You know how when you open a web browser on a dodgy streaming site, you get hit by twenty pop-up ads offering to meet hot single cultivators in your area?
That was my reality, except my eyeballs were the browser and there was no AdBlock installed.
Ever since I tore down the golden system screen in Chapter 7, the system had decided that if it couldn't optimize me, it would treat me as a public bulletin board. Floating text boxes flew past my face at three-second intervals, invisible to everyone else. Some were system notifications. Some were advertisements. Some were clearly placeholder text that had escaped from the developer's sandbox — I caught one that just said "[LOREM IPSUM DOLOR SIT AMET]" before it dissolved into sparkles. The system had given up on curation entirely.
[Sect Genius Li Feng has successfully broken through to the Foundation Establishment stage! Click here to send a congratulatory tribute of 50 spirit stones or face a duel to the death for lack of respect!]
"No," I muttered, swatting it away. "I'm not sending fifty spirit stones to a guy named Li Feng because he figured out how to sit cross-legged without his legs falling asleep. If he wants tribute, he can get a job."
[BUG REPORT #0987: User 'Elder Iron Mountain' is currently stuck in an infinite loop of crying in the courtyard. Please deploy an administrator to reset his state.]
"Not my department." I used the blue bug report to fan myself. "Call the database admin."
I was sitting on a pile of gravel at the lower peaks, my rusty shovel resting between my knees. Han stood next to me, his glasses held together by resin we'd scraped from a pine tree. He was staring at me swiping at the air.
"You're doing it again," he said flatly.
"I'm aware."
"You're waving at ghosts."
"Spam notifications. There's a difference."
He pulled out his logbook and made a note. I'd caught him doing this for three days now — whenever I did something incomprehensible, he wrote it down. Day 4: Benefactor fought the air and won. Day 6: Benefactor yelled at a door. Day 7: Benefactor sat on nothing and broke an elder's spirit. He was up to twenty-three entries.
[WARNING: High-level cultivator approaching. Prepare to kneel or be erased.]
I grabbed the red notification out of the air. "Local alert. Means an Arrogant Young Master is incoming."
Han squinted at my empty hand. "I don't see anything. But... did you say prepare to kneel?!"
A gong echoed from the mountain path. A dozen inner disciples in white-and-red robes marched down, tossing flower petals. Behind them came a mahogany carriage floating six inches off the ground, pulled by four white horses whose hooves didn't touch the mud.
"Make way for Young Master Zhao!" a disciple screamed. "The genius of the Azure Cloud Sect! The holder of the Golden Dragon Core!"
Han dropped to his knees, forehead in the gravel. "Oh gods. He killed three outer disciples last week for looking at his carriage wheels. Caelan, get down!"
I stayed seated. I looked at the flower-tossing disciples. I looked at the floating carriage. I looked at the sky.
"Seriously?" I muttered. "Another one? We're eight chapters in and this is the second young master. The narrative variety in this world is completely dry. Where's the range? A demonic beast? A rogue cultivator? A tax collector? Anything but another guy in silk pajamas who wants to kill me for existing near him."
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The carriage door slid open. Zhao stepped out — jade skin, flowing hair, an expression of profound disgust like he'd just walked into a room full of rotting fish.
Floating above his head, only visible to me:
[YOUNG MASTER ZHAO - LEVEL 32 - ARROGANCE COEFFICIENT: 98%]
"What is that filth?" Zhao pointed at me. "Why does that commoner dare remain seated in my presence?"
"Listen, mate," I said. "I'm on my lunch break. If you want an existential crisis because I'm not kissing your boots, schedule an appointment. My calendar's full."
"You dare—"
"I haven't even started. Four horses for a floating carriage? That's a terrible capital allocation. If the carriage floats, you don't need the horses. You're paying for food and manure disposal to look cool. It's inefficient."
Zhao's hand drifted to his sword. A cold blue energy spread across the dirt. "I will strip your flesh... inch by inch..."
I opened my mouth to respond. Then I stopped.
I looked at Zhao. I looked at his sword. I looked at the flower petals. I looked at Han in the dirt. I looked at the sepia filter that had been tinting my vision for seven chapters.
