Back in the real world, Owen was dismayed to discover that he was no longer a digital lifeform.

Only after filing a complaint with the support center did he learn that his identity anchor in the real world was based on his latest identity in the Immortal World. So Owen had turned human again.

There was nothing wrong with being human, but he hadn’t expected not to be “initialized.” Before Owen had resolved to become a digital lifeform, he’d never thought he might turn human again, so he’d cut off one of his ** and roasted it to satisfy his curiosity about what “human **” tasted like.

“Fuck you, you ** website!”

Owen injected a sedative into his neck, and his agitated mood instantly settled.

Humans really are emotional creatures. Maybe only digital lifeforms can stay rational forever.

Whatever… For the sake of world peace, I, a lucky and clever man, will put up with it.

Owen got started on his work—first, he had to get out of prison. His spawn point was downright awful: he’d started out inside a cloud computing company, and was arrested on the spot for “disrupting business operations.” In the end, Owen paid 200,000 in bail to regain his freedom.

Owen thought about his goals for the future.

First, I need to get in touch with the two authors I trust most and talk to them about starting a business!

Owen posted a coded message online and waited for the authors to contact him. But there was no sign of either the Rules—or that old man.

Those two authors are from Hua Country, right? I’ll go find them myself!

Owen couldn’t wait any longer. He was a man of action, so the moment he had an idea, he acted on it. He immediately bought a plane ticket to Hua Country. Just then, he received an anonymous message.

User 1919810: “Send me the nuke drop coordinates.”

Owen froze for a moment, then was overcome with delight. He immediately did as requested and sent over a world map with the locations marked.

At last, he’d made contact with one of his author friends.

Xu Fang invited Owen into a private chat group, and the two caught each other up on what had happened over the past couple of days.

Owen was ashamed to realize that Xu Fang had been through a lot more than he had.

Owen: “Rules, I want to go to the moon too. It sounds amazing.”

Xu Fang: “Call me Xu Fang. That’s my name.”

Owen: “Got it. That’s your alias in the real world, right?”

Xu Fang: “…You could say that.”

Xu Fang: “Let’s get back to Organization K.”

Xu Fang told Owen what had happened over the past couple of days, but left out Luo Xiaoming and the Narrator.

As Xu Fang recounted what had happened, especially the crimes committed at the compound and by Organization K, Owen frowned deeply.

“What an evil force!”

Owen knew that Organization K had been around for a long time.

Organization K had never stopped committing crimes. Every year, it was responsible for countless disappearances—and Owen’s parents were among the missing.

After becoming an author, Owen had devoted himself to bringing down Organization K, but the task had seemed harder and harder. The organization was simply too massive; its influence had long since spread across the world. Still, his belief in justice had brought him this far. Even after becoming a digital lifeform, he’d kept gathering information on Organization K, all to find its weakness and wipe the evil organization off the face of the earth.

“For the sake of peace, I have to step in.”

Owen: “It doesn’t matter if Hua Country doesn’t want to work with us. Leave it to me! I have a way to deal with Organization K.”

Owen laid out his plan.

Xu Fang: “I think it could work.”

Owen: “OK, wait for good news from me… Is Taoist bro with you? I still haven’t heard back from him.”

Xu Fang: “I’m looking for him too. No news.”

Owen: “Could that old man have run off? 😦”

Xu Fang: “He might’ve run into trouble.”

Owen: “I vaguely remember that old man knew some mysterious magic, but damn it, my memories must’ve been wiped. He’s definitely still alive… probably.”

Xu Fang: “That’s right. And the Immortal World really does have a ‘thirteenth author.’”

Owen: “The thirteenth? Weren’t you just trying to scare the Immortals?”

Owen still couldn’t forget those words: “I will inherit the other authors’ unfinished work and judge you for your crimes. Prepare yourselves.”

That was seriously badass.

Xu Fang: “I did leave behind encrypted information, but it wasn’t that line. What I left was: ‘I will be a ghost, watching you forever, until the world is destroyed.’ Clearly, someone else left a message too, and it reached the Immortals before mine did.”

Owen froze. He had a strange sense of déjà vu, but his mind was otherwise blank. “If it wasn’t Xu Fang, then who exactly was the ‘thirteenth author’?”

The more Owen thought about it, the more chilling it became. He suddenly realized that the thirteenth “author” had left traces of its existence everywhere, yet no one had realized that a thirteenth “author” truly existed.

Could I have been able to leave the Immortal World because of its influence?

What exactly was its goal?

Owen waited a long time, but Xu Fang didn’t reply. His curiosity was driving him up the wall. Just as he was about to ask again, Xu Fang changed the subject.

“Where are you now?”

Owen sent over his coordinates. “What about you?”

“I’m in Bharata.”

“You’re not in Hua Country? I was just about to come find you.”

“No matter. I’ll be going there eventually anyway. You go on ahead and wait for me.”

As if he’d anticipated Owen’s question, Xu Fang answered first: “If you have questions, we’ll discuss them face-to-face. The internet isn’t safe.”

“OK. Then I’ll go make trouble for Organization K.”

“See you.”

