QT: The Rescue Of The Miserable Bigshots-Chapter 328 - 11.1 Number One Reader x Popular Author

When Jiang Jiamian opened his eyes again, he found himself lying on a bed in a dark room. Judging by the feel beneath him, he quickly determined that it was a modern mattress.

This was clearly another world, one set in the modern era.

The room was pitch-black. There wasn’t even a visible window... or perhaps there was one, but he couldn’t be sure.

He couldn’t tell whether it was day or night.

The only thing he could sense clearly was the rich aroma of braised beef noodle soup lingering heavily in the air.

After a brief pause, Jiang Jiamian began organizing the original plot of this world along with the original owner’s memories. Once he had a rough grasp, he sat up and reached instinctively toward a familiar spot.

Click!

The light came on.

Jiang Jiamian looked around. The room wasn’t small, but the clutter made it feel cramped, messy, and barely livable. His brows furrowed at once.

When his gaze landed on several empty instant noodle containers stacked on the computer desk against the wall, he felt a sharp ache in his teeth.

Looking at this pigsty-like environment and the pitiful state of the meals, he almost felt as though he had returned to the counterattack team.

Starting as a pauper.

A loser.

A beggar.

Cannon fodder. An extra. A pitiful little thing.

Miserable, so miserable that there seemed to be no lower limit.

However, after absorbing the original owner’s memories, Jiang Jiamian knew very well that this body’s owner was not poor at all.

Even without those memories, the room itself gave it away. Though messy, it wasn’t cramped. A large panoramic window faced the sea, clearly part of a high-end seaside villa. It was only dark now because the curtains were drawn tightly and the lights had been off.

The original owner’s real name was Jiang Jiamian. His pen name was Lone Sword at the World’s Edge, an online author.

When he first entered the industry, he had gone from obscurity to repeated failures, struggling for years before finally writing a hit novel in his seventh year.

That book changed everything.

His career surged, and within the same year, he bought this seaside villa specifically to use as a writing retreat.

Yes, despite its current pigsty appearance, this was a proper villa.

Unfortunately, the original owner’s profession and lifestyle meant that even the best living conditions couldn’t coax out any sense of elegance. He lived in a constant rush, kept a nocturnal schedule, and rarely went outside. The computer desk was his battlefield during the day, and the bed was the only other place he used.

He was even too lazy to eat properly. Takeout, instant noodles, and frozen meals made up the bulk of his diet.

Out of the entire villa, only the bedroom saw regular use. The other rooms, especially the kitchen, were practically abandoned.

Just then, a phone notification shattered Jiang Jiamian’s wordless silence.

He picked it up and saw a message from a contact saved as Snippy.

"Are you going to update or not?! If you don’t update soon, your number one spot on the ranking is going to be stolen!"

Jiang Jiamian hissed, tapping out a reply.

"I’ll update. But the top spot isn’t exactly exclusive property. Whether I update or not, someone else can still take it. It’s not a romantic partner, and it’s protected by law and morality."

"Don’t be glib. If you don’t update today, not only might the top spot disappear, your book could also drop off the bestseller list! Don’t you know a dark horse has appeared recently? If you slack off, you might get pushed off the first page tomorrow!"

Jiang Jiamian smiled faintly and replied: "Rebirth from the Ashes?"

"It’s him! A newcomer, a total newcomer! He’s either absurdly talented or ridiculously lucky. Why didn’t an author like him sign with me? You’d better put in some effort. If he pushes you down, it’ll be embarrassing for both of us!"

The original owner had worked with this editor for many years. Their relationship was familiar and relaxed.

Besides discussing plots and recommendations, they often exchanged complaints without restraint.

Jiang Jiamian chuckled.

"Don’t worry. It won’t happen."

"Then you’d better mean it! You said you were taking one day off, but it’s already been three! If you keep this up, I’m going to start thinking something really happened to you!"

Jiang Jiamian’s eyes flickered. Yes, clearly, something had happened.

And in the original plot, that incident had dealt a devastating blow to the original owner, both physically and mentally. After only a few short years at the top of the online novel world, he never recovered. Eventually, he was swept away by the tides of the industry, sinking back into poverty and obscurity.

All of it stemmed from the person the editor had just mentioned.

Rebirth from the Ashes.

The protagonist of this world.

Li Zhe.

Li Zhe was also an online author. But due to mediocre writing skills and a lack of opportunity, nearly ten years of effort yielded nothing. His monthly royalties barely covered basic living expenses.

Even the girl he had been secretly in love with for years rejected his confession and mocked him mercilessly.

Frustrated and unsuccessful, Li Zhe shut himself away in his cramped rental apartment. His mental state deteriorated rapidly. With no friends in real life, he spent two consecutive nights staying up late reading novels.

Then he died.

By the time the landlord discovered his body, half a month had passed. It was already decomposing.

Yet Li Zhe’s soul did not meet a tragic end.

Because when he opened his eyes again, he discovered, shocked, that he had been reborn.

Ten years earlier.

Back to the moment when he had first entered the online novel world, brimming with confidence and ambition, still believing he could carve out a place for himself.

In his previous life, that ambition had been worn down bit by bit, leading to his miserable end.

But now, he had been reborn.

Like the protagonist of a novel!

Li Zhe knew perfectly well what this meant.

This was opportunity.

This was destiny.

This was the protagonist’s golden finger.

He was the chosen one of this world.

In this life, he was destined to shine brilliantly.

He didn’t care about lotteries, nor did he believe in relying on those illusory means to reap the benefits of rebirth.

But novels?

He loved novels.

In his previous life, he had still been reading novels up until the very last moment of his life.

