The Corrupted Novelist (Part 1)

--Rain Falls, Bamboo Chills has just added you to their friends list. You can now start chatting!

The bright moon shone gently amid a dazzling host of stars.

The night breeze brushed past the windowsill, bringing a touch of coolness.

Suzhou, Star Sea Middle School.

The boys' dormitory on the seventh floor.

Su Bai frowned slightly at the friend request that had suddenly popped up on his phone. Before he could ask who it was, a new message appeared on the screen.

"Do you believe Transcendents exist in this world?"

Su Bai paused, then turned to look at the crescent moon hanging outside the window.

Ten years ago, without any warning, the moon had suddenly turned crimson, bathing the earth in moonlight like a tide of blood. The terrifying sight had plunged the world into panic, and riots had broken out everywhere.

Three days later, the blood-red color covering the moon had suddenly vanished, again without warning.

Afterward, a professor of astronomy had offered an explanation: when the moon reflected sunlight, the light waves passed through the atmosphere and were affected by dust. Six colors of visible light with shorter wavelengths were obscured by the dust, while red light had a longer wavelength and was largely unaffected, creating the red moon phenomenon.

The explanation was the most scientifically sound and enough to convince most people, but it couldn't convince those who were "unscientific."

Some believers in the supernatural had claimed that the arrival of the blood moon was an omen of great calamity. A red moon was a sign of extreme yin and cold, indicating that the world's righteous energy was weak and Evil Qi was strong. Before long, the world might undergo a cataclysmic upheaval, and the land would wail in sorrow.

Others who specialized in occult studies had proposed an entirely new theory: the blood moon's arrival signaled the end of a civilization, or an advancement in the level of civilization. Humanity would enter an era of the Transcendent.

An era of the Transcendent?

Who the hell would believe that!

Su Bai quickly gathered his thoughts and typed out a question: "What kind of Transcendents are you talking about? Spider-Man, Wolverine, the Hulk?"

Ding-dong!

Ding-dong!

A reply soon arrived.

Su Bai lowered his eyes to read it, murmuring the words aloud.

"There are many gods in this world. They possess unfathomable authorities and must also fulfill the duties those authorities bestow. However, there are always some lazy gods who select mortals and grant them authority.

"These mortals gain the gods' immense power and must also walk the mortal world in their stead. These lucky chosen ones are called Transcendents!"

Su Bai frowned deeply.

Gods?

Weren't those things from stories and novels?

Yet someone was now telling him that things from novels had entered reality.

Only an idiot would believe that... right?

Come to think of it, was this person going by "Rain Falls, Bamboo Chills"... a lunatic?

If this guy wasn't a lunatic, had the world gone mad instead?

Su Bai hesitated briefly, then typed, "What exactly are these 'gods' you were talking about?"

Ding-dong!

"Attributes, order, rules, vessels."

Su Bai stared at those eight characters for quite a while before he gradually came back to his senses and reached a conclusion: either this guy was playing some kind of prank on him, or he was a hopeless lunatic!

Su Bai shook his head and tapped rapidly on his phone screen.

"Actually... I'm Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng. I just crawled out of my tomb yesterday. Those terracotta warriors were bawling their eyes out and clinging to me, refusing to let me leave, but for the sake of Great Qin's imperial ambitions, I decided to come out and take a look anyway. And what a look it was. My heart sank when I saw that my mighty Great Qin was gone!

"I was so furious that I planned to return to my tomb, rally a million terracotta warriors, and fight my way back. But now I need to spend two hundred yuan on a ticket just to get into the tomb. A lack of money really can bring a hero low. How about this... transfer me two hundred yuan first, and once I restore Great Qin, I'll give you eight or ten terracotta warriors as bodyguards. What do you say? Good deal, right?"

Ding-dong!

Almost the instant Su Bai pressed send, a new message arrived from the other side. "You... don't believe me?"

Su Bai raised an eyebrow and kept up the nonsense.