“Wait, Xu Fang. There’s one more thing I want to ask you.” Owen remembered he still had something to bring up. “I want to build a force that can protect world peace. Would you be interested in joining me?”

“Protecting peace? Of course. Tell me your plan.”

He’s on board!

Owen felt a surge of excitement.

“I want to create an organization. We’ll recruit all kinds of talented people at home and work with major companies and mercenary groups abroad. I have connections in a few international mercenary organizations. If we sign contracts with them, we can have an armed force of our own in no time.”

“Where will the money come from? This is going to cost a lot, isn’t it?”

“I’ve got five million worth of that old geezer’s real estate under my name as startup capital. After that, we can take ads and sell information.”

“I have two suggestions. First, our partnerships need to be broad. Second, our startup capital is still too small. I want to skip the stage of primitive capital accumulation. Protecting the world and getting the whole world to answer our call—that’s where our funding will come from.”

Owen was stunned. He’d thought he was already the one with the wildest ideas, but Xu Fang’s imagination was even bigger. “Bro, can we really pull this off?”

“After everything you’ve been through in the Immortal World, you still don’t believe in yourself?”

Owen felt ashamed. Compared to Xu Fang, his own vision was too small. “I’m Owen. I’ve never been afraid of anyone.”

Owen thought, “I’ll have to take out dozens of loans, then get some money from the points shop.”

As if he’d seen right through Owen’s plans, Xu Fang replied, “I’ll handle the money.”

“Wait. Trust me to handle it.”

Just having Xu Fang join his plan was enough to satisfy Owen. If he let Xu Fang put up money too, Owen would feel like he had nothing to offer.

Xu Fang: “Someone will fund us. And there’ll be more and more money later. You just focus on ‘world peace.’”

Owen: “Bro, this is a day I’ll never forget.”

……

The Bharata cabinet was anything but peaceful that night.

After receiving the suspicious email, Interior Minister Ashatmi immediately ordered his personal secretary to pull up all the surveillance footage and summoned his ace bodyguard.

It took more than ruthlessness to hold on to his position. He also needed a level of caution most people couldn’t match. One email by itself wasn’t frightening. What was frightening was the person who could get it to him.

A thorough investigation soon produced results.

“You’re saying… this email ‘teleported’ onto my desk?”

“Yes, Mr. Ashatmi. Please take a look at this footage.”

After once surviving an assassination attempt by a rival party, the Interior Minister kept his residence under twenty-four-hour surveillance. The desk in the living room was naturally covered by the cameras.

In the footage, between 23:06:12 and 23:06:25, the strange email appeared without warning. Before it appeared, the last person seen in the living room was Ashatmi. After it appeared, Ashatmi was also the first to notice it.

No uninvited guests had come by in the meantime.

“Slow that stretch down as much as you can,” Ashatmi said.

The assistant did as he asked, but still couldn’t find any sign of human involvement. The email appeared on screen in a single frame.

“We’ve already checked. There’s no sign the surveillance footage was tampered with. This email really did ‘teleport’ onto your desk. I find it hard to believe too,” said a technician from the intelligence team.

“Hah. I’d much rather believe someone tampered with the footage.”

Ashatmi sat in a tall-backed chair, looking coldly at the monitor beside him. All the analysis reports on the “email” were displayed on it.

“We followed the address in the email to a disposable anonymous mailbox that had just been created. There was a TXT file and a video inside. That’s as far as we could trace it. Clearly, the author doesn’t want to reveal their location,” the intelligence analysis team reported.

“Go on.”

“The message in the TXT file reads: ‘Hello, Mr. Ashatmi. I’d like to make a deal with you. I’ll give you the location of the lunar base in exchange for one billion dollars. You can use this video to verify that it’s genuine.’” The intelligence analysis team continued, “Sir, the video has been edited down to just five minutes. Would you like to watch it?”

“Have you verified that the video is safe? Is it cursed or contaminated in any way?” Ashatmi asked cautiously. He’d seen too many occult incidents to trust anything from an unknown source.

“It’s safe. We’ve already verified it. Of course, the video you’re about to see has been transcribed.”

Only then did Ashatmi feel safe enough to open the video.

The video showed three scenes, all from a first-person perspective.

After watching the first scene, Ashatmi’s expression grew even more grave. Then he hurried to continue. By the end of the second scene, his breathing had grown ragged and the veins on his clenched right hand bulged. But after watching the final scene, Ashatmi actually calmed down.

“Is the video real? Are there any signs it was altered by AI?”

“It’s real. Every detail inside the lunar base matches our records, and the corpses in the video confirm that a disaster took place inside. The later footage also confirms what we’ve suspected all along—the lunar base is a gigantic alien ruin.” The intelligence analysis team chose their words carefully. “Even if Organization K says the supposed space-transit corridor has collapsed, the moon isn’t that far away. If that author really can reveal the exact coordinates of the lunar base, it would be a tremendous boon to any country… No, to human civilization. One billion isn’t too much to pay.”

Ashatmi said, “I want the lunar base coordinates, but I don’t want to pay the billion. How do we solve that problem?”

Intelligence analysis team: “Understood. We’ll do everything we can to find that author.”