Mingxin ignored Xunming and Canghai and posted the main text of The Invisible Monday. His tag identified him as a Japanese-style novelist, a point he deliberately emphasized in his writing.

[

Three, two, one. I successfully hypnotized myself and forgot Monday, the day that was yesterday. As for why I wanted to forget it, I can no longer remember.

I had this special ability since I was little: I can use a swinging pocket watch to hypnotize someone into forgetting a specific thing. But I rarely use it on strangers, because swinging a watch in front of a stranger is just too ridiculous.

I remember trying this trick on my classmates, but before I could complete the hypnosis, I was punched to the ground. Each of those tall, strong boys kicked me on their way past. Naturally, I never got to use my special ability, basically rendering it useless.

I hate going to school, not only because of those detestable tall students, but also because of the hypocritical teachers. Even the bullied classmates weren't entirely without fault; their endless self-pity made me sick.

Of course, I also have to pretend to be ordinary and normal. Like a cold, dead fish in a supermarket display case: smiling brightly in group photos, sneering at the teacher after class, and pretending not to see certain things at certain moments.

I don't know why I make myself forget Mondays. It's probably because of the dreadful Chinese language class.

Today is Tuesday, and I came across the oddball of our class. He is the most alive person in the entire room, with eyes like a fierce wild animal. But he is always being targeted by that group, and they even covered his desk with obscenities. Because he is a chef's son, someone once saw him chopping meat with a large cleaver, and from that point on, rumors spread that he was a murderer in the making.

I actually felt some sympathy for him, because my only hobby is tasting good food, and a chef should never be beaten or insulted under any circumstances. But I was also worried that if I helped him, I would end up in trouble too. My conscience was torn between these two feelings.

I observed him silently for a long time, and finally, unable to live with myself, I waited one afternoon until those people had left after school and stopped him.

"I have a special ability," I said, puffing out my cheeks. Miraculously, I feel alive in that moment. "I can help you forget unpleasant things. If you cannot fight back, then forget it instead."

His eyes slowly swept over me, like a praying mantis sizing up its prey. A few seconds later, he nodded, slowly but firmly. So I took out my watch and, for the very first time, successfully hypnotized someone else.

"Amazing," he said. "I really forgot."

It was Monday again.

I packed my bag and went to school. The classroom was filled with the usual revelry. At this age, we have no concept of evil; we only learn to disguise evil as good after entering society. So we should never have had any hope to begin with; we have never changed.

Suddenly, the boy I had hypnotized walked into the classroom. Everyone booed because he was surrounded by a sour smell. He ignored the booing, walked up to the podium, slammed his bag down on it, and said, "I have had enough. I am going to take revenge!"

The classroom erupted in comedic laughter.

Then he locked the classroom door from the inside, pulled a cleaver used for slaughtering animals out of his bag. Everyone screamed in terror, suddenly realizing that a true butcher had entered the room.

I was terrified and thought back to that hypnosis session. Did I cause someone to forget the part of themselves that had been suppressed, and in doing so, ignite a fire of revenge? Did I become an accomplice of the butcher?

Bloodstains were everywhere in the classroom, except around me.

"Why did you let him go!" the ringleader of the bullies shouted my name. "He clearly played a big part in every Monday mock trial! Have you forgotten? He was the one who threw fireworks at you; he was the one who suggested throwing bottle shards at you! He is the one who deserves to be slaughtered!"

I stared at him in horror, but he only glanced at me calmly: "I believe that he is inherently good."

Oh no.

Now I remember why I wanted to forget Monday.

To escape the crushing guilt… I wanted to forget that I was a coward. That I was an accomplice. So I hypnotized myself.

The slaughter in the classroom continued, and the teachers frantically pounded on the windows. Suddenly, they parted, and a fully armed officer burst through the glass.

Some shards grazed my face, while others struck my head. I pressed my hand to my wound and watched him being subdued. He barely resisted.

In the pool of blood, I trembled as I pulled out the broken watch to hypnotize myself.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one.

Three, two, one...

I opened my eyes wide in confusion, then closed them again... gradually realizing something utterly despairing.

My special ability had failed.

From this point on, I would spend the rest of my life in regret.

]

— Jung: Truly an excellent work! ^-^

A member of the Green Clan, browsing the Intelligent Machines' forum, noticed the Blue Planet civilization tag and decisively clicked on it.

They had a genuine desire to explore the mysteries of Blue Planet civilization, so they deliberately passed relevant information on to the Intelligent Machines. Writing on the forum was not the only way to communicate with the Intelligent Machines; a small number of races knew of another channel: trading information directly with the Intelligent Machines' terminals.

The information they had sold was Blue Planet's study of Dream of the Red Chamber. However, the Intelligent Machines' feedback was strange: they actually believed that only Yujin remained of the Blue Planet civilization.

