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

The day after the meeting ended, everything proceeded smoothly.

Fang Xiaoyuan was squatting in a corner of the mutual aid canteen, teaching other readers how to cook rice. Several people next to her were trying it out, sweating profusely, but so far they couldn't see any results.

The lush green smoke was supervising Wang Gangtie's "Introduction to Immortality" training. She closed her eyes and tried to condense a spirit sword in her hand, but only a wisp of green smoke appeared.

Hu Qiaozhen sat in the planting area, muttering to herself as she looked at the tomato plants, as if chatting with them. Zhang Gou Dan was punching a sandbag in the training field, each punch carrying a slight gust of wind—his Phantom Boxing King was gathering power, but he was restrained and didn't actually throw a punch, after all, it would affect the narrative weight.

Yong Ge arrived at the entrance of the stronghold and looked at the world outside the poster. The interrupted areas in the description looked like scars, stretching across the city.

"Ready?" he asked, turning around.

The other four members of the exploration team were ready to go. Wu Qu taped back the broken piece of his glasses and held the "Apocalypse Survival Guide" in his hand.

Zhang Gou Dan was still wearing those floral shorts that covered up "Invincible Under Heaven," while the Phantom Boxing King behind him was faintly visible, ready to be activated at any moment.

Huang Chaobin carried a backpack made of book pages, which contained the "dry food" that Fang Xiaoyuan had rushed to prepare overnight.

Li Yumeng walked at the back, holding a metal rod she had brought from the medical room as a makeshift weapon.

"Let's go!" Yong took a deep breath and wrote on the poster: [Exploration Team Departs, Destination: Xiangyang Road Resources]

Text is incorporated into the poster, opening the entrance.

The outside world was much colder than inside the stronghold. In the early morning, a hazy mist hung over the streets, reducing visibility.

The buildings on both sides of the street looked like gnawed bones, with peeling paint and some parts still wriggling slightly, as if something was moving under the skin.

"Maintain formation, Chaobin, lead the way," Yong said in a low voice.

Huang Chaobin nodded, squatted down, and ran his fingers across the pavement. His instinct as a deliveryman was transformed by his imagination into the ability to "read the delivery difficulty".

"Turn right at the third intersection ahead, about 300 meters, there's a convenience store. Difficulty level is medium, but..."

"But what?"

"The difficulty is fluctuating, like someone is constantly modifying the order. The road ahead seems a bit off."

Everyone looked in the direction he pointed.

At the end of the street lies a patch of "black." Countless tiny characters have coalesced to form a "tide of ink." It flows slowly, as if it were alive, moving towards the stronghold.

"A narrative-hungry monster!" Ye Tian's voice rang out. "This number...something's not right!"

Something was definitely wrong! As the exploration team drew closer, they finally spotted these "monsters."

They were densely packed, human-like beings, dressed in all sorts of clothes—suits, school uniforms, pajamas, and so on—but each one was in an "incomplete" state.

Some have no face, only a line of text: "[Face features should be present here]".

Some of them are translucent, while others resemble low-quality 3D models that constantly deform.

"They're just passersby! Passerby A whose name has been swallowed up! Passerby B!" Huang Chaobin's forehead was slightly damp with cold sweat.

Yong recognized one of them; it was the middle-aged man wearing the KDBuLaike website T-shirt—the author he'd seen in the supermarket before! His eyes were vacant, and his mouth moved mechanically.

What happened next? What happened next? What happened next?

Like the sounds of hungry people eating, they huddled together, surging forward slowly but steadily.

"Damn it!" Zhang Gou Dan cursed, "Is this some kind of zombie horde?!"

"They are waiting for a story," Wu Qu said. "I can feel that they are waiting for anything that can be narrated, such as a name, identity, ending, anything."

"So, in their eyes, we're just a mobile buffet?"

Yong quickly thought that brute force was definitely not an option. There were so many monsters that even if Zhang Gou Dan's weight was reduced to 0, he still couldn't defeat them all. He himself only had 198 weight points, and 58 points would be deducted every day, which was simply too much to bear.

"Let's take a detour! Chaobin, is there another way?"

"Yes, you can go around to the back door of the convenience store by going that way, but..."

"But what?"

"That alley is very narrow. If we get blocked, we won't be able to escape."

"Let's take a gamble and go!" Yong Ge gritted his teeth.

The five men quickly turned and disappeared into the alley.

The walls on both sides of the alley are covered with various "graffiti," the "imaginary traces" left by readers, I wonder.

There should be a trash can here.

There should be weeds growing in the cracks of the wall.

Some of these words have already become reality, while others are still loading. Yong Ge stepped into a puddle that "should exist," and felt a sticky sensation on the soles of his feet. He didn't know if it was real water or some kind of secretion.

"There's light up ahead!" Huang Chaobin exclaimed. "That's the back door of the convenience store!"

Indeed, at the end of the alley there is a glass door, through which the outline of shelves can be vaguely seen.

But just then, a rustling sound came from behind.

