Character Spirit Repairman

Coming next: The Way of the Thief [Nineties]. Please add it to your reading list.

Synopsis:

World-class architectural planning and design expert Xia Shan died tragically of depression,

but unexpectedly transmigrated into a novel called The World of Living Characters,

becoming a drowning teenager with the same name, a cannon-fodder spy.

The person who saved him was a character-repair specialist.

This profession could infuse all things with the power of thought, changing the vitality of objects by controlling their mental energy.

They could save people, and of course they could save "characters," too.

But to restore the soul of a dead character, they first had to untangle the thoughts contained within it.

When Xia Shan awoke, he was lying on a gray-soil continent made up of "corpses of written characters."

This was the "Graveyard of Characters," a space waiting to be developed where almost every state had been reduced to zero.

Resources were desperately scarce:

Time left no trace, the sun could not rise, there was no wind or electricity, and there was no food.

They said that everyone who managed to survive here was among the most dangerous "madmen" in the Alliance's history.

Xia Shan was so thin he was skin and bones.

The person caring for him would gently cradle his head and feed him soup.

That person was tall and handsome, silent, with a cold expression.

Every day, barefoot, he carried a hoe and dug up stones with many others on the gray soil.

Xia Shan asked him, "Why can't the sun rise?"

He said, "Because my power of thought isn't strong enough to pull the sun up."

"Then how can you make your power of thought stronger?"

"Revive written characters."

"Like this?"

The frail young man crouched in front of the barefoot man and casually poked a loose stone with his beautiful fingertip. The stone began to glow with a pearly white light...

Everyone went mad over it.

The "Graveyard of Characters" began to transform:

From sunshine, soil, wind, rain, thunder, and lightning to flowers, grass, trees, grain, oil, rice, and flour,

then to the revival of species and the renewal of civilization, the space grew more vibrant by the day.

However, when people wanted to name this space "Xia Shan Space,"

the beautiful young man blushed.

He went to his savior and asked, "Tang Ke Gubo, may I ask to name this space after you?"

The tall, handsome man was slightly stunned, but his usually cold expression soon softened into a warm smile.

He said, "Of course."

Later, the Alliance suffered a catastrophe.

The nobles fled to Tang Ke Space, only to see this:

The famously short-tempered and difficult-to-get-along-with Lord of the Space was gently asking a young man, "Should I make these newcomers your slaves, too?"

The young man narrowed his eyes, curled up in the man's arms, and mumbled as he turned over, "Maybe not? I haven't finished assigning the slaves you gave me last time."

The former nobles: Wait!

Why does this beautiful young man, doted on by the Lord of the Space like a little emperor, look so much like Xia Shan?

But back then, we forced him to come here and steal...

Gubo: Hah. He did steal my heart.

Everyone: ...

Reading Notes:

1. The story is mainly from the bottom's perspective, though the top's perspective appears more often early on.

2. They both look young, but the top is many years older than the bottom. One-on-one. Xia Shan is the bottom, and Gubo is the top. Both are virgins, and there are no children.

3. Depressed, socially anxious, with a ridiculously powerful golden finger, pitiful bottom x well-read, violent, unhinged, with overwhelming mental power, powerful top (gentle only to the bottom).

4. A healing romance. Nontraditional post-apocalyptic worldbuilding.

5. No unsolicited writing advice. No need to tell me if you drop the story.

6. Synopsis uploaded to Weibo in March 2023.

7. .

Theme: The charm of written characters lies in their transmission. They are spirits of thought.