“How could I? You can’t live without me, brother.”
He was a grown man. How could he not manage on his own?
“You don’t need to worry about me. I can always find some job and scrape by.”
From the conversation Wen Shu had overheard when he first woke up, the two of them weren’t related by blood. But he didn’t know why he was supposed to depend on Mori, or why Mori even had to feed him.
His body was a little weak right now, but if he exercised more, he’d be back to normal soon.
Wen Shu was new to all this. He just wanted to sort out the information for himself, not maintain this kind of relationship with Mori.
But Mori didn’t answer.
Wen Shu could only cautiously try again. “…What time are you leaving tomorrow?”
Mori suddenly smiled. “Are you trying to get rid of me, brother?”
“What…?” Wen Shu stared at him, stunned.
“You’re that eager to get away from me?”
Still smiling, Mori slowly set down the spoon, then moved the plate farther away. His movements were as meticulous as a surgeon preparing to operate.
“When did you start planning this?”
“What are you talking about…” Wen Shu watched Mori approach, step by step, and finally realized something was wrong. Just as he tried to escape, Mori grabbed him by the hair and yanked him off the bed. “Don’t run!”
“That hurts!” Wen Shu’s deathly pale face was forced up. Mori clamped a hand around his throat, his angelic smile twisting into a burst of fury in an instant.
“You still want to go out and work? You really want to go out and work?”
“Who put that idea in your head? Tell me! Who have you been seeing behind my back?”
Wen Shu opened his mouth, but couldn’t breathe. He struggled desperately, but Mori still dragged him violently out of the room and threw him to the floor.
“Haven’t I been good enough to you? When have I ever refused you anything? Do you think someone like you can survive without me? What makes you think you can? What gives you the right to reject me?”
Mori grew more and more frantic as he spoke. Wen Shu’s face was red from lack of air, his eyes wide with terror. He clawed at Mori’s hand, but couldn’t move it in the slightest.
For a moment, Mori seemed to turn into a huge, icy, silver-white snake. His golden eyes stared at Wen Shu without a trace of life as his enormous body coiled around him, layer by layer, squeezing the life out of him.
Just when Wen Shu thought he really was going to suffocate, Mori suddenly let go.
“Ugh! Ah!” Wen Shu clutched his bruised throat and sprang up like a fish on the verge of death. Between retches, he gasped for air, tears streaming down his face.
Mori impatiently stormed into the kitchen. He threw things onto the floor, muttering to himself as if he’d completely lost control.
“I knew it, I knew it! It’s no use, none of it! I should’ve broken your legs from the start, made you an idiot! Then you wouldn’t leave. You wouldn’t leave.”
Wen Shu looked up. His face went deathly pale. “No, no…!”
The tall, handsome silver-haired man had become a full-fledged demon, weighing in his hand the iron rod he’d just found. His eyes held not a trace of feeling, only a glint of excitement.
“I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to leave!”
Wen Shu struggled desperately, screaming until his throat nearly gave out, but all he could do was stare wide-eyed in terror as Mori dragged him into the kitchen.
Wen Shu’s legs were just as long and slender as his arms, and just as unnaturally pale.
Mori pinned his ankle down with one hand and raised the iron rod high with his long arm, the corner of his mouth curling uncontrollably.
“Brother.”
“Help!”
Just as Wen Shu was about to faint from terror, a red pop-up window suddenly appeared before his eyes, floating in midair.
【The plot has collapsed. Would you like to use the time machine to load a save?】
Wen Shu didn’t have time to think. He immediately selected 【Yes】.
…
When he opened his eyes again, Wen Shu’s heart was still pounding. His palms were slick with cold sweat.
But Mori was sitting by his bed with a smile, about to feed him.
“Don’t worry, brother. I won’t leave you.”
Had time rewound?
“Of course…” Wen Shu swallowed slowly, his dry lips parting as he struggled to control his expression. “You have to keep taking care of me.”
At that, Mori didn’t fly into a rage. Instead, he lowered his head slightly, his expression and movements seeming especially docile.
But to Wen Shu, the sight was now exceptionally eerie and terrifying, like watching a monster painstakingly learn how to imitate human expressions.
“Then come with me to the military base tomorrow, brother. Okay?”
As he spoke, Mori lifted the spoon and brought it to Wen Shu’s lips.
Wen Shu didn’t dare refuse. He opened his mouth and ate.
The food on the plate had been arranged into neat geometric shapes, all different colors. It looked beautiful and symmetrical, but tasted very strange.
And now, just looking at Mori’s face made Wen Shu’s stomach clench with fear.
He clenched his fist beneath the blanket. After a few bites, his stomach turned so badly he couldn’t swallow another mouthful. “I’m done eating.”
“Why have you eaten so little, brother? Is my cooking bad?” Mori tilted his head with an apologetic look. His delicate features made him look completely innocent and pitiful.
Wen Shu gritted his teeth to keep from throwing up.
