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

Yu Wen was stunned when he saw the donation notification flashing with dazzling gold light in the background.

[System notification: User "Raven and Writing Table" has gifted the game "Living" with the highest-level virtual gift—Starfire!]

Although Yu Wen had only recently taken over this cyber-era online novel account, he already knew the value of "Starfire." Converted into real-world star currency, this stuff was enough for him and Yu Yin to eat real farm-grown vegetables for a year in this dilapidated basement.

Yu Wen was somewhat flattered to receive such a valuable gift for the first time.

He thought for a moment, then typed a short thank-you message in the "Author's Note" section of the backend:

[Author's Note]: Thank you to the "Raven and Writing Table" for their spark of inspiration, and thank you everyone for reading and discussing. This was typed entirely by hand, no AI used, so updates are slow; please forgive the slow pace.

About ten minutes after this post was published, it provided an outlet for readers who were already frantically searching the book review section, causing them to flood the comments section with messages from the author.

[Holy crap! We've caught a wild author! You finally dared to show your face!]

[Author, please tell me honestly, what exactly did you experience in real life? Were you chopped off by loan sharks, so you're writing this kind of toxic literature as revenge against society?]

[What's going on, buddy? Is it really completely useless against AI? The writing style is so rough, yet it has a strangely eerie quality.]

[This is absolutely not generated by a brain-computer interface! A brain-computer interface couldn't write such a frustrating plot! Author, do you have cybernetic psychosis? I'll pay for your appointment at the downtown mental health clinic, stop writing this garbage and disgusting stuff!]

The comments section was a chaotic mess, with some cursing, some ranting, and some offering sarcastic criticism. Of course, there were also a few fervent admirers like "Mingmingruyue" who firmly believed there would be a stunning reversal later on.

Amidst this dazzling array of comments, a VIP comment with a gold border displaying "[Holographic Advanced Certification]" abruptly spanned the entire screen:

[ID Galaxy Wanderer]: "Wait, no AI? No brain-computer interface? Author, you're not using 'ancient typing,' are you? I learned in my private history tutoring class in the Upper City that decades ago, humans typed letters one by one with their fingers on a plastic board called a 'keyboard.' Can you do a holographic live stream? I want to see how humans from the living fossil era typed!"

As soon as this comment was posted, a row of question marks appeared below it.

In this cyberpunk era of 2077, technology has evolved to an unbelievable level.

Brain-computer interfaces can directly read thoughts to generate perfect images and hundreds of thousands of words of text. At the very least, people at the bottom of society can use inexpensive voice control devices to directly convert speech into text.

The physical input method of "tapping a plastic board with your finger" is as unbelievable as an ancient myth to these cybernetic users who are used to direct mental connections—especially these rich kids who are obviously from the upper city.

Upon seeing this comment, Yu Wen did not feel offended; instead, he chuckled to himself.

He can actually understand this mentality very well.

It's like if someone in his own time suddenly jumped out and said they had handcrafted a coal-fired steam car, or built a steam-powered airplane out of wood and canvas... he would definitely be full of curiosity and would want to buy an expensive ticket to see it for himself.

The desire for novelty is an instinct ingrained in human genes.

Yu Wen shook his head and did not reply to the message requesting a live stream.

Given his current physical condition and living environment, if he were to do a holographic live stream, he would probably be used as material for a documentary about the slums.

He turned off the comments section, unaware that his book had already alarmed the manual review department of the Weiguang Literature platform.

……

Weiguang Literature Headquarters, Deep Data Monitoring Room.

Auditor Liu Feng was rubbing his temples in frustration, staring at the alarm flashing a glaring red light on his work panel.

[Red Alert: The emotional suppression level of the work "Living" has exceeded the AI ​​safety threshold, triggering S-level traffic throttling. Human reviewers are requested to intervene and review it immediately!]

"What the hell? What era are we living in? There are still crazy people who dare to write this kind of pure torture fiction?"

Liu Feng cursed under his breath.

Although the AI ​​model initially determined that the book did not involve pornography or politics and approved its publication, the subsequent "psychological defense warning" directly passed the buck to him, the human reviewer.

As a veteran reviewer on the platform, he filters dozens or even hundreds of AI-generated assembly-line novels every day through the brain-computer interface at ten times the speed. His brain has long been marinated in the same kind of monotonous, exciting content.

He would be extremely unwilling to review a piece of literature that AI has deemed "extremely depressing."

"You better not let me find any inhumane remarks, or I'll ban you permanently."

Liu Feng snorted coldly, gritted his teeth, and loaded the 24,000-word text into his retinal projection.

Thirty minutes later.

The monitoring room was eerily quiet.

Liu Feng sat blankly in the ergonomic chair, his finger, which was originally prepared to block with one click, frozen in mid-air.

Among the massive number of novels he has to review every day, there are countless poorly written ones, those with collapsed logic, and those riddled with flaws.

But this book, "To Live," gave him an unprecedented and extremely bizarre experience.

By the standards of cyberpunk fiction, this book is absolutely terrible.

There are no exciting moments at the beginning. The male protagonist is a spineless coward who goes to a brothel to beat his wife. The plot is devoid of any dopamine-inducing moments and is full of the frustration of rolling around in the mud.

But... it was like a rusty iron nail, driven firmly into Liu Feng's mind, leaving a deep and somewhat unsettling impression on him.

Or rather, this is the only book on the entire internet that can give him this creepy, eerie feeling.

From the initial simple two-word title, to the pretentious one-sentence introduction "Man lives for the sake of living itself," and then to the abrupt "Preface" before the main text.

"preface……"

As Liu Feng stared at those two words, long-buried memories were suddenly awakened.

He suddenly remembered that when he was taking an elective literature course at a college, the old professor had casually mentioned in the corner of a PowerPoint presentation: "A long, long time ago, when ancient human writers wrote books, they were used to writing a paragraph before the main text to explain their creative ideas. That thing was called a 'preface'."

"Is this guy imitating ancient writers?"

Liu Feng gasped.

Considering the book's rough texture and its extremely slow yet suffocatingly heavy plot, he suddenly realized that this was not some sensationalist, poorly written piece of writing.

This author is using a creative method that is almost extinct and belongs to the previous civilization era to arrogantly build his own fortress in this cyber ruin ruled by AI big models.