Especially the wildly popular ones.

He envied them. He was jealous of them. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from immersing in their worlds, chasing updates Chapter by Chapter.

He had failed too miserably in his previous life.

So this time, if he could simply write out the novels that would become wildly popular over the next ten years before those authors even published them, wouldn’t that be perfect?

Even if he couldn’t remember every single sentence, remembering the general plot and rewriting it in his own words would already be enough to make a hit.

After all, plot was the backbone of a novel. Writing style was merely the icing on the cake.

A good story was the foundation of everything.

Thus, the reborn Li Zhe possessed what seemed like a cheat code.

The first thing he did after rebirth was change his pen name to something completely unrelated to his previous life: Rebirth from the Ashes.

Then, he planned to make his name resound throughout the online novel world by publishing, one by one, all the hit books he clearly remembered.

His first target was a new novel that the original owner, A Lone Sword at the World’s Edge, had planned to begin writing in the second half of this year.

That book would surpass the popularity of the one the original owner was currently serializing.

For several years, it would dominate the bestseller list on the site where it was published. It even won the favor of a top-ranking author whose monthly gifts alone were enough to exceed the combined royalties of a dozen mid-to-lower-tier authors.

This very book was released first by Li Zhe after his rebirth.

What made the original owner even more devastated was that, although he hadn’t officially begun writing it yet, he had already been conceiving the idea for months.

One could imagine the shock and disbelief he felt upon seeing it published.

After all, he had spent months painstakingly outlining the story, only to find that someone else had published it before he even started writing.

Not only was the plot identical to his outline, but even the opening details and major twists were almost exactly the same as what he had envisioned.

Surely, mind-reading didn’t exist.

Deeply frustrated, the original owner fell into a long period of depression, unable to focus on writing at all. He had considered confronting the other party, but he couldn’t produce any concrete evidence.

After all, he had only written an outline.

Nothing more.

And the other party had already published the book.

Could he say the outline had been leaked? 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

But he knew that was impossible. He had never shared it with anyone.

Besides, even if it had been leaked, no one would believe such an absurd claim, that an unpublished private outline had been plagiarized.

Lost, confused, and overwhelmed, the original owner stopped updating.

He took a day off.

He thought that by the next day, he would calm down and find a solution.

Instead, he slept through the second and third days.

Until Jiang Jiamian transmigrated into his body.

"What a waste of my health."

Jiang Jiamian climbed out of bed, momentarily dizzy, his ears ringing slightly. "With this kind of food, this kind of irregular schedule, and years without exercise, it’s a miracle the original owner was still alive."

He wasn’t in a hurry to update. He needed to eat first.

Otherwise, with the original owner’s broken body, he might one day end up like Li Zhe, rotting away alone in this luxurious villa.

Jiang Jiamian got out of bed, weaving his way through the piles of clutter.

He finally couldn’t take it anymore.

Pulling out his phone, he called a housekeeping company without hesitation and gave them the address.

"Yes. I need a cleaning service. The sooner, the better."

Li Zhe, on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely.

After his rebirth, relying on the memories in his mind, he rose rapidly to fame. He won the heart of the girl he was in love with, and even snatched away the top fan who had originally supported the original owner.

Unfortunately for him, that top fan wasn’t a rich, clueless nouveau riche.

On the contrary, he had an extremely sharp eye.

He quickly noticed something was wrong.

The reason was simple: Li Zhe’s writing style was inconsistent. The brilliance of the plot often clashed violently with the crude execution, as if they came from two entirely different people.

The top fan was bold and outspoken. He directly voiced his judgment in the comment section.

Compared to the original owner, who felt he had no evidence and could only swallow his grievance in silence, this was a completely different situation.

Li Zhe, who had originally been smug about securing the support of this top fan and expected to make a fortune from him, grew guilty under the scrutiny.

Irritated by the comments, he turned against the fan and wished that person would stay far away from his books and comment sections.

What followed was a dramatic reversal.

The top-ranked fan seemed determined to retaliate and began relentlessly criticizing every book Li Zhe published.

What truly impressed Jiang Jiamian was the fan’s terrifyingly sharp insight.

From the writing style of several of Li Zhe’s books, he actually deduced the identity of the original author, including the novel that had only existed as an outline and hadn’t even been written yet.

The original owner, who had been struggling with a lack of evidence and whose serialized work had suffered due to his depression, finally found a lifeline.

With renewed courage, he echoed the top fan’s statements and publicly confirmed that the work was indeed his own creation.

This instantly ignited a massive storm of controversy.

Supporters of both sides argued fiercely, each clinging to their own version of the truth.

Many were inclined to believe the original owner, given his established reputation and the backing of the top-ranked fan.

However, a decisive piece of evidence was missing.

The timing.

That alone became irrefutable proof.

In the end, despite gathering his courage, the original owner still lost.

Unwilling to accept defeat, he left behind one final statement: he would only admit defeat if Li Zhe could write another book of equal quality.

He refused to believe that Li Zhe’s ideas were entirely original and unrelated to his own outline. The coincidence was simply too great.

As for this declaration, Jiang Jiamian clicked his tongue.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Isn’t that classic cannon-fodder dialogue from reborn male protagonist stories? Say something dramatic, then conveniently hand the protagonist another chance to show off."

The system paused for a moment. "It couldn’t be more accurate."

Although the original owner didn’t achieve a satisfying outcome this time, the sharp judgment of the top fan, and the original owner’s public challenge, did make Li Zhe uneasy.

Only then did Li Zhe finally realize his mistake.

The timing of his plagiarism had been too close.

Once the other party had already begun conceiving the idea, he was bound to run into trouble.