"I'd like to believe you, but seeing is believing. If you really are some kind of god or ghost, hurry over and let me have a look. What's the point of running your mouth online? Come throw a real punch in person. Anyone can talk big. Oh, right, I'm not actually Qin Shi Huang. I'm Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equal to Heaven!"

Playing the Great Sage Equal to Heaven card had left the person on the other end speechless.

Su Bai rolled his eyes, swiped the screen a few times, removed the lunatic from his chat list, and put the matter out of his mind.

He couldn't even be bothered to ask why the lunatic had sought him out to say such baffling things.

After all, anyone who could understand a lunatic's way of thinking had to be another lunatic.

Just then-

Bang!

A loud crash rang out.

His lower-bunk buddy Wu Hang, carrying two buckets of hot water, kicked the dorm door open. A magnetic card was clenched between his teeth as he mumbled:

"Fuck, the water's out in the girls' dorm today, so all those girls ran downstairs to get water. Fine, get your water, but they kept cutting in line one after another. I had to wait for half an hour. Shit!"

Su Bai raised an eyebrow. "Then why didn't you cut back in front of them?"

Wu Hang sighed, his tone complicated. "Kid, you've really picked up bad habits from our number two."

There were four people in the dorm, ranked by age. Wu Hang was third, and Su Bai was fourth.

The eldest was Lu Ping, a tall, heavily built muscleman. He was straightforward and loyal, and he especially loved picking up the half-bald broom kept in the corner of the dorm and performing his self-created "Mad Bull Swordsmanship." He looked downright frightening when he practiced it.

If he'd been born in ancient times, he probably would have been a great hero of the jianghu.

The second eldest was Shen Fei, tall and thin and a gaming expert. He was especially fond of dirty jokes and utterly shameless, but he also had good looks and a little family money.

Tall, rich, and handsome, Shen Fei maintained less-than-innocent "innocent relationships" with several girls at once. It was hardly unusual to see him gripping a smooth gaming mouse in one hand and kneading a girl's soft breast with the other.

He was plainly a scumbag, yet who knew what was wrong with those girls? They insisted on throwing themselves at him like moths to a flame.

Su Bai took a copy of A Brief History of Time from his bedside, flipped it open, and glanced at it before replying:

"Numbers one and two slipped out again. I'd say they're hugging either a keyboard or a girl right now. Tomorrow, we'll do what we always do: when the professor calls roll, I'll answer for number one, and you answer for number two."

"Of course! They're our sons, after all!" Wu Hang sat on the bed, pulled a crooked cigarette from beneath his pillow, and leaned over the upper bunk's railing. He raised his chin, then changed his tone and asked with a grin, "Number four, want one?"

Su Bai waved him off. "You know I don't smoke or drink."

"You're no man!"

Wu Hang cursed him with a laugh, then went to the window and blew clouds of smoke toward the bright moon overhead.

It was late at night, and all was quiet.

Only the sound of steady breathing remained in the dorm.

Knock, knock-

Knock, knock-

Suddenly, a muffled knock sounded at the door.

Su Bai blearily opened his eyes and was about to call out that the door wasn't locked when, before he could speak, he jolted fully awake.

The dorm door had broken long ago and was always left ajar. Why would anyone knock?

If numbers one and two had come back, those two animals would have kicked the door open already.

Knock, knock-

Knock, knock-

"Fuck, which little bastard is it!"

The knocking woke Wu Hang. Anger flared and malice rose in his heart. He rolled out of bed, grabbed a slipper, and went to yank the door open.

Su Bai shifted slightly, and his view opened up. Through the gap in the partly closed door, he could dimly make out a pair of eerie crimson eyes, from which thick, bright-red liquid was steadily dripping. The hideous, terrifying face was covered in scratches.

A chill spread through Su Bai's body, and his mind went blank.

What... was that thing!?

P.S. A Rain Falls production is sure to be a masterpiece. Sorry for the trouble, young heroes, but please add this book to your bookshelves. Love you!