[Mending Heaven Station · The Lonely Isle on the Ink Sea]
Thud! Thud!
Two figures crashed onto hard ground.
Xie Qingyan flipped to his feet the instant he landed, battle instincts overriding shock. Though Frost's Edge had lost its spiritual glow, its killing intent remained sharp enough to cut. He feared nothing—not displacement, not illusions. The greatest illusionists could create pocket dimensions indistinguishable from reality, and he had destroyed dozens of them throughout his long life.
His sword could cut through any falsehood.
He leveled the blade at the old man behind the desk.
Said old man was currently... picking at his feet.
"Demon! Dispel this illusion at once, or I will cut you down where you sit!"
The administrator of Mending Heaven Station—Immortal Dumu, known as Elder Mo—took a leisurely sip of tea. He glanced at Xie Qingyan with the mild interest of someone watching a particularly confused ant.
"Cut me down? With what? That sword?" He snorted. "I spent ages coming up with that name, you know. 'Frost's Edge.' Classic protagonist weapon naming conventions. Very symbolic."
"Nonsense!"
Xie Qingyan thrust forward. The strike contained centuries of sword cultivation—enough to split mountains even without spiritual energy.
Ding!
The blade stopped three inches from Elder Mo's brow. It trembled once—
—and dissolved.
Not shattered. Not deflected. Dissolved—into a single line of black text that hung in the air:
[A sharp, cold longsword symbolizing the protagonist's lonely fate.]
The words scattered like leaves in wind. Xie Qingyan's hand held nothing but emptiness.
"What..."
His pupils contracted. His mind, which had remained calm through countless life-or-death battles, finally stuttered.
What cultivation level could unmake a heaven-grade spiritual weapon with a thought? What power could reduce centuries of bonded sword cultivation into... a sentence?
Elder Mo waved his hand lazily. Whoosh—countless scrolls unfurled from the darkness above, cascading down like waterfalls until both men were surrounded by walls of paper and ink.
"Alright, alright, settle down. This is Mending Heaven Station, under the Department of Novelists, which serves the Literary Emperor of the Heavenly Court. I'm the unlucky bastard running this place—Immortal Dumu, but you can call me Elder Mo."
He sighed heavily, summoned a wine jug from thin air, and took a long swig.
"I manage abandoned manuscripts and help incompetent authors fill in the plot holes they've dug themselves into."
Two fingers flicked through the air. A scroll materialized before Xie Qingyan.
"The Dao creates all worlds. And within those worlds exist infinite more worlds. Worlds born from authors' pens are naturally among them." Elder Mo's voice lost its laziness, turning almost gentle. "Open your eyes. This is your entire life—as written by a human author."
Xie Qingyan looked up.
He saw himself. In words.
[Chapter 3: Immortal sect cultivators descended upon a humble farmyard, and Xie Qingyan set forth on the path of cultivation. He looked back at his home one last time, his heart heavy with worry for his elder sister who had vanished without a trace three days prior. Yet no one could give him any answers.]
[Chapter 150: His master died in his arms, blood soaking through white robes. With his last breath, the old man told him to protect all living beings. Xie Qingyan swore an oath to the heavens: This life, he would never fail the world.]
Every single character matched his most vivid memories. Every emotion. Every scar. Every choice he had believed was his own.
"Fake..." The word came out as a whisper. "It's all fake?"
Centuries of cultivation. Centuries of sacrifice, of loss, of clinging to duty when everything else had been stripped away. Nothing but ink on paper? Nothing but entertainment for some creature in another world?
Then what was the point of any of it?
Pffft—!
A spray of blood burst from his lips. His Dao heart—the foundation of his entire cultivation—cracked like glass.
"Fuguang!"
Yin Wuwang moved before he could think. He caught Xie Qingyan's collapsing body, pulling him close, one hand pressed against his back to steady him.
Then he turned to Elder Mo.
Killing intent rolled off him in waves, thick enough to suffocate.
"Old bastard." His voice was quiet. Deadly. "Shut. Your. Mouth."
His fingers dug into his own palm hard enough to draw blood, but he didn't notice. All he could see was Fuguang's ashen face, the blood on his lips, the emptiness in his eyes.
