> Blood splattered all across the garden. Her head landed softly on the grass, her black hair fanning out like a broken halo. Her lips, parted ever so slightly, trembled as if still trying to speak. But no words came. No breath followed. Dark, red blood, tainted with her sins, took the role of a brush, painting the last stroke of her life. Was she 'an unfortunate soul in search of a warm embrace', or perhaps 'a demon that made others suffer for her entertainment"?
>
> The men responsible for her rushed ending certainly believed the latter. One took her head, which was now staring with lifeless half-lidded eyes at the moon above. One twisted his sword in the headless body, shattering her still heart to pieces before taking the bloody blade back and sheathing it. One had cut the sword free by laterally slashing her waist from the inside and out. And a sole pair of regretful eyes watched it all unfold from the roof of the academy.
Pathetic and foolish. Sad and cruel.
That was how the author of the book wanted to portray the death of the main antagonist. The villainess. As she fell at the hands of the one she loved and at the ones she wronged. But the reality strays from what the author tried to convey, from what they expected, and instead, the ending of the book was nothing short of frustrating for the readers.
"Yes, keep pursuing the man who hates your guts and wants to kill you. See where that gets you," sarcasm and a sigh were spoken from the woman's dry lips before the velvety covers of the book were closed. "She was so good, Anne," frustration tinged her voice.
"Until she wasn't," a different voice, yet holding the same frustrating tone, rang in the bedroom suffocated by a multitude of plushies. So much so that the vessels of the voices, the two young women stood on the carpeted ground, as the whole bed was a kingdom of toys that were better left undisturbed, or so they reckoned.
'The blossoming white lily' was a book that attracted attention among young adults. A xianxia book. That talked about the granddaughter of the Heavenly Sword Sect's leader going to an academy to hone her skills with her childhood friend. Yet, as the academy accepted not only the orthodox sects but also the unorthodox ones, the villainess shone through as the antagonist coming from the Demonic Sect as the leader's daughter. She was cunning and smart. But smitten with the female main character's childhood friend and, like a typical female antagonist, she started bullying the main character who was always around her 'sweetheart'.
Ultimately, the villainess wanted to kill the main character for getting so much in the way of her plan to seduce her crush, and that led to nothing else but ending up beheaded by the person she oh so one-sidedly loved. In the same location where she planned to kill the main character. A turn of events, if nothing else.
"It could've been a much better book if the antagonist wasn't so blinded by love." a heavy sigh, as Lyianne continued, her pink-colored hair falling in front of her face as she stared at the wall, her eyes vacant, unfocused, as her mind played the murder scene described by the author. She was trying to digest the final scene—the villainess's death—a brilliant character, ruined by poor writing choices.
"It's not even love, Anne," the young woman said and looked towards her pink-haired friend, Lyianne, who was looking blankly at the wall, "she just liked how he looked. But that's hardly a motive to pursue him after seeing that he doesn't even see her as a person, but as a spawn of evil-"
"That she is. " Anne interrupted.
"That she is," Rhea supplemented with a nod, "but you see my point, right? I mean she was brilliant enough to outsmart anyone in the academy, but as soon as it comes to him," she sighed, unable to express her disappointment.
They both found it out of character, as if the author forced situations just for their presence. The book would have been wonderful without the 'love at first sight trope,' but their complaining did not seem to stop only vocally; no, the very dissatisfied reader of 'The Blossoming White Lily,' Rhea, quickly accessed the internet and found herself writing an unappreciative review of the book on as many sites that allowed reviews on the book. Her fingers were quick and her mind didn't need a lot of time to exaggerate her thoughts on the book.
> Rating: 0/5
>
> I really wanted to enjoy this book, especially since the main villainess had so much potential. Her backstory and motivations were intriguingly complex; anyone could tell the author had put a lot of thought into crafting her as a character. Unfortunately, the execution fell flat—so flat, in fact, I'm honestly wondering if the author forgot how to write halfway through.
>
> The dialogue was painfully awkward; her actions were wildly inconsistent with her established personality, and the pacing of her story arc was all over the place. How am I supposed to believe this is a "brilliant and cunning" villain when her decisions are as sharp as a wet sponge? The narrative kept telling us how clever she was, but everything about her screamed amateur hour.
>
> This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.
>
> Honestly, even I could have done a better job. It doesn't take a genius to realize you need to show her brilliance through actions, not lazy exposition. And maybe the author should try writing dialogue that sounds like a real person, not a poorly programmed chatbot. With some consistency and better pacing, she could have been a phenomenal character. But no, instead we got this mess.
