The Fourth Wall

Blurb One (Bottom's POV):

Shi Jiang is an unusual full-dive game tester.

All the testers fear something going wrong when they log out upon dying and getting lost in the full-dive network. Shi Jiang, however, looks forward to that moment, because he knows a pair of hands will always press against his back and push him into reality. It happens every time.

But he never expected to accidentally log into an old game that had shut down nearly twenty years ago, or to meet people he knows in real life there. In the game world, they are merely NPCs.

From the perspective of time, neither of them can say for certain which one reached out to the other first when they met.

Blurb Two (Top's POV):

In a dark sea ravaged by disaster, amid garbage, corpses, and grotesque, polluted sea monsters, there also hides a mermaid.

Idis thought that one day he would become a rotting corpse, dissolving and melting into part of the dark green beach.

On the day the Reaper's scythe was finally about to fall, a pair of hands pulled him from beneath its blade.

From then on, every time he swam upstream, it was for that person.

You don't know how far I swam, or how many times I got lost in the rifts of space and time, just to make it back to your side.

Cover art courtesy of @Blue Magician

Reader's Guide:

1. Idis x Shi Jiang. The top is a mermaid, and there is a raising-up-the-top plotline. The bottom raises the top.

2. The bottom is adored by everyone and has a universally beloved quality. He's the game's unattainable dream, and many side characters have one-sided crushes on him.

3. The real world has a touch of sci-fi, while the game world is primarily Western fantasy.

4. This is my practice run at writing a long novel. Thank you for your patience!

Theme: Live well