Finishing the book means death; I abandoned the whole world.

"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!!!" Yong turned and ran into the company. Wang Qiang was still upstairs. That old bastard, even though he's foul-mouthed, he definitely knows more than I do!

The streets are in chaos. More hands are reaching out from the screen, and more names are being grabbed.

A man reading a cultivation novel had the words "Foundation Establishment Stage" appear semi-transparently behind him. Then, his body swelled and burst like a balloon, and blood mist formed a line of words in the air: "[Excessive spiritual energy caused him to explode and die.]"

A girl reading a romance novel was enveloped in a pink light. She began to confess her love to thin air uncontrollably, her speech becoming faster and faster until "materialized words" gushed from her mouth.

I love you. Don't go. Let me explain.

The words smashed to the ground like bricks, burying her inside.

Yong rushed into the building. The elevator had already stopped. He took three steps at a time and rushed up the stairs, feeling as if his tender lungs were about to burst.

He heard all sorts of "cute and sweet" voices behind him, but he didn't dare turn around. Not even a little bit!

Cowardice? No! That's unwavering courage! That's the determination to turn your back on the water!

On the 7th floor, in the editorial department, the door was unlocked. Editor-in-Chief Wang stood by the window with his back to him, a cigarette between his fingers, and his three tufts of hair on his head casually tossed aside.

Yong-ge had never seen Editor-in-Chief Wang smoke! But that didn't matter at the moment.

"Hey, Li Yong, how many words were in that manuscript you just submitted?" Wang Qiang didn't turn around, enjoying his cigarette.

"A hundred, a little over a hundred, right?"

"One hundred and twenty-nine words." Wang Qiang turned around, and Yong Ge saw that his eyes were not pupils, but words, dense Song typeface, size 5, rolling in Wang's eye sockets, complete with punctuation marks!

"Editor-in-chief! Your eyes! What's going on?!" Yong almost ran out the door.

"It's not important." Wang Qiang exhaled a puff of smoke and walked towards Brother Yong, leaving a red footprint on the ground with each step. It wasn't blood, but "annotations."

"The important thing is, you wrote about the Nth death. What is N?"

"Just... something I wrote casually, does that mean it was written many times?"

"N is a variable, and a variable means infinite possibilities. Infinite possibilities mean infinite hunger." Wang Qiang's voices began to overlap, as if many people were speaking at the same time.

He placed his hand on Yong-ge's shoulder; that hand was icy cold. Yong-ge felt something drilling into his brain, something unrelated to thought—it was format! The format of writing?

"Listen, Xiao Yongzi," Wang Qiang said with a bright smile, "you've got yourself into this mess. The rules are simple."

"First, what you write will come true, but only part of it. It depends on how complete your writing is and the weight of your narrative. One hundred words have the effect of one hundred words, and one thousand words have the effect of one thousand words."

"Secondly, if you stop updating for more than 24 hours, the 'update cravings' will come looking for you, physically. They will crawl out from every word you write."

"Third... cough! cough! cough!" Editor-in-Chief Wang suddenly coughed violently, and the words in his eyes began to scramble.

He pushed aside Yong-ge, who was kneeling on the ground listening attentively, took a red pen from the drawer, and stuffed it into Xiao Yongzi's hand.

"Third, stop trying to fool us. If you try again this time, it won't just be you who dies!"

A loud crash came from outside the window. Yong, who was kneeling on the ground, turned his head to look out the window and saw a crack in the sky, like a piece of paper being torn. Behind the crack was not a dazzling starry sky, but bookshelves, endless bookshelves, row upon row, filled with books, each one turning its pages automatically.

It even makes people a little excited?

Ye Tian's message popped up again, this time with a photo: a close-up of the crack, and in the space at the top of the bookshelf, an eye was looking out.

Caption: [Dear author, that's the administrator of the narrative graveyard. It says your work has an "abnormal serialization status" and needs "forced correction."]

What needs to be fixed?

[Improve it.]

Yong Ge cried. "I'm just a nobody author who excels at a bad start, a terrible mid-game, and disappearing late game. What have I done to deserve the attention of such a towering figure?! Go find those platinum-level authors if you want something from me! Why are you bothering me?!"

He held the red fountain pen, his palms sweaty, or perhaps with tears of excitement.

