A thousand question marks flashed through Dan Zhu's mind.
What was going on with Teacher Hui Shi?
Why the sudden genre hop?
And who the hell was this "Moon-Sea Thunderfish-Fishycat"?
The name sounded like a cutesy grade-schooler. She'd never heard of this screenwriter account before.
Could it be… hacked? Or maybe some shady corporation had kidnapped the artist and forced a pivot?
As it turned out, Dan Zhu's wild guesses weren't actually wrong—poor Griseo really had been kidnapped by the black-hearted capitalist known as Su Yu.
Dan Zhu frowned, hesitated for a few seconds, then decisively opened her livestream software.
"Hello everyone, I'm Dan Zhu."
On camera, the black-haired, red-eyed girl pushed up her glasses, face solemn.
"I just got news that Teacher Hui Shi released a new work. But… the subject matter this time is a little special—yuri mystery."
The chat exploded immediately.
[What?! Teacher Hui Shi isn't drawing otome anymore?!][Yuri? Am I seeing things? That genre jump is gonna throw her back out!][Healing? What does that even mean?][That writer name is weird… this feels like a landmine, guys.][It's over, Teacher Hui Shi got swallowed by capital.][Let's read first. What if it slaps?]
Dan Zhu cleared her throat, eyes razor-sharp.
"I've decided to watch it with you all right now. If it crashes and burns… I will immediately write a 3,000-word essay on stream condemning this kind of blind 'rebranding' behavior!"
She clicked into Three Years of Sakura.
The cover appeared.
No syrupy, candy-colored palette.
No skimpy fanservice bait.
Just a dim, gray corridor—at the far end stood the silhouette of a long-haired girl. Shadow hid her face; only a pair of hollow eyes showed, staring straight out of the screen at everyone watching.
First impression—the atmosphere was insane.
Dan Zhu began flipping through the chapter.
Page one: a wide campus shot. Cherry blossoms looked beautiful… but the scene carried a suffocating pressure.
Page two cut inside a classroom. Students clustered in laughing groups—while in the lower-right corner, a girl sat alone in silence.
Asakura Miyuki.
Dan Zhu's eyes locked onto her.
Head lowered. Long hair covering half her face. One pale hand clenched tight around her skirt hem.
That isolation—being cut off from the entire world—hit like a wave through the screen.
"This composition…" Dan Zhu murmured. "There's something here."
She kept scrolling.
Page five—the bullying begins.
The abusers' twisted faces. Miyuki's trembling shoulders as she endured it.
The linework was still Hui Shi's signature delicacy, but now it carried a suffocating tension.
Dan Zhu's expression grew serious.
Page twelve.
Miyuki sat alone on a rooftop. Moonlight stretched her shadow long and thin.
Her eyes were empty—but the corner of her mouth lifted slightly, like she was smiling… or like she was crying.
That expression—
Dan Zhu's heart felt like it got squeezed.
Further down.
Page eighteen.
Rejected, Miyuki began showing the early signs of "collapse"—something breaking loose inside her.
Her long hair whipped upward, and her eyes turned a hollow, terrifying red.
"This transformation handling…" Dan Zhu's voice rose, excitement bleeding through. "This transformation, this line explosion—how is this so strong?!"
The chat's tone shifted with her.
[This pressure… I can't breathe, give me oxygen!][This is Hui Shi's real power? She draws yuri this hard too?!][Miyuki is so miserable… I want to mail knives to those bullies!][This is even more addictive than BL—this sick, fragile tension!]
Dan Zhu flipped to the last page.
Under the cherry tree, facing Miyuki's unreal yet strangely relieved smile, a hand reached forward—like it wanted to pierce the page and seize her.
Long fingers. Slender wrist. Trying to grasp something.
Between that hand and Miyuki—just a few centimeters.
That unbearable regret: close enough to touch, but forever out of reach.
That sense of salvation blooming inside death itself.
Only one final line remained—
[Kiana, happy birthday.]
The comic ended there.
That last sentence froze Dan Zhu in place.
The livestream went quiet for a few seconds.
Then—
"…Holy… shit…"
Dan Zhu couldn't hold it in—she let out an exquisitely cultured profanity.
The chat, which had still been full of "I don't get it" and "this is too depressing," stalled for a beat… and then detonated.
[That was WAY too strong?!][Teacher Hui Shi, please accept my kneel! I'm done with otome, I only read THIS now!][That reaching-hand detail is godlike—this is what 'sugar with a blade inside' means!]
"Brothers—take back what I said earlier!"
Dan Zhu slammed her desk so hard the figure cabinet rattled. Her face was bright red—not embarrassment, but the wild joy of someone who'd just found a priceless treasure.
"This isn't a failed pivot—this is a dimensionality reduction strike!"
She pointed at the screen, words firing out rapid-fire as she slipped into full evangelist mode.
"Look at that gaze! Look at that lighting! Teacher Hui Shi doesn't just understand men—she understands women even better!"
"This sickly, fragile yuri aesthetic… I can't take it. I'm going to bow to this screenwriter 'Moon-Sea Thunderfish-Fishycat'—who wrote this script?! They get it. They get it so hard it's disgusting!"
"I declare it right now: starting today, Three Years of Sakura is my Yearly TOP 1! Who's in favor, who's against?!"
With a grand sweep of her arm, Dan Zhu pinned the comic link to the top of the stream, cranked the font to maximum, bolded it, and turned it red.
"What are you all standing around for?! Go read it! After you finish, come back and cry with me! If a masterpiece like this doesn't blow up, then heaven has no justice!"
The chat immediately started laughing at her whiplash.
[Dan Zhu sis got hit with the 'actually… it's peak' lmao][From 'I will criticize' to 'I will worship' in ten minutes flat, huh?][Real talk, the last page stabbed me too—this writer has something.][Moon-Sea Thunderfish-Fishycat—remember the name. Feels like a big shot's alt account.][Screenshot saved!]
Dan Zhu drew a deep breath, trying to calm down, but the smile on her face refused to go away.
"Anyway—episode one of Three Years of Sakura, I'm giving it a full score. No shame. Strongly recommended!"
She gave the camera a big thumbs-up.
"Teacher Hui Shi is forever a god! And that Fishycat teacher—please keep putting out new work!"
That night, under Dan Zhu's roaring, top-influencer-level recommendation, Three Years of Sakura spread across the internet like a virus.
And the stats on Su Yu's backend began skyrocketing at an absurd rate.
....
My Patreon : patreon/RuneA
If you want to read the novel in advance, you can subscribe for early access. I also have many more novels in my collection that you might be interested in
I upload ten novels a day, with 3 to 4 chapters per title depending on the length. If you're following a particular series, please wait your turn a little
If there's a particular novel you're enjoying on Patron, please give it a 'like' so I know to focus on it