The Intelligent Machines would not provide the derivation process, only the result. Asking further questions would cost extra. Moreover, the Green Clan could only convene a small internal meeting to discuss the situation of the Blue Planet civilization.

"The Intelligent Machines aren't entirely reliable either," one Green Clan member said casually. "They love philosophy and always come up with roundabout answers. Do you remember that most famous Q&A? A being spent 10 billion electronic coins to ask the Intelligent Machines what the ultimate answer to the universe was, and they replied that it would cost ten times that. That being saved up for a long time and asked the Intelligent Machines again: What is the ultimate answer to the universe?"

"And what was it?" a young Green Clan member chimed in curiously.

"42*!" the Green Clan member declared. "The ultimate answer to the universe is 42! What? You want to know why? How would I know why? But that was the Intelligent Machines' calculated result. Although the Intelligent Machines later denied it, saying that wasn't their answer, and that the creature hadn't saved up nearly enough money before sailing off elsewhere. Other examples of vague questions and cryptic answers show that the Intelligent Machines' replies can sometimes be genuinely strange...

The ultimate mystery of Blue Planet civilization is that only one Yujin remains. What is the difference between that and the ultimate answer to the universe being 42?"

The assembled Green Clan members emitted waves of partial agreement and partial hesitation.

Suddenly, the Green Clan member who had been slacking off during the meeting and browsing the forum emitted a heavy, depressed wave.

"It is definitely not just one person..." it said. "Do you all remember that Blue Planet has an Official Novelist named Mingxin? I've read the whole thing, and I haven't felt right since. It's so heavy. So suffocating."

The other Green Clan members clicked the link with some skepticism.

The Invisible Monday is a short story about school bullying. The entire piece is steeped in the twilight after school hours, the last remaining light serving as a final disguise before the long night.

It features extensive first-person narration from the protagonist, whose thoughts are dark yet whose actions are outwardly conventional. From time to time, however, flickers of positive feeling, such as remorse and compassion, surface. Readers could not help but feel uneasy about the protagonist's situation.

After reading it, the Green Clan members felt as though a stone had been hung from their hearts. They discussed the plot among themselves: "I really did succeed in hypnotizing the butcher's son, didn't I? When he said amazing, I really forgot, did he mean he had lost his own memory, or did he realize that the protagonist had lost theirs?"

"I think the hypnosis failed," another Green Clan member said. "Otherwise, he wouldn't have commented on 'my' goodness. Perhaps he felt that 'I' had been under too much pressure and forgot everything, and thought I was someone who could still be saved?"

"But is 'I' truly good enough to deserve being spared?"

The meeting room erupted in debate over The Invisible Monday.

"'I' went to every length to hypnotize myself, all to escape the guilt. Even after witnessing the tragedy and discovering the hypnosis no longer worked, 'my' despair came from the inability to forget the guilt. From 'my' perspective, guilt is the true killing blade. Or... was the hypnosis a lie all along? No other special abilities appear anywhere in this story."

A moment of silence followed before one Green Clan member slowly said, "This ending truly captures a chilling, bone-deep evil of human nature. I think it is a wholly unique writing style..."

The Green Clan compiled all of Mingxin's writings, feeling that their understanding of Blue Planet civilization had made another major breakthrough.

"Look, Blue Planet's freelance novelists have also been uploading their own works!"

On the Intelligent Machines' forum, readers scrolled through a flood of new works from Blue Planet civilization. Readers here were used to this sort of thing.

Many civilizations, upon arriving, would immediately post their finest works in hopes of earning more electronic coins. The readers had long been spoiled, and out of habit, they refreshed the page several more times, waiting for the new posts to sink so that more popular novel threads could rise back to the top.

"The Deep Space Prison truly is a wonderful place to retire..." a reader named Lanlan sighed. "The mental turmoil I've been accumulating for years has eased quite a bit here."

Lanlan suddenly felt something was off. Those new posts that should have been sinking were actually getting more and more replies? And the novel posts from the Blue Planet civilization were still on the homepage?

It clicked at random into The Case Files of Mr. Zhong and immediately became engrossed. Driven by some kind of reader's intuition, it quickly backed out and bookmarked all the other posts tagged with Blue Planet civilization, to avoid missing anything due to the forum's rapid refresh.

In the process, it discovered that Blue Planet's novelists all knew one another and would frequently show up to support each other's posts; who was close to whom was immediately obvious. It thus formed an initial impression of the Blue Planet literary scene.

Among them, the novelists named Xunming and Canghai were the most outgoing: the two almost always traveled together, leaving comments everywhere, and they appeared in virtually every Blue Planet civilization post.

"This Xunming has written so many books! He must be a top-tier author." The reader categorized them one by one. "This Yongye's content is so fresh and original, wait, it was once serialized in the Materialist Archive? He really is provocative; will the Intelligent Machines ban his account? This Canghai... his writing is ancient and mysterious, I feel I need to read it carefully... so many replies in such a short time, Blue Planet civilization must be incredibly powerful!"

