I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

Yu Wen heard his own breathing, rapid and shallow.

My eyelids were so heavy I couldn't lift them; I felt like I was submerged in a thick, dark abyss, sinking deeper and deeper.

Then came waves of stomach cramps, as if a hand had reached in and twisted my intestines into a pretzel.

There was an indescribable taste stuck in my throat, bitter and astringent, like chewing a handful of expired pills.

"Cough...cough cough..."

He gagged twice, but nothing came out; it only intensified the sour and bitter taste.

Am I poisoned?

It must have been that cheap bowl of spicy hot pot last night, twenty yuan for all you can eat, and he was even praising himself for being thrifty...

This month's Alipay bill is like a mountain, and the mortgage payment date is just around the corner. Every penny saved counts.

This is saving money to the point of ending up in the hospital...

Yu Wen cursed inwardly.

That's good, though, at least if I get poisoned, I can take leave.

He couldn't remember the last time he slept until he naturally woke up; messages from his supervisor, calls from his manager, endless reports to fill out...

Being sick feels like taking a vacation.

With this absurd sense of relief, he mustered all his strength and tried to prop himself up.

He could move his hands, support himself with his arms, and he could even touch something hard beneath him...

Wait, why don't I feel anything?

There's no numbness or soreness below the waist; it's a kind of... "nothingness"!

What's going on?

He commanded his leg to move, even to twitch his toes...

There was no response from the darkness, as if the two legs did not exist at all, or had never belonged to him.

Yu Wen's heart sank suddenly, his supporting hand went limp, and he swayed to the side.

"Bang--"

He fell to the ground along with the things beneath him.

The cold, rough texture traveled up his palm, and only then, through the struggle, did he manage to touch the thing he had just been sitting on:

Is that a wheelchair?!

Not only did I get food poisoning, but I'm also paralyzed from the waist down?!

"I'm lying down..."

Before he could even utter the word "Holy shit," a tearing sensation, more intense than a stomach spasm, suddenly surged deep within his brain!

Countless unfamiliar fragments of memory, like a flood bursting its banks, violently poured into his mind, forcibly merging with his original consciousness.

Yu Wen clutched his head and looked around. The horribly unfamiliar environment before him gradually became clearer as his memories washed over him.

This is not an emergency room or hospital ward at all!

Instead, it was a damp basement.

The air was filled with the unpleasant smell of cheap engine oil mixed with mold, and the dilapidated walls were covered with a tangled mess of gray-black cables, which were exposed like blood vessels.

Outside that rusted and deformed louvered window, a huge, futuristic holographic neon light spot shimmered and pierced through.

The memories churning in his mind told him that this was the seventh slum in the Lower City.

Yu Wen sat on the ground, stunned for a full half minute, before finally processing the extra part of his life that had appeared in his mind.

He pinched his thigh hard.

I can't feel pain or touch; all I feel at my fingertips is the unfamiliar, loose feeling of muscle atrophy.

His legs lay lifelessly on the rough floor, like two old, abandoned pipes that didn't belong to him.

He swallowed hard; the astringent taste of the inferior chemical in his throat was still piercing.

He looked up and stared at the rusty Venetian blinds.

Just a moment ago, a shuttle-shaped aircraft that only exists in cyberpunk movies, trailing a ghostly blue tail flame, silently passed by the towering metal buildings outside the window.

Immediately afterwards, a virtual idol projection dozens of stories high flickered, and a huge neon beam swept across the dark basement without emotion, making the pile of rusty electronic waste in the corner appear pale white.

This is neither a murder mystery game nor an expensive immersive VR experience.

The churning spasms in his stomach, and the broken, unfamiliar body, were forcefully cramming an utterly absurd reality into his mind in an almost violent manner.

That weary world, filled with KPIs, mortgage collection text messages, and crowded subways during rush hour, has been completely cut off from the world.

He traveled through time.

But... other people who transmigrate start with 100,000 elite soldiers or a system by their side, or at the very least, they're a good-for-nothing from a wealthy family.

What about yourself?

The original owner was also named Yu Wen, but he was a penniless cripple who survived on substandard nutrient solutions!

Good heavens, I've read so many online novels and I have indeed fantasized about time travel, but at least give me a system, or let me be a rich young master, right?

How come I start with a rusty wheelchair and a hellish start?!

This is probably what they call "Lord Ye's love of dragons"?

