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Chapter 1: The Writer's First Step
Location: No. 37 Middle School
Time: A fogless morning in 2012, somewhere in Fog City
Characters: All 40 students of Class 5
And so, the story begins.
“Immobilization Technique, take this!” Zhou Lin suddenly jabbed her classmate’s shoulder as if she were performing some mystical martial arts move.
Gu Lu, who had been diligently copying his English workbook, paused briefly but didn’t lift his head. “No time to mess around with you. I’m barely halfway through copying this.”
Zhou Lin glanced down and noticed that her desk mate was holding two pens in his right hand, furiously scribbling on the homework sheet like he was trying to outrun a deadline.
This brings us to an interesting quirk about Mr. Cai, the English teacher for Class 5. Whenever students performed poorly on a test, they were punished by having to copy each word from the vocabulary list at the back of the textbook onto a full page of their notebook.
But here’s the thing—because Mr. Cai never actually checked the punishment work (he just wanted them to suffer), Gu Lu had devised a clever shortcut. By using slightly thicker pens and aligning them perfectly with the spacing of the lines in his notebook, he could cut his effort in half. It wasn’t exactly cheating; it was more like… efficiency.
Realizing she might have genuinely disturbed him, Zhou Lin wiped the playful grin off her face. Before she could say anything, though, Gu Lu spoke again.
“What are you still waiting for? Undo the technique already. I’ve got to turn this in before lunch.”
“Heh heh, Release Technique,” Zhou Lin said, mimicking a dramatic wrist-twirling motion from one of those TV dramas. She then poked Gu Lu’s shoulder twice, much gentler this time.
Feeling the lighter touch, Gu Lu gave a satisfied nod and returned to his frantic scribbling. If memory served him correctly, what Zhou Lin had just done was referred to as the "flower hand dance move" in internet slang from his previous world.
“Don’t fall in love with me unless your hand is shaking harder than mine,” Gu Lu muttered under his breath, quoting some random meme associated with this hand dance move from the old world. Even after being reincarnated—or rather, transmigrated—for only two days, these outdated jokes kept popping into his mind unbidden.
Based on what Gu Lu had gathered over the past few days, this Earth was not the same as the one he’d left behind. The differences in culture, entertainment, and sports made it clear that this world operated on its own rules.
Back in his old life, Gu Lu had been just another face in the crowd—a struggling writer with nothing more than a high school diploma and a knack for writing mediocre web novels. His only remarkable trait? A shamelessly thick skin.
Being a web novelist wasn’t exactly healthy. Long hours hunched over a keyboard led to obesity, high blood pressure, and other health issues. One night, while frantically updating a 20,000-word chapter during yet another all-nighter, Gu Lu collapsed without warning.
His final thought before slipping away? If I die, fine—but please don’t let me wake up inside one of my own novels!
Oh, right—forgot to mention. Most of his stories revolved around medieval Lovecraftian horror.
Thankfully, he hadn’t ended up in one of his own creations. This seemed like a normal enough world, right?
The tense atmosphere in the third-year classroom felt almost tangible, like the air trapped inside a bag of potato chips. Even during break time, only students at opposite ends of the academic spectrum—like Gu Lu, the perennial slacker, or Zhou Lin, the model student—dared to goof off.
The sharp chime of the bell rang out across the campus, signaling the start of class. Students quickly returned to their seats. A few chatterboxes couldn’t resist whispering excitedly about the upcoming lesson, but their voices were swiftly silenced by the stern glare of the discipline monitor.
Second period: Math.
Now, Gu Lu found himself facing both good news and bad news.
Let’s start with the bad news. In his previous life, Gu Lu had struggled horribly with science subjects, which was why he’d opted for vocational school instead of pursuing higher education. As such, staring at the math problems now, he realized something unsettling: he knew absolutely nothing. Zilch. Nada.
The good news? The original owner of this body had also been a terrible student. Their souls were perfectly aligned in their mutual disdain for academics. Thanks to this shared identity, Gu Lu inherited a passive skill unique to chronic underachievers: “Invisible Presence.” Unless he disrupted the class, teachers would simply ignore him.
Rustle-rustle—
A sound akin to a hamster nibbling on seeds reached Gu Lu’s ears. He turned to see Zhou Lin sneakily tearing a piece of spicy gluten into smaller strips and stuffing them into her mouth. Her wary eyes darted toward the blackboard, making her look like a mischievous stuffed animal plotting its next big caper.
After finishing her snack, Zhou Lin nudged Gu Lu and offered him a piece.
Gu Lu accepted it along with a composition notebook. The pages weren’t filled with words but rather smudged and stained from repeated erasures, repurposed into a makeshift Gomoku board.
Flipping through to a relatively clean page, Gu Lu jotted down a note and slid it over. From their handwriting alone, anyone could tell who the slacker was.
