The Xiao Clan's quantum shuttle sliced into the atmosphere of the Seventh Universe like a black barracuda. Outside the porthole floated enormous space stations shaped like fountain pens, and slogans reading "Standardized Writing" were faintly visible among clouds of ink. Xiao Feng adjusted the Anti-Review Firewall and watched "Text Density: 99.9%" flicker on the scanner. He turned to Xiao Yan and said, "Remember to keep your Dou Qi in check. The law here is 'Words are Power.'"
The shuttle landed in a wasteland known as the Typo Desert. The ground was scarred with correction fluid, while in the distance the Grammar Volcano erupted, spewing red wavy lines. The administrator picked up half a pencil from the ruins. Suddenly, it groaned, "Save us... We're the peace faction..."
"It's a Pen Spirit!" Xiao Yan cried. The pencil transformed into a human figure, its body covered in strikethrough marks. "They were hit by a 'Compliance Check' beam!"
Before he could finish speaking, several streaks of blue light flashed across the sky. Fighter craft shaped like fountain pens dove toward them, the emblem of the Standardized Writing Association emblazoned on their wings. Xiao Zhan raised the Xiao Clan's specially made Punctuation Shield. As it unfolded, it became countless question marks and exclamation points, which actually reflected the incoming Grammar Correction Beams.
"Father, these beams rewrite dissenting text into official language!" Xiao Feng activated the quantum communicator. A linguist from the group of Earth convention-goers who had crossed over was already on the line. "We have to fight back with 'dialect ammunition' and break their linguistic tyranny!"
The Xiao Clan's tech team immediately activated their modified Idea Cannon. Instead of cannonballs, it fired sound waves in regional dialects. When the Sichuanese "yao de" collided with the official "must," they exploded in a dazzling firework of text midair, bringing down several pen-shaped fighters.
"Awesome!" The young linguist on the screen pumped his fist. "Keep attacking with internet slang, like 'juejuezi' and 'yyds'!"
At the edge of the battlefield, the leader of the peace faction's Pen Spirits—a calligraphy brush with a broken tip—struggled toward them. Ink dripped from its tip, writing four characters on the ground: "Pen Spirit Council." Xiao Feng helped him up and found that his body was made from pages of the Creator's Notebook. Coffee stains clung to the broken edge. "You are...?"
"I'm her pen nib." The brush's voice was hoarse. "When she started writing on a keyboard, we were abandoned. The war faction wants to rule every universe with 'correct writing.' The Xiao Clan's freedom to create is their greatest threat..."
Suddenly, the earth shook. A giant made of piled-up dictionaries came striding over the mountains, crushing them beneath its feet. Hun Dan's mechanical face was set into its chest. It opened its mouth and spewed not lava, but standardized bureaucratic prose. "Xiao Clan, accept your 'compliance makeover'! Your stories are full of holes and don't meet creative standards!"
Xiao Yan ignited Flame Emperor Fire. The Fire Lotus transformed into a "loanword bomb" and flew at the giant, only to be easily blocked by the "authoritative dictionary" in its hand. Xiao Feng noticed the worn edges of the dictionary and suddenly remembered the Xinhua Dictionary on the Creation God's desk—the reference book that had been thumbed through countless times, now being used as a weapon to slaughter free-spirited words.
"System, redeem the Folklore Collection!" he shouted. "True power has never belonged to the authorities!"
Golden pages flew out of the system space, each one recording folk legends from somewhere on Earth. When the mythical beasts of the Classic of Mountains and Seas clashed with bureaucratic prose, cracks began to appear in the giant's body. The handwritten text of Grimm's Fairy Tales seeped into the gaps in the dictionary and blossomed into flowers of words, symbols of hope.
Panic flashed across Hun Dan's mechanical face. "Impossible! How could these old stories stand against modern standards?"
"Because the soul of a story has never been its format." Xiao Zhan slashed at the giant's ankle. His blade was wrapped in the oral histories of the Xiao Clan's descendants. "It's the human heart."
The giant crashed to the ground, revealing the Compliance Core inside: an old typewriter, frantically spitting out standardized plot templates. The administrator seized the chance to hack into the core and pull up the Seventh Universe's source code. "Look! 'Correct writing' is nothing but a shackle the committee uses to freeze people's minds!"
The Pen Spirit leader dipped his broken tip into his own ink and wrote five characters on the ground: "A stroke that stirs wind and rain." The edges of the characters glowed with the Creation God's inspiration. Xiao Feng suddenly understood. He took out the Imperial Jade Seal and pressed it against the writing. Its light fused with the ink, and the pages of the Creation God's Notebook unfurled in midair—a collection of original settings that had never been made public.
The system prompt rang out:
Ding! Unlocked the power of "Word Origin" and gained "Free Writing" authorization!
Reward: "Pen Spirit Contract" (can summon writing implements from various civilizations to fight alongside you), "Illogical Sentence Immunity" aura (immune to all compliance attacks).
Remaining word count: 1,196,767 - 2,700 = 1,194,067 words ```
Hun Dan's mechanical body disintegrated in the light. Before he died, he ejected a memory card. "You think you've won? The committee's 'final verdict' has already been issued..."
Xiao Zhan picked up the memory card. It contained only a video: in the Plot Review Committee's conference room, countless suited figures sat around a long table made of code. One of them clicked a mouse, and the coordinates of the Douqi Continent were marked with a red X labeled "Pending Harvest."
The Pen Spirit leader looked at the Xiao Clan members, his broken tip pointing into the depths of the universe. "At the edge of the Seventh Universe lies the Blank Library. It holds all the stories that have been banned. The Omnipotent Pen is there, but it's guarded by the committee's chief reviewer—who was once an author with dreams of his own."
Xiao Feng gripped Xiao Yan's hand. Emperor Scale resonated with the ink on the pen tip, drawing a portal in the void. "Let's go to the Blank Library. Whoever the reviewer is, he can't stop us from writing our own ending."
At the portal, the administrator suddenly stopped Xiao Feng and pulled out a mysterious box he had swiped from the black market. The "Open with Caution" label had been scratched off, revealing the Seed of Inspiration inside. "Maybe we should plant something first."
The moment the seed touched the ground, the Typo Desert sprouted with fields of Idea Dandelions, each fluffy seed carrying a story yet to be written. Watching the seeds drift on the wind, Xiao Yan suddenly smiled. "Third Brother, do you think these seeds might grow into new worlds somewhere?"
Xiao Feng gazed into the darkness beyond the portal and tightened his grip on the Omnipotent Pen—the Pen Spirit leader had forged it from the last of his strength. "They will. As long as someone is willing to fight for stories told freely, hope will never die."
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