All the Substitutes I Found Came Knocking

[My completed novel, "A Tool's Guide to Self-Rescue," is out now. I hope you'll give it some love~] About this novel: Gu Zimo transmigrates into a hugely popular entertainment-industry novel as a cannon-fodder bottom. The protagonist bottom is the white moonlight Gu Zimo loves dearly. Unable to forget the protagonist bottom but too afraid to profane him, he starts looking for a substitute for his white moonlight to date. And he finds the substitute: the protagonist top. Predictably, the cannon-fodder bottom ends up disgraced and ruined. After he transmigrates, Gu Zimo knows the entire plot by heart, but can't remember who the protagonist top is. Gu Zimo only wants to go home. He figures this must be the mission Heaven has given him. Maybe once he finds the protagonist top and gets the two protagonists together for their happy ending, he'll be able to go back. Gu Zimo begins earnestly searching for the substitute, the protagonist top. He finds everyone who might be the protagonist top and takes them through the protagonist top's storyline, testing to see if they're the real deal. At last, Gu Zimo succeeds in finding the protagonist top. But just as he's happily waiting to go home... These possible candidates for the protagonist top seem to have discovered one another, and realized they've all been treated as substitutes. The protagonist top, who should have ground him into the dirt: "Believe me, I can be even more like that person! I'll be the perfect substitute!" And the white moonlight, the protagonist bottom, comes knocking too: "Don't let them fool you. I'm the one who's right for you!" Gu Zimo: ? 1. Everyone's favorite, with everyone nursing a one-sided crush~ 2. Bad writing, bad logic, melodrama all the way~ [Blurb screenshot posted to Weibo on 2020.3.20~] [Completed novel: "A Tool's Guide to Self-Rescue"] Mu Yin transmigrates into a book, becoming a tool character at the beginning of the novel. At a mysterious and powerful academy for ability users, a group of prodigiously gifted teenagers who can't stand one another have gathered. Each of them is a once-in-a-thousand-years genius, yet, by some miracle, they've all been born at the same time. None of them will submit to anyone else. Scornful of the academy's instruction, they brazenly break its rules and claim territory wherever they please. What should have been a peaceful campus life has become a vicious arena where they fight for dominance. The academy's teachers can't control them, and its staff don't dare interfere. After much painstaking thought, the conscientious headmaster comes up with a crooked plan. He'll promote a peerless prodigy who has appeared out of nowhere, and have him "crush" the students in various ways, humbling them and gradually teaching them to channel their ambition and competitiveness in a reasonable, healthy direction. The person Mu Yin transmigrates into is the tool character, who actually has no abilities at all. In the original story, after successfully building up his image in all sorts of ways... he is quickly exposed as an ordinary person in front of everyone and becomes a laughingstock. And, as "luck" would have it, at his grand public humiliation, the novel's obscure protagonist happens to awaken his ability, becoming a peerless dark horse who gradually crushes all the other geniuses. As the tool character, Mu Yin doesn't have much of an opinion about it. As an ordinary person caught up in this mess, he's bound to end in tragedy. He just tries to keep as much of a "background character" profile as possible while playing his role. But things gradually start going differently. The things he casually throws away become prizes that only the victor can claim. His photos spread like wildfire through secret forums. The novel's protagonist starts seeing him as his hope. When Mu Yin is exposed, the academy for ability users erupts. But the way it erupts is completely different from what happens in the original story. Fervor, obsession, excitement... Beneath all these emotions lurks the courtship instinct of beasts barely able to restrain themselves. Theme: Erase regrets and recognize your true feelings.