had been attacking the author below the belt. Apparently, the said author had so many anti-fans that were attacking her maliciously online.
'Utter trash! Such a waste of words and space here. You should give up on writing!'
'Hahaha. Author, did you forget your brain somewhere? Did you leave your logic at our front door? Anyway, my friends and I have a good time dissing your book on how badly you've written it!'
'I don't know how many times this plot has been written here, but Author, you made the plot more cliche than it already was. That's some kind of rare talent you have there.'
"Oh, wow. How could they be mean to the author? If they didn't like the plot and the way it was written, they could have just moved on to another one rather than dissing the author herself!" Li Fei'er was deeply disturbed over the hateful words that were being left in the book.
"You think they care what the author would feel? Don't be so naive, Classmate Li. It was easy for them to say such malicious words because it made them feel good about themselves. They don't feel the need to be accountable for what they have said online because they are hiding behind their keyboards.. Even if the author kills herself, they would only push the blame to her."
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