# CHAPTER 5: SENIOR BROTHER, PERSONAL SPACE IS A VIRTUE
Su Lan did not run. A Senior Sister of her standing—especially one who had just survived a localized reality collapse—did not scramble through the dirt like a startled rabbit, regardless of how much her internal monologue sounded like a tea kettle reaching its terminal boiling point. Instead, she glided. She moved with a measured, rhythmic grace, her emerald silks whispering against the limestone paths of the Hidden Leaf Sect.
She was seeking the "Narrative Dead Zones"—those quiet corners of the map where the Author usually forgot to place any action, meaning the Cringe Level was naturally lower and the probability of a face-slapping encounter was statistically negligible.
However, the world was glitching in ways a simple fan couldn't hide.
As she rounded the corner near the Outer Disciple dormitories, she froze. Two disciples were standing in a small courtyard, engaged in a training montage. Or at least, they were trying to be.
"I must... get stronger..." Disciple A grunted, swinging a wooden staff in a perfect vertical arc.
"For the... Sect..." Disciple B replied, swinging his own staff in the exact same arc.
They were moving in a stuttering, repetitive loop. Their movements lacked the fluid transition of real human kinesis; they were stuck in a three-second animation cycle, repeating the same swing over and over. Their brows were matted with sweat, their eyes glazed with a terrifying, hollow exhaustion that suggested they had been at this for hours, trapped by a line of code that forgot to tell them when they had reached their level-cap.
[SYSTEM ALERT: ASSET STUCK IN 'BACKGROUND GRIND' LOOP.]
[REASON: THE NARRATIVE IS STALLED. CHARACTERS WITHOUT DIALOGUE ARE DEFAULTING TO IDLE ANIMATIONS TO SAVE PROCESSING POWER.]
Su Lan stepped around them carefully, feeling a cold shiver crawl down her spine. "I'm so sorry," she whispered to the looping boys, though they couldn't hear her over the 'whoosh' of their own staves. "I'd fix you, but I literally only have a handful of drops to my name. You're just going to have to be 'diligent' until the next scene transition."
She hurried past the "Background Grind," finally reaching the Pavilion of Waning Willows. It was a secluded spot, overgrown with ivy that hadn't been described in detail for at least fifty chapters, making it the safest place for a mental breakdown.
She sat on a weathered stone bench, her legs feeling like lead. "System. Give me the good stuff. 15 drops. Decent Tea. And make it hot enough to burn away my regrets."
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED: 'DECENT TEA' (STEEPED IN ACTUAL LEAVES, NOT TROPES).]
[INK DROP BALANCE: 36.]
A ceramic cup appeared on the stone table, steam rising in a fragrant curl that defied the stagnant air of the sect. Su Lan took a sip and nearly wept. It didn't taste like the "Spiritual Dew" the sect served—which was essentially lukewarm water with a superiority complex. It tasted of earth, woodsmoke, and bitter reality.
"Senior Sister?"
Su Lan nearly choked on her salvation. She looked up to see Liu Rou standing at the edge of the pavilion. The girl looked small in her white robes, her hands tucked deep into her wide sleeves—no doubt guarding the spicy treasure Su Lan had saved her for.
"Liu Rou," Su Lan exhaled, patting the spot next to her with a weary hand. "Come. Sit. Tell me you aren't stuck in a swing-loop."
Liu Rou sat, but she looked as if she were sitting on a bed of needles. "Senior Sister... what did you mean back there? About the light? About the... 'Author'?"
Su Lan looked into her tea, watching the dark leaves settle at the bottom like drowned secrets. "Liu Rou, have you ever felt like your words weren't yours? Like you said something because it felt like the only thing the air would allow you to say?"
The girl's eyes widened. She slowly pulled a small, crumpled meat bun from her sleeve. It was stained with bright red chili oil, a vibrant, oily defiance against the pristine white of her uniform. "I... I wasn't supposed to have this. The rules say we must fast for the Selection to maintain purity. But I was so hungry. I felt like if I didn't eat something real, something that burned my tongue, I would... I would fade away like the others."
"That hunger is your soul trying to edit the script," Su Lan said softly, her heart aching for the girl. "The world wants you to be a glowing jade statue. It wants you to play the zither and cry over flower petals until you have no substance left. But the chili oil? The chili oil is a plot hole. And in this world, Liu Rou, plot holes are the only places where we can truly breathe."
