After Entering a Dark and Twisted Comic

Blurb:

Ashes is a dark, harrowing, and deeply depressing comic disguised as a xianxia tale. Its inhumane ending earned it a barrage of low ratings, with readers following the comic just to curse it out.

The male lead, Gu Chongshan, starts as a nobody from the countryside. After enduring endless humiliation, he finally gains friends and a lover, and through sheer hard work rises to become the personal disciple of a top sect's leader, entrusted with taking charge of the Myriad Void Realm. He has everything, and life is going his way.

Then, in the blink of an eye, divine punishment descends. He is framed as the sinner who brought it upon them. His friends and lover die fighting against it, everyone turns against him, and the people despise him. In the end, he falls to darkness.

It's absolutely brutal.

While other readers tore the comic to shreds, Shen Jingchun stayed up all night rereading it again and again, and even left the author a positive review.

Then he got mobbed for being a shallow pretty-boy fan who only cared about the characters' looks and not the plot.

After an all-night online battle with other readers, Shen Jingchun transmigrated into the comic.

He became Gu Chongshan's... lackey.

A dog in the literal sense.

Shen Jingchun: “...?”

Fortunately, even dogs can turn into humans sometimes. He hadn't changed species for good.

At the time, the male lead was a new outer-servant disciple, weak and helpless, bullied and ostracized by the other disciples. This was one of the sparks that would eventually drive him to darkness.

By the usual rules, Shen Jingchun should have comforted and guided the male lead, changing the plot and preventing his dark future, even if he was just a dog.

But he didn't.

Shen Jingchun was an ultimate fan of dark, bleak, and brutal stories. He loved savoring the look on the male lead's face when he was in despair, and was perfectly happy with the original storyline.

Reality left him with no choice. More accurately, the real-life Gu Chongshan was just too reckless, so Shen Jingchun had to secretly save him a few times.

Before he could see the scene he wanted, Gu Chongshan absolutely couldn't die.

But the more Shen Jingchun saved him, the more the story went off course. Gu Chongshan's lover and friends were still alive, he trusted Shen Jingchun deeply, and he was upright and wholesome, with not the slightest sign of turning dark. He grew brighter and brighter, with despair nowhere in sight.

Fine, then.

With no hope of seeing the scene he wanted, Shen Jingchun lost all interest in life and gave his life to save Gu Chongshan one last time.

Oh, he saw it.

The look of despair at the bottom of Gu Chongshan's eyes.

① One-on-one romance, happy ending. The recipient has a human form, so he's not really a dog. The pursuer has never loved anyone but him and has no other lover.

② A playful, anything-goes story with retro surnames for Shen and Gu, and an older-top-younger-bottom xianxia romance. No secondary couples, and no detailed content warnings.

Theme: A little kindness can warm a heart.