The World Has Not Long to Live

This story will be updated through the end of Gu Wanyun's arc. Please check out the story next door first~

[The unserious blurb]

A voice in a dream: It's time to set out...

Luo Xingzhi: What? Save the world? Me?

At last, she makes up her mind to search other worlds for a solution. "There are so many worlds. I want to see them!"

System Mainframe: Who? Who's destroying my instances and stealing my permissions?

Luo Xingzhi: No idea. I came out and the instance blew up on its own. I picked up the permissions!

The heroine, Luo Xingzhi, does whatever comes to mind right away. If she's quiet, she's definitely plotting mischief; when she gets going, she's like a little cow cat darting everywhere.

She'll witness the stories of many friends and write her own story, too. The heroine has no romance arc, though supporting characters may have one.

A slow-paced travel-and-growth story, told from the heroine's point of view with an ensemble cast. The prelude before setting out is long, and the otherworldly adventures officially begin after three instances.

[The serious blurb]

Luo Xingzhi used to be a college student who dreaded eight a.m. classes and felt half-dead while still alive. Then one day, an employment agreement appeared in her head, and just like that, she landed a job offer. Her client was called the "Mutual Aid Medical System."

The agreement went roughly like this: Your world is gravely ill and about to die. Hurry and sign a contract with me so we can treat it together!

Luo Xingzhi: "...Does your name happen to start with Qiu?"

The System provided no option to refuse. So she became an NPC in her own world, and learned that the System governed countless other worlds that were also headed for destruction.

She began to dream frequently. In her dreams, someone was always urging her to set out.

After witnessing a world perish and discovering that her mother had begun to be infected by the world's illness, Luo Xingzhi openly violated the System's rules and set off to seek a cure in other worlds.

Along the way, she met many people and received many gifts and items. Some merely crossed her path, while others would point the way forward at a certain moment.

At the end of her journey, she succeeded in saving her world from destruction and finally found the source of her dreams. In a silent place without time, she saw a face she had seen countless times before, a face exactly like her own.

The arcs will probably include:

(1) C-rank, Rumors Can Kill: Luo Xingzhi's colorful college life and the beginning of it all

(2) C-rank, Dreams of the Past: Believe that a hundred years are all a dream. The world is vast; wander freely.

(3) C-rank, Domestic Matters: These imperceptible things are everywhere, trapping people in their homeland.

(4) B-rank, Beneath the Netherworld: My own take on Western fantasy, beginning with a civil war and a succession dispute

(5) B-rank, City in the Clouds: Candy is everywhere here, and people live by chasing the clouds.

(6) B-rank, Forward! Upward!: When people become nothing but a resume...

(7) A-rank, Echoes of the Apocalypse: A polluted wasteland and people struggling to survive

(8) A-rank, Records of Mountains and Seas: An unconventional take on the Classic of Mountains and Seas

(9) S-rank, Mirage: When the boundaries between self and others grow indistinct, what am I?

(10) S-rank, The Walking Nation: A Leviathan walks the earth. What is utopia truly built upon?

(11) S-rank, No Gods in This World: Believers create gods, and destroy them, too.

(12) A-rank, The Epic Road: Setting out, traveling, returning home, the classic structure of an epic.

(13) ?-rank, Less Is More: Remove sorrow, remove pain. Keep it simple, with no tomorrow.

(14) S-rank, War Devastates All: In the face of war, you and I are both specks of dust.

Check out the modern fantasy next door: Don't Make Our Casework This Flirtatious

Zhong Jiuqing, second director of the You Hour Office, is immune to demons and ghosts, and his eyes can distinguish yin from yang. His job is to guard the boundary gate connecting the human and demon realms.

He opens for business whenever he feels like it, and at a young age has already settled into retirement.

He can't help it. His adoptive grandmother was a Pixiu, and she left him enough money to coast for three lifetimes.

His three subordinates are no ordinary people, either.

One is a divination master who knows everything under heaven. Zhong Jiuqing caught him and made him toss coins to predict each day's fortune.

One is Feihuang, a ten-thousand-year-old divine beast recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, who has become the head of logistics, washing his hands of everything else to cook.

One is a century-old fierce ghost who used to lead ghost messengers in circles, and now spends every day telling hell jokes and making sure to eat well.

Then he meets Lou Lianxiao, a perfectly in-sync case-solving partner from the Special Investigation Bureau.

Zhong Jiuqing thinks: Surely this one is an ordinary human, right?

Lou Lianxiao really is an utterly ordinary "human," except he wears the divine sword Wanjun as a single earring and is fierce enough to slash even the rules of the world.

And the people around him are just as extraordinary: a medical worker chosen by the divine beast Qinggeng; an intern who casually awakened a space-type ability; a research specialist proficient in formations and talismans; an old fox of an adviser whose depths Zhong Jiuqing can't fathom; and a young, promising outside CEO with money to burn...

Zhong Jiuqing looks at his passive abilities in disappointment, then turns a reproachful gaze toward the divine book Tiandi in his sea of consciousness.

"How come I'm the only one without some incredible hidden identity?"

He has barely said it when he discovers during an investigation:

Zhurong, why does he look so familiar?

Jianmu, have I seen this one before, too?

Queen Mother of the West, didn't she summon thunder to strike me in a dream?

The boundary gate, why does it feel connected to my bloodline?

Little by little, Zhong Jiuqing discovers that in his previous life, he may have been a remarkable deity.

A deity who committed a serious offense, and is now being punished by the Queen Mother of the West to reincarnate in the human world and atone for his sins. His duty is to guard the boundary gate.

Turns out I'm my own biggest backer?

CP: Younger, nurturing, and irresistibly devoted gong Lou Lianxiao x laid-back, particular, teasing shou Zhong Jiuqing

At their first meeting, they scheme against each other; at their second, they are wary; at their third, the signs begin to show; at their fourth, they work in perfect sync; at their fifth, they grow fond of each other; at their sixth, they become confidants...

While gathering clues:

Zhong, putting on a show anywhere: Stay right here. I'll go check out the other side.

Lou, playing along: ...What are you acting out this time?

When surrounded:

Zhong, weak and helpless, a total pushover: Director Lou, protect me! Protect me!

Lou, a one-man army: I'm coming.

While chasing a suspect:

Zhong, watching the show: Take him out!

Lou, taking action: (a blur) (flies away)

Early on:

Everyone: Wow, you two are progressing so fast~

Lou Lianxiao: ? We're just working cases together. Don't make it sound so flirtatious.

Zhong Jiuqing only smiles without a word.

Later on:

Subordinates from both sides: We're reporting our two bosses for having an affair! Didn't you say not to make working cases together sound so flirtatious?

Zhong Jiuqing smiles: We're just pure and innocent work partners.

Lou Lianxiao silently installs a portal between their two workplaces.

Theme: See the world clearly, and love life.