A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Guide for Failing Authors

Liu Tianyong's tender lungs were about to explode again; as an author, he'd always been rather lacking in exercise. The silhouettes of those judges were looming in the background; he had to run!

Yong slammed on the brakes, nearly crashing into a cliff that appeared out of nowhere. The unique street description in this world abruptly stopped; the asphalt road turned into a grayish-white draft paper with only the words "[Street should be here, to be added.]" written on it.

"Damn it! This awful world!"

Yongge turned around and saw the girl with glasses stumbling after him. The girl looked frail, and when she ran, well, she really was a bit frail. Her backpack strap broke, and she was still tightly clutching a book called "Apocalypse Survival Guide" in her arms.

"Wait for me!" she said, refusing to answer the call from the previous issue. "I... my name is Wu Qu! Thank you at the bank earlier!"

"Wu Qu?" Oh, everyone else in the bank was pretty much invisible, but this girl managed to get a little attention after saying a few words.

"How did you manage to catch up?"

"I don't know where to go. I don't want to die. I feel safer following you guys!" Wu Qu was very direct. His glasses were shattered, and his hair was a mess.

"That so-called Judge is definitely not a good person! And just now, a lot of information suddenly popped into my head, something about reader privilege awakening, I have absolutely no idea what that means!"

"Oh? Reader permissions?"

"That's right, I can sense some gaps, like unfinished parts of the story. I can, I can, add content to it? But I don't know how to add it!" Wu Qu struggled to organize his thoughts.

Yong Ge and Ye Tian exchanged a glance. Ye Tian shook his head; his understanding of this world was clearly incomplete. If only that old Wang Laodeng were still around, he would definitely know.

"Let's get out of here first." Yong-ge looked at the grayish-white draft area. "Do you feel like we can't possibly get through this place?"

Wu Qu closed his eyes, his brows furrowed, and his fingers unconsciously gestured in the air.

"There should be a bridge ahead," she murmured to herself. "I think there should be, but..."

"But what?"

"It's so blurry, like a dream, I can't grasp it!"

Ye Tian began, "Try to be more specific. What kind of bridge? How wide? What material is it made of?"

"I'll give it a try." Wu Qu took a deep breath. "A... iron bridge? It's a bit rusty, a bit narrow, only wide enough for one person to pass at a time."

The air trembled, and black outlines emerged from the gray-white area. A swaying iron bridge slowly grew out of the void, but only half of it appeared, with the other end still shrouded in mist.

"Not specific enough!" Ye Tian shouted. "Your imagination needs more details to support it!"

"I don't know any other details!" Wu Qu was almost in tears. "I only remember the small bridges in my hometown, nothing else. It couldn't possibly be an elevated highway..."

Looking at the half-bridge, Yong suddenly picked up a red pen and wrote in the air:

The iron bridge in Wu Qu's memory became complete; scratches from her childhood appeared on the bridge surface, and rust patterns formed on the railings—details she had never noticed before, yet which were undeniably real.

As the words fell, they seeped into Wu Qu's "brainstorming," and the bridge suddenly froze. The other half emerged from the mist, and although it was still swaying slightly, it had indeed become a passable structure.

"You? You finished replenishing it for me?" Wu Qu looked at Liu Tianyong in surprise.

"Your imagination provides the framework, my writing provides the details." Yongge pulled her onto the bridge.

"Is this what they call 'one pen and one brain'? I think Editor-in-Chief Wang mentioned this term before."

Who is Editor-in-Chief Wang?

"An old man, he's dead, but it seems he's not quite dead yet. All sorts of messages he left behind keep popping up for no reason," Yong replied casually, his attention on the judge behind him.

Just as they were about to cross, the bridge collapsed. The judges were left behind and gradually disappeared from sight.

They rushed into a "described area," a food street where the lively atmosphere of the morning market was frozen in the air. Fried dough sticks floated above the oil pan, and soy milk hovered as if about to be poured; everything was frozen in time.

