There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

"I hope my average daily subscriptions can stay around 500. If not, I'll cut it off and start a new book. Eating red bean bread and boxed milk every day just won't do. When my next book becomes a big hit, I'll order three whole-cut steaks, eat one, throw one away, and put the last one on the altar..."

"Will you continue writing this book? Is there any hope for it?"

Marcus asked quickly.

Xiao Guan shook his head with a wry smile: "This result... is completely unacceptable. Continuing to write it will only make it worse. There are too many flaws and the setting is too complicated. The result will not improve at all. Cutting it off and starting over is the right way."

Marcus quickly stopped him: "No way! If you don't write, you'll just go hungry, but I'll die! At least finish writing it and put it into automatic update mode, okay?!"

Xiao Guan shrugged. "I didn't write this at all. I don't know how there could be so many chapters. Besides, if it's due to automatic continuation, then this novel must have some kind of logical flaw I've never encountered before, a serious bug. What can I do about it?"

Marcus also fell silent, unsure how to face reality.

Xiao Guan glanced at him, stood up, walked around the room, stretched her stiff shoulders, and then spoke hesitantly.

"However, there is another possibility... but I'm not sure..."

"What do you mean? Are you suggesting that this book might rely on bugs to function, and that it'll exist as long as I have the bugs?"

"Do not……"

"There's another possibility..."

Xiao Guan looked down at his hands, stared nervously out the window, and said in a low voice.

"It means that this novel wasn't written by me, but it might have been derived from other novels by transcendent beings, those automatically continuing novels..."

"what?"

"To put it more vividly, my novel is like Nuwa creating humans from clay, while your novel is like giving birth to a child, appearing naturally..."

"Continue writing? Goodness, that's an outrageous guess! Have you been writing novels for too long and messed up your brain?"

Marcus gave him a look of sympathy, as if he were looking at someone with intellectual disabilities, before keeping his distance to avoid the spread of invisible viral droplets. "If novels could multiply themselves, what would be the point of you being a writer? Let them multiply endlessly, and you could just sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor!"

Xiao Guan explained somewhat sheepishly, "It's just a hypothesis, I know it's a bit far-fetched! When I was writing the beginning of this book, I casually put in the setting of the previous completed book, and maybe that's what caused the two books to be linked..."

Marcus pondered for a moment and said, "No way... So what you're saying, is it based on writing and acting, or is it based on your wild imagination? The stage is as big as your imagination."

Xiao Guan took sip after sip of water, trying to calm himself, but a slight fear lingered in his eyes.

"No...it's not just my imagination..."

The other person nervously tried to describe, "Actually, when I'm writing, no matter the genre—science fiction adventure, martial arts time travel, urban fantasy—some eerie plots always involuntarily appear. I always write some chilling scenes that point to some indescribable existence..."

"The more I wrote, the harder this part became to control. The previously smooth book would hit a bottleneck, and at that point, I knew it was time to end it... The shadows cast by these strange beings seeped into the lines of the novel, and even I would break out in a cold sweat when I looked back at it closely..."

"I've always suspected that the eerie entities lurking between the lines are gradually growing stronger through my novels, growing a little stronger with each book. Perhaps one day, these evil gods will regain their form and step into this world..."

Xiao Guan trembled all over, and the water in the cup spilled out. The ripples in the cup were just like his emotions, fluctuating violently and unable to calm down.

"After that, it's not that I can't continue writing, but rather that everything about this story will be completely drained and emptied out. The protagonist becomes the transcendent being knocking on the door outside, greeting me with a familiar name..."

"It's precisely because I'm afraid of being completely forgotten that I had the transcendents leave behind information about themselves, hoping it will be helpful in the future... I'm afraid that the moment I can no longer write anything will be the moment I disappear from this world..."

"They must all have special abilities, right? Are they all useless?" Marcus suddenly had a brilliant idea. What if he wrote a creator god story? Who cares if the plot is old-fashioned or not? Would that solve the problem?!

Xiao Guan said dejectedly, "It's no use... I created many kinds of transcendent beings to help me—cultivators, supernatural beings, technological beings, mystery beings... Most of them are rejected by editors at this stage, and the rest can't figure out what happened here. They mysteriously disappear after a day and turn back into characters in the novel..."

Marcus didn't know how to comfort him; he didn't even know what he was there to do.

With so many people in need of saving before him, who could tell him whether remaining ignorant was a false happiness or the ultimate liberation?

"I mean, if you can keep writing..."