[Gu: Why didn’t you eat during break? ]
[Zhou: It tastes better when eaten during class.]
Well, well. Sure enough, the cheap snack tasted ten times fancier when consumed covertly.
When the bell finally rang, signaling the end of the first session, Gu Lu groaned inwardly. The next class was also math, meaning no recess. However, the teacher graciously allowed students two or three minutes to use the restroom. The boys in the back bolted out of the room faster than lightning.
Whether they needed to go or not didn’t matter—it was all about escaping the classroom, even if just for a quick stroll.
“Hey, buddy, let’s hit the bathroom,” Fan Xiaotian said, clapping Gu Lu on the shoulder.
“Nah, I’m busy. How about you handle this mission for me?” Gu Lu replied lazily.
“Fair enough. No need for you to do it personally,” Fan Xiaotian agreed. “I’ll switch stalls midway and take care of business for both of us.”
Ah, true friendship indeed. Gu Lu watched approvingly as Fan Xiaotian dashed out of the classroom.
Turning back to his desk, Gu Lu noticed something intriguing. During the brief break, Zhou Lin hadn’t touched another snack. Beneath her seemingly perfect exterior lay a streak of quiet rebellion that most people would never suspect.
Two or three minutes passed in the blink of an eye, and soon everyone was back in their seats except for Fan Xiaotian, who lagged behind. Predictably, the math teacher frowned and barked, “There are forty students in this class. If we all waited one minute for you, that would add up to over half an hour! Get back to your seat immediately!”
Had switching stalls really taken that long? Gu Lu felt a pang of guilt.
Ding—
Suddenly, a ringing sound echoed in his mind. Years of conditioning as a web novelist kicked in instantly. Was this… the legendary system awakening?!
[Brownfman Award], [Sapir Prize], [Prime Minister’s Literary Award].
Three unfamiliar titles appeared in Gu Lu’s thoughts. He waited eagerly, but nothing happened.
What was going on?
“System bro, big bro, dad, grandpa, ancestor—come out already!” Gu Lu pleaded silently.
Silence.
Clearly, something had triggered the mysterious mechanism earlier. But what?
Had it been the teacher’s scolding? Or perhaps Fan Xiaotian’s grumbling?
Gu Lu’s mind raced through countless tropes common in web novels—collecting resentment, witnessing iconic moments, or maybe something else entirely.
For the rest of the day, Gu Lu tried everything he could think of to awaken the elusive system, but every attempt ended in failure.
At 8:30 PM, self-study ended, and the school gates opened. Since they were in their final year, slackers like Gu Lu enjoyed a privilege envied even by top students: skipping evening study sessions.
“I slipped it into your bag. Don’t let the ‘Great White Shark’ catch you,” Fan Xiaotian joked as they parted ways at the gate. Their homes were in opposite directions, so this was where their paths diverged.
By six o’clock, Gu Lu stepped out of the school gates. It was a twenty-minute walk home, passing by the overpass and the underground mall along the way.
On the overpass, street vendors lined the sidewalk. One man wearing glasses stood out, his laptop open as he offered services downloading music, movies, and e-books onto SD cards.
Ah, nostalgia. Though Android phones had begun hitting the market, Symbian devices still dominated. And since downloading files at internet cafes was such a hassle, this little side hustle thrived.
Meanwhile, the underground mall buzzed with activity. Tiny shops offered ear-piercing services and photo booths for taking sticker photos. Despite strict warnings from the school against getting piercings or dyeing hair, many students risked parental wrath to secretly rebel.
At 6:30 PM, Gu Lu arrived home. The faded red character Fortune hung crookedly on the door, unchanged for two years. Ever since his parents divorced, his unreliable “old man” hadn’t bothered replacing it.
Inside, the furniture mirrored the worn-out charm of the character, exuding a sense of decay.
“Made ten yuan today. Guess I can splurge on an extra egg tonight,” Gu Lu mused as he dropped his bag and headed to the kitchen. Normally, dinner consisted of rice with just one egg, but tonight, he decided to double the dose.
Fried rice was best made with leftover rice, and conveniently enough, last night’s leftovers were sitting right there. Talk about perfect timing.
After dinner, Gu Lu picked up his pig-shaped ceramic piggy bank—the former owner’s prized possession. Inside, roughly twenty yuan’s worth of coins rattled softly.
As soon as he lifted the piggy bank, another ding sounded in his mind. The three previously floating titles—Brownfman Award, Sapir Prize, Prime Minister’s Literary Award—transformed into a single book title: [The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God].
[Details: This collection features 22 short stories by Etgar Keret, originally serialized in publications like Harper's Magazine, The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Western Mirror.]
Gu Lu stared oddly at the piggy bank, baffled by two things. First, why had it triggered again? There seemed to be no discernible pattern.
Second—and most bizarrely—the book The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God came from his original world. Not only that, but he could flip through its contents mentally.
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