I Heard I Got the Mary Sue Script

"You're the heroine of a tragic romance. Tonight, the male lead will break off your engagement in front of everyone and announce that his beloved is the one he truly loves. He only got together with you for your bloodline and the benefits you offered. Now that he's grown powerful, he can no longer stand pretending to care about you, and he's decided to cast you aside..."

"Hold on. Didn't you notice my rainbow-colored hair?"

"Uh, I did. So?"

"Silly child, don't you get it? With this textbook Mary Sue hair, I must be in a feel-good romance!"

"?"

So the System watched as Shen Xuanzhou confidently walked up to the male lead's... beloved, then dropped to one knee and said:

"Miss, would you like to join me in vanquishing demons and saving the world?"

The young woman’s eyes lit up. She gave the male lead the boot and clasped Shen Xuanzhou's hand tightly. "...I will!"

System: "???"

Male lead: "...?????"

=

"Love Without Regret: Destined for Three Lifetimes" is a fashionable old-school tragic romance. The heroine is descended from the last seven-colored glass bird in the world, yet she throws away all her dignity for the coldhearted male lead. He manipulates her, and she pines for him. It has every trope a reader could want: the beloved's stand-in, the caged songbird, and wicked supporting characters in the form of aunts and uncles.

But it also throws in fantasy monster-slaying adventures that are even more entertaining than the romance. Readers all wore pained expressions and called it "a story where the author bought dumplings just for that little bit of vinegar."

Shen Xuanzhou, who transmigrated into the tragic romance as its heroine, was supposed to cut open her own flesh in front of the male lead and extract her divine-bird bloodline, so he would feel too guilty to go through with it, change his mind, and painfully give up his beloved to keep loving the heroine until the ends of the earth.

But Shen Xuanzhou's confident misunderstanding sent the plot galloping off the rails.

Instead, the beloved abandoned the male lead and went off with the heroine, loving each other until the ends of the earth.

The System was shocked, the System wept, the System fell apart!

Faced with the System's wailing, Shen Xuanzhou comforted it. "How about this: I'll beat up the male lead. Doesn't that count as an intense, tragic romance?"

"...How is that an intense, tragic romance?"

"I'll do the tormenting. He can handle the love and passion."

The System wiped away its tears and thought that besides the male lead, there were still plenty of melodramatic plot devices: vying for favor, misunderstandings, frame-ups, ripping out hearts and lungs, taking blood from the heart, being hung on a city wall for three days and three nights... Surely Shen Xuanzhou couldn't keep getting her way! Then it saw...

The other teammates who wanted to join Shen Xuanzhou's party fought tooth and nail for the chance. That was vying for favor.

The person who smeared Shen Xuanzhou's name was hung at the entrance to the secret realm for three days and three nights. That was a misunderstanding and the three-days-and-three-nights-on-the-city-wall scene.

The monsters she encountered trembled in fear and cut themselves open to make offerings to her. That was ripping out hearts and lungs.

Even the sacred beast imprisoned in the forbidden grounds was tamed by her and gave her a drop of its heart's blood. That was heart's blood.

The System stared in dumbfounded amazement.

...It was melodramatic, but not completely melodramatic.

Were all the buzzwords included? Yes, but not completely!

Shen Xuanzhou said calmly, "I told you I was a Mary Sue. Why didn't you believe me?"

Theme: A Young Wanderer