The Villain Doesn’t Want to Follow the Plot Today Either

The story takes place in an imaginary dynasty called Zhao. Its capital is laid out like Chang'an, with a palace city, powerful aristocratic clans, desolate temples in the outskirts, and long streets under the rain at night. It has every backdrop an angst novel could use, while everything an angst novel would not use is blurred, as if it had never finished rendering. The laws of physics in this world are normal. People get hungry, feel cold, and die; a blade slashed across the neck still draws blood. What is abnormal is its "narrative gravity": an invisible force pushes everyone and everything toward predetermined plot points. The storytellers in teahouses spin tales of talented scholars and beautiful maidens, private romance stories circulate in women's quarters, and even the sugar figurines sold by street vendors come in pairs. The whole world is like a battered old book, with every corner repeating the same plot. The people who live here do not feel that they have been written. They call it fate, rules, and the way things have always been. Only outsiders can see through that thin layer of pretense, spot the occasional flashes of garbled text between the bricks of the city wall, and notice the stiffness at the corner of someone's mouth when they repeat the same line.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.