Liu Rou looked terrified, but she took a defiant, messy bite of her bun. "Then I will keep eating, Senior Sister. Even if the Heavens find it ungraceful. I would rather be a glutton than a ghost."
"Good. Stay messy. It's your only hope of staying human."
"BENEFACTOR! WE HAVE ATTAINED THE ULTIMATE HARMONY!"
The peaceful atmosphere of the pavilion didn't just break; it was detonated by a surplus of protagonist energy.
Fan burst through the willow branches, followed closely by a golden-haired youth who could only be Na-Ru-Tuo. They were both glowing with a blinding, golden radiance that made Su Lan's "Decent Tea" look dull and grey. They were grinning with such intensity that Su Lan felt her own teeth ache from the reflected optimism.
"Benefactor Su Lan!" Fan shouted, his voice cracking with the sheer volume of his 'Protagonist Growth.' "The Golden Shouter and I have combined our paths! We have realized that the Dao is not found in solitude, but in the UNBREAKABLE BONDS OF BROTHERHOOD!"
Na-Ru-Tuo gave a thumbs up that actually emitted a literal 'ding' sound in the air. "That's right! Believe it! We call it... THE FRIENDSHIP FIST!"
"Please don't," Su Lan groaned, rubbing her temples where a migraine was beginning to pulse in time with their glowing auras. "I am begging you, for the love of all that is syntactically correct, do not demonstrate that here. This pavilion is structurally unsound."
"FRIENDSHIP FIST: FIRST VERSE!" they roared in unison, ignoring the pleas of their editor.
They turned toward the lake and threw a simultaneous, synchronized punch. Their Qi didn't just merge; it twisted into a giant, pulsating, neon-pink heart that soared across the water and exploded in a shower of glittery petals and concentrated saccharine energy.
[CRITICAL ALERT: CRINGE LEVEL AT 92%.]
[NARRATIVE OVERLOAD: BROMANCE SINGULARITY DETECTED.]
[WARNING: THE WORLD IS ATTEMPTING TO AUTO-CORRECT THE OVERLOAD BY DELETING ALL SUBTLETY.]
"System, TONE SHIFT! NOW! Before I vomit glitter!" Su Lan hissed.
[TONE SHIFT ACTIVATED (COST: 15 DROPS).]
[NEW THEME: MELANCHOLIC REALISM.]
The pink glitter turned to grey ash mid-air. The golden glow around the boys dimmed to a soft, depressing flickering, like a dying lightbulb. The sun went behind a thick, heavy cloud, and the temperature dropped ten degrees.
"Oh," Fan said, his excitement suddenly replaced by a strange, sudden urge to contemplate the futility of his own existence. "I... I suddenly feel like my achievements are ultimately fleeting in the grand, uncaring scheme of time."
"Yeah," Na-Ru-Tuo muttered, sitting down on the damp grass and staring blankly at his hands. "Why are we shouting? It's kind of exhausting, isn't it? Everything is just... a lot."
[INK DROP BALANCE: 21.]
"Thank the Heavens," Su Lan sighed, leaning back against the cold stone. "A little clinical depression is a small price to pay for narrative stability. I'll take existential dread over heart-shaped explosions any day."
"A high price, I think. Especially for one who claims to be a mere observer."
The voice was cool, like a shadow lengthening across a fresh grave. Sa-Su-Ke was standing at the entrance of the pavilion. He had watched the Friendship Fist, the glitter, and the sudden shift into gloom with a stillness that was deeply unsettling. He didn't look depressed; he looked *aware*.
He walked toward Su Lan. He didn't stop until his knees were inches from hers, his presence looming over the tea table like a storm front.
"Senior Brother," Su Lan said, her voice steady despite the fact that her heart was trying to restart the Friendship Fist in her chest. "Personal space is a virtue. One you seem to have forgotten in the last ten minutes. Please, step back before you enter my taxable territory."
Sa-Su-Ke didn't move back. He sat. He didn't sit across from her like a civilized person; he sat *next* to her, his dark robes brushing against her emerald silk. He ignored the moping protagonists on the grass. He ignored Liu Rou, who was staring at him with wide, spice-stained eyes.
