There was actually a method to determine the extent of a character card's popularity. The aforementioned quality would be directly proportional to the duration of a character card's tenure. A character that remained highly popular for a lengthy period only attested for its own popularity. Some highly popular characters were only one step from iconic status. What little they lacked in that aspect - all fell down to the most minute of details from their creators.
"Yu Shengfan" had been an unplanned accident. Zhao Youyue's premature exit broke something in Rosemary. He could not bear destroying Yu Shengfan's entire image, and was ardent on solidifying her status as an icon. Thus, he killed her off, cementing her fate in fiction and reality.
Yu Shengfan would remain germane over the next decade. That duration told much about her popularity...