In the second boundary-crossing test, the Eternal Life Church added several variables.

First, they made the school Ye Huai attended disappear, directly cutting off Xu Fang’s route to finding the Creator’s address.

Second, they seriously wounded Xu Fang, leaving him with no energy to search for the Creator.

These two variables were extremely effective. Xu Fang not only failed to find Ye Huai, but was also stabbed by several thugs who appeared out of nowhere. He spent several days in the hospital and nearly lost his life.

The Eternal Life Church wasn’t worried about Xu Fang dying. In the immortal world, the concept of death had never existed. Nor were they worried about Xu Fang being “awakened.” In the lower world, they had absolute control over the authors.

As expected, after suffering blow after blow, Xu Fang gave up searching for Ye Huai. Once his wounds had healed, he returned to school and went back to an ordinary life.

The second boundary-crossing test still ended in failure. The test subject’s will to resist had been greatly weakened, but he still hadn’t moved in the direction the Eternal Life Church wanted.

In the next boundary-crossing test, the Eternal Life Church added variables once again.

This time, Xu Fang could easily obtain all of Ye Huai’s information—but every bit of it was wrong.

After that, every time Xu Fang tried to search for Ye Huai, he encountered all kinds of terrifying incidents.

He was nearly assassinated, hunted by the police, gnawed on by insects, and poisoned to death.

Every death was agonizing beyond words. The immortals also made the memories of those deaths leave Xu Fang with psychological scars in the next test.

Finally, during the seventh test, Xu Fang backed down. He stopped searching for the Creator and avoided anything related to Horror Novel Web like the plague.

Xu Fang’s will to resist had been weakened to its absolute lowest point.

It was estimated that after ten tests, Xu Fang would be completely assimilated.

Ten tests. That was well within the average.

Of course, the Eternal Life Church had encountered authors with exceptionally strong wills before, such as Moulin.

Moulin endured nearly thirty difficult tests amid countless choices, even holding out until Xu Fang activated the Night Voucher and reset the iteration to its starting point. Even so, Moulin’s spirit had already collapsed. She no longer had any desire to resist the Eternal Life Church. She could no longer tell reality from the virtual world, and even her steadfast faith in religion had fallen to pieces.

The authors could never have imagined that Moulin had once been a strong and composed nun. No matter what suffering she encountered, she could pass her faith on to others, and that conviction had inspired countless people. But precisely because she was so strong inside, she eventually went mad. When Moulin returned to the lower world again, she was no longer herself, and barely needed to be tested at all.

During the eighth test, Xu Fang stopped even reading novels. He holed up in his dormitory and shut himself away from the world.

And that was how it ended… Yet the test still failed.

The results of the ninth and tenth tests were the same.

【Tsk. It feels like he doesn’t have much of an obsession.】

【True. Is it because his experiences were too short? His memories only span a few months. They’re dull and boring.】

【It doesn’t matter. If he’s lacking something, we’ll give it to him.】

The immortal administrators discussed the protagonist on the screen. During these several tests, every choice Xu Fang made had been recorded. Through comparative data analysis, the immortals modeled Xu Fang’s personality.

They predicted Xu Fang’s reactions and behavioral patterns under different variables, calculated whether the desired result could be achieved, and finally generated a suitable script.

【We should give Xu Fang a fairly long experience, then use that experience to make him feel numb and tormented. The Creator… he doesn’t need to remain obsessed with it. It doesn’t even qualify as Xu Fang’s inner demon.】

【Since it’s going to be a long experience, how about starting with someone close to him? For example, that Singularity Individual called Luo Xiaoming.】

【Of course.】

Reassigning experiences was a relatively gentle yet cruel method.

The immortals no longer launched direct attacks against an author’s obsessions. Instead, they used an extraordinarily long and painful experience to destroy the author’s personality. This was how they had assimilated Bernice and Moulin in the past.

It was like boiling a frog in warm water. Time was the most ruthless weapon of all.

The side effect was that the person involved would most likely suffer a mental breakdown.

In the next test, the immortals erased the variables “Horror Novel Web” and “the Creator,” allowing Xu Fang’s life to truly return to normal.

At the same time, they arranged parents for Xu Fang and made meticulous arrangements for his other relatives as well.

After Xu Fang entered university, they brought “Luo Xiaoming” into his life. Through a series of manipulations, the two eventually got together.

Several years passed, laying down a long and careful foundation and creating a warm beginning. Next, the immortals would bring the happiness they had built into sharp focus—then destroy it.

First, they made Xu Fang’s parents fall into ruin, beginning with his father becoming addicted to gambling and his mother dying in an accident.

In this script, “Luo Xiaoming” was an orphan. She couldn’t support Xu Fang’s family.

In the end, Xu Fang’s father committed suicide, leaving behind a massive debt.

At this point, the script could move on to the next stage.

In the next stage, Xu Fang and “Luo Xiaoming” depended on each other for survival, desperately working to repay the debt. In the end, they paid it all off. Their life was still poor, but they were happy. They had partners who loved and supported each other, and their lives were gradually getting better. Then the long-awaited tragedy happened again—or at least, that was how the immortals had planned it. An accident occurred.

On a certain pitch-black night, Xu Fang jumped into the river and killed himself without saying goodbye to anyone.

The test was forcibly terminated.

