Surviving In My Novel 107 Abstinence of Cliche

two black figures appeared from nothingness in a misty forest road. A thick scent of dirt and leaves erupted as layers of ground broke beneath them. But in the mist, everything stayed silent. The trees stayed silent, even when the mist became clear. Worms lost their burrows and soil stuck to the branches of once moist and clean trees. 

CHIRP CHIRP

A red silhouette of a bird escaped the disturbance, flying off towards a bright light in the sky, the sun.

An unknown world, a new dawn. Another beginning.

"Ugh… Grey, how the f**k do you still look fine? There's dirt all over you, but you're still as hot as- nevermind what I just said, I am as straight as a 'y=mx+b.'" Blue blushed very slightly before reminding himself that he was into women. 

As one could expect, devilish beauty is not to be underestimated. An angel's grace is forever dwarfed by a devil's temptation.

"Well, my outfit is magically fitted to clean itself." Simon did not bother actually answering the question, instead opting to clean up immediately.

SWOOSH

Simon spun around and stopped abruptly. Without even a hint of momentum left, he stood there looking like a doll.

While Blue looked like a human, Simon could not really say the same. His eyes were enough to give himself away and his complexion did seem Otherworldly. This left him with the only item he could use in a situation such as this.

Simon quickly pulled a ring from his pocket and equipped it on his left middle finger.

[Equipped: Identity Ring of Peter White]

[Warning: Peter White does not exist in this world, no identity can be provide]

Simon's skin tone and eye colour changed and that was about it. His skin became more or less fair and his eyes became human-like, displaying grey. His hair lost its colour along with his eyes and became a subtle light grey. As it seemed, the ring could not offer him the same identity switching power it gave him 2 and a half years prior.

"Wow. Do you have any more of those rings? I want some of that ocean blue eyes and cyan hair." Blue hung his arm over Simon's shoulder. He did not feel like he was doing anything shameful, this was merely taking advantage of friendship.

Since the hair dye in HQ left him with an itchy scalp, Blue had to invest 30 minutes every single day to treat his scalp. This became so much of a hassle that Blue started to slowly give up on it. Thus, his roots were blonde and the rest of his hair was a gross halfway between green and blue which looked less appealing than cyan.

He also hated contact lenses, resulting in him keeping his natural brown eyes. Therefore, even though he is 'Blue' he did not look like blue at all.

"Just give me a quick second."

Simon suddenly took out a large book from his pocket, flipping through the pages before arriving at the part that was written as 'Chapter 1: A Hero's Favour'.

'The system said something quite odd before we arrived. If this is really it, then something very bad will happen. And that very bad thing will be me replacing the system's hard drive with RAM.'

"What are you reading? Is this a book on how to make my eyes blue?" Blue peeked over Simon's shoulders and tried reading the contents, slowly realising that he was not reading something he should.

"SMUT!!!"

"BLEEEEGGHH!"

Blue knelt down on the ground and started vomiting all over it.

"Hmmm? Blue, I didn't know you were such a prude. Haven't you done it with your wife yet?"

*Critical Hit*

A dagger went through his heart. Simon had hit quite a soft spot.

"The positions are quite common practice. Nothing out of the ordinary, something that people don't usually throw up over."

"It's not that, but it's just that…"

"That what?" Simon did not really understand why Blue was like this. They are both men, this is nothing to be ashamed of.

"It's yaoi."

"Oh, wrong book!" Simon returned the book to his pocket and quickly took out a different book which looked exactly the same but with a different title.

"Warring Immortals. This is my best novel, one of a kind and not yet released to the public." Simon held the book like a baby.

"Sure it's not just yaoi?" Blue did not believe Simon one bit.

"My my… did you by any chance want to try those positions?" Simon was visibly glowing.

"NO!!!"

"Then stop mentioning it, virgin." Simon snorted confidently.

"Anyways, why did you take it out? Is it some key to the universe or some-"

"Yes. Very possibly yes. If I am correct, this mission will be a walk in the-"

HONG LONG HONG HONG LONG

"Xin Meng! If I do not kill you this day, then I am not a man!" A muscular robes bald man sweeped a two-handed axe through a row of thin trees as he rushed towards a young and handsome boy.

"Zhao Ye! This fight between disciples will end with your head on a spike!" The handsome boy countered Zhao Ye's axe with the thunderous energy of a palm technique, cracking the axe into pieces.

CRACK

BOOM

"Xin Meng! I will kill you this day and make your family suffer! How dare you cheat on my sister with my uncle! SHAMELESS BASTARD!!!"

Simon and Blue peeked from behind a bush, eyeing the scene closely.

"F**k." Simon placed his palm on his face.

"What is it, Grey?" 

"Welcome to Warring Immortals. This is the opening scene. Young master Xin Meng cheats on Zhao Ye's younger sister with their uncle. Now this is the scene unfolding." Simon looked really annoyed.

"Why with the uncle?" Blue seemed concerned.

"The uncle paid Xin Meng 100 gold coins. That is a lot of money in this world."

"And what do you mean we are in Warring Immortals? Wasn't that the book you just read?" Blue rubbed his chin and gave a confused expression. He was thinking if Simon had already gone through this scenario once. 

"Yes, this has happened before."

"You read my thoughts…"

"Shush." Simon placed his hands over Blue's mouth, gagging him to silence the noise they were generating.

"My sister loved you!"

"100 gold is 100 gold!"

"Is my sister's affection worth less than 100 gold?" Zhao Ye gritted his teeth in anger.

"Um… Yes." Xin Meng quickly calculated in his head and nodded.

"You scum!"

From behind the bushes:

"Ugh… I hate glare." Blue whined.

"Then become blind." Simon started looking through his book.

"So who here is the protagonist?" Blue asked.

"Neither, both of them die for the sake of illustrating the point of 'Warring Immortals'. Mutual destruction."

"That's not fair, that Xin Meng guy is obviously a scumbag who broke Zhao Ye's sister's heart. The uncle is probably the worst one, but Xin Meng is definitely in the