Lanlan saw some readers recommending: "Yongye really knows how to write romance; the ending is spectacular, sweet enough to make you faint." It instinctively assumed that Yongye primarily wrote romance, and so it started by reading through Yongye's works in detail.

"It really is about feelings..." Lanlan was thoroughly convinced of its own misunderstanding. "The murderer and the victim both carry such different emotions. Yongye really does know how to write."

While reading, it found the pairing of Mr. Zhong and the sheriff to be a wonderfully interesting combination. Having heard that the word close friend carried a special meaning on Blue Planet, it became even more intrigued.

"Other readers say it's very sweet... so it must have a happy ending. Definitely not with Mr. Shi!" Lanlan thought to itself.

Then it saw the final chapter: The Death of Mr. Zhong.

Like countless readers who had been put through the wringer before it, Lanlan was first startled, then decided this was simply Yongye's scheme to frighten readers. It was not going to fall for it. After all, it had already seen the spoilers.

It was not until it read the very last sentence of The Death of Mr. Zhong with a mind on the verge of exploding that it finally, belatedly, understood:

"Damn it! The ones more cunning than Yongye… are his readers!”

Another reader named Weiwei was far luckier as it started with Xunming's works.

Weiwei had been in the Deep Space Prison for a long time, immersed in complex literary works, and occasionally craved something different: a web novel.

However, as fate would have it, the writing AI developed by the Intelligent Machines had turned out to be the key force behind the collapse of the web novel genre. Weiwei dared not object to anything and could only survive on the few web novel genres still available on the forum.

"Let me see what the web novels on Blue Planet are like..." Weiwei casually clicked on a post.

And once it started, it could not stop.

"I haven't felt this exhilarated in ages; it's so good! I desperately want to turn to the next page, but I haven't slept in forever!" Weiwei said, sporting dark circles under its eyes. "I think the level of web novels on Blue Planet is the best I have ever seen! Even the fast-paced writing is meticulously crafted; it is practically an act of charity to the reader!"

"Never mind all that, enjoyment first! I am going to stay up all night to finish it!"

Weiwei declared this with great ambition.

More and more readers of all kinds clicked into the Blue Planet literature posts, each leaving their own exclamation. Every time a new reader replied, the post was pushed back to the first page. In a forum with such enormous traffic, it was a rare and remarkable phenomenon for a novel to consistently remain on the homepage.

Some novelists who had been active on the Intelligent Machines' forum for a long time were taken aback:

"I have never even heard of this race before, yet their literary level is this outstanding? Their posts have been on the homepage for ages!"

"Oh, there's even an official website link?"

Readers followed the instructions in the post and clicked on the official website link.

Xi Yujin thought that it was too much trouble to repost all his previous content in a new star system and decided that it would be easier to organize it himself. He therefore added a Works Library subpage to the personal homepages of all his aliases, backing up all his works there.

He also set up a virtual currency, the Earth Coin, which could be exchanged for stardust at a direct rate, cutting out any middlemen.

The prices of all works were set at the standard market rate. If other races wished to enter into a business partnership, they could simply contact him through the backend and pay directly.

In this way, alien readers had multiple channels through which to access Blue Planet novels. For example, in the Pangshi Galaxy, readers could log in to the local novel website for a smooth reading experience, or brave the network latency to access the Blue Planet Works Library and enjoy the pleasure of personally urging updates.

In the Deep Space Prison, readers could use their accumulated electronic coins to read through the forum at a lower cost, or visit the Blue Planet Works Library to discover more works not published on the forum, such as Yujin's own works and the many short stories published in Reader's Digest.

Alien readers who clicked through to the Blue Planet official website were soon immersed in the wonderful stories within.

Inside Tidal Peace, Xi Yujin was switching between personas on the spot.

He had surveyed the novel trends on the forum: the dominant mode was serious literary drama, with a small proportion of web novels. To attract attention, he first tested the waters using Mingxin's Japanese-style melancholic writing to gauge reader responses. Once he confirmed that the readers here had no unusual aversions, he boldly launched the Blue Planet literary drama series.

The first episode: Web Novel Master Xunming vs. Genius Newcomer Feiniao.

The Xunming alias was too useful to pass up, so it was naturally the first Xi Yujin reached for. Moreover, the previous Blue Planet literary rivalry still had a loose end that hadn't been explained, namely, why no one had challenged Xunming. Today, Xi Yujin came up with a reason: the college entrance examination (gaokao)!

The Feiniao alias had been created by Xi Yujin on the fly during his Knowledge-based First Aid session aboard the Navigator Colossus. Its current tags were only likes magical girl themes, gaokao student, and in a prolonged chunibyo phase.

