Chapter 1 – Rejections
Jane Lee had always thought stories would save her.
When she was a little girl, tucked in the narrow apartment bedroom above her parents' Chinese restaurant in San Francisco, she believed words were magic spells. They could turn the greasy smell of fried rice clinging to her clothes into something noble. They could transform her loneliness into entire worlds where she wasn't an outsider, where she wasn't the "quiet Asian kid" with the crooked bangs and second-hand shoes. She wrote her first story at eight: a fairy tale about a girl who turned into a dragon and burned down the bullies' playground.
Her mother had smiled faintly at the childish scrawl and said, "Maybe you should be a teacher, Jane. Teachers always have work."
Her father had only grunted, too tired after a fourteen-hour shift over the stove to care about dragons and little girls.
But Jane believed. She believed.
Now, at thirty-six, she sat hunched over her laptop in a studio apartment that smelled of instant noodles and stale coffee. A dozen empty Red Bull cans decorated her desk like trophies of a long war. She had submitted yet another novel to WebNovel, the online platform that had built its empire on endless serialized stories. Fantasy epics, CEO romances, cultivation sagas—they were filled with readers, comments, coins. Some authors had even made millions.
Jane thought she could be one of them.
The email arrived at exactly 3:02 a.m. She knew the timing because she hadn't slept. She'd been refreshing her inbox every few minutes, biting at her thumbnail until it bled. When she saw the subject line—
"Regarding your submission: The Glass Kingdom"
—her heart hammered like it had when her first crush in high school said her name.
She clicked.
Dear Jane Lee,
Thank you for submitting your work to WebNovel. After careful consideration, we regret to inform you that your manuscript does not meet our platform's standards. We encourage you to continue writing and wish you success in your future endeavors.
Sincerely,
Content Review Team, WebNovel
Jane stared at the screen. The words blurred, then sharpened, then blurred again.
Regret to inform you.
She whispered it aloud, just to feel the sting against her tongue.
This was the ninth rejection. Not just from WebNovel, but from every corner of the digital world where she'd tried to carve her name. Amazon Kindle Direct: no traction, two sales in three months, both probably pity purchases from coworkers she no longer talked to. Wattpad: three readers, one of whom left a comment telling her to "learn English properly." Royal Road: ignored. WebNovel had been her last hope, the biggest platform, the place where "anyone can make it."
Anyone but her.
She laughed. A raw, broken laugh that startled even herself. Her neighbor banged the wall in protest. "Keep it down!" someone shouted through the thin plaster.
Jane pressed her forehead against the cool surface of her desk. She felt like the rejected manuscript wasn't just paper—it was her life, her soul, her worth. Torn up, dismissed, spat out by strangers who probably skimmed the first page before tossing it into a digital waste bin.
Nine novels.
Ten years.
No one wanted her words.
She thought back to her last office job, the one she quit three years ago to "pursue writing full-time." That had been the biggest gamble of her life. She worked in a gray cubicle as a marketing assistant, writing copy for toothpaste and insurance. Every keystroke was a death sentence, every meeting a performance of obedience. She'd watched her coworkers climb ladders she didn't even want, earning promotions, buying houses. Meanwhile, she scribbled chapters in secret notebooks, dreaming of the day she would quit.
When her boss—Mr. Davidson, a man with teeth too white to be real—mocked her in front of the entire team for a "bad slogan," something inside Jane had cracked. That evening, she typed her resignation letter, hands shaking but her chest filled with something close to hope.
Her parents had been horrified.
"You're almost forty," her mother said over the phone, her voice sharp as a blade. "You think you can live on dreams? We worked so hard for you. Why do you throw it away?"
Jane had hung up on her.
She spent her savings on rent, cheap food, and hours upon hours of writing. She believed—had to believe—that if she poured her soul into her novels, the world would finally notice her.
But the world hadn't noticed. And now, her savings were gone. Her credit cards were maxed out. And the rejections kept coming.
She opened the folder on her desktop titled "Completed Novels."
Nine files stared back at her.
The Glass Kingdom (rejected)
Empire of Ashes (rejected)
The Dragon's Bride (rejected)
The Infinite Court (rejected)
CEO of the Underworld (rejected)
When Stars Shatter (rejected)
Cultivation of Blood and Bone (rejected)
The Shadow Queen (rejected)
A Thousand Broken Tomorrows (rejected)
Each one was thousands of hours of her life. Tens of thousands of words. Characters she had loved like children. Worlds she had built from dust.
And to every single one, the gatekeepers of publishing had said: No.
Her eyes burned. She slammed her laptop shut.
The following morning, Jane dragged herself to the corner café. She didn't go for the coffee—it was overpriced and bitter—but for the Wi-Fi, since her own had been cut off last week. She set her laptop on the chipped wooden table, her fingers trembling as she logged back into WebNovel.
She stared at the front page. The featured stories mocked her:
"Reborn as the CEO's Vampire Wife"
"Level 999 Cultivator in a Modern World"
"The Billionaire's Secret Baby"
Thousands of readers. Thousands of comments. Writers younger than her, less experienced, crafting clichés and getting paid for it.
Her jaw tightened. Why them and not me?
She clicked into a random story. The writing was clumsy, riddled with grammar mistakes, but the comments overflowed with adoration. "Author, please update soon!" "I love this!" "Take my coins!"
Jane felt something twist in her gut. It wasn't just jealousy. It was fury.
She began typing into the story's comment section, her fingers flying before she could stop herself:
"This is garbage. How can anyone read this? Do you people have no standards? This isn't writing, it's trash."
A moment of satisfaction flared inside her, but it was brief. Other commenters immediately attacked her:
"Shut up hater."
"No one asked you."
"If you don't like it, don't read."
Her comment was buried under the flood of praise.
She closed the tab, her pulse racing.
It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.
That night, she couldn't sleep. She paced her small apartment, the floor creaking under her bare feet. The city outside buzzed with life—sirens, laughter, drunken shouts—but inside, it was just her and the echo of failure.
"Why?" she whispered to the shadows. "Why not me?"
The silence didn't answer.
She opened her laptop again. This time, instead of writing another chapter no one would read, she searched:
"How to hack WebNovel account."
At first, it was curiosity. A distraction. But as she clicked through forums, guides, and dark corners of the internet, the idea began to harden.
If the gatekeepers wouldn't open the door for her, she would break it down.
Jane's lips curled into a smile—bitter, sharp, dangerous.
The first seeds of revenge had been planted.