He looked at Wang Qiang and found that the editor-in-chief had sat back in the comfortable rocking chair, and his eyes had returned to normal, but his face was ashen, as if he had been drained after strenuous exercise.

"Write," Wang Qiang said, closing his eyes. "Write anything, just don't stop, don't stop. Your Ye Tian knows the rules better than you do, ask him."

Yong lowered his head, but Ye Tian was a man...

Ye Tian sent another message at just the right time: "[Author, I have a suggestion.]"

[What suggestion? Should I turn you into a woman?]

[Stop messing around. You write that I'll revive, and I'll help you fight monsters, but there's a condition: don't let me actually die, and don't let me actually live either. Keep it in the "in progress" state, and I'll have unlimited possibilities to utilize.]

[Who the hell are you trying to fool?] No wonder they say that staying active is the happiest thing.

No, I learned this from you. You always like to bluff when you write novels, so this is our art of bluffing!

You're not a woman! What?! Give us back what we want!

Yongge smiled happily. He picked up the red fountain pen and discovered that the pen could write on any surface: the air, the wall, and even light itself.

He wrote:

Ye Tian lay on the ground, dead, but not quite. This time, his finger—truly his middle finger—was hooking towards the sky.

Ye Tian: [Author, He says your writing is terrible.]

[Shut up, I'm saving your life! It's just that it doesn't understand the power of words. I believe most readers can imagine the beautiful scene!]

Continuing to write:

The crack in the sky widened, and something was crawling out. I couldn't make out its shape because it was still "loading".

Ye Tian stood in front of me, his back to me. His figure was somewhat transparent; after all, I had only written a little over a hundred words, and he was just a "preview version."

"What's next?" Ye Tian asked.

[Next, let's pad the word count.] Continue writing.

How much water?

[Write as much water as you can!] Keep writing.

What kind of plan is this?

[This is called a serial!] Keep writing.

Liu Tianyong stopped writing, noticing the air around him freeze for a moment, then a tiny, inconspicuous figure appeared before him—it was Ye Tian, ​​upgraded from a "preview version" to a "trial chapter."

The crack in the sky did indeed become a little smaller.

Wang Qiang sighed from behind: "A madman."

"Thanks, editor-in-chief." Yong didn't turn around, continuing to write, "By the way, perfect attendance this month..."

"Perfect attendance, huh?" Wang Qiang roared back to his usual snarling tone. "You bastard, you'd better live to see the end of the month first!"

Outside the window, the narrative-hungry monsters are approaching, but Yongge notices that they seem hesitant. They smell the scent of "unfinished narratives," a scent that makes them both yearn for and fearful.

Ye Tian turned his head and winked at Yong Ge: "Author, I have a suggestion."

"explain!"

"Next time you describe my appearance, could you please stop using 'slowly'? It sounds really effeminate and makes your writing seem poor."

"...Go fight!"

"Yes, sir!"

Ye Tian rushed toward the nearest monster, his figure leaving a black trail in the crimson sky. That trail was the setting that Brother Yong had not yet finished writing; it was blank space, infinite possibilities, and the highest level of deception.

Yong took a deep breath, and the red pen drew a mark in the air:

On the first day of the apocalypse, I gained a reader.

[Although he's a bug, a ghost, an illusion existing only in an unfinished document.]

But he is my reader.

[And the author will write anything for the readers.]

Even in the end.

[Tentative.]

Voiceover: [So what are we?] [So what are we?]

The crack in the sky has shrunk a little bit more.

In the distance, a daring and meticulous survivor raised his phone and took a picture in Liu Tianyong's direction. In the photo, a struggling writer was standing inside a building, writing in the air with a red pen. In front of him was a semi-transparent man fighting a monster, and behind him was an older editor with three tufts of hair, roaring.

Automatic caption generation:

[Liu Tianyong, a contracted author on KDNet, is currently writing a post-apocalyptic story. Latest chapter: "The Nth Rebirth (Revised Edition)". Click to follow and witness history.]

Yong Ge's phone screen lit up briefly, displaying a new follower: 1

The ID is: Ye Tian. Note: Dear author, this chapter is alright, but what does "tentatively" mean?

Yong Ge smiled and said: "That's tentative. See you in the next chapter!"