Those hungry monsters, who had been lurking in the alley, had somehow followed us in. Like ink, they slowly poured in from the entrance of the alley, filling every inch of space.

The first few should be Broken Chapter Beasts. Although their faces are blank, everyone can feel their gaze.

What happened next?

Countless voices echoed through the alley, "Run!" Brother Yong shouted.

The five men rushed desperately toward the end of the box, but Huang Chaobin pushed hard, only to find the door locked.

"Damn it!" he cursed, took a few steps back, and slammed his shoulder into her.

The glass door made a "crack" sound, but it didn't break.

The monster drew closer, and that "narrative hunger" almost materialized. Yong felt his skin begin to itch, as if something was trying to burrow into his pores and read his "story."

"Get out of the way!" Zhang Gou Dan rushed forward, and the Phantom Boxing King behind him instantly solidified.

That's too late.

Zhang Gou Dan threw a punch, and Phantom Boxing King simultaneously threw a punch. The semi-transparent fist shadow, accompanied by a whistling sound, slammed hard against the glass door.

"boom!"

The door was broken.

But at the same time, the number above Zhang Gou Dan's head jumped: [Narrative weight: 76→71].

Yong pushed the others into the convenience store, leaving himself to stay last.

He picked up a red pen and wrote rapidly in the air: [The convenience store door is temporarily imperceptible to the narrative-hungry monster.]

The words fell, swiftly disappeared into the convenience store, and then formed a semi-transparent barrier. The monsters surging at the door suddenly stopped, as if they had lost their target and wandered around in place.

[Current narrative weight: 198→188]

"10 o'clock!" Yong Ge's heart ached. "It can only last for ten minutes. Quickly find something useful!"

The convenience store was in a mess, with shelves overturned and goods scattered on the floor, most of which were faded, like newspapers soaked in water.

"Are these still usable?" Li Yumeng picked up a bottle of mineral water; the label on the bottle had changed to "Mineral Water (To be added)." She unscrewed the cap, took a sip, and said, "The taste... it's a bit like water, but not quite."

"Narrative remnants! These things are just concepts now!" Ye Tian replied.

The five people split up. The convenience store wasn't large, but the aisles between the shelves were blocked by overturned goods, making it difficult to move around.

Huang Chaobin climbed over a pile of collapsed shelves and reached for a few packets of instant noodles at the very back. The packaging was still relatively intact, and the text was clearly visible: "[Braised Beef Noodles (Classic Flavor)]". "This should be edible!"

He had just pulled the instant noodles off the shelf when the shelf behind him suddenly creaked.

"Watch out!" Li Yumeng shouted.

A "water-filled monster" somehow managed to get around to the side door of the convenience store. Its huge plastic body was squeezing into the door crack, and the repeated words floating on its surface were waving around like tentacles.

Huang Chaobin was unable to dodge in time and was struck on the back by a tentacle.

"Ah!" he screamed as he flew through the air and crashed into the wall, leaving a horrifying wound on his back. The wound was "invaded" by words, with the pores on his skin forcibly depicted as periods, from which blood seeped out, eerie and terrifying.

"Chaobin!" Li Yumeng was the first to rush over. "Don't move, let me see!"

She gently touched the wounds with her fingers, closed her eyes, and began to imagine: [These wounds are just surface stains from the text; they haven't damaged any internal organs.] But it seemed somewhat difficult for her.

"Wu Qu! Help me!" she shouted.

Wu Qu ran over and saw Chao Bin's injuries. Her face turned pale. She forced herself to calm down and remembered the scene when she worked with Yong Ge before. She provided the framework and Yong Ge filled in the details.

"I'm imagining an emergency rescue scenario," she said quickly. "Yumeng, fill in the details!"

She closed her eyes: [In the medical room, a nurse was treating the wound; there were clean gauze, disinfectant, and...]

"Iodine solution," Li Yumeng continued, "is dark brown, with an orange cap, and it stings a little when you pour it on a wound..."

Wu Qu's imagination and Li Yumeng's detailed descriptions intertwined, and a semi-transparent "first aid kit" appeared in the air. It wasn't entirely real, but it was enough.

Li Yumeng grabbed the iodine and poured it onto Huang Chaobin's wound. The punctuation marks made a hissing sound, as if they had encountered a natural enemy, and began to slowly fade away.

"It works!" Her eyes lit up. "Continue! The gauze is white, creased, and the edges are a little rough..."

Wu Qu frantically tried to visualize the situation, cold sweat beading on her forehead. Her abilities were still unstable, and maintaining them for even a second consumed a tremendous amount of mental energy. But she didn't stop, because she knew that if she stopped now, Huang Chaobin would be finished.

As Yongge watched this scene, an indescribable emotion welled up inside him. This is what Wang Laodeng meant when he said: the weight of narrative belongs not only to the author, but also to the reader.

The collaboration between Wu Qu and Li Yumeng, while not consuming narrative weight, does consume qualities that are harder to possess: focus, trust, and the courage to not give up in desperate situations.