A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Guide for Failing Authors

Yongge stared at the words on the poster, his stomach letting out a long protest; after all, he was really hungry!

"Are you sure you want to go in?" Ye Tian's translucent fingers passed through Yong Ge's shoulder.

"Readers' gathering places are a double-edged sword; they can imagine a stable space, but they can also imagine the author as they want him to be." Ye Tian looked at the faint traces of lace still remaining on his legs.

"For example, cross-dressing men."

Yong Ge was speechless for a moment. Wu Qu stood weakly to the side, raising his hand: "I'm sorry, I've already reflected on my actions."

"Reflect my ass! As long as I can have a hot meal, I'd even imagine myself as a fairy!" Yong strode towards the poster, and the text on it came to life like tadpoles, forming a new paragraph:

[Identity verified: Author Liu Tianyong, work "The Nth Rebirth". Please maintain order in the venue: 1. No spoilers. 2. No harming readers. 3. Limited lunch boxes, first come, first served.]

"Boxed lunches? They have boxed lunches here?" Yong's eyes lit up.

"Author, isn't your focus a little different?" Ye Tian sighed.

"Food is the most important thing for people, don't you understand? The risk of starving to death is much greater than for others right now. You might be on the verge of death and not need to eat, but I'm a living, breathing human being!"

The poster transformed into a revolving door, and the three of them stepped inside.

A vast underground space, with an inverted silhouette of the city overhead and the floor made up of countless open book pages.

"This place is even more outrageous than Wang Laodeng's office!" Yong Ge stomped his foot on the ground, making a rustling sound like paper.

There were people all around, most of them looking bewildered, as if they had just survived a disaster. A little girl in her pajamas was squatting on the ground, muttering to herself while looking at her phone, "I just came to read a novel."

A middle-aged man was frantically flipping through a physical book, glancing around every now and then.

"Them? Are they all readers?" Wu Qu's voice trembled slightly. She was a reader herself, but she was clearly in much better shape than them.

A man wearing black-rimmed glasses and a wrinkled Brazilian suit "floated" over from the side, looking just like Ye Tian.

"Hello Liu Tianyong, author?" The man's eyes lit up as he examined the red pen in Yong's hand. "Finally, someone who can write! I'm an editor from the KDBuLaker website, my ID is: Green Oil."

"How did you know I'm Liu Tianyong? Are you an editor?" Yong-ge took a half-step back warily. "Someone like Wang Qiang?"

"I already knew your identity information when you came in. Wang Qiang? That editor-in-chief with the three tufts of hair?" Green Groom smiled bitterly. "That's the chief editor. I'm just an online editor, in charge of recommendation placement, not content. But now, the recommendation algorithm has pushed me here!"

"What's going on with these people?" he asked, pointing to the bewildered crowd.

Green sighed: "Sigh, the apocalypse has only been going on for less than a day. Although everyone received the rule explanation sent by the system, most people didn't understand it at all and couldn't accept it for a while. Things like 'omnipotent imagination' and 'narrative weight' sound like game terms."

He floated toward a girl who was crying: "She was among the first to arrive at this venue, around 3 p.m. She was reading a novel on the subway when she was almost swallowed by the Broken Chapter Beast."

"A fragmented beast?"

"A monster from an eunuch's work. She was lucky; the venue was just taking shape nearby, and she was sucked in." The greenish expression was somewhat complicated. "But she still doesn't understand what happened. She only knows that staying here is probably safer."

Wu Qu couldn't help but ask, "Then how do you know all this?"

"I've linked my work," Green pointed to her glasses, on which a line of small text scrolled:

[Linked work: "Data Cultivation: Starting with Web Scraping", Status: Ongoing]

"I am the author, the reader, and even a character—a triple identity. The system sent me a more detailed explanation, but I still don't understand much of it."

"for example?"

"For example, there are many regional claims. It is said that the city is divided into different narrative regions, but I have never been out and do not know if it is true or not."

Has anyone left from here today?

"Yes, some went out, but most of them haven't come back yet. Those who came back said that things outside have become very chaotic, the number of narrative-hungry monsters is increasing, and it seems that something is collecting the authors." Green's expression was somewhat solemn.

"Collect authors? What kind of horrifying term is that?!"

"Like stamp collecting, you bring the author to a completed state and then archive it."

Yong Ge said seriously, "Okay, where's the lunchbox?" Forget about archiving, all I know is that if I don't eat now, it'll be archived immediately!

Green Yuyou clearly didn't react, obviously not expecting that Brother Yong was still thinking about eating at this time.

"You have a really big heart."

"I may not have a big heart, but I have a big stomach. Hurry up and tell me about the boxed lunches."

The green leaves drifted deeper into the venue, signaling the three to follow. Along the way, Yong Ge noticed many details; for now, this place was still a makeshift haven.

