Inside the Xiao Clan's newly built Quantum Workshop, the roar of gears and Dou Qi engines intertwined. Wearing VR goggles, Xiao Feng maneuvered a mechanical arm to fit the final piece of Star Meteor Iron into the core of the "Multiverse Router." Runes flowing across the metal surface resonated with the patterns on his Emperor Scale. Suddenly, the workshop alarm blared. Dozens of crimson points appeared on the Quantum Radar screen—energy fluctuations that belonged to no known plane.
"Spatial rift detected!" The system's mechanical voice crackled with harsh static. "Target location: northwest border!"
Xiao Yan kicked open the workshop doors, an Emperor Flame Fire compass forming in his palm. "The trajectories of those lights... They look like they're harvesting storylines!" He pointed skyward. A few cumulonimbus clouds were arranged in the eerie shape of a "delete" icon, while the buildings below crumbled away like pixels.
By the time the Xiao Clan's elite forces arrived, the northwest border had become a wasteland of data. The surviving villagers huddled beside the ruins of a massive, hard-drive-shaped building. Blood-red text reading "Character Deletion Countdown" appeared on their skin. Xiao Feng grabbed an old man's hand and sent his soul force into the man's sea of consciousness, only to see countless fragments of memory swept into a pitch-black vortex.
"They... they're Story Harvesters..." The old man coughed up blood. "They're using a 'Plot Devouring Cannon' to turn our lives into blank documents..."
Xiao Zhan slashed through a floating "Plot Code Block." Among the fragments lay half of a logo from an online fiction platform on Earth. "These people can travel between reality and data. They're no ordinary transmigrators!" His smartwatch suddenly rang with an incoming video call. An administrator's panicked face appeared onscreen—the servers behind him were belching black smoke.
"Xiao Clan, please save me!" the administrator cried, clutching a fire extinguisher. "The Harvesters have hacked into the main server of the 'Qidian Universe' and are formatting every unsigned work! Their target is..." His words cut off abruptly. A string of garbled characters flashed across the screen before it froze on the words "Story Can sealed."
Xiao Feng's pupils contracted. He opened a hidden interface in the system shop. In the "Dangerous Items Trading Zone," metal cans labeled "Douqi Continent Version 1.0" and "Xiao Clan's Rise: Abridged Edition" were prominently displayed. Their descriptions read: "A million words of story distilled to its essence, perfect for bedtime reading. Price: 100,000 Creation Coins."
"So that's it." He clenched his fist, and the Emperor Scale hummed. "They're compressing entire worlds into assembly-line products, like Earth's fast food."
Meanwhile, chaos erupted at an anime convention in Shanghai, Earth. Dozens of fans holding Xiao Clan support signs suddenly began glowing blue, and teleportation arrays condensed from Dou Qi appeared beneath their feet. Before vanishing, one young woman held up her phone and livestreamed. "Guys! I think I triggered a hidden plot! Help, my JK skirt is turning into Xiao Clan battle armor!"
At the Xiao Clan ancestral residence on the Douqi Continent, a portal exploded without warning. A cosplayer wearing a panda head mask and carrying a glowing "Pirated Heavy Xuan Ruler" tumbled out, followed by a traditional-clothing club waving a banner that read "Update Now!" The young man leading them took off his mask, looking ready to cry. "Clan Chief Xiao, we've been 'reverse-transmigrated'! Our heads are full of unfilled plot ideas. If we keep bottling them up, our data will collapse!"
Looking at the oddly dressed transmigrators, Xiao Yan was struck by a sudden inspiration. He took a digital edition of the Yongle Encyclopedia from the system space and linked it to the Setting Generator the Earth authors had brought with them. A massive mind map appeared in the air. "Third Brother! The 'reader brainwaves' these transmigrators brought with them might be just the weapon we need to fight the Harvesters!"
Xiao Feng understood. He immediately activated the "Cross-Realm Co-Creation" permission. The phones of the convention transmigrators automatically connected to the plane network and began uploading ideas in real time. One person designed a "Roast Energy Cannon," turning negative reviews into firepower. Another summoned the "Logic Police," whose sole purpose was to arrest plot holes. One even pulled out the "Author Sacrifice Codex," vowing to sacrifice authors who padded their stories in exchange for combat power.
When the Harvesters' fleet arrived above the Xiao Clan—its "Plot Fishing Ships" resembling mechanical octopuses—they were greeted by a storm of bullet comments. "Outline writers are all demons!" "Give us back our happy ending!" The comments took physical form as blades of light, slicing through the ships' shields. The Harvester leader's holographic projection appeared in the clouds. He wore a black robe printed with the words "Signed Contract," and a "Story Can" was set into the top of his staff.
"Xiao Clan, you're nothing but story material waiting to be butchered." The leader sneered. A black beam from his staff corroded the earth into blank manuscript paper. "Look at these transmigrators. Their ideas will all become our merchandise in the end."
Xiao Feng suddenly raised the Imperial Jade Seal. Tips from Earth readers appeared across its surface. "+1 for the alliance leader!" "Flood them with monthly votes!" A golden torrent poured into the seal, taking the form of a colossal embodiment of the Reader Will. At the same time, Xiao Yan merged his Emperor Flame Fire with the transmigrators' ideas, condensing them into a "Brain Hole Black Hole" capable of devouring any setting.
"You're wrong." Xiao Feng's voice rang out across every world through the plane network. "The value of a story has never been defined by its harvesters." He and Xiao Yan attacked at the same time. The giant's fist collided with the black hole, and the resulting energy storm tore the Harvester fleet into fragments of code.
Before fading away, the leader let out an unwilling roar. "You think you've won? In the Creator's Notebook... there's something even more terrifying..." Before he could finish, he was erased completely.
After the battle, special guests arrived at the Xiao Clan's council hall: the reverse-transmigrated fans. Some used their Photoshop skills to repair the destroyed village, while others promoted Douqi Continent specialties through livestream sales. A girl wearing glasses opened her laptop, revealing the Anti-Harvester Combat Guide she had put together overnight. "Clan Chief Xiao, we'd like to establish the 'Plane Guardian Alliance' and power it with love!"
The system notification sounded at just the right moment:
Ding! Successfully repelled the Story Harvesters. Unlocked the title "World Guardian"! Reward: "Reader Reinforcement Summoning Order" ×3 (temporarily summons the attacks of a million readers' thoughts), "Story Origin Analyzer" (can decipher the core logic of any setting). Remaining word count: 1,202,167 - 2,700 = 1,199,467 words
Late at night, Xiao Feng stood beside the router, gazing at the bubbles of the multiverse. In one bubble, he saw another version of himself working as a food delivery rider on Earth. A sign on his delivery box read, "Xiao Clan Express: Dou Qi Kept Warm." The system suddenly displayed an urgent mission:
Main Quest Updated: Track down the "Story Company" behind the Harvesters. The Creator's Notebook indicates that the organization is connected to the higher-dimensional "Plot Review Committee"...
Xiao Yan handed him a cup of Fire Spirit Grass coffee and gazed at the bullet comments still lingering in the sky. "Third Brother, do you think we might just be characters in someone else's story, too?"
Xiao Feng smiled. Blue light from the router gleamed across his Emperor Scale. "Who cares? As long as someone still believes in the power of stories, we'll always be the protagonists of our own." He opened the Plane Shop and entered a new request: "System, exchange for an 'Anti-Review Firewall' and... get me ten cases of Earth's Happy Water to celebrate our victory."
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