Wu Qu rubbed his knees and got up. "That was my ability? I can imagine things? But I need your written words to make them stable?"

"I'm not entirely sure either, but that's how it looks." Yong Ge stared at the floating fried dough stick, his stomach growling uncontrollably. Damn it, after such a grueling day, he was starving!

"Your ability is too inconsistent; that bridge almost killed us just now."

"I'm sorry."

"No need to apologize. You just awakened, and it's already impressive that you can fill in the blanks in your mind. I only know that readers can influence the narrative, but I don't know the specifics of how. Perhaps Lord Wang Qiang will know," Ye Tian said as he swam over.

"Wang Qiang, is that the editor-in-chief Wang?" Wu Qu asked.

"Yes, my damn editor-in-chief!" Yong pulled a crumpled note from his pocket. "He's always leaving random notes, interrupting everything he says, even when he's dead!"

Wu Qu took the note and read it carefully, her expressions quite varied.

"Readers are observers; every request for updates, every complaint, and every imagining adds weight to the narrative!" She looked up, her eyes sparkling.

"Author?"

"Ah! I'm sorry, that name just popped into my head." Wu Qu blushed a little embarrassedly.

"The system kept telling me in my head that I was a loyal reader of yours, and I thought I was mistaken." She flipped open the copy of "Apocalyptic Survival Guide" she was holding.

"I did buy this book before, but I remember the author's name wasn't Liu Tianyong, it was some other nobody. But when the apocalypse came, the author's name changed, the content changed, and the protagonist became Ye Tian."

Ye Tian asked in surprise, "Me?"

"Yes! A male protagonist who is stuck at the moment of death. The synopsis says he was reborn for the Nth time, but this time he didn't survive." Wu Qu's voice grew softer and softer.

Yong was overjoyed. "I, Liu Tianyong, have loyal readers too! I'm so excited!"

He looked at the girl he had only known for a few hours and remembered what he had told Wang Laodeng: After reading this setting, readers will definitely imagine a million words of plot!

"So you knew us from the beginning?"

"I wouldn't say we know each other!" Wu Qu hurriedly waved his hand. "I... I've just imagined your story. I've imagined how Ye Tian got stuck at the moment of death, I've wondered what kind of person the author is, and I've even thought about writing a few fanfictions..."

"Case solved! Ye Tian, ​​your liking for skirts was definitely Wu Qu's imagination!"

"Ms. Wu Qu, please don't imagine me as a female protagonist in a romance novel in the future."

"Yes, I'm sorry."

"Alright, alright, we need to find a safe place. Who knows when those judges will come after us again. Damn Narrative Ethics Committee!"

"Where to?" Ye Tian asked. "We can't go back to the company, and we can't go to the bank either. This world is full of 'description interruptions'."

Wu Qu suddenly pointed to the frozen end of the street: "There!"

The two turned around together. At the end of the food street, there was a wall with a poster on it, the words of which were clearly visible:

[KDBuLaker.com Reader Meetup, Underground Branch Venue]

"A reader meet-and-greet?" Ye Tian squinted. "What's this thing doing here?"

"Does it matter? Look at the world now!" Yong-ge said, completely unmoved.

Several people stepped forward, and Wu Qu touched the poster with his finger: "I can sense that there are many people inside, reading, and they seem to have used their imaginations to create a stable space?"

"You can feel it?"

"Hmm, it's like when I felt a gap just now," Wu Qu said with his eyes closed.

"But something even stronger. If we could get inside, perhaps we could use their observations to stabilize the surrounding space?"

Ye Tian shook his head: "I don't know these places, these are where readers gather?"

"Let's go take a look! There's nowhere else to go anyway!" Yong said enthusiastically.

[Current Narrative Weight: 680 (New reader engagement, team weight +50)]

Hey guys, aren't you hungry?! It's chapter 13 already, and I haven't eaten anything! I'm about to burn out!!!