Viewers, who had been dealt a heavy blow before reaching the grand finale, flocked to Guan Suyin's and Weibo to leave comments.
They strongly demanded that the original ending be revised to give Li Shengnan a perfect conclusion.
Some netizens also played the victim, saying they were old and couldn't handle such tragedies.
Someone posted online: "Begging for the ending to be changed, to fulfill Jin Shiyi and Li Shengnan!"
Then, this post was propelled to the top of the trending searches by netizens.
Countless netizens liked, reposted, and commented.
Afterwards, it also made headlines on major news outlets.
It was understandable that the audience couldn't accept it, as the character of Li Shengnan was truly captivating.
Even knowing her ruthlessness, knowing she was a thorny rose that could easily leave one's hands covered in blood if not careful, people still couldn't help but like and pity her.
In the history of Wuxia novels, there had been three instances of reader revolts, strongly demanding authors to revise their stories.
One was the early death of Ah Zhu in "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils," another was the loss of chastity by Long Nu in "The Return of the Condor Heroes," and the last was the demise of Li Shengnan in "The Romance of the Condor Shooting Bow."
Given how long this work had been out, many people were unaware of the stir Li Shengnan's death had caused back then.
The will of the people is the will of heaven.
The investors of "The Romance of the Condor Shooting Bow," seeing so many netizens united in demanding a change to the ending, threatening to abandon the show otherwise, also wavered.
One major investor specifically called Guan Suyin, asking if she could invite Jiang Ling and Yue Zheng Yu back to reshoot a scene, to change the tragedy into an open-ended conclusion, allowing the audience to freely choose who the male protagonist ends up with.
Guan Suyin's attitude, however, was firm, saying word by word: "Li Shengnan's death is the core of 'The Romance of the Condor Shooting Bow.' If it's changed, its artistic value will be completely lost. I have my own principles when filming. Whether the audience accepts it or not, this is the ending. They can watch it if they like, or not, if they don't!"
Jiang Ling, who desperately wanted to leverage the popularity brought by the role of Li Shengnan to return to her peak, had been closely following the developments of the drama.
Seeing so many readers flooding the official Weibo accounts of Guan Suyin and the "The Romance of the Condor Shooting Bow" crew, she genuinely worried that they might not be able to resist the audience's demands and turn the tragedy into a comedy.
Jiang Ling thought that if Guan Suyin actually called her, she would stage a sudden disappearance and only reappear after the drama had aired.
Clearly, Jiang Ling was overthinking it.
Guan Suyin's artistic pursuit in filmmaking was far higher than she imagined.
Even if the audience resisted, or if the platform threatened to remove the show from circulation, she would never change it.
Guan Suyin remained resolute, ignoring the audience's demands, and thus the most thrilling yet most poignant scene unfolded.
Li Shengnan, at the cost of burning her life force, won two out of three rounds against Tang Xiaolan, the successor of the Tianshan Sect who inherited Zhang Danfeng's martial arts, claiming the title of the greatest under heaven and avenging her ancestor Qiao Beiming.
Shengnan, a name imbued with masculinity.
A woman in form, with a man's heart. Orphaned and abandoned from a young age, with no one to rely on, yet she fought resiliently, living life with her own spirit.
She did not lose to heaven, nor was she defeated by fate, but she lost to the man she loved most – Jin Shiyi!
Even though, at this moment, many viewers already knew that the wedding night would be the night Li Shengnan breathed her last.
Yet, when they saw Jiang Ling appear in flowing white silk, adorned with rouge, her footsteps graceful, their hearts still ached intensely.