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

In the basement, the sound of keyboard typing gradually lost its lightness and intensity from the morning.

It becomes sluggish and heavy, and sometimes it pauses for a long time before making a difficult "click".

The word count in the bottom right corner of the screen is approaching 90,000 words.

Yu Wen managed to type out nearly 50,000 words today.

He originally thought that as a time traveler, someone who had read the original novel "To Live" long ago and even knew the plot by heart, all he needed to do in this process was to be a ruthless porter.

But he was wrong.

Words have weight.

When those printed tragedies came back to life, word by word, on the screen of the cyber wasteland through his ten fingers, the pain of being cut by a dull knife returned to him many times over.

He wrote about Yuqing's death.

In order to donate blood for the county magistrate's woman, the thirteen-year-old boy who wore out his shoes, won first place in a long-distance race, and was so sensible that it broke your heart, had his blood drained by the hospital doctors and died like a kitten on the cold hospital bed.

Fugui carried his son's body on his back, walking along the dark night road.

As Yu Wen typed this passage, his vision began to blur.

Next up was Fengxia.

The girl who had a high fever and became deaf and mute finally married Erxi, who had a receding hairline, became pregnant, and enjoyed a few good days. But when she gave birth to her son, Kugen, she suffered a massive hemorrhage and died in the same hospital bed.

Then came Jiazhen.

Jia Zhen contracted osteomalacia and, having exhausted her last bit of strength, quietly died in that dilapidated thatched hut amidst the immense grief of losing her son and daughter in succession.

"Click".

Yu Wen typed out the last line of Jia Zhen's death.

He stopped.

His chest felt like it was stuffed with a wad of rough, water-soaked burlap, making even breathing painful. He took a deep breath, but couldn't suppress the bitter taste in his throat.

The warmth in his eyes finally couldn't be contained and slid down his pale cheeks, dripping onto the worn plastic keycaps.

He raised the back of his hand and vigorously wiped his eyes.

"Squeak—"

Just then, the iron door to the basement was pushed open.

Yu Yin walked in quickly, carrying a paper bag.

"Brother, I'm back! I bought..."

The little girl's voice stopped abruptly the moment she saw Yu Wen.

She stood blankly at the door, looking at her brother sitting in front of the computer, his eyes red and brimming with tears, wiping them away with the back of his hand.

In her memory, her brother had changed his temper, become depressed, and despaired since his legs became paralyzed, but he had never cried silently like this before.

"elder brother?"

The paper bag in Yu Yin's hand fell to the ground with a dull thud.

She panicked and, without even changing her shoes, ran through the water to the wheelchair, grabbing Yu Wen's arm with both hands, her voice trembling with tears.

"Brother, what's wrong? Is your leg hurting again? Or is it a headache? I bought some medicine, I'll get it for you right away!"

Seeing his sister's pale face, Yu Wen quickly took two deep breaths to suppress the pent-up anger in his chest.

He grasped Yu Yin's hand in return, managing a weak, reassuring smile.

"I'm fine, nothing hurts."

He wiped his face haphazardly with his sleeve, his voice still a little hoarse.

"It's nothing. It's just... I got too immersed in writing the novel. Just now, when I wrote about a character dying in the book, I felt a little sad and empathized with them."

Yu Yin was stunned.

She stared wide-eyed at the densely packed Chinese characters on the screen, then glanced at her brother's red-rimmed eyes.

She didn't quite understand.

Writing novels is all made up by myself, so how could I have made myself cry while writing them?

My brother has never written stories like this before, where characters fight with laser swords.

But seeing that her brother didn't seem to be sick or in pain, her anxiety slowly subsided.

She didn't press for details, but simply reached out her small, calloused hand and gently patted Yu Wen's back as if coaxing a child, her voice tender.

"It's alright. The story is all fake, brother, don't be too sad."

"Yeah, it's fake."

Looking at her sensible appearance, Yu Wen smiled and nodded, then bent down to pick up the paper bag from the ground.

The paper bag contained two vials of intermediate-level nerve blockers, several steaming synthetic pancakes, and some artificial vegetables.

"Go wash your hands and eat," Yu Wen said.

Yu Yin nodded and turned to walk towards the washbasin.

Halfway there, she turned around, rolled up her sleeves, and said:

"By the way, bro, I talked to Teacher Chen about it today."

Yu Wen paused for a moment while holding the bread.

"What did you say?"

"Teacher Chen asked me what the name of the book I wrote was, and I told her it was called 'To Live'."

As Yu Yin washed her hands, she said with a hint of pride, "Teacher Chen seemed quite interested after listening to her."

Yu Wen held the warm, synthetic flatbread and remained silent for a few seconds.

He nodded.

"understood."

One more reader is always good.

But as he looked at the 50,000 words that had just been written on the screen, filled with blood and tears, an indescribable feeling rose in his heart.

Chen Jianjia, that young female teacher with frameless glasses and a cold demeanor—if you actually search for this book, you'll see stories of Lao Quan's death, Youqing being drained of blood, Fengxia's difficult childbirth, and Jiazhen's passing…

How would she view herself, paralyzed in the basement, who wrote these words?