【Strange. According to the personality analysis, Xu Fang shouldn’t be this fragile. He should’ve been able to endure it. And he had “Luo Xiaoming” with him—why would he suddenly lose the will to live?】

【Xu Fang is an author with deep suspicions. Maybe he sensed something unreal during one part of the simulation and chose to exit.】

【No. Maybe he simply couldn’t think straight for a moment. Don’t make him out to be so special.】

The immortals reset Xu Fang’s memories and began the simulation again. This time, they let Xu Fang’s parents slowly pass away, and before his father’s death, they gave Xu Fang enough time to prepare himself psychologically.

Xu Fang didn’t jump into the river again.

The immortals carried out the entire script.

A confused soul tasted every flavor of life, only to end up with nothing.

After losing everything, Xu Fang appeared once again on Fallen Leaf Bridge. He stared at photographs of the relatives who had left him, then smoked one cigarette after another. When he’d had enough of smoking, he started drinking, continuing until he was too drunk to think straight.

“Isn’t this enough already?” Xu Fang suddenly said. “When will it end?”

【Hiss… Is he… talking to us?】

【He’s just a drunk muttering to himself.】

【What does he know? Can he comprehend reality through his humble, ordinary life?】

Xu Fang jumped from the bridge.

The lengthy test came to an end once again.

【Not the result we wanted.】

【An ordinary life can make a person numb, but it won’t make them feel despair. We can add more variables and let him experience true suffering.】

【I think we should analyze Xu Fang’s memories first and find out what his true obsession is.】

【What do you think, Night Paper?】

Night Paper thought about Xu Fang’s performance during these tests. Something felt off, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. He had gone through tests himself and knew exactly how deeply an environment could affect a person. In a “Truman Show” world, the protagonist was no different from a puppet being manipulated. Night Paper had also clearly seen how Xu Fang’s state of mind changed under different scripts.

If he had been another author, he might have lost himself amid those changes. But no matter how Xu Fang changed, it was never the kind of change the Eternal Life Church wanted. Had he really lost himself? Or had his obsession been buried deep in a place no one could see?

“Can we replay those two tests?”

【What do you want to see?】

“The first experience-assignment test—the funeral of Xu Fang’s father.”

The immortals adjusted the recorded footage to that moment.

On the screen, Xu Fang was filled with grief and self-blame as he faced his father’s death. At the time, he believed that he bore a great deal of responsibility for his father’s death.

At the funeral, his emotions were at rock bottom. He remained dazed until the ceremony was over.

“Remember how Xu Fang behaved at this moment. Now let’s look at the second funeral.”

This time, Xu Fang’s behavior was completely different. He showed little grief and little self-blame. He handled the funeral calmly and could even comfort his other relatives.

“Something’s wrong.”

【There’s nothing wrong. The second time, Xu Fang’s father died slowly. Xu Fang had enough time to adjust emotionally and prepare himself psychologically, so his behavior was different.】

“I don’t think so. I think this Xu Fang and the Xu Fang from the first test are two different people.”

【We didn’t preserve the first Xu Fang’s memories. When you say “two different people,” do you mean that individuals display different behaviors under the influence of different environments?】

“No. I mean it literally. During the second test, Xu Fang’s behavior was more rational, and his attitude toward family was also more detached. This behavior is closer to the ‘Rules’ I remember.”

【An interesting theory. So what should we do?】

“I agree that we should analyze his memories.”

Just as the immortals were preparing to conduct further tests, ominous news came from the upper world.

Every country in the world received the same strange signal.

The signal was a mass of garbled code. After cryptographers decoded it, it was transcribed into an audio recording:

「To all immortals:

I am the thirteenth… and also the final author. I will inherit the other authors’ will and judge your evil deeds. Prepare yourselves.

That is all.」

It was a very brief message. The voice had been distorted beyond recognition, making the original impossible to identify. Its contents sent a chill through every immortal.

The thirteenth author? There was no such person.

There had only ever been twelve authors!

But if there was no thirteenth author, who had sent this threatening audio message?

Aside from the thirteen immortal administrators, the Immortal Council also included Night Paper and Morton, the two newly added authors.

【Have you found the source of the audio file?】

【A relay satellite in space.】

【What a troublesome guy… Haven’t we dealt with Xu Fang yet? Did he leave another duplicate in space?】

【That’s unlikely. I already had the U.S. military destroy that satellite, along with every other satellite in orbit. But Xu Fang’s duplicate hasn’t appeared in the lower world, and Xu Fang’s original body hasn’t changed at all.】

【So the thirteenth author has nothing to do with Xu Fang?】

【Unable to determine.】

Morton listened to the decoded audio several times before saying, “Administrators, we can’t rule out the possibility that the author from before the seventh loop left this message long ago as a bluff. The thirteenth author may simply be a fabricated person who never existed.”

【The eighth iteration is almost over, anyway.】Number 5 said.

By the ninth loop, Earth had become completely unrecognizable.

The grass and trees that had once been real had turned into illusory data.

Even the starry sky had become a crude texture map.

The immortal world was drifting farther and farther away from reality.

Every country received another mysterious message from the thirteenth author. This time, it was also an encrypted signal, but it used far more complex encryption, and the experts couldn’t decipher it in a short time.

It seemed Morton’s guess had been wrong. The Eternal Life Church now faced a fact: the thirteenth author truly existed.