Jiang Chao noticed that even the glossy cover of Wind Manga now featured the character Xu Jing, her image catching the afternoon light from the dormitory window. She wore a simple school uniform dress, her expression blank and unreadable, her hair tied into a single ponytail just like any ordinary girl one might pass on the street. Who would have thought that a character who had once been little more than a background extra would now leave him so completely obsessed?
The content of this chapter of Pure Love didn't disappoint him either. He quickly realized that the author had clearly reduced the screen time of the male lead and the other girls, instead advancing the story from Xu Jing's first-person perspective. It seemed the author had also recognized that the most interesting and most closely watched character in the entire manga was now Xu Jing.
Soon, Jiang Chao saw Xu Jing's home for the first time in the printed panels. He couldn't help opening his mouth in shock, and he even stopped chewing his noodles. He had never imagined that Xu Jing's family could be this poor.
At the same time, he noticed that the manga artist named Su Li seemed to have made tremendous progress in her drawing skill. The backgrounds were so expressive that one glance at the crumbling walls and sparse furniture was enough to tell how dire Xu Jing's family circumstances were. It felt as though the author had personally entered the manga world and seen this impoverished home with their own eyes.
Then Jiang Chao finally understood why Xu Jing was so obsessed with studying. It came from her intense desire to change her fate. Her dream was to become a doctor and cure her father's illness. The author didn't specify what disease her father had, only that it was a chronic condition that required constant spending on treatment, draining what little resources they had.
When Jiang Chao saw Xu Jing efficiently taking care of her father, her face still without the slightest trace of impatience or disgust, he felt his heart get captured in that very moment by the goddess Xu Jing. Filial piety had always been a traditional virtue of Chinese culture. Someone with a filial heart naturally inspired goodwill in others. On the other hand, if a person wasn't even filial toward their own parents, who would feel at ease befriending them?
More importantly, Jiang Chao felt the author's artistic technique on display here was simply incredible. It was just a scene of Xu Jing caring for her seriously ill father and feeding him medicine, yet it was drawn with remarkable delicacy. The fine lines of her hands and the gentle slope of her shoulders as she leaned over the bed greatly deepened the readers' affection for Xu Jing and made the scene unforgettable.
After reading Pure Love for so long, Jiang Chao realized that when the author previously depicted interactions between the male lead and the other girls, he had never felt this kind of genuine emotional impact. Sometimes it even felt awkward, as if those characters were puppets being forced to perform, showing readers exactly what they were supposed to see.
Xu Jing, however, had been brought to life by the author. She seemed to possess her own soul. Every movement and action came from her own will, while the author acted merely as a recorder, never forcibly pushing her into awkward performances. This gave readers an exceptionally smooth and comfortable experience. It really felt good.
By the time Jiang Chao finished his noodles and sausage, the savory scent still lingering in the air, he climbed up to the top bunk with the magazine in hand and lay down comfortably. At that moment, he felt this was the happiest thing in his life. On a leisurely weekend afternoon like this, he could wholeheartedly immerse himself in a manga that truly resonated with him.
The following plot only made him like Xu Jing even more. Because she had grown up poor, she was skilled at housework and had taken on countless responsibilities to help her mother. She could also cook. Even if they were just simple home-style dishes, for a poor family like hers, being able to eat their fill was already good enough. How could they dream of delicacies from the mountains and seas?
What impressed Jiang Chao the most, both amusing and admirable, was that Xu Jing never forgot to study even while cooking for her family. With Su Li's drawing skills seemingly exploding in this chapter, these scenes left readers feeling thoroughly infused with positive energy. Naturally, their impression of and affection for Xu Jing grew even deeper.
At this point, Jiang Chao felt his mind was completely filled with Xu Jing's graceful figure. Compared to her, real-life girls were all trash, garbage from the three-dimensional world.
No, that wasn't right. Jiang Chao suddenly thought of Zhao Youyue, who sat behind his deskmate. He felt that girl was actually quite nice. At first glance, she wasn't stunning, but she was genuinely cute, and her voice sounded pleasant. Most importantly, she had no prejudice against the two-dimensional world and was always willing to listen to his explanations and preaching. She was truly teachable, unlike Zhou Fang behind him, who only knew how to study all day and was completely boring.
Even so, although Zhao Youyue was cute, she wasn't his type. He felt she lacked any protagonist aura and didn't have classic anime moe traits like being expressionless, tsundere, or airheaded. If Zhao Youyue were placed into an anime, she would definitely be the kind of background character with no defining features or presence.
Right now, the character he found overwhelmingly moe was Xu Jing, who possessed the traits of being expressionless, hardworking, and a top student. When he saw Xu Jing smile for the first time in the manga, a small and fragile curve of her lips, he was so excited that he nearly jumped off the top bunk. Anyone else who saw this would surely be puzzled. It was just a manga character. Was there really a need to react like this?
Perhaps this was Jiang Chao's deep love for the two-dimensional world.
The final part of this chapter, where Xu Jing began to suffer abuse, left Jiang Chao burning with rage. He wished he could charge into the manga himself and kill those damn chengguan.
There was no helping it. The author's depiction of Xu Jing's suffering was even more emotionally infectious. Readers who had deeply immersed themselves in the story didn't even notice how unreasonable it was. In reality, where would you find such despicable chengguan wielding a "club" that could cause clothes-bursting effects?
But Jiang Chao didn't bother questioning realism at all. His heart felt stabbed. Why was his goddess Xu Jing suffering so much? She worked so hard, yet still encountered such disaster. When he compared her to the carefree male lead and the other girls, his pity for Xu Jing only deepened. As a result, he spent ten whole minutes appreciating the fanservice after Xu Jing's clothes were torn from the beating. There was no explicit nudity, yet the delicate lines of her skin and the torn fabric were even more eye-catching than porn. Then he went to the bathroom.
"Tsk, Su Li, this old hand of a manga artist who nobody even knows is male or female, really knows their stuff when it comes to selling fanservice," Jiang Chao muttered to the empty room. "Ah, now I have to wait another week for the next chapter. I'm really going to die here. I want to see what happens next so badly. Even though it's probably the same old routine of the male lead saving the beauty and winning her over without anyone noticing, I still really want to see it."
This chapter completely ignited a frenzy of adoration for this character across the internet.