After Quitting, I Could Barely Bring Myself to Leave

The story is nearing its end, so feel free to jump in! There will be a red-envelope giveaway in the comments when it is complete!

This novel contains some basic knowledge related to the occult. Everything else is made up and is not professional science education, so please use your own judgment!

A preview of my upcoming novel, He Stood Up!, is at the very bottom. Please add it to your collection!

This novel starts updating on April 1! Three thousand words a day. I'll take a day off if something comes up, and add extra updates when I can.

Blurb:

Shi Yi is a freelance illustrator, ground down every day by his boss. After being unreasonably ordered to work overtime one too many times, he decisively quit.

His boss sneered, "If you don't come crawling back to work for me within a year, I'll call you Dad!"

Shi Yi left with a spring in his step, but when he turned around and saw how high the rent had gotten, he couldn't smile anymore. His boss was right. The art world is a chaotic mix these days, and finding a job is no easy task! After much thought, he dug up his long-dormant Weibo account and decided to take commissions as a struggling artist, so he could afford to make a living.

Who could have guessed that his older sister, all the way over in Yuncheng, would message him: "Little bro, the house Mom left you has been fully renovated. Why haven't you come back yet?"

Can you believe it? Money had practically fallen from the sky, and he didn't even have to get up early to snatch it! Shi Yi hurried back to Yuncheng.

He had thought he could live quietly off his illustration work, but the moment he entered the neighborhood, someone shouted in his ear, "You fraud of a fortune-teller, how dare you cheat me out of my money!"

The scent of gossip.

Shi Yi felt that life might not be as peaceful as he had imagined.

Sure enough, after witnessing a scumbag get exposed and chewed out by a big sister because of a love talisman, and saving a cat through fortune-telling, Shi Yi discovered that he seemed to have awakened the ability to speak things into existence. Anything he said offhandedly came true.

But just as he thought he was about to embark on an occult path and gain a protagonist's halo, he met a young man who couldn't get a single prediction right and was forced to live off his parents. The two stared at each other, one sobbing uncontrollably and the other at a loss, as an old man nearby gave a somber warning:

"What a pity. Your fortunes are out of sync."

…Going hungry is awful. Sticking to his old trade is a safer bet.

Shi Yi sighed, but he still wanted to have some fun. Human curiosity can't be suppressed. Shi Yi thought, Just because I don't practice the occult doesn't mean I can't enjoy the gossip! He was having a wonderful time mingling with the old man's crowd.

That was until he met a handsome man who was excellent in every way. Not only was the man gentle and considerate, he was also his little nephew's homeroom teacher.

The two of them were having a meal at a street stall with the kids when a travel-worn fortune-teller came up and said to Shi Yi, "I can see dark energy clinging to you, and your luck is at a low point..."

Before he could finish, Teacher Jiang immediately began educating the kids. "Promoting superstition is fraud. We must reject superstition, abandon bad habits, and foster a new culture..." He looked every bit the upright, patriotic young man.

Shi Yi: …

Damn it, now he couldn't enjoy the gossip in front of a handsome guy.

He had no choice but to stop slacking off and focus on his work. Who knew that he would accidentally win an official art contest, then accidentally catch the eye of the state and become a professional designer?

While others were still speculating that his life was going badly, Shi Yi had already found another source of fun. He sat upright at a mahjong table with a few elders, staring intently at the tiles.

"Hm? What? Wait, I win!"

Upcoming novel preview: He Stood Up! Updating daily!

Blurb:

He woke up to find out that his life was about to end. If he didn't complete his mission, he would die.

Shi Yuan stared at the person who had suddenly collapsed in the street as if they had crashed: ?

But Shi Yuan quickly overcame his confusion and got on with life. Every day, he either went around watering flowers with the neighbors or accompanied his friends to the mall to shop.

If only the flowers would stop drooling and bleeding from their enormous petals, and if the mall weren't a place where gunfights and explosions could break out at any moment, the world would still seem quite lovely.

There was just one thing that worried Shi Yuan. Half a month had passed since the mutations began, and he still hadn't received a mission of his own.

The number of people he could see was dwindling. Most had completed their missions and gone to live in another world. They said it was a brand-new world on the same dimension, where people would be given a fresh start after arriving.

Shi Yuan longed to go there. He had been paralyzed in both legs since birth, and daily life always required him to trouble other people. In this dangerous world where mutations had suddenly erupted, the feeling that he was constantly dragging others down was even worse.

But even after the flowers grew so big that they filled the two rooms next door, and the vines started baring their claws and acting like "bandits," killing passersby until the streets were impassable and riddled with holes, Shi Yuan still hadn't received his mission.

Just as he thought he would have to watch everyone leave while his own life counted down, he died!

Then he suddenly saw a group of very, very familiar people gathered around him.

Neighbor/friend/some silly giant dog: Hi! Yuanyuan/wifey!

Shi Yuan: …?

Shi Yuan stood up, but seeing the mutated beasts, even fiercer than those in the previous world, he decided he could stay seated a little longer.

Theme: Live well