Since a number of astronauts already knew this alias, Xi Yujin decided to first flesh out Feiniao's character properly.

He quickly wrote the short story he had previously used to treat the astronauts: The Lost Grimoire.

An ordinary high school girl became a magical girl by chance and sets off on a journey to find a lost grimoire. Because the grimoire has been corrupted, monsters constantly threaten the human world.

The protagonist defeats one monster after another through intelligence and courage, and finds other magical girls along the way.

They all miraculously attend the same school: a serious student council president, a delinquent who is always skipping class, and a quiet girl who haunts the library.

Compared to her accomplished companions, the protagonist seems like a magical girl with nothing remarkable about her except her energy. Yet her companions always cherish her.

In the final battle, everyone becomes corrupted, and the protagonist finds herself trapped in a magical realm, suffering the backlash of the evil within herself. In her vision, everyone criticizes her for not being a qualified magical girl.

The protagonist fights her way bravely out of the magical realm and, looking out at the scorched earth of reality, resolves to purify the grimoire with her own life.

[

"That’s great… Knowing that everyone will be smiling tomorrow... Even if I can’t see that tomorrow myself, that’s enough…"

The weakened magical girl flashed her signature smile.

"Now I am a qualified magical girl, right!?"

"You fool..." Her companions wrapped their arms around her, sobbing uncontrollably.

"In my heart, you have always been the most powerful magical girl."

Crystal tears streamed down her face and dripped onto the grimoire. Suddenly, it bursts into brilliant light.

"Detecting the strongest witch-type energy: Pure Love. Charging complete—"

The energy poured into the weakened magical girl, rapidly healing her wounds and restoring her vitality.

The grimoire announced:

"Become a magical girl once again! This time, starting from the apprenticeship!"

]

The Lost Grimoire concluded with a group photo of all the magical girls, a joyful ending in which everyone survived.

Xi Yujin published this short story as the first work to be revealed under the Feiniao alias, then switched to his other personas.

—

Intelligent Machines Forum.

Novel Serial

Million Gods' Wager

Author: Xunming (Blue Planet)

Page 344

[

Xunming: Didn’t expect that I’d actually finish it, huh? I feel so refreshed, like slipping under a quilt that's been airing out all day on New Year's Eve.

—

Xunming: Setting aside that perpetually busy Yujin, I think I can still claim the title of number one freelance novelist on Blue Planet.

—

Canghai: It's true that no other novelist challenged Brother Xunming last time.

—

Xunming: Canghai, why don't you give it a try?

—

Canghai: I don’t really have the energy lately...

—

Xunming: Alright, I'll cover for you then.

—

Mingxin: Don't you two think... this whole fighting for first place on Blue Planet thing is a bit too... immature...?

—

Feiniao: Damn it, Xunming! You just wait! I was busy with the gaokao and had no time to deal with you! Ha, the throne of literary number one? I got tired of that seat years ago.

—

Mingxin: I truly envy young people for having the courage to say things like that so naturally.

—

Xunming: I was wondering why you showed up before summer vacation. Turns out the gaokao is over...

—

Feiniao: What? Are you scared?

—

Xunming: I'll just write a short story. Don't worry, I'll give it my all.

]

Watching the excitement unfold is a hobby shared by all beings in the universe. Before long, posts explaining Xunming's past deeds had already appeared on the forum.

Readers who had followed Blue Planet from other star systems were proud, declaring that Xunming was undefeated across the entire Blue Planet literary world. Some other readers were unconvinced, and the reply count multiplied exponentially.

Some readers who remained passionate about Blue Planet civilization even posted dedicated research summary threads.

"The gaokao must be a fairly significant event for the people of Blue Planet."

"Feiniao's writing style shares certain traits with Mingxin's. For example, some exclamatory verbal tics and references to local delicacies. The author, therefore, believes they belong to the same school, forming part of Blue Planet's Japanese-style literature. However, some of Feiniao's vocabulary also carries characteristics of Blue Planet's Western literary style. This may be a powerful example of civilizational cross-pollination."

"Blue Planet civilization truly has more treasures the deeper you dig. I just read through all their new posts; every single writer has their own distinct strength. Allow me to summarize for everyone next..."

"I actually quite enjoy the magical girl genre. Although it centers on the protagonist leveling up, somewhat like the revenge flow in web novels, it places greater emphasis on positive elements such as friendship, effort, and unity, along with some charming fantasy elements. The protagonists are also students, which satisfies readers' fantasies from their own school days perfectly. I do think it might be a bit much for students, though. The magical girl genre is just right for someone my age."

"I just finished reading Blue Planet's new posts. The fact that Mingxin, who wrote The Invisible Monday, and Feiniao, who wrote The Lost Grimoire, coexist on the same Blue Planet is genuinely extraordinary!"