Marcus said slowly, "Now that I've gotten here... perhaps I can find a way to rescue you too? What if this path is two-way?"

Xiao Guan stopped trembling and said in a low voice, "Impossible. Think about it, once I stop writing, your story will end along with the novel. The only chance I have to communicate with you is during the time you, as transcendent beings, come to this building and knock on doors..."

Xiao Guan scratched his head, turned his head and said in a low voice, "I actually guessed that if you guys could get here, I should also have a way to escape... So I told the first few main characters who arrived everything, hoping they could find a way to rescue me, but they all left and never came back..."

"None of them have come back?"

"No, I've seen the subsequent episodes they portrayed, and I don't even have any memory of myself. It's as if I've forgotten everything I told them... The later stories are all the same old idyllic, happy, and pretentious grand finale formula, endlessly repeating the same cycle..."

Marcus suddenly stood up: "No, I didn't write that!"

"Give me another chance, let the miracle continue. Perhaps I can automatically unfold and operate, and even link with other stories to run on their own? All things originally operated in chaos, but because of one accident, there was two, then three, and all things were generated! The final miracle will then appear!"

"What you said seems to make some sense... If there are more and more 'accidents' like yours, maybe it will affect me?"

Xiao Guan raised her head, a glimmer of light finally appearing in her eyes. She grasped Marcus's hand and said urgently, "Then what do you need me to do? Before I break down, I think it's worth a try!"

"Tell me first, why was this book I'm referring to discarded in the first place?"

Marcus asked pointedly, "I need to understand the peculiarities of this from beginning to end."

"Hmm... let me think... I wrote 7,000 words and submitted them to the mysterious editor who contacted me via QQ, but they were rejected immediately."

Xiao Guan slowly pondered the details, "Right, the protagonist in the first draft wasn't you, it was Rod. He was a middle-aged man who chose to go on a space adventure because of his sick wife. The editor said that the beginning was too old-fashioned, and the character was too dull, so they wanted to change it to a more engaging beginning..."

"Rhodes? This guy with thick eyebrows and big eyes is definitely suspicious!"

Marcus exclaimed in surprise.

Xiao Guan calmly said, "In the end, I still changed it. It's the beginning you see now, and I changed it to you, the protagonist who was born without parents."

"The 'Lone Star' trope is a bit old-fashioned, but who wants to read a novel about a middle-aged man working hard to support his family..." Marcus pondered, stroking his chin.

"No, no, no, according to my initial setup, Rhodes possesses a special 'quantum spacetime discontinuity' attribute, allowing him to be reborn instantly at the point in time immediately following his death. Therefore, for the sake of his family, he joined the Deep Force Legion and fought against the mechanical insectoids and space pirates..."

"This ability is even more outrageous. What advantages does it have besides making it easier to sell a kidney..."

Marcus and Xiao Guan discussed it for a long time, but couldn't find anything special.

"Mr. Guan, although we can't find the special point in the middle, my novel must have some special characteristics, right?"

"Yes, that's right." Xiao Guan nodded slowly.

"Could you continue writing this book, and try to connect it with other content as much as possible? Just like you used the setting from the previous book, perhaps you could exaggerate the impact of this unique aspect, and gradually let it interact and have a reciprocal effect on you?"

"This... seems like it could work? Not just a connection between stories, but a fusion of worldviews? This is a huge undertaking, especially how to integrate different settings... My hair..."

Marcus said firmly, “It has to be done. The ‘Billionaire’ I’m facing is trapped in a spatial rift. If the multiverse merges in your writing, it’s possible to create a multidimensional labyrinth and trap it inside again… Only if the story continues will we have a chance to win…”

"Ok."

Xiao Guan stood up and grasped Marcus's hand again. "The previous transcendents were born in my hands, but they all went out of control; perhaps only you, the transcendent who went out of control before, can make all of this possible!"

Marcus nodded solemnly.

“Then I should go too. The ranch still needs me, so you must hold on. If I can come back here again, it means I have a way to rescue you.”

An unexpected visitor walked out of the office, stood in the corner where the light was projecting, waved, and was followed by a pitch-black shadow that blended into the atmosphere of the corridor.

Xiao Guan followed closely behind, standing somewhat helplessly at the door, wanting to see Marcus off—after all, someone who could bring hope like this had ceased to exist after the Transcendent of the first book disappeared without a trace.

"Don't bother seeing me off, I can take the elevator down myself."

"Okay, be careful. There's a step on the first floor, so don't slip and fall."

