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

At 11:30 p.m., there weren't many people giving tips in the comments section of "To Live".

However, the screen was filled with "recommendation tickets" and "Spark Competition tickets".

Faced with this kind of writing that repeatedly grinds people's hearts on a rough millstone, the reader's first reaction is no longer to spend money.

Tipping carries a sense of condescending "reward" or a transactional feeling of paying for a moment of pleasure.

But this book, "To Live," is so tragic that it makes one feel that measuring the suffering with coins would be a desecration of the characters in the book.

The more realistic human nature is: I can't bear this pain alone!

[The Night Watchman of ID Old Bookstore]: Brothers, vote with your monthly tickets and give it a thumbs up! Let's push this up so that all those people who read fast-food novels can see what real writing is!

【ID: Rampage Robotic Arm】: I just sent the link to all my coworkers' groups! I told them it's a satisfying story of patiently slapping people in the face, 50,000 words long and guaranteed to be satisfying. More than a dozen people in the groups have already clicked on it, and they'll be crying later.

[ID Late Breeze]: I also posted on my WeChat Moments... I can't suffer this hardship alone. I have to let my ex-boyfriend see it too, and poison him!

So, late on this Friday night, a purely organic "word-of-mouth" recommendation, without capital backing or AI computing power intervention, quickly spread across every corner of the cyber network.

"Do you know the novel 'To Live'?"

"Huh? What is that?"

"A new book from Weiguang Literature, highly recommended by the renowned author Shennong. Go check it out and you'll see."

Countless similar conversations appeared in various forums, chat groups, and virtual communities on the StarNet.

When a passerby is persuaded to click on a link and glances at the details page, their first reaction is often to dismiss it.

"Only 90,000 words? That's not even enough for me to read while I'm in the bathroom."

In this era of online literature dominated by AI-powered models and often starting with millions of words, 90,000 words isn't even the beginning.

This was the biggest disadvantage of "To Live", but tonight, this disadvantage miraculously turned into its most fatal advantage.

Fewer words mean lower trial and error costs.

"Anyway, it's only 90,000 words, and with so many veteran readers recommending it, it can be finished in a little over an hour. Just treat it as a way to pass the time."

With this relaxed attitude, batches of new readers clicked on the first chapter.

An hour later.

These readers, who were just browsing casually, completely lost their defenses.

No one can withstand the real suffering that comes wave after wave.

When the plot progressed to the point where Youqing was drained of blood while trying to save someone, Fugui buried his son at the village entrance in the dark, and Jiazhen sat on the grave for an entire afternoon... all the preconceived notions of what would be a satisfying moment were shattered.

In the Lower City District, there is an underground prosthetic clinic without a sign.

The old doctor was using tweezers to remove shrapnel from the shoulder of a mercenary who had just fought his way out of the black market.

His left eye was a crude prosthetic eye with a macro magnification function, while the latest chapter of "To Live" was projected onto the retina of his right eye.

He saw the part where Yookyung had his blood drawn.

Old Ghost's hand trembled slightly.

The tip of the tweezers struck the mercenary's metal shoulder blade with a crisp sound.

Why are your hands shaking? Did you not get enough anesthesia?

The mercenary gasped in pain.

Old Ghost ignored him.

He put down the tweezers, turned around, pulled up his leather apron stained with engine oil and blood, and vigorously wiped his right eye.

In his early years, his tear glands were damaged when he was fitted with a high-end prosthetic eye, and he can't even cry in the wind.

At that moment, a sour, hot stream flowed down from his intact right eye socket, dripping onto the rusty floor.

Zhongcheng District, Seventh Data Processing Center.

Lin Na, a junior data clerk on the day shift, lay in a capsule rest pod that was only 1.5 meters long and wide.

She had a tube of strawberry-flavored synthetic nutritional paste in her mouth, her eyes fixed on the holographic projection.

Her daily job is to review and tag AI-generated "romance short dramas," watching hundreds of stories of domineering CEOs and chaebol heiresses experiencing life and death separations every day.

Her heart had long since become a cold, hard data motherboard.

