The email notification pinged like a death knell in the stale silence of Chen Fan's cramped apartment. He stared at the screen, the glow reflecting hollowly in his sleep-deprived eyes. Subject Line: *Contract Update - "Heaven's Ascent"*. His fingers, hovering over the mouse, felt numb. This was it. The decision on his magnum opus, the xianxia epic he'd poured three years of blood, sweat, and instant noodles into.
He clicked.
> *Dear Mr. Chen,*
> *After careful consideration by our editorial board, we regret to inform you that we will not be proceeding with the publication of "Heaven's Ascent." While the world-building shows promise, the central narrative issue remains unresolved: the protagonist, Li Chen, is simply too overpowered from the outset. His lack of meaningful struggle, consequence, or vulnerability renders his journey dramatically inert and unrelatable to readers seeking authentic growth...*
The words blurred. "Too overpowered." "Dramatically inert." "Unrelatable." Each phrase was a physical blow. Chen Fan slumped back in his worn office chair, the cheap plastic groaning in protest. Li Chen *was* overpowered. That was the whole damn point! It was a power fantasy, a cathartic escape from his own mundane, struggling existence. Wasn't the whole xianxia genre about defying the heavens and crushing your enemies? Who wanted to read about a weakling constantly getting kicked around?
Anger, hot and bitter, rose in his throat. He slammed a fist on the desk, sending empty energy drink cans rattling. "Stupid! Short-sighted! They don't get it!" he yelled at the uncaring walls. He'd meticulously plotted Li Chen's rise, his harem of stunning cultivators, his mastery of forgotten arts, his ultimate confrontation with the Heavenly Dao itself. It was epic! It was satisfying! It was... rejected.
Frustration curdled into despair. Three years. Countless late nights. Dreams of success evaporating like morning mist. He buried his face in his hands, the harsh glow of the rejection letter burning against his closed eyelids. The weight of failure pressed down, suffocating. He just wanted to sleep, to escape the crushing disappointment.
He didn't remember drifting off. One moment he was drowning in self-pity at his desk; the next, agony exploded through his body.
It wasn't the dull ache of exhaustion. This was sharp, brutal, and *everywhere*. A deep, throbbing pain radiated from his ribs. His face felt swollen and hot, one eye stubbornly refusing to open fully. A metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. Worst of all was the biting cold pressure around his wrists and ankles. Chains.
Chen Fan gasped, sucking in a lungful of damp, foul-smelling air. It stank of mold, urine, and something else – the coppery scent of dried blood. He forced his good eye open, blinking against the gloom.
Stone walls, slick with moisture. Straw, filthy and scattered, beneath him. Heavy iron manacles clamped around his wrists, connected by thick, rusted chains to a ring bolted into the wall. He was in a dungeon cell. Not a movie set dungeon, but a real, horrifyingly primitive one. The air was thick and cold, seeping into his bones.
Panic, raw and primal, surged through him. *What? Where? Kidnapped?* He tried to move, to push himself up, but a fresh wave of agony lanced through his side, forcing a choked groan from his lips. He looked down at himself. He wore rough, homespun trousers and a tunic that might have been grey once but was now stained dark with dirt and what looked suspiciously like blood. They were threadbare and offered no warmth.
This wasn't his body. These weren't his clothes. This wasn't his world.
Memories, sharp and jagged, slammed into his mind like shards of broken glass. Not *his* memories. Someone else's.
*Li Feng. Bastard cousin. Sneering face. "Know your place, gutter rat." A fist connecting with his jaw.*
*The Spirit Root Awakening Ceremony. Standing on the platform before the entire Verdant Peak Sect. The testing crystal glowing faintly, then sputtering out. Laughter. Mocking whispers. "Waste." "Disgrace to the Li Clan."*
*Elder Zhu's cold pronouncement: "Li Chen. Mortal Grade Low Rank Spirit Root. Barely better than dregs. Assign him to the ore mines."*
*Resistance. A foolish shout. "I am Li Chen! Son of Li Jian!" More fists. Kicks. Dragged through the mud. Darkness.*
Li Chen. *His* Li Chen. The protagonist of "Heaven's Ascent." But these memories... this crushing weakness, this humiliation... this wasn't the invincible demigod he'd written. This was the starting point. Chapter One. The absolute nadir. The moment *before* Li Chen miraculously survived a fall into the Abyssal Chasm and found the God-Slaying Scripture that kickstarted his OP journey.
