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

"Brother Yong, there's something on the ground!" Li Yumeng suddenly exclaimed.

The asphalt road surface was covered with dense text, just like footprints.

[Passerby A, male, is walking at this moment] [Passerby B, female, is walking at this moment]...

"Narrative remnants! Their settings are still repeating themselves!" Ye Tian fully utilized his role as a strategist.

How many?

"Countless people have been seen in this area; it's as if it's been overwhelmed by passersby."

As soon as the words were spoken, countless silhouettes appeared ahead, without facial features, dressed in various kinds of clothing. They were "loaded" from the [To be supplemented] list. They mechanically repeated their walking movements.

"Don't touch them! They're just background elements, they're not aggressive, but if you touch them, things might get complicated!" Brother Yong warned everyone.

A random passerby bumped into Zhang Gou Dan's shoulder.

Dog Egg instinctively threw a punch, and the body of the "Passerby A" dissipated like smoke. But the next second, more "Passerby A"s turned to look at the crowd.

[Conflicting plot detected] [Unfinished work detected] [What happened next?] [What happened next?]

"Damn! It triggered a chain reaction!"

Countless murmurs echoed in the air as the passersby began to gather around the exploration team, approaching with questions in their eyes. They longed to be given a story, to be transformed from background characters into roles!

"Wu Qu! Quickly fill in the blanks! Treat them as background, don't give them the 'focus'!" Brother Yong shouted.

"What do you mean?"

"When you're visualizing the roads in your mind, don't write them down! Just keep them vague!"

Wu Qu suddenly realized, frantically trying to fill in the blanks in his mind: "There's an intersection ahead, with a zebra crossing and a traffic booth. Sunlight is shining through the clouds..."

Yong Ge is writing simultaneously. [128→125]

The moment the sunlight shone through, the passersby let out painful screams. They were used to the grayness of the [to be supplemented] area, and the real sunlight was poison to them.

"Works! Continue!"

As Wu Qu ran, he imagined sunshine, blue sky, and white clouds. Yong Ge confirmed this while forcibly "baking" a passage through the emptiness of the narrative. Those "passersby" melted away in the sunlight, turning into countless "to be supplemented" words that dissipated.

"Wenhua Road! It's right ahead!" Huang Chaobin shouted.

The moment I burst out of the narrative void, the gray-white space behind me collapsed, isolating me from the murmurs of countless passersby.

Wu Qu's legs went weak, and she almost knelt down, but Yong Ge grabbed her shoulders and said, "Hold on!"

"Brother Yong... I..." she gasped for breath, her face pale, "Imagining sunlight... is so hard... ten times harder than imagining a streetlamp..."

"But you did it." I grinned. "Sunlight dissipates darkness; that's basic narrative logic. You used common sense to defeat the entire emptiness."

She looked up, her eyes glistening with tears behind her glasses, but a smile played on her lips: "Following Brother Yong... I always learn something new..."

"Don't get sentimental, we haven't arrived yet."

Cultural Road is narrower than Jiefang Avenue, but it is still relatively intact. It is lined with shops and office buildings on both sides. Most of the doors and windows are broken, but the building structure is still intact. We have already covered more than half of the 2.3-kilometer journey.

"The Readers' Club is just ahead," Huang Chaobin pointed to the end of the road, "that glass curtain wall building."

The glass curtain wall of the Readers' Club is mostly broken, resembling a huge spider web.

The main structure of the building is still relatively intact. The Cadillac logo at the entrance is leaning to one side, and the area around the entrance is covered with gray and white patches [to be supplemented].

"High-intensity narrative fluctuations detected." Huang Chaobin touched the ground. "There are many! The aura of completed works, but also those still ongoing!"

"What do you mean?" Li Yumeng gripped the shoulder strap of the medical backpack tightly.

"That means there are both deceased and living authors inside." Ye Tian floated in front of him, his semi-transparent fingers passing through the glass door. "But it's strange, the aura of those living ones is very weak, as if it's being suppressed by something?"

[Liu Tianyong pushed open the glass door of the readers' club. Although the light inside was dim, it was still clear enough that he was safe for now.]

Yong Ge picked up his pen and wrote it down. [Weight 125→123]

The text seeped into the glass, the "[To be supplemented]" near the entrance dissipated, and the glass door creaked as it slowly opened.

"I'll go in first, Dog Egg will cover the rear. Wu Qu, can you even imagine what's going on?"

"Yes, a simple framework shouldn't be a problem." Wu Qu's expression was a little pale, but he was still able to persevere.

The six people cautiously entered the building.

Inside the readers' club, all the furniture was covered with a grayish-white "mycelium," just like a spider's nest.

There were a dozen or so people hanging in a corner of the hall. Yes, they were hanging.

Their bodies were bound by grayish-white threads, suspending them in mid-air, with a line of text floating above each person's head: [Reader (To be activated)]

Their eyes were open, their pupils were hollow, and their mouths were slightly agape.

"This is...!" Li Yumeng gasped, the scene truly frightening her.

Suddenly, the floor in the center of the hall cracked open—a narrative-level crack—and the floor transformed into a giant page of a book, upon which lay blood-red text: [Chapter 2000 of "Infinite Thrilling Novel System": Harvesting Readers!]

A figure emerged from the pages of the book.

A man dressed similarly to Sigma, with meticulously combed hair and a businesslike smile, held a golden pen in his hand and wore a badge on his chest: [Flying Furnace War God - Mahaji].

"Welcome, welcome!" Mahaji opened his arms wide, his voice booming. "I never expected to meet fellow professionals in this world! You're all from KDBuLaker.com, right? It's a pleasure to meet you all, I'm extremely happy!"

Yong gripped his pen tightly, not daring to be careless for a moment. This strange fellow... "Are you the author of this?"

"Author? Oh, no, no, I'm the club's new [operator]!" Mahaji chuckled, pointing to the readers hanging there. "The apocalypse has arrived, resources are scarce, so I'm—yes, I'm making good use of resources—these readers' imaginative abilities are excellent [narrative fuel]!"

"You! You used them! As batteries?!" Wu Qu exclaimed in surprise.

"Battery? What an awful word," Mahaji shook his head. "I came up with a professional term: 'subscription-based sustenance.' See how much better it sounds? They provide me with the details they need every day, and I provide them with security, fair trade, and honesty."

He smiled meaningfully at the team members: "Of course, if you'd like to join my studio, I'd be more than happy to. After all, it's hard to survive in this world by going it alone, right?"

After speaking, Mahajee twirled the gold pen, on which a line of small characters appeared intentionally or unintentionally.

Yongge squinted and saw that it read, "[Mahaji, Narrative Weight: 892 points]".

Holy crap! I've never had this much before! This guy's got a lot of money!

"What if we don't want to?" Yong asked tentatively.

Mahaji sighed, as if he had heard some very regrettable news, but he still smiled: "Then I can only ask you all to become my fuel as well. Although the readers' imagination can be extracted, the author's ability is even more delicious."

He didn't give his friends any time to discuss it, as if he had planned it all along. Holding a gold pen, he excitedly waved it in the air: "Mahaji's private bodyguards! Show yourselves!"