Xiaobai sighed over and over in her mind. Why was her primary personality so ditzy?
"Come on in, come on in! A fantasy novel personally recommended by the mayor!"
"Dragon Raja is an absolute smash hit! Yesterday's hundred copies sold out in just three minutes! Today we've restocked a thousand!"
"Brothers and sisters who love face-slapping, invincible protagonists, and sweet youth romance, you absolutely don't want to miss it!"
Xiaoguang's attention was drawn to the clerk at the bookstore entrance again.
But what caught her attention most was the clerk's pair of golden eyes. They actually made her instinctively avoid meeting his gaze.
"Xiaobai, should we buy a copy and see what it's like? Otherwise, I'm afraid we'll just get bored again when we go back to the mountain!"
Xiaobai was also quite keen on reading novels when she was bored. "I think we should. But be careful around that clerk. I have a feeling that person is no ordinary person!"
With Xiaobai's permission, Xiaoguang rushed excitedly toward the bookstore. "Novel! Here I come! Sweet, satisfying stories are the best!"
Yum Cha Immortal.
Yijiang sat alone at her table, drinking morning tea and eating breakfast, but she was a little distracted.
It wasn't her first time coming here to exchange information, but it was the first time she had felt so unsettled.
Is it really you?
Lu Yingheng?
Could it really have been those dead dogs at TOPS who killed you?
"Sect Master, your presence truly brings radiance to this humble establishment. How may Hongdou help you?"
A girl in a red qipao calmly sat down across from her, interrupting her thoughts.
"Hongdou, I just want to know whether those rumors going around lately about the Dragon Emperor coming back to life are true or false."
"If they're true, please, you must tell me where that Hollow is!"
"If they're false, then tell me that too, as well as who started the rumor. I absolutely won't allow a rumor like that to spread!"
Yijiang's emotions were in turmoil. She hoped the rumor was true, yet feared suffering a second blow...
If the hope was false, she would rather have had no hope to begin with.
Hongdou looked at Yijiang, who was putting on a brave face across from her.
"Sect Master, roughly a fifth of New Eridu's residents have received Lord Dragon Emperor's help, not to mention the people of Chenghui Terrace."
"How many people in Chenghui Terrace did Lord Dragon Emperor save when that Hollow erupted back then? I was one of them."
"So tell me, if it weren't true, how could people possibly make up rumors about their benefactor out of thin air? Let alone spread them!"
"Besides, according to word on the street, the Dragon Emperor Bureau, the Hoshimi Family, and the Thymefield Family have all made considerable moves. Do you think those three forces would act without a reason?"
"Those three are die-hard Dragon Emperor supremacists! Without reliable information, there's no way they would have made a move!"
Yijiang was silent for a moment, then quickly rose to leave. "Thank you for the information. I owe you a favor."
"Is Mount Yunkui going to get involved too? How long has it been since you last involved yourselves in worldly affairs?"
Yijiang paused. "If I'd said those words back then, what business would those three little brats have had with him?"
"If those three little brats are willing to use their personal charm to get him to go with them, I'll naturally give up."
"But if they want to use the forces behind them, then there's no reason my long-reclusive sect can't come out and make a few moves too!"
"Besides, if that news about TOPS is true, I wouldn't even mind joining forces with them!"
As soon as Yijiang stepped outside, she ran into Xiaoguang, who was about to return to the Daoist temple. "Xiaoguang? What are you doing here?"
Xiaoguang instinctively hid the novel in her hand behind her back. "Sect Master?"
Yijiang smiled. "Xiaoguang, did you go buy a book?"
Xiaoguang nodded and immediately brought the book out. "I heard it's a novel the mayor personally recommended! It's called Dragon Raja! It's a fun youth novel!"
Before long, the first three volumes of Dragon Raja were published, and with the mayor's personal recommendation, sales exploded!
But what followed soon afterward nearly made the entirety of New Eridu explode!
From eighty-year-old grannies down to three-year-old children (strikethrough).
Almost every teenager and working adult was close to losing their minds after reading it. Even the Inter-Knot, which served as an underground means of communication throughout New Eridu, crashed!
"Hollow Special Operations Section 6's number one fan": You animal! You animal! Huanglong!
You bastard, look at what you've written! My Erii! What did she ever do wrong?
"Erii, my heart aches for you": Damn you, Herzog! It's all your fault! You damned animal!
You heartless bastard! Erii! My heart aches for you! I hope you're just an ordinary girl in your next life!
"Huanglong, you animal": Ah! Chu Zihang! For the rest of your life, there'll never again be an angel kissing you awake!
Xia Mi just wanted to live! What did she ever do wrong?! I cried so hard I couldn't stop the tears!
"Gen brothers forever": Gen Chisei, Gen Chijo, you two should have found happiness long ago!
Maybe the greatest mercy that shitty author showed Gen Chisei was letting him die without knowing a thing!
In short, Dragon Raja had completely overwhelmed New Eridu. Combined with the news that TOPS had harmed the Dragon Emperor, the mood across the entire city had utterly collapsed!
And the person responsible for both incidents, Lu Yingheng, whose pen name was Huanglong, was currently lying comfortably on the couch watching TV, paying no attention whatsoever to what was happening outside.
"Aaaaaah! Aso Shin! Shutoku Aki!"
"Aaaaaaah! Erii! Xia Mi!"
Wise pushed open the door to the little cubicle and walked in, his eyes red from crying as he muttered a long string of names.
"Wise? Why do you look so out of it?"
Although Lu Yingheng knew perfectly well why, he held himself back, not daring to say anything...
After all, in his youth, he had seen what those crazed readers were capable of.
The original author had nearly been buried under the razor blades readers mailed him, after all, let alone him, the original author in this world.
Though apparently no one could beat him in a fight anyway.
Wise sighed, his voice still a little tearful. "It's all Nicole's fault! She tricked me into reading Dragon Raja!"
"She kept saying it was a fun youth novel! But that damned author was way too ruthless!"
"The whole book is full of knives! Even the few pieces of candy have shards of glass in them!"
Then Wise looked curiously at Lu Yingheng. "This book's been so popular lately. You really haven't read it?"
"Oh, I wrote that book."
Lu Yingheng said it with a cheeky grin.
Wise: •﹏•
"Huang...long." Wise froze. "Dragon Emperor..."
What do I do?
I really want to kill him!
But I can't beat him...
Whatever! I've only got this miserable life to lose, so I'm going for it! I'll avenge my Erii!
The next second, Wise hooked his arm tightly around Lu Yingheng's neck. "You damned bastard of an author! Your life is mine!"