When she turned to the page where Fengxia had died in childbirth, the nutritional paste in her mouth spilled out from the edge of the straw and dripped onto the sterile white sheets.

Linna pulled out the straw and covered her mouth with both hands. Her suppressed sobs echoed in the well-soundproof capsule.

She recalled that in order to get into the Central District, she hadn't been back to the Fourth Slum to see her mother for six years.

She picked up the communicator to make a call, but her finger froze in mid-air as she pressed the dial button. Looking at the balance in her account—just enough to pay next month's rent—she slumped down and put it down again.

On the shuttle track, 800 meters above the ground.

A night-shift cargo spacecraft carrying premium fresh ingredients has begun its automatic cruise.

The driver was a burly man with a full beard, idly flipping through the novel that was being heavily recommended on the forum.

Outside the window, corrosive acid rain pelted against the bulletproof glass.

He saw the part where Fugui gave Fengxia away.

Fengxia gripped the doorframe, watching her father walk away, her eyes filled with tears, but she couldn't utter a sound.

The driver pushed up his overhead goggles.

Tears streamed down his rough cheeks, soaking into his stubble.

He turned off the spaceship's autopilot, his fingers gripping the control stick so tightly that his knuckles trembled slightly.

He thought of his daughter, who attended a public school in the downtown area and had to save up for half a year to buy even a virtual toy.

On the outskirts of Shangcheng District, behind the scenes of a virtual idol incubation company.

The suit actor responsible for motion capture removed the dozens of kilograms of motion capture suit and slumped onto the cold floor.

On the holographic stage in front of the stage, the virtual idol she had just played was receiving enthusiastic cheers from tens of thousands of fans with a sweet, fake smile.

She leaned against the corner of the wall and opened the book, which contained 90,000 words.

Seeing that Jia Zhen had rickets, he lay in bed quietly waiting to die so as not to be a burden on his family.

The actor buried his head deep in his knees, his shoulders trembling, unaware that the metal buckles on his motion-sensor suit were hitting his collarbone painfully.

In a temperature-controlled apartment in the third residential area.

A young couple is lying in bed. The husband is playing a virtual game wearing a holographic helmet, while the wife watches a retinal projection.

After finishing a game, the husband took off his helmet and suddenly heard suppressed sobbing coming from beside him.

He turned his head and, in the dim blue light, saw his wife's face covered in tears, her hands tightly gripping the corner of the blanket, her shoulders trembling.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

The husband was startled and quickly sat up. "What happened? Are you feeling unwell?"

The wife, her eyes red, shook her head without saying a word, but sent a link to her husband's terminal.

More than an hour later, two people were lying side by side on the bed, silently wiping away tears.

……

That night, it was as if a silent downpour had begun.

Whether it's a black market doctor wielding a scalpel, a data clerk typing on a keyboard, a burly man piloting a spaceship, or a suit actor selling his physical labor, they are all part of this.

They are usually wrapped in different cybernetic bodies and class uniforms, living a life strictly controlled by computing power.

But faced with these 90,000 words, no matter how tough their mechanical prosthetics were or how thick their defenses were, they were all easily breached.

There are no flashy holographic effects, and no AI-generated tear-jerking sound effects.

Only lines of cold, square characters can dig out the softest, most vulnerable part of their hearts and polish it on rough sandpaper.

"Push it! Get it to number one! Let everyone see it!"

With red and swollen eyes and nowhere to vent their frustration, these people put in a hundred times more effort than when reading wish-fulfillment novels.

Weiguang Literature Headquarters, Deep Data Monitoring Center.

The on-duty main control AI issued a series of unusual alarm sounds.

On the large screen, the real-time holographic leaderboard of the Spark Cup is undergoing dramatic changes.

The data cable representing "Living" was like a mad red dragon, breaking free from the quagmire of the underlying data and rising vertically upwards at a ninety-degree angle!

14000 people...

10000 people...

5000 people...

2000 people!

For a time, this realistic novel, with less than 100,000 words and an incredibly rustic cover, became an instant sensation.

Its ranking, fueled by the tears of countless readers, is launching an unreasonable and barbaric assault on the top camp dominated by large companies!