Xi Yujin pondered what Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex should write, hoping to explore something entirely new.

Near the viewing window of Tidal Peace, the visual enhancement function was activated. A vast nebula shrank into a small three-dimensional model and floated before him. Nebulae were always composed of ionized gas and dust. Some glowed from radiation, while others gleamed from reflected light. This irregular blue-purple nebula looked like a pile of freshly shorn wool in a pasture, which meant it was a reflection nebula with no sufficiently bright stars nearby.

This dreamlike color palette flooded Xi Yujin with inspiration. He wanted to write something beautiful, something readers could curl up with and finish comfortably under the warm cover of a blanket.

"How about a fairy tale!?"

He decided that Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex (portrayed by Yongye) writes fairy tales that children would love. Fairy tales were characterized by anthropomorphizing all kinds of things, using strange yet logical stories to help children understand the world around them. Their endings were usually happy.

Even adults, lost in the noise of reality, could rediscover their original selves through fairy tales.

Moreover, writing the purest fairy tale imaginable under the name "Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex" was, in itself, quite amusing.

And so, Xi Yujin began his new work: Dragon Witch's Secret Words.

—

Recently, Gano had been constantly reading while diligently taking notes. Watching Gano work so hard, using even his free time to study, Xi Yujin found himself paying more attention to Blue Planet's work ethic as well.

He commissioned a web design service to make the Fisherman Cup page clean and sophisticated. The competition was divided into two tracks based on the story's historical setting: Echoes of Old Dreams and Nebula Fantasies. Clicking into the Echoes of Old Dreams page even triggered ink-wash visual effects.

Blue Planet had already received a batch of first drafts from novelists.

In the interest of fairness, Xi Yujin didn't look at the authors' names and simply read and appreciated the works on their own merits. He came across several stories about "traveling back to Blue Planet's isolated planet era," which he found quite fascinating.

In this universe, traveling to the past had been proven impossible. Altering history was considered foolish, primitive, and dangerous to the entire cosmos, so the time-travel genre had almost entirely vanished. Any novelist with a reputation to protect avoided it. And yet, the desire to undo an imperfect past was universal among all beings.

Since the Fisherman Cup used anonymity, some novelists couldn't resist submitting such stories anyway. If Xi Yujin had truly been a native, he would probably have been outraged: "How dare this novelist arbitrarily alter our history!" But as a genuine time-traveler himself, he happily placed those submissions in the Echoes of Old Dreams track. Other species later remarked that Blue Planet was truly a magnanimous civilization.

Similarly, this universe lacked the "system" novels common on Earth, because Intelligent Machines genuinely existed here. Earth readers might believe in a system that unconditionally granted benefits, but alien readers would immediately read such a story as satire about invaders.

Beyond the works imitating his aliases' styles, Xi Yujin also came across stories titled "Humans Are Ancient Gods," "How I Looted the Luminous Empire's Underground Palace," and "Biography of a Business Genius." He honestly couldn't imagine coming up with ideas that interesting, and for a moment, he was at a loss:

Being a judge was harder than he had imagined.

The Fisherman Cup was divided into a showcase phase and a reader voting phase. Xi Yujin organized the submissions and released them one by one on the competition page. When the designated time arrived, the event would officially begin.

—

Half an hour after the competition started.

An alien named Buti covered its large ears in frustration. It was unbearable. Ever since the Blue Planet writing contest began, its companion hadn't stopped screaming, one moment shouting "This is definitely Yongye!" and the next "This is definitely not Yongye!", at a volume that can nearly pierce eardrums.

Buti knew Yongye was its companion's latest obsession. This companion constantly tried to recommend this novelist, but excessive hype only triggered resistance. The more they raved about Yongye, the less Buti wanted to read his novels, and it had even managed to find plenty of flaws in Yongye from secondhand descriptions alone.

Rumor had it that his hands were stained with murder...

They said his stories were always inseparable from blood and violence, with graphic descriptions of corpses detailed enough to leave any reader terrified for an entire day!

Now, Buti had even more reason not to read Yongye's work. It already had plenty of stress, so why not read something enjoyable instead?

When its companion heard this, their eyes lit up, and they then recommended Yongye's close friend, Xunming. They had a whole basket of writer's gossip ready to share, just waiting for Buti to take the bait.

Buti inwardly rolled its eyes and immediately decided that it would absolutely never read anything by either of those two.

"But I'm still quite curious about Blue Planet. If they're that impressive, there must be writers even better than those two." Secretly, Buti opened the Fisherman Cup page. "I'll find something and recommend it right back at them. Fight fire with fire, let them suffer what I've suffered!"

