Wallet thinner

In any story, there's a stage and backstage. The stage of a story is the part where the author shows a small part of her story world and the main character through a lens that is usually called a point of view. Everything that happens on the stage revolves around the main character.

Author adjusts the lens as he guides the readers into seeing the world and the life of the main character while he controls the amount of information that is released to the reader.

Now, there's backstage. Most important things don't happen on the stage. It happens on the back of the stage. Say, there's an emperor who wants war on backstage and the stage shows some foreshadowing that gives us a hint that the emperor is planning to have a war. However, the main character doesn't know. Sometimes, even the readers don't know.

A crappy author would decide that you should only see fluff while the emperor prepares for the war. You enjoy the fluff, get your panties wet during the snu-snu moments, and fantasize about things that only happen in fiction.

'You like to read these crappy books because you want to fantasize about the things that you can never have. These books make up for your boring reality. These books have twisted your expectations of a real man. You drool over fictional characters but you won't look at a real man,' My younger brother had chastised me once, 'and these authors make your wallet thinner by manipulating your mindset and making you addicted.'

I was twenty-eight and my brother was twenty-five back then. I kneed my brother's balls. He had to go to the hospital and stay overnight. Sadly, his ability to continue his demented genes didn't go away. I received a huge scolding from my mother but my father gave me a thumbs up and a wide smile.

My father and I are always on the same wavelength while my mother and my siblings are from a different planet altogether. Sometimes I wonder how my father and mother decided that they could be life partners. It wasn't an arranged marriage either.

Though I want a rich and handsome man, I know that the world is imperfect. My minimum criteria for a life partner is that he should be able to understand my jokes and he must be good looking. If we don't get along, at least I won't feel like crying while I kiss his face. I hate awkward silences. Imagine telling jokes to someone who doesn't have an IQ to understand them. He should be smart enough to understand.

Viessa Vorn and King Kaige were the part of the stage where the author made them do snu-snu to win readers' hearts. As for me and the emperor, we were part of the backstage.

The novel was one-thousand chapters long. King Kaige ended the engagement with Aloisia Anneliese Bloodworth around the 300th chapter.

Between 300th and 350th chapters, a series of uninterested events happened. Aloisia ran away from the kingdom. Kaige gave a 'shoot at sight' order. For some chapters, Viessa was feeling bad. Then, Kaige was pacifying her. The author turned him into an ideal alpha man who protects and cares for his woman from an abusive and possessive air conditioner male lead. But I could always see through the wordplay. Kaige was still a shitty man. But Viessa wasn't any better.

Maybe it is a law that all airheads must attract toxic alpha men.