Chen Fan's breath hitched. *Transmigration.* The word echoed in his terrified mind. He'd read the tropes, laughed at them, even used them. But this? This was horrifyingly real. He was inside his own novel. Inside the body of his protagonist at the absolute weakest, most vulnerable moment possible.
The plot armor hadn't kicked in yet. In fact, according to the original plot, Li Chen was supposed to endure weeks of brutal mining labor before the 'accident' that sent him into the chasm. But Chen Fan, the author, knew the truth whispered in later chapters: the mining assignment wasn't just punishment. It was a death sentence orchestrated by his jealous cousin, Li Feng, and the corrupt Elder Zhu. Miners died all the time in the Spirit Ore Caves – crushed, overcome by toxic fumes, or simply 'vanishing'.
He was in a cell, beaten, awaiting shipment to the mines. He wouldn't survive a week.
Despair threatened to swallow him whole. Rejected by publishers, now trapped in his own rejected story, destined for a gruesome end. The irony was so thick he could choke on it.
Suddenly, a flicker of light appeared in his vision. It coalesced into transparent, glowing text hovering in the air before his good eye:
```
Heaven's Draft System Initializing...
User Identified: Li Chen (Soul Resonance: Chen Fan)
Current State: Critically Injured. Qi Depletion. Malnourished.
Spirit Root: Mortal Grade - Low Rank (Dormant Potential Detected)
Cultivation: None
Known Plot Points: 97.8% (Primary Creator Access Detected)
System Functions: Limited (Stability: 45%)
```
Chen Fan stared, heart hammering against his bruised ribs. A system? His mind latched onto the words: *Primary Creator Access Detected. Known Plot Points: 97.8%.*
A spark, fragile but fierce, ignited amidst the terror. He knew this story. He *wrote* this story. Every secret technique location, every hidden treasure, every character's weakness, every future event... it was all in his head. The system confirmed it.
He wasn't just Li Chen, the waste. He was Chen Fan, the *author*. He knew the cheats.
A harsh jangle of keys echoed down the stone corridor outside his cell. Heavy footsteps approached, accompanied by rough laughter. "Alright, garbage duty! Time to meet your new home, rock-breaker!" a coarse voice bellowed.
The cell door groaned open. Two hulking figures in the rough leather armor of Verdant Peak Sect guards filled the doorway, silhouetted by the torchlight from the corridor. One held a whip loosely in his hand; the other carried heavy manacles connected by a short chain.
Chen Fan's good eye widened. This was it. The trip to the mines. The beginning of the end... according to the original script.
But he wasn't following the script anymore. He was holding the pen.
He met the gaze of the lead guard, a sneering brute with a broken nose. The guard grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. "Look who's finally awake. Ready to dig your grave, Li *Waste*?"
Chen Fan forced his battered body to sit up straighter, ignoring the scream of protest from his ribs. He summoned every ounce of defiance Li Chen was supposed to possess later, channeling the fury of his own rejection. His voice, when it came out, was raspy but surprisingly steady, laced with a venom that surprised even him.
**"My name," he hissed, blood trickling from his split lip, "is Li Chen. And you... you're just a footnote in *my* story."**
The guard's grin faltered, replaced by momentary confusion, then rage. He raised the whip. "Insolent maggot!"
Chen Fan didn't flinch. His mind raced, sifting through the 97.8% of known plot points. There was a weakness. He remembered writing it. A tiny detail about the lead guard in this scene... *Bao, the guard, favored his left leg after an old spirit beast injury during the Western Expedition...*
As Bao stepped forward, whip cracking through the damp air, Chen Fan's gaze snapped down, locking onto the guard's stance. There it was – the slightest, almost imperceptible favoring of the right leg. His system flickered, highlighting the vulnerability in faint red text only he could see.
The whip descended.