Some readers have tried using various visualization techniques, but the results don't seem to be very good.

"Imagination requires details, but most people read books quickly and don't pay attention to details at all. Even if they do, they basically forget everything after six months, so their visualizations are very rough," Green explained from the side.

"What about the lunchbox?" That was what Yong was most concerned about. "It's not a scam, is it?"

"I'm not lying, it's crowdfunding." Green pointed to a makeshift shack. "See that?"

The words "[Reader Mutual Aid Canteen (Author Required to Update)]" were scrawled crookedly on the shed.

"What the hell is this?" Yong raised an eyebrow.

"It was built by readers, and a large part of it is by your readers, from 'The Nth Rebirth'." Green's expression was somewhat subtle.

"I'm just baffled. My book was rejected; it's only a few words long, how did so many people come to see it!"

"In this world, you can only see the works of authors who are still alive. Apart from those who have died, those that have been abandoned for a long time, and those that have been completed, there are not many left."

At the entrance of the shed, a boy of about seventeen or eighteen was frantically arranging several boxed lunches. His ability was to materialize food, but he was clearly not very skilled at it, or perhaps he had consumed too much energy beforehand.

The boy had his eyes closed, sweat beading on his forehead. A white, gel-like substance appeared in the air in front of him. "A sheen, the sheen of rice?"

Someone nearby pointed out the "pearl-like luster."

"Yes, pearls, how white are pearls?" Perhaps I used too much of my ability today, my brain is a little slow to process it.

Yong Ge: "..." He strode over, the red pen spinning in the air.

"Young man, let me do it."

The boy looked at him warily: "Are you the author?"

"A genuine author, though just a nobody. My name is Liu Tianyong."

"Then you update first!" The boy retorted, "The rules can't be broken. We discussed this for hours before deciding on these rules: the author can't eat if they don't update."

Looking at the mixture of leftover rice and jelly, Yong Ge sighed helplessly, "Fine, I'll update it then."

Looking at the "rice" in front of him, Liu Tianyong realized that this thing could actually be food. Although it was a manifestation of the readers' obsession with urging for more updates, it really was rice.

[It's edible, it can fill people's stomachs, I'm so damn hungry!]

The moment the words were written, the "rice" in front of the boy suddenly changed. It went from a lump of gel-like substance to a bowl of ordinary, steaming rice.

Before the boy could react, Yong Ge was already stuffing rice into his mouth like crazy.

Yong Ge was trembling all over, a trembling of excitement and happiness. His whole body was cheering. He was so hungry that even plain rice tasted like beef!

"Author, your expression is quite ferocious!" Ye Tian said from the side. He had no physical form and did not need to eat.

"This is the grotesque form of happiness! What do you non-humans know!"

After showing off, looking at the pitiful Wu Qu and the few teenagers in the shed whose abilities were clearly about to be exhausted, Brother Yong once again used his "ability" to give Wu Qu a bowl of white rice.

Although Wu Qu was also very hungry, he ate like a little kitten, taking small bites, unlike Yong Ge who showed off.

"Brother Yong, I have a question for you." After finishing his meal, Wu Qu asked Brother Yong hesitantly.

"explain!"

Why did you choose to write novels?

This is a perfectly normal question: "It's for perfect attendance, for food, for a living, right? Are you doing it out of pure passion?"

"But you could clearly write things that are easier to make money from, like those healing stories with a stable readership, or those formulaic face-slapping and satisfying tales. Why do you choose to write these weird and strange things?"

Yong Ge seemed to be talking to himself: "Because I can't write anything else, I can only fool people. The apocalypse is the perfect thing to fool people with. There's always a crisis, always suspense, and always something that can be explained in the next chapter."

He looked up at the real readers around him, most of whom were still bewildered and trying to understand the world, but their very existence was supporting this safe space.

"Moreover, I've found that it's more fun to fool people when there are viewers watching."

Wu Qu looked at Yong Ge with a complicated expression, wanting to say something, but the lights in the venue suddenly changed. All the book pages and the floor became blurry.

[Warning: Narrative inconsistencies detected]

[Source: Narrative Ethics Committee (Provisional)]

Greeny's face turned extremely pale: "How did they find this place?"

At the entrance to the hall, the floor was charred and the pages of books were curled up; invisible flames were burning, but no judge appeared.

The sound of countless people reading aloud came from all directions:

[In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention on Online Literature Creators, a narrative ethics review is now being conducted on the suspect, Liu Tianyong.]

[Review Method: Public Debate.]

[Topic: Do authors have the right to kill other authors?]

[Rules: Based on valid dialectical logic, this court will randomly select 6 readers and 4 authors as jurors. The final verdict will be made by the reviewers.]

Public debate? Yong Ge grinned. I'm an expert at this. As a loser, I've argued with Wang Laodeng for so many years. I haven't learned much else, but arguing and debating are definitely at a platinum level.