Xiao Guan was as eager as a lobby manager of a five-star hotel.

Marcus waved and slowly walked down the corridor, asking another question as he went.

"By the way, what's the name of that editor who added you on QQ? Have you investigated him?"

Xiao Guan poked her head out and replied, "It's just an ordinary alternate account, with no signature or logs, and it never responds to me except when it posts articles."

Marcus replied, "Never mind then."

It was completely enveloped in darkness, with the creaking sound of the elevator doors opening coming from afar.

Facing the once again silent office building corridor, Xiao Guan sighed, his voice drifting into the empty corridor. Regardless of whether Marcus, who had already walked quite a distance away, heard him, he said with a self-deprecating laugh.

"At least I know his nickname, it's 'Liu Tu'..."

Chapter 660 Mineral Town is in complete chaos

Dart's little tavern.

The television in the center of the lobby was playing the day's news at a leisurely pace. You didn't need to guess what the next program would be—a loop of teleshopping commercials, followed by the next day's weather forecast. It was the same routine every day, just like the days when this small town used to live.

The middle-aged man with a bewildered expression stood in front of the wine cabinet, wiping a wine glass with one hand while giving a righteous stare to the two people slumped on the table.

"Dart, stop staring at me. I don't want to just sit here taking up space on the table..."

Bald old Sebala, a bead of sweat trickling down his smooth head, even his old face looked a little embarrassed. "I'll leave after I finish this drink. You have to trust my character."

Boss Dart stared at him and continued to question him.

“I really want to trust you, but my hotel books won’t allow me to. Besides, you take care of Gray every day, how can you be so exhausted? Poor Gray can only lie in bed all day, and you’ve done so many small things, yet you dare to complain every day?”

Upon hearing this, Sebala became so angry that his mustache bristled, and he retorted fiercely, "What do you mean 'just a little thing'?!"

He held up his stubby fingers and started counting them off one by one. “I have to get up early every morning to take care of Gray, change his clothes and feed him, then run to Marcus’s ranch to feed the animals, then take care of Gray, repair the ranch, walk the horses, prune branches, clean the river, and finally take care of Gray again. There’s never enough to do!”

Sebala said, somewhat exasperated, "And it's easier said than done. Who knows what kind of horses Muqi gave him? They're lazy and greedy, needing to be fed four or five times a day! And Marcus has somehow gotten a bunch of wild horses that run around and kick, white chickens that fly up and peck at people, and two leopards that are always eyeing me and trying to kill me..."

"You're talking nonsense. You should drink less during the day in the future."

Mr. Dart, displeased, took away the empty glass in front of him. "Although I haven't been there recently, Lin goes to the ranch every day to clean the house. She told me that the animals are very cute and they all come to her to be affectionate. And those two cheetahs only look scary; they've been taking on the responsibility of maintaining order lately, patrolling the town day and night. Each one is equivalent to a Harris working without pay..."

Mr. Dart frowned slightly. "In this respect, their value is far greater than that of four Marcus, and I've never heard of them attacking residents... Wait a minute, were you drunk again and throwing up everywhere, which is why you were chased by the cheetah?"

Sebala lowered his head guiltily.

“You’re all so strange. Jeff has been so absent-minded lately, even though he made a lot of money from the resale and could send Karen to college soon.”

After dealing with this guy, Boss Dart turned his gaze to the other side, "Thomas, what's going on with you? Standing here in broad daylight?"

When he heard someone call his name, Mayor Little Train's dazed eyes slowly came back to life, but that was all. He opened his mouth slightly, but couldn't even utter a word.

Sebala quietly replied, "Dart, let Thomas rest for a while. So many people have come to town this time. As a federal official, Thomas has to be responsible for their food, clothing, supplies, and receive all kinds of official documents overnight..."

Looking at the mayor, who was falling asleep the moment his eyes were open due to severe sleep deprivation, I thought, "If this continues, I reckon in addition to the two missing police officers, there will be another mayor who suddenly dies..."

After saying that, Sebala looked at the sky outside the tavern, his face showing a look of disbelief, as if this unchanging town had gradually become unfamiliar and distant to him.

Mr. Dart sighed, "The sudden influx of so many people into town has certainly caught us off guard. I miss the peaceful days..."

“Dart, you’re absolutely right. It would be even better if you could hide your smile a little more.”

Old Sebala retorted expressionlessly.

Although the boss tried his best to express a sense of desolation, a feeling that the past is gone and time is fleeting, he couldn't help but smile, and there was a hint of regret in his expression.