And I realised I was just... done.
"Alright," I said. "That's it."
I stood up. I didn't reach for a system notification. I didn't grab an invisible weapon. I tilted my head back and addressed the empty sky.
"Hey, Author. Too long. No one's sitting through this for that long. It's been seven chapters of flashback. Seven. You've hit your word count. You've established the backstory. Let's move it along. Back to the tavern."
Zhao paused, his sword halfway out of its sheath. "What... what are you doing? Are you praying? Begging the heavens for mercy?"
I ignored him. I reached out my hands — not toward Zhao, not toward the carriage, but toward the very edges of my vision. My fingers caught on something solid. Something that felt like the edge of a thick canvas stretched over a wooden frame.
"I said," I grunted, gripping the invisible border, "back. To. The. Tavern."
I pulled.
RIIIIIP.
The sound wasn't thunder or magic. It was fabric tearing. The world around us — the gravel path, the flower petals frozen mid-fall, Zhao's furious face, the low-resolution mountains in the distance — peeled back like a poster ripped from a wall. Behind it was not wireframe or code, but pure white light that smelled of old paper and cheap server rooms.
"What—what is this?!" Zhao screamed, stumbling back as the sky folded in half.
"Plot convenience," I said. "You'll understand in forty chapters. Maybe. See you later."
I grabbed Han by the collar and dragged him into the tear.
We fell through white void. Floating text boxes whipped past us — chapter numbers, pagination markers, a stray [INSERT EMOTIONAL BACKSTORY HERE] placeholder that drifted by like debris. A notification that said [CHAPTER 8 WORD COUNT: 1416 — EDITOR NOTE: "THIS IS BORING, CUT IT"] flashed past and dissolved. Below us, a section of the void was filled with glowing blocks: the cliché repository.
[Trope_ID_0834: The Elder who hides his strength and pretends to be a beggar.] [Trope_ID_0912: The Jade Beauty who falls in love with the MC because he ignored her.] [Trope_ID_1021: The secret ancient ring that contains a senile old master.]
"Look at this junk!" I yelled, kicking a passing box labeled [Jade Beauty Mutton-Fat Skin]. "It's all copy-pasted templates!"
Han was screaming so loud his glasses vibrated on his face. "The words! The giant glowing words are judging us! Why does a senile old master want to live in a ring?!"
"Don't worry about it!"
The white light dimmed. A dark vortex of text swirled beneath us. We hit a hard wooden surface with a synchronized thud.
The smell hit first. Rotting mushrooms. Stale sweat. Cheap alcohol. The flickering yellow light of tallow candles. The damp, heavy atmosphere of a crowded room. The same cracked ceiling beams I'd memorised in the first five minutes of Chapter 1. The same sticky floor. The same broken stool in the corner that nobody had bothered to fix. We were back. Exactly where we'd started.
I was leaning back against a splintered wooden table, a half-empty cup of cheap ale in my hand. Han was beside me, clutching the table edge so hard his knuckles were white.
Directly in front of us, his hand wreathed in a swirling, toxic purple aura, was the Poison Patriarch.
"—beneath the heel of a god!" the Patriarch finished.
He blinked. The purple aura flickered. He looked at me, then at Han, who was hyperventilating.
"You..." the Patriarch hissed. "You dare? You are but an ant beneath the heel—"
"Yeah, yeah, we heard it in Chapter 1," I interrupted, waving my cup. "Let's skip the repeat. I'm tired, I've had a long week of rock-shoveling and system nonsense, and I'd really like to resolve this before my ale gets warm."
The Patriarch's face twisted. "Insolent dog! I will melt your bones to grease!"
He raised his hand. A massive cloud of toxic purple gas expanded from his palm, hissing as it hit the floorboards and melted them into bubbling black sludge.
Right above his head, a giant red health bar materialized. Only I could see it.
[POISON PATRIARCH - LEVEL 50 - HP: 50,000/50,000]
I looked at the health bar. Then at the melting floor. Then at Han, who was starting to make a low whimpering sound.
"Well," I said, setting down my ale. "Here we go."