Work Text:
Shen Yuan was an average 16 year old high school boy. Average looks, average intellect, even his only hobby– reading– was unimpressively nerdy. Perhaps the only thing he excelled at is reading dog water web novels and writing thousand word paragraphs cursing out authors in the comment section all day long. One might call slandering on the internet his one and only true passion.
“STUPID AUTHOR STUPID NOVEL!”
Shen Yuan slams his fists on his desk, raging at the piece of shit of a web novel he spent the last 2 months chasing daily. What he was just reading, was the newly trending web novel that has been blowing up all over the internet.
“Prideful Immortal Demon’s Way”, or “PIDW” was a harem Xianxia novel that has been climbing up the ranks of the literature website Shen Yuan usually read his novels on. The book’s no-life author, Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky, uploaded almost every single day, with at least 4k words daily, peaking at 20k words a day at the most. Of course you would expect a piece of writing pumped out at such a rate to be trash. But somehow, everyone on this website except Shen Yuan seemed to hog it. In the course of a month after the web novel first started, it had somehow ascended to the top 5 on the website. After 2 months, which is the present day, it is now rated number 1.
How is this even possible! The username of the author is literally a dick joke! There was no thought put into these words! The plot can only be described by two adjectives, other than edgy, there is only horny! HORNY HORNY AND HORNY! The protagonist is only 13 right now, why do you need to spend so many words describing the breasts of the women around him!
Shen Yuan takes one more look at the newest uploaded chapter which he just finished reading with a scowl on his face.
Although it was clearly suggested in the name of the book that the protagonist – Luo Binghe would be put on a traumatic darkening path, even Shen Yuan can’t help but feel bad for the unfortunate main character. Luo Binghe was put through the five stages of grief at least 7 times just from the first 30 chapters for god’s sake. In the new chapter, after Luo Binghe was enlisted into the Qing Jing Peak of Cang Qiong Mountain, Shen Yuan’s hope that the poor protagonist would finally be given some mental recovery time was once again shattered. After going through the “orphaning arc”, Luo Binghe was immediately shoved into an “abused student arc”, as his teacher, Shen Qingqiu turned out to be a sadistic scum of a person.
Jeez, the man just can’t catch a break. At this point the book should be moved to the masochistic category of the literature city, because it literally gives Shen Yuan more pain than pleasure reading it. The plot holes are so obvious in some places it makes Shen Yuan want to puke blood.
He truly hates this novel with the entirety of his being. It shouldn’t even count as a novel! It’s literally a jumble of fan service put together by random strings of plot to satisfy the reader’s fantasies. Though, that is the nature of a harem novel. But of all the ones Shen Yuan has read, none can compare to this level of bullshittery. What Shen Yuan hates the most, is how this book keeps reeling him back, over and over, chapter after chapter. He swears to god, as long as this web novel keeps updating, he will keep hate-commenting on every single chapter no matter what.
Just as Shen Yuan finishes his daily 500-word assault on the author’s unreasonably sadistic plot in the comment section, his mom’s voice interrupts the sound of his ferocious “pitter-pattering” fingertips on his keyboard. .
“Shen Yuan! It’s time for dinner! Come down!”
Shen Yuan immediately lifted his hands off the keys. The timing was great, the hate-typing has burnt too much of his calories either way.
“Your sister cooked our dinner herself today… She put a lot of effort into this meal, so she really wants you to try it.” His dad called.
“I’m coming.” Shen Yuan responded from across the house. Shen Tang? His spoiled 12 year old little sister? Cooking for the family? What a rare sight.
Shen Yuan trudged down the stairs and made his way over to the dining room, swerving around the couches in the living room. What awaited him was a ghastly table of dishes that looked suspiciously overloaded with soy sauce and smelt of fish despite no fish being present on the table. He reflexively gagged at the horrid smell the dark brown dishes in front of him omitted.
