"Hey, Jing Yu, aren't you even a little nervous? So many people are cursing you. At least take it seriously."
As soon as Cheng Lie walked into Jing Yu's office, he saw him casually playing a video game in the middle of all the chaos, and immediately felt speechless.
"Let them curse if they want. I pretty much expected all this before I even put 'Clannad' out. I knew people would tear it apart once the story reached this point," Jing Yu said, mashing buttons on his controller.
"Still, you can't just lie flat and do nothing! You should at least explain to the audience that there's going to be a plot twist later! If you keep this up, by the time episode nine airs, you might not have any fans left."
Cheng Lie knew what was coming — he'd read the scripts for the remaining episodes, and the plot twists were absolutely brilliant.
But the audience didn't know that yet. If it were just some light grumbling after episode eight aired, it wouldn't matter.
But this? This had escalated into a full-blown public backlash.
Newer viewers had been completely scared off.
"Ignore it. This is just part of making TV. Being cursed out by the audience is totally normal," Jing Yu said.
"Not like this, it isn't!"
"Honestly, all the resentment people have built up over the past few years from my earlier works is finally exploding. I've been prepared for this for a long time. What surprises me is that it took them this long to finally snap."
Took this long?
Cheng Lie blinked, looking confused.
"You say that like you knew they'd hate these story choices. So why write them in the first place?!"
"Why?" Jing Yu's fingers paused on the controller.
"I wish I knew! But this story... it just is what it is!"
Hearing the emotion in Jing Yu's voice, Cheng Lie could tell — the guy was slipping into another bout of creative melodrama.
"Alright, alright, let's move on from that. What matters now is — how do we salvage this? Shouldn't you at least do something to ease the fan backlash?"
"There's no need. In two or three weeks, once the final episodes of 'Clannad' air..."
A smile curled up at the corner of Jing Yu's mouth.
"The same people cursing me now will be the ones thanking me and apologizing later."
"Where does this ridiculous confidence of yours even come from?" Cheng Lie rolled his eyes.
Well… it came from the fact that the market had already proven it — in his previous life.
Jing Yu wasn't planning to argue this point any further. He wasn't about to go out there and issue a statement.
What would he even say? Is there a twist coming?
That'd just be a spoiler.
And honestly, wasn't this better? Fans were furiously venting online, and meanwhile, Jing Yu's work was raking in fan value like crazy.
Seeing his attitude, Cheng Lie knew there wasn't much he could do.
"Oh, right, about 'Fate/Zero' — based on the current shooting schedule, our side of filming should wrap up within a month or two. But the VFX team just contacted me. They said post-production will take more than six months."
"Six months?" Jing Yu frowned.
"That's way too long. Tell them I've scrapped plans to air 'Fate/Zero' in the second half of this year. But they must finish it by early next spring. At least give me the visual effects for the first five or six episodes before Lunar New Year. The later episodes can be worked on while the earlier ones are airing."
"Got it, I'll talk to them. So basically, you're officially setting 'Fate/Zero' to release during the spring season next year — both online and on TV?" Cheng Lie confirmed.
"Yeah. 'Clannad' and 'Kaiji' will both finish their second seasons in autumn. I'm not planning any new productions for winter. We've been grinding nonstop for years — it's time everyone at the company got some paid leave. Sure, our shows are popular, and revenue's been great, but we've been going at it 365 days a year. Even I, the boss, am exhausted — let alone the rest of the team." Jing Yu let out a long sigh.
Cheng Lie thought about it and nodded.
In the days that followed, the storm of criticism around Jing Yu continued to grow online. But whether on media outlets or social platforms, Jing Yu made no response whatsoever.
Even when reporters surrounded him, all they got were vague, unbothered answers:
"I don't think there's anything wrong with Clannad's plot."
"The upcoming story will satisfy the audience."
"All the hate I'm receiving is just a passionate reaction from people who don't fully understand me. In time, they'll come around."
He sounded like he was the victim of this whole wave of online outrage.
Fans were furious.
Most of them had jumped on the hate bandwagon just to vent or push Jing Yu to reflect — not because they actually thought 'Clannad' was a bad show.
In fact, the opposite was true. Everyone loved it. That's why Nagisa's death hit so hard.
But now, faced with Jing Yu's total lack of remorse?
Fans were enraged.
Still, anger is one thing. Sunday night arrived all the same.
It was time for episode nine of 'Clannad' season two.
"I just want to see what kind of story you can still tell after killing off the heroine."
"Right? Don't tell me he's going to introduce a second female lead now — like Tomoyo or Ryou from the school arc. If he does, I'm out."
"Is there any chance Jing Yu-sensei rewrote the script after seeing the backlash? Maybe he'll lighten things up?"
"How? If Nagisa had almost died in episode eight, maybe. But she died. It's done. What could he even change now — resurrect her?"
"Exactly. That's why this plot upset so many people. Jing Yu's older tragedies, like 'Your Lie in April', saved the gut-punch for the finale. Kaori didn't die until the last episode. Yukishiro in 'Rurouni Kenshin' died in the final minutes. But in Clannad? Episode eight??"
"Ugh... I don't even know why I'm still waiting for today's update. Last week destroyed me, but here I am again. Is it me? Or is it the show?"
"Same. Sure, it felt good to rage-post and drop my rating from 10 to 1 on Yindou Net, but I can't quit the show."
Liu Daosheng was one of those people.
Over the past week, he had posted nineteen times under Jing Yu's Qingyun Blog account, blasting him.
He'd even declared multiple times that he was dropping 'Clannad' for good.
But as Sunday drew near, he couldn't stop thinking about that final smile on Nagisa's face in episode eight.
Jing Yu might be guilty...
But 'Clannad' is innocent.
I'm going to see this through.
After less than a minute of hesitation, he opened the very series he had sworn to abandon just a week earlier.
Eight o'clock sharp.
The streaming link for 'Clannad' episode nine went live.