"Even if you're some kind of creator god—you made him. How dare you break him like this?"
I can't bear to see Fuguang shed a single drop of blood. This decrepit fossil destroys his entire world with one sentence?
I don't care if he's the Heavenly Dao or some novelist or the creator of the entire universe—
I want him DEAD.
Elder Mo studied the murderous demon for a long moment. Then he sighed, took another sip of tea, and spoke with unexpected gentleness:
"I'm just showing you the truth, boy. This novel has been abandoned. The world is going to collapse." He waved his hand; the scrolls rolled themselves back up. "If you don't want to dissolve into scrap paper, accept reality. Go work in other fictional worlds. Earn enough Wish Power to wake the author from his coma."
Xie Qingyan knelt on the ground, eyes hollow, soul shattered.
"...Save him?" His voice was flat. Dead. "If I am fictional, then so is every being I swore to protect. What is the purpose of saving illusions?"
"Because the pain is real."
Yin Wuwang's hand clamped down on Xie Qingyan's shoulder, grip almost bruising.
"Fuguang. Look at me."
His voice cracked, but he didn't care anymore.
"When you saved me back then—the warmth I felt was real. The sword you just put through my chest—that pain was real. As long as we still feel, as long as we still think, as long as something in us refuses to disappear—" He shook Xie Qingyan slightly, desperately. "Then we're alive. I don't care what anyone writes. I don't care if we're made of ink. You're real to me. That's enough."
Xie Qingyan trembled.
Slowly, he turned to face the demon who should have been his enemy.
"I... saved you?"
This man he had sworn to kill. This calamity he had sacrificed a century of his life to destroy. Now those crimson eyes blazed with something fierce and burning—not hatred, not madness, but raw, desperate life.
Like fire. Heavenly fire, karmic fire, the first flame of creation—burning through the void, daring the darkness to swallow it.
A long silence passed.
Xie Qingyan wiped the blood from his lips. Slowly, painfully, he rose.
Those eyes that had once been clear and righteous now held a new edge. Colder. Sharper. Touched with something almost unhinged.
"Very well." He looked at Elder Mo, and his voice could have frozen hell itself. "But if I ever discover you've lied to me... I will find my way back here. And I will cut down your brush."
Elder Mo grinned. "Deal."
Then his expression shifted—the tired bureaucrat replaced by a merchant who'd just scented profit.
"Now that we have an agreement—time to pick your equipment!" He snapped his fingers; another scroll unfurled before them. He tapped one glowing line and beamed with the warmth of a loan shark. "Right here! The 'Tianji System—Premium Deluxe Edition!' Only ten million high-grade spirit stones. Buy it, and you'll breeze through any world!"
At the mention of money, Yin Wuwang's hand flew to the storage ring hidden in his robes.
Ten million.
Ten. Million.
That's centuries of savings! My entire fortune! Everything I set aside for—for—
His eye twitched violently.
This old con artist! What is he, a highway robber?!
"Not buying!"
He lifted his chin, arrogance snapping back into place like armor. "This sovereign conquered three realms on strength alone! What need have I for such trinkets? A mere fictional world? I can handle it with one hand tied behind my back."
Xie Qingyan, still reeling from having his entire existence recontextualized, had no energy for haggling. He simply stood aside, face blank.
Elder Mo shrugged, a mysterious smile tugging at his weathered lips.
"Fine, fine. Young folks these days, so proud." He cracked his knuckles. "Then let me send you somewhere 'simple' to start. World Designation #9527/9528."
He paused.
"Interstellar ABO."
"Off you go!"
BOOM—!
The floor split open beneath them. Before either could react, they plunged into the howling chaos of the space-time void.
Yin Wuwang tumbled through the darkness, robes whipping around him, reaching for something—anything—
His mind screamed:
WAIT.
WHAT THE HELL IS ABO?!
YOU CRUSTY OLD FOSSIL—
WHEN I GET BACK, I'M GOING TO—
The void swallowed his curses whole.
[End of V1_Chapter 02]
Next Chapter: In Which We Crash-Land Into a Genre Neither of Us Understands