"You changed the air," Sa-Su-Ke whispered, his gaze fixed on her with a terrifying focus. "You didn't use a technique. You didn't chant. You changed the *mood* of the world itself. You edited the feeling of the wind."
He leaned in closer, his scent of ozone and cold rain overwhelming the scent of her tea. "Who is the Author, Su Lan?"
The air around them began to buzz with a high-frequency whine. A thin line of static—white, jagged, and digital—flickered across the edge of the stone tea cup.
[WARNING: FOURTH WALL BREACH IMMINENT.]
[TARGET 'SA-SU-KE' IS PROBING PROTECTED METADATA.]
[COST TO PREVENT TOTAL CHARACTER CORRUPTION: 100 DROPS.]
Su Lan looked at her balance: **21 Drops.** She couldn't afford to save him. If she told him the truth, the System would "Auto-Correct" his brain to prevent the virus of awareness from spreading. He would become a stuttering loop like the boys in the courtyard. He would lose that sharp, dangerous, beautiful curiosity that made him... *him*.
"There is no Author, Senior Brother," Su Lan lied, her voice trembling. "You're just... stressed. The 'Friendship Fist' was a lot of pink to take in at once. Your brain is just tired."
Sa-Su-Ke reached out. He didn't tuck her hair this time. He took her chin in his hand, his grip firm and desperate, forcing her to look at him. His eyes weren't just dark; they were deep, like ink-wells that had discovered they were being used to write a tragedy they never signed up for.
"Do not lie to me," he said, and for the first time, Su Lan saw a flicker of genuine fear in the 'Ice Prince.' "The scribe's brush caught fire because it couldn't record what you did. The women vanished into mist because they weren't there. I feel the walls of this world, Su Lan. They are thin. They are made of words. And I want to know who is holding the pen that writes my pain."
The static grew louder, a roar of white noise that drowned out the wind. The willow trees began to vibrate, their leaves turning into pixelated blocks of vibrating green.
"If I tell you," Su Lan whispered, her hand gripping the edge of the stone bench so hard her knuckles turned white, "you won't be Sa-Su-Ke anymore. You'll just be... a collection of traits. A sequence of tropes. Is that what you want? To know that your grief was just a 'tragic backstory' meant to satisfy a bored reader?"
Sa-Su-Ke's grip tightened slightly. "If my grief is a lie, then I want to meet the one who told it. Even if it kills me. Even if I am nothing but ink."
[SYSTEM ALERT: BREACH AT 90%.]
[AUTO-CORRECT SEQUENCE INITIATED. PREPARING TO WIPE ASSET 'SA-SU-KE'.]
"No!" Su Lan shouted. She grabbed Sa-Su-Ke's robes, pulling him toward her with a strength she didn't know she possessed. She didn't know if she was trying to hide him from the System's cold, digital gaze or just hold onto the only real thing she had left.
"The Author is no one!" she cried out into the static. "The Author is a ghost! A tired, lonely ghost who doesn't know how to finish what they started! We are just the leftovers of a forgotten dream!"
The static reached a deafening roar—then snapped like a broken string.
The world went silent. The pixelated leaves smoothed back into soft silk. The "Melancholic Realism" tone shift evaporated, leaving a strange, neutral stillness.
[INK DROP BALANCE: 0.]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: FOURTH WALL REPAIRED. 21 DROPS CONSUMED. OVERDRAFT PROTECTION ACTIVATED.]
[DEBT INCURRED: 79 INK DROPS.]
Su Lan slumped forward, her forehead resting against Sa-Su-Ke's shoulder. She was shaking, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She had used everything. She was in narrative debt to a machine that didn't know mercy.
Sa-Su-Ke didn't move. He sat there, his hand still on her chin, his heart beating a frantic, human rhythm against her cheek.
"A ghost," he repeated, his voice hollow and ancient. "Then we are not being ruled. We are being haunted."
He pulled her closer, his arms wrapping around her in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with any trope she had ever edited. It was desperate. It was real.
"Let them watch then," he whispered into her hair, a challenge to the empty sky. "Let the ghost see that they have lost control of the ending."
[CRINGE LEVEL: 10%.]
[STAKES: LETHAL.]