Buti quickly browsed the entries and chose the Nebula Fantasies track. Works in this category didn't require knowledge of historical context to enjoy, which suited Buti perfectly. It decisively skipped any title with "detective" in it and also passed over web novels that spelled out their tropes directly in the title, all to avoid the risk of ending up liking the same authors as its companion.

Then a name caught Buti's eye:

Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex.

"Let's see just how wild this is," Buti muttered, and clicked in.

It only planned to glance at it before leaving. But instead, like finding a spring in the desert, it found itself unable to stop.

 [

Dragon Witch's Secret Words

Author: Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex

 

Dailan was a very unusual Tyrannosaurus Rex. Unfortunately, that uniqueness was not a good thing. While the other young Tyrannosaurs around it had already learned to hunt, it was still too timid to take even one step out of the canyon.

Its relatives were deeply disappointed, and often said:

"You need to be braver, Dailan. Tyrannosaurs are the symbol of strength. Use your roar to make the smaller creatures tremble."

But during the next hunting, Dailan was still too frightened to move.

It grew increasingly dejected, hiding in the shadowy depths of the canyon, unable to meet its relatives' eyes.

Only its mother continued to encourage it: 

"I know you can become the bravest Tyrannosaurus."

Dailan half believed this until an accident occurred.

An earthquake struck the canyon. Massive boulders came rolling down, and the once-solid ground turned into a swamp of liquid mud. Dailan bit onto a vine, but the thin vine couldn't support its weight. After holding for a few seconds, it snapped.

Dailan fell into a deep fissure.

When it woke up, it found itself in a strange place. All around it stood a group of long-limbed creatures, cheering. In the distance, triangular stone houses were stacked across the wheat fields like haystacks. These creatures were called the Housefolk, beings who built and lived in houses.

"Wonderful! The House Rhino's nail finally broke. It can run again!" the Housefolk cheered. "Thank you, mysterious dinosaur!"

Dailan looked in confusion at a clumsy rhinoceros galloping away on all four legs.

"What is a House Rhino?" it asked.

"It's our partner in farming," the Housefolk explained. "All these fields depend on it. But it has a weakness: its toenails grow too fast. When they get too long, every step becomes unbearably painful. Of course, we don't want our partner to suffer like that, so we've tried every method to trim them. But either we weren't strong enough, or our tools weren't sharp enough. Then you came! One push, and you knocked the nail right off!"

Dailan felt a little shy. It had never received so much praise before. When it first woke up, it felt something on its head and struggled to shake free, and it turned out to be the House Rhino's nail! But it had another question:

"What about wild rhinos? What happens to their toenails?"

"What do you mean?" The Housefolk were equally puzzled. "Wild rhinos have their nails trimmed by the Wildfolk, of course."

"Thank you for the explanation," Dailan said politely. "But I need to go home now. Do you know the way to the canyon?"

When the Housefolk heard that Dailan had fallen through a fissure to get here, they grew concerned.

"Child, listen carefully. The place where we live... is a very, very large sphere."

Dailan was astonished. "We live on a giant ball?"

The Housefolk brought out a spherical stone mold. Pointing to one spot, they said:

"Look closely. This is the canyon."

Then they flipped the stone sphere over and pointed to the corresponding spot on the other side:

"And this is where we are now. You fell through a passage at the planet's core to get here. In other words, you are half a world away from your canyon."

When Dailan heard this, a wave of sorrow washed over it. It had never traveled such a great distance before. Could it really return to its home?

"Don't worry, my child," the Housefolk said sympathetically. "We rarely venture out, but the Wildfolk are skilled adventurers. Take this token of ours and go into the forest to find them."

They placed a necklace of wheat around Dailan's neck. It smelled wonderfully fragrant. Fortunatey, it was worn around the neck, otherwise Dailan would have been tempted to take a bite.

Following their directions, Dailan entered the forest. It had thought that it was familiar with forests, but this one was completely different from the canyon's. The canyon's trees always grew bent and gnarled, with burls like ghostly faces embedded in their trunks. But here, the trees were tall and straight, and a cold mist lingered between them.

Dailan shivered and moved even more cautiously.

Then it felt something under its tail. It lifted the tail slightly, looked down, and found an egg.

Perhaps calling it an eggshell would be more accurate. It was already cracked open and empty inside. Yet the crack in the shell opened and closed as it spoke:

"Rude dinosaur..."

Dailan quickly apologized. "I'm so sorry. I'm looking for the Wildfolk. If you happen to know the way, can you please help me?"