>
> It's disappointing because it feels like the author fumbled what could have been a standout villain. Maybe next time they'll spend less time thinking about the character and more time learning how to actually write one.
Harsh. But when there are no clear consequences to one's words and actions, even the mice think of themselves as cats. Rhea was an introvert, but with the safety of the internet, there was no fear of confrontation, no one that would see her true self behind the screen. Yet her friend, Lyianne, thought of being polite even on the internet. She read the comment with a slight furrow of her brows.
"Now there was no need to be that rude. "It sounded like scolding, the words directed at her friend who thought she was just being honest. "I'm sure the author would have gotten your message if you simply said that the villainess's personality was inconsistent or that it fell flat sometimes."
"Oh, come on. To be an author means to learn to take mean comments as helpful critiques and try to improve. Why would I bother sugarcoating my words when I can say them as I think them?" Rhea said and put the phone aside, "not everyone is as sensitive as you when it comes to taking constructive criticism from others." The black-haired jabbed, but the words were not said to truly hurt.
"Your words are anything but constructive," Lyianne sighed, brushing past the comment of her friend; she was already used to all the remarks the black-haired could make.
Truth be told, the two girls fit together like 2 puzzle pieces, each piece with a totally different color, but fitting perfectly nonetheless. Anne was Rhea's softness, while Rhea was Anne's boldness. Sometimes their personalities complemented one another; other times they headbutted together in a loose argument about morality. The situation at hand was slowly treading towards the latter, but at 1 in the morning both of them were too tired to argue over a rude remark at the author being posted on the internet.
Anne got up from the ground and took the book that was in pristine shape, putting it in it's rightful place near the second volume that was the next on their reading list, up on the shelf that was yet to be stacked fully before looking around the room, and noticing that, as much as she didn't like moving the plush figures from their rightful place – the bed – she didn't exactly fancy sleeping on the ground again.
"You...don't think the author will really read the comment themselves, do you?" Rhea asked with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Come on, don't they have editors who pick and choose what criticism to present to the author?" she added. "You're worrying too much."
"I guess that makes sense...maybe, but still it was far-fetched," Lyianne insisted. Walking towards the bed and starting to slowly move the plushies on the small sofa in the corner of the room, giving them another, smaller ' kingdom '. "Come on, let's get some sleep," she said, her voice dropping the frustration and taking a more soft, tired edge. She was never an adept of sleeping late into the night, but the book truly hooked her, despite the frustrating parts of it, and she had insisted on finishing it with her friend during the sleepover. An inspired choice she will suddenly regret as soon as the sun begins to shine in 6 hours.
At the lack of reply from her friend, the pink haired said again " Rhea. Sleep. " or else she would become quite cranky, and it wouldn't be a pleasant experience for either of them.
"Sleep then. You know I need another handful of hours in order to sleep. " the black-haired said and turned her head to watch her friend finish the rearrangement of the plush kingdom.
"No. We have somewhere to be in the morning. Come on, I don't want to have to drag you out of bed again. "
With scoffs and sighs and some slight bickering about how Rhea didn't want to sleep at this hour, the two ended up tucked in the bed regardless, Lyianne turning and sleeping with her back facing her friend. And said friend could only do the same, using her phone in hopes of getting sleepy with the help of cute videos of animals or babies or whatever she could find. Yet in the middle of her doom scrolling, a notification appeared on her screen, a response to her rating. Clicking on the notification directed her to the website, where she was met with a single link.
> https://theblossomingwhitelily.neocities.org/invitation
No context. No explanation. At first, Rhea thought it was a site where she could further review the book, or something related to the book, but when she clicked on the link, all that she could see on the website was the big text of ERROR 404. It made her scoff. Was the author such a petty person? The kind that just needed to have the last word no matter what? Immature. Though Rhea hasn't considered that her own actions were immature as well, but it didn't matter did it? As it stood, the author didn't mind it, if they could make a joke like that. Now with the mood completely ruined, the young woman shut down the phone and placed it on the nightstand, closing her eyes and trying to do the only thing she could control, somehow. Sleep.
Unbeknown to her, that the link had invited her to write her own ending of the book as she sees fit. Despite the error having shown initially, the link began to retrieve her data as she tried to sleep. Next thing she would know would be that she could do exactly what she wrote in the review, write it better than the author. That she could replay and dissect every scene and every arc of the book, starting with the very first one, as the villainess herself.
P.S :: The link used is not harmful and can be opened without any fear. It redirects the user to a 404 error page with a user count, the code for the site was given to me by the AI and I have tested it with my friend.