Chapter Text
Shen Jinli wasn't just your average fan if PIDW. She was THE fan. With a dedication strong enough to move brother outside to touch grass, she was in every forum, board, server, any and all things having to do with PIDW. Even in the comment sections, she'd fight to death with her brother. He didn't know it was her, though. He only knew her by her user tag: Zhengzha Yu (Floundering Fish).
[Floundering Fish]
How DARE you say that Shen Qingqiu should be castrated?! He's the VILLAN, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO LIKE HIM, IDIOT!!!
(*｀Д´)ノ！！！
[Peerless Cucumber]
ITS NOT MY FAULT THIS DUMBFUCK AUTHOR WROTE SUCH A POORLY WRITTEN AND UNLIKEABLE VILLAN! MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE READING!
So on and so forth.
For as annoying as Shen Jinli found her older brother, she found comfort in arguing with him online. Arguing like siblings would. At least, that's what all her classmates said they did with their siblings.
Although, she was growing a bit concerned. In the past few weeks, she hadn't seen her brother at all. Could it be that he was spending all this time reading PIDW??? Not even Shen Jinli, the undeniable master of reading web novels, had ever attempted to do something so close to the level of an S class sweaty gamer. How did my brother end up being such a loser?
A loser she missed.
After coming home one day from school, she noticed that there were no new comments from Peerless Cucumber. At first, she didn't believe her eyes. Had her brother finally come out from his room!? But her fantasy had quickly been shut down. There was no way. Even she wasn't THAT delusional.
But she was concerned. Getting out of her room, she knocked on Shen Yuan's door.
"Gege! Are you okay?" she said, pressing her ear against the door.
When she heard nothing, she turned the door knob to see for herself. Instead of seeing her brother looking straight at a bright computer screen, she saw his head against the table, nose first. Panicking, she called for her father; checking for a pulse.
In the end, he was pronounced dead. The funeral was hard to get through. More so the fact that there wasn't one. Had her family really not cared for her gege at all?! Even passing by his empty room was getting harder by the day. She missed opening up her phone, bombarded by a reply thread on her comment featuring only Peerless Cucumber. She missed bickering with him on small details and plot holes. She missed putting her head against the wall, only to hear him cursing out Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky.
In her grief, she couldn't even bare to re-read PIDW for the 35th time. She couldn't even re-read her old comment wars with her brother. Instead, she turned to The Scum Villan's Self Saving System. A fanfic that had been getting more and more attention. It was a canon complaint, alternate universe Canon divergent, HUGE USE OF OOC, parody, and critique of PIDW.
Reading through its entirety, Shen Jinli was once again an avid reader. Though this time, she was a hate reader. How could this even be considered a parody??? Everything was gone! No harem, no girls, no badass protagonist. There was NOTHING! Taking to the comments, she'd write comment after comment; criticizing every little detail. But no matter how many times she'd complain, she kept reading. It was for one reason. This version of Shen Qingqiu. For some reason, he reminded her of her brother.
While she was reading the last chapter of SVSSS, she was seething. Kicking her legs against her bed, she cursed the web novel.
"Dumbfuck author! Dumbfuck novel!"
But as she was swiping down, a book from her wall shelf came flying down and hit her on her head.
With a soft thud, she blacked out.