“Yes! That’s what you get for coming back so late!”
He pretended to be angry and tried to push the bowl away, but accidentally sent the whole plate crashing to the floor.
It clattered loudly. The food and the carpet were ruined.
Wen Shu was so startled he nearly jumped out of bed.
Unexpectedly, Mori didn’t get angry. He immediately apologized and knelt down to clean up.
“You’re right, brother. It’s all my fault. I came back too late and made you miss me. You’re angry, so of course you don’t want to eat what I cooked.”
Mori rambled on, lost in his own bliss. Wen Shu’s expression quickly shifted from terror to sheer disbelief. No one would miss this monster.
In the end, all he could do was pull the blanket up to hide his feelings.
“I’m going to sleep.”
“Brother.” Mori hurried to his feet, but Wen Shu’s face was already hidden. So he tucked the blanket around him himself, then lowered his head and rubbed his face against the blanket over Wen Shu. “Then get some good rest. Good night.”
Wen Shu furrowed his brow and lay there without saying a word.
After cleaning up, Mori cheerfully carried the plate out. He was even humming.
Once the door closed, Wen Shu finally let out a breath. His clenched fingers were still trembling.
Goddamn it.
Psychopath.
What the hell was going on? What was that just now?
As Wen Shu wondered, he suddenly felt as if he’d touched a phone.
He froze, then took it out. There really was a rectangular light screen in his hand, but it only had one app on it, a green one he’d never seen before.
The default page seemed to be a novel.
What was going on?
Wen Shu’s heart began racing again. He backed out first, trying to figure out his situation.
The green app’s interface was simple, with little content. Aside from the novel, there was only an inbox. It currently held two messages.
【Welcome, author Wen Shu (ID: *******) to Jinjiang.】
【Your complimentary new-user load-save feature has been used once. Two uses remain.】
Wen Shu gritted his teeth. His face went pale again.
What did it mean, author? He’d never agreed to any of this.
So he only had three chances to rewind. Should he not have loaded a save just now?
No, no. He couldn’t let Mori break his legs. How would he escape then?
That man was completely insane. Wen Shu had to find a way out of here.
Otherwise, he’d die here.
Wen Shu tapped the only novel in the app and quickly skimmed the comments.
The earlier comments were all from years ago, and every one of them complained that the story was unbelievably stupid. They couldn’t understand why the protagonist put up with being oppressed by his brother. The whole thing was full of plot holes, and then the author had abandoned it.
But the few most recent comments had taken a sudden turn.
“I knew there had to be a twist. Glad I stuck around.”
“Holy shit, this is creepy. Is Redhead dead?”
“Wait, Mori’s the bad guy? That’s terrifying.”
“Was everything before this something he planned? But why?”
“Holy shit, this is so interesting.”
Wen Shu: “…” Interesting, my ass!
He’d almost died!
Wen Shu tried posting a comment to ask for help, but of course it wouldn’t go through.
He opened the story. What had just happened, minus the collapse before he loaded the save, had apparently been automatically published as a new chapter.
So he really was the “author”…
But why? Why should he have to transmigrate here and do something this dangerous?
Wen Shu angrily flung the thing in his hand away. It disappeared, but when he opened his hand again, the green app was still there.
Useless, thieving app!
After taking a few deep breaths, Wen Shu opened the blurb anyway.
The situation was so bizarre that getting angry wouldn’t help. Whatever happened, he had to stay alive and get out of here.
The messages had mentioned that the author had to finish the ongoing story, and that the ending had to match the blurb.
Going by what they’d said, if he “finished” it, he should be able to leave.
Wen Shu had wanted to see what kind of world he’d been dropped into, but he quickly discovered that much of the blurb was still blurred out and locked… And what he could read made no sense to him.
Mori was the little white flower, the beautiful shou?
The gong was… Kalen. The second prince of the Alpha Empire.
But what did gong and shou mean?
Wen Shu could only open the story, still completely baffled. The more he read, the more wrong it seemed. Judging from the earlier chapters, Mori was a good person, while Wen Shu’s role was an extreme cannon fodder character. The story had been criticized because the cannon fodder was so overbearing and the protagonist so meek and submissive that it made no sense.
But Mori was a complete lunatic!
Why…?
This world wasn’t following the book at all.
No, wait. Could it be that the story’s illogical parts had caused this kind of twisted development?
The first few chapters had been treated as gospel, and then the world had begun filling in the gaps by itself.
But the result was a darker, more dangerous world, one that had long since become something entirely different from what had been written.
Wen Shu gritted his teeth. No matter how he looked at it, this world seemed full of malice toward so-called “authors.” He wanted to keep exploring, but soon his head grew heavy, and he could barely keep his eyes open.
Fuck…
His last thought before falling asleep was that the little white flower shou bastard had drugged him!
…
“Brother.”
When Wen Shu woke again, his whole head ached faintly. His body was limp, completely drained of strength.
“Lift your hips.”
What…?