“How is my cooking, big bro Shen Yuan?” The younger girl beamed at him. Shen Yuan uses every last drop of mental strength he has to stop his face from scrunching. Although the smell of the dishes alone is enough to tell him that the meal is going to be anything but delicious, he can’t bring himself to break the young girl’s heart.
“It.. It looks great, Shen Tang.” Shen Yuan stiffly lies through a forced smile. He then looks at the dishes thoughtfully, deciding that it desperately needs some constructive criticism. “I think it just needs a tiny bit of improvement…”
“Hmph! So you don’t like it?!” Shen Tang puffs her cheeks.
“No! No! It’s not that.” Shen Yuan defends, shaking his hands in front of him “.There is just a bit too much soy sauce than needed.” He explains gently, pointing over to the small white bowl that had tofu completely drowning in the dark brown liquid.
Actually, Shen Yuan doesn’t even know if there is even supposed to be soy sauce in this dish…
Shen Yuan’s father and mother sitting across from them at the dinner table nod slowly in agreement.
Shen Tang stomps her foot on the hardwood floor.. Her face is flushed red from anger. “I cooked for you! I put in all this effort and you’re not even grateful towards me!”
“Of course we are grateful, sweetie.” Shen Yuan’s mother consoles. “It’s just that you poured a bit too much soy sauce in there. Nothing too big. Here, I’ll try your… fried eggplant.”
Nothing too big. That odor suggests that Shen Tang definitely did not just put ‘a bit too much soy sauce in there’, there are at least 5 other unidentifiable liquids and spices in there. In fact, the dish is so off-colored that he can barely even tell what is on the plate. All he could make out from the dish are some vaguely rectangular brown silhouettes laying on what he thinks are chunks of minced garlic.
“It’s not eggplant, mom! It’s stir-fried lettuce!” Shen Tang corrected her, looking even more upset.
Even after mother Shen forcibly ate half a plate of the zombie colored lettuce that Shen Tang cooked up to make her feel better, Shen Tang still ended up bawling.
“Shen Tang. C’mon. It’s just a couple of messed up dishes. You will get better next time.” Shen Yuan said, rubbing the crease between his eyebrows with the pad of his thumb. It is times like these that Shen Yuan envies his two older brothers who are gone for college.
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After a good 20 minutes of calming Shen Tang down (and ordering actual edible food from doordash), the Shen household finally goes back to its normal dinner routine.
As the four of them finish up their meals, Shen Yuan’s parents exchange knowing glances before placing down their chopsticks and clearing their throats.
“Shen Yuan. So…your mother and I have been discussing...” Father Shen started.
“Discussing what?” Shen Yuan said, snapping up his head from his bowl of half eaten rice.
“Well, you're 16 now, and we think it’s time for you to attend high school with other kids.” Mother Shen continued.
Shen Yuan blinked a few times, processing the information being fed to him.
“In fact, we’ve already enrolled you into the Pira Ioma Dean Wayne High School.”
“...WHAT?!”
Although Shen Yuan is the age of a high school junior, he has never actually been to high school before. For the last two years that were supposed to be his freshman and sophomore years, Shen Yuan was homeschooled. The first two years of his high school life was taken up by going between treatments and check-ups. After winning his two year battle with cancer and completing his last chemo treatment around 6 months ago his doctors finally excused him. He still has to go to check-ups every once in a while, but he is definitely healthy enough to attend school like a regular teenager now.
Although Shen Yuan has been keeping up with his education through online classes during his time being sick, his social skills have definitely been neglected. The last time he sat in a class with other people was middle school. Enrolling him into high school after two years of basically being a hermit would be equivalent to throwing him into a tiger’s den.
Seeing Shen Yuan’s nervousness, Shen Yuan’s father pipped up, “Don’t worry, we are sure you will do just fine. You can finally make some friends!”
That is easier said than done.
Chapter 1 Ends.
SHOUTOUT: Credit to ody_a for editing and carrying my writing.