"Please? Did you say please?" The eggshell's voice rose sharply. "Ahem... It has been so long since any creature treated an eggshell as a complete being. Everyone always focuses on what's inside and looks down on the shell itself. Sometimes I think about putting something inside myself just to satisfy their curiosity, but I really am just an ordinary eggshell. I was born with nothing inside me..."

"It's hard to change what we're born with," Dailan said softly, feeling a kind of kinship. "Your spots are very round. Very beautiful."

"You..." The eggshell seemed touched, though it didn't show such things easily. After observing Dailan for a moment, it said awkwardly: "Your arms are short. That's... quite cute."

The eggshell cleared its throat, though it had no such organ, Dailan somehow knew that's what it was doing.

"Carry me with you," it said. "I'll help you find those rude Wildfolk."

"Alright." Dailan carefully cradled the eggshell against its chest. Its two short arms were just the right size for it. "Thank you for coming with me. I'm actually quite scared..."

The eggshell showed the tolerance of an elder, and spoke from Dailan's arms:

"Have you ever heard this legend? Long ago, there was the bravest dinosaur of all: the Dragon Witch..."

 ]

The story update stopped at the point where the Tyrannosaurus found the Wildfolk's temporary dwelling, but the Wildfolk themselves were nowhere to be seen.

"It only goes this far?!"

Buti felt a surge of sharp disappointment.

"I finally found something that suits my taste..."

It searched around for updates, found none, and had no choice but to go back and savor it again.

"The 'journey home' plot is fairly common, but the imagination here is extraordinary. A timid yet polite Tyrannosaurus Rex, a passage through the planet's core, and an eggshell that holds nothing. Every image is exaggerated, yet irresistibly endearing."

In Buti's mind, a Tyrannosaurus Rex was a somewhat clumsy, long-tailed creature. Many things in the story were round: cone-shaped stone houses, smooth eggshells, even the Wildfolk's temporary dwelling resembled a round bird's nest. Somehow, anything round became exceptionally endearing.

Since the protagonist was still a child, the descriptions of the world were equally whimsical, offering a fresh perspective on everything. Seeing a House Rhino made one worry about wild rhinos. Seeing wheat meant noticing its fragrance first. Seeing an eggshell meant praising its spots first. There were no meddlesome adults anywhere, and the whole world felt pure and bright.

"It's not just for children. Adults can enjoy it too. I guarantee it feels like drinking a clear, sweet spring. The plot and themes are easy to follow. It's a story about identity and belonging."

Buti wrote a review of Dragon Witch's Secret Words:

"Some people, like me, are always seen by others of their kind as not fitting in. But only you know what truly suits you. Forcing yourself into a mold made by someone else will only leave you battered and broken. Dailan and its companion will find what they seek on this journey. So I highly recommend this..."

Buti exited the page, checked the story's tags, and continued:

"...fairy tale!"

Out of thoroughness, Buti even checked whether any Blue Planet novelist had written fairy tales before. After searching, it found only Xunming's Fairy Tale of a Life and Death Romance, which barely counted, and that was still a melodramatic story.

"In any case, this is definitely not that Yongye who's practically an interstellar-wanted criminal. Wild Tyrannosaurus Rex isn't wild at all. It's a gentle writer with a delicate heart and a childlike spirit!"

Full of confidence, Buti went off to recommend it to its companion. Let the wave of recommendations begin!

Meanwhile, on the other side, Buti's companion, Saen, a fervent fan of Blue Planet novelists, was busy trying to identify Yongye's alias.

It immediately locked onto the pen name "Polar Day."

Among all the alien-language names, this one stood out as something distinct and fresh, almost as if it were beckoning the readers.

And then there was Polar Day's work: Superpower Detective Academy. All the elements were there! This was practically a carbon copy of Yongye!

"But the pen name 'Polar Day' is way too obvious..." one reader's frustration practically leaked through the screen. "I refuse to believe Yongye would be so straightforward with readers..."

"Or maybe it's a bluff. He made it too obvious so that we would hesitate to choose it!"

"Yongye, I accept your challenge. This time, I will not be fooled!"

Seeing this, Saen felt its blood run hot.

How many times had it fallen into Yongye's traps, only to happily say afterward: "Being tricked was wonderful! Yongye is amazing!" But deep down, it always quietly longed for the day it could accept one of Yongye's challenges and win fair and square.

Now, that day had finally come.

Then Saen noticed that "Polar Day" replied to a reader:

[

Guest Account ABC: Author, do you think Blue Planet's Xunming is an excellent writer?

Polar Day: ...?

]

Oh!

That familiar ellipsis!

And you still say that you're not Yongye?

With renewed confidence, Saen clicked into Superpower Detective Academy, determined to find more evidence within the text.