Yu Wen, finding a bittersweet moment, mentally groaned and struggled to drag his heavy lower body back onto the creaking manual wheelchair, his hands bracing against the ground.

Calm down, calm down, calm down... Yu Wen took a few deep breaths, trying his best to calm himself down.

Only then, with the faint blue light emanating from the old LCD monitor on the table, did he finally see the things scattered on the table.

Several empty, cheap synthetic nutrient solution tubes, and a medicine bottle lying next to the keyboard with its label torn to shreds.

Several blue, highly concentrated sedative-hypnotic pills were scattered outside the bottle opening.

The original owner swallowed a lethal dose of the drug.

"No, buddy..."

Yu Wen rubbed his throbbing temples, staring speechlessly at the medicine bottle:

"At least buy the right pain relief medication! Taking a cheap sleeping pill and being woken up by stomach acid is just plain stupid!"

Despite his complaints, Yu Wen's expression gradually became serious.

Looking around, an old uniform covered in patches hung on a clothesline in the corner, clearly indicating that besides the original owner, there was another person living in this house.

Yu Wen's gaze slowly shifted to the only light source on the table.

It was an old monitor that had been obsolete for half a century, connected to a mechanical keyboard with worn-out keycaps and covered in dust.

At this moment, the screen is displaying a local document.

"Yinyin:

By the time you read this letter, your brother will probably be gone.

Don't cry, and don't be afraid.

There are still two hundred star coins I secretly saved in the metal box under the table.

I'm sorry, bro. I thought that by typing out those 100,000 words, word by word, with my own two hands, I could earn some money in this damn AI era and pay for your tuition next semester.

But I was too naive.

The big corporation behind the literary genius "Xinghui" has its eye on my manuscript.

They fed my painstakingly typed content directly into their AI model, not only generating viral content with zero cost through plagiarism, but also turned around and sent me a lawyer's letter, accusing me of maliciously scraping their AI's underlying corpus data.

Three million Star Coins in damages for infringement and breach of contract... The court's enforcement order will be issued in a week.

My brother can't even come up with three hundred dollars; he won't survive this week.

I've been disabled my whole life and haven't been able to give you a single good day, but I absolutely cannot let this debt fall into your account.

Only when your brother is gone can this debt be completely cancelled, and only then can you live a clean life.

Yinyin, forget about your brother and live a good life.

"You useless brother, Yu Wen."

Looking at the signature at the end of the document, the memories belonging to the original owner of the body surged up in his mind again, stinging his nerves.

Yu Wen gasped, a cold sweat instantly breaking out on his back, his earlier ease and banter vanishing completely.

In his memory, the girl named "Yinyin" was his younger sister, whom he depended on for survival. At this moment, she was working as a sorting worker in the underground black market, only thinking about saving money to buy him a wheelchair.

The reason the original owner was driven to a dead end...

Yu Wen turned his wheelchair around and glanced at the computer on the table.

There was no need to consult the StarNet browser anymore; the memories fused in his mind clearly told him what kind of world he had come to.

This is a parallel universe with abnormally advanced technology.

Here, humanity has reached the pinnacle of technological advancement, but the roots of literature have been completely severed.

Fifty years ago, the emergence of AI changed the world and also the landscape of online literature.

Yangshizi was the first to fall victim, followed by Ba Mao's collapse, and eventually, even the paid subscription platform Qidian was compromised.

From then on, the era of online novels written by hand was gone forever. Under the impact of the AI ​​wave, platinum-level works were dethroned one after another, and top-level works flopped one after another. The era of voice-to-text and AI-generated mass production has arrived.

In this era where "thinking and creation" have been completely handed over to "omnipotent AI models," handwritten original content has become a joke that has been phased out.

Because the original owner was a poor guy with no background who couldn't afford a high-end AI quota, not only was his hard work stolen by capital to "feed" the AI, but he was also falsely accused and saddled with a sky-high penalty of three million!

Outside the window, a huge holographic neon sign pierced through the basement blinds, casting colorful spots of light onto his face.

That was GG, the latest AI writing software; its sweet, synthesized voice sounded particularly jarring in the quiet night.

"Ditch the burden of thinking! Create your own blockbuster product in just three seconds! Embrace AI and enjoy the ultimate dopamine rush!"

In the darkest corner of this cold, fast-paced city, Yu Wen stared blankly at his hands, which were trembling slightly from his recent transmigration.