The Miaojiang Fandom's Top Fanfic Writer

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Qin Yan was a novelist: top-tier looks, rock-bottom luck. He got by on the minimum guaranteed income tossed to him by a third-rate publisher, and his last book had been pulled for its sensitive subject matter.

After scraping through his last bit of royalties, Qin Yan finally couldn't even afford the minimum payments anymore. His landlady chased him out with a broom, and he calmly packed his bags and headed to western Hunan to become a high-quality homeless person.

The area was rife with strange tales of ghosts and gods. In the dead of night, the village chief of Shuangling Village came to him, holding an old oil lamp with a hole in it and muttering nervously: There are vengeful ghosts all over the back hill. The tomb guardian statue has been destroyed, and everyone is terrified.

Qin Yan remained calm. "Provide all my meals and lodging, and I'll go guard the tomb."

In a gloomy, dilapidated temple on the back hill, Qin Yan bent over his desk, writing a new book.

A hanging ghost floated over to him, grinning eerily. Qin Yan slapped it to the ground. "You've even got a bubbly voice when you grin. Is there phlegm stuck in your throat?"

A starving ghost leaned into his window and howled. Qin Yan tossed it a hard steamed bun, which knocked against its teeth. "Quit moaning. Eat it, then get lost."

A ghost who had been forced into the wrong bridal sedan and married the wrong groom threw herself at his legs, sobbing two streams of bloody tears over her resentment. Qin Yan raised an eyebrow. "I'll write you a self-insert fanfic. It'll be satisfying, well-written, and cure your lingering regrets. Give me one of the jade bangles on your wrist."

When the story was done, the lovesick ghost couldn't put it down and praised it to the skies, giving him one of her gold earrings on the spot.

Qin Yan's reputation as a writer grew, and commissions from ghosts and monsters of all kinds began pouring in from every direction.

A rebel ghost, hacked to death for starting a riot: "I want a novel where I'm the protagonist, conquering the east and the west and eventually becoming an emperor for the ages."

Qin Yan said expressionlessly, "Overpowered hero progression fantasy: thirty yuan per thousand words to start. Eighty for a big power trip, forty for a small one."

A ghost artist who had been erased from an erotic painting twisted bashfully in front of Qin Yan's handsome face. "I want to read that kind of thing."

Qin Yan: "Which kind?"

The erotic-art ghost blushed. "You know, that kind."

Qin Yan: "...That costs extra."

When an accompanying traveler told him he was making dirty money, he didn't care, casually insisting that he was selling tickets to people's dreams.

If you've got the money, you're welcome here. The Buddha can't save all living beings, but I'll save every ghost with my pen.

After a while spent with vengeful spirits growling at him while he growled back, and evil ghosts reading his stories while he counted their money, Qin Yan realized he'd become the boss of Shuangling Mountain, more effective than the tomb guardian statue itself.

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When Qin Yan first arrived in western Hunan, he and the travelers accompanying him were sent to explore and clear a route through the deserted forest by the town entrance.

The forest was thick with ghostly energy. Corpse puppets covered in blood clawed at the air, and countless blood corpses guarded the formation at its deepest point. A coffin lay in the center.

Then, right before the terrified eyes of the traveler beside him, he lifted the lid of Mu Yunshen's coffin.

He rudely slapped the young man's pale, almost translucent cheek. "If you're awake, quit pretending to be dead."

The young man slowly opened his eyes. They stared at each other for a while before the young man spoke in a voice so faint it was almost inaudible:

"I saw you a long time ago."

Qin Yan's mouth twisted in discomfort.

"I stopped writing such clichéd novel plots when I was eighteen."

[Hard-luck, unhinged, self-destructive writer top x sweet, mute teenage puppet master bottom (not actually mute)]

[Blurb written in 2023, published in December 2024]

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