Blurb:
Guan Ning often felt that his life was a melodramatic TV series. His half-brother, who shared neither of his parents, was its protagonist, while he was the wicked younger brother, a disposable pawn there to make the protagonist shine.
Then, on the night of his eighteenth birthday, an email from another world turned his melodramatic life upside down.
The sender was the first original character he had ever created.
[I'm a suicide hotline operator. My purpose is to give people who reach out to me the courage to keep living.]
[But today, I saw a familiar name in the news. Someone I thought I'd saved took their own life.]
[I started working overtime like crazy, hoping to keep every caller who asked for help from giving up.]
[Today, I got a call. The caller ID said, “Me.”]
[Save me.]
Staring at those last three words in the email, Guan Ning pulled out his drawing tablet and stayed up all night, frantically filling in the character's backstory.
Except...
Guan Ning only wanted to help his OCs. Then he discovered that...
When he got caught up in the kidnapping of the TV drama's male lead, his older brother, and was ready to calmly accept being killed as a disposable pawn and turned into a warning to others, his body moved on its own. The familiar supernatural abilities he'd written into his character appeared in him, and he took down a warehouse full of kidnappers.
Guan Ning: ...Vera?
When his green-tea cousin framed him, accusing him of corporate espionage and betraying his adoptive father, Guan Ning had already planned to pack up and leave. He was even wondering whether his savings from writing would cover a month in a basement. Then his body started acting on its own, and his performance left his cousin utterly outclassed. His cousin promptly earned a one-day trip to the ICU with a cerebral hemorrhage.
Guan Ning: ...Yubel?
And so, the people around Guan Ning began to notice that he had changed.
Only Guan Ning knew he was still the same outsider who thought, “Whatever. It's fine. I'm doing okay.” But the OCs he'd created didn't seem willing to let him coast through life like that.
Until one day, Guan Ning's name was everywhere: in the news, entertainment, and finance sections, and even on the official website of the Red Flag.
“Wait, you're telling me he wants to take the Guan family's inheritance? Guan Ning? Are you sure you mean that Guan Ning?”
“Get real! Guan Ning is a whole tycoon family in his own right!”
No one would ever again mistake Guan Ning for the gloomy adopted son of a wealthy family he'd once been.
Guan Ning, the man who had long since become a different person: “Working on the art. The new business launches on the first of next month, so please show your support.”
Xia Lechi, a loyal reader who'd followed his comic for three years: “QwQ, Teacher, can I get on the whitelist?”
Content notes:
1. A little story about creators and their OCs saving each other.
2. The love interest is not an OC. Ning Ning and all the OCs have familial or platonic relationships.
3. The love interest appears later. The romance is a slow burn: an outgoing but cool-headed top with a free and easy spirit x a seemingly cold but warmhearted genius bottom.
4. The OCs' stories unfold in the emails, but Ning Ning remains the main viewpoint character throughout. This is not an anthology.
*The cover uses a template. The character designs aren't unique.*
2025/06/13
Theme: Grow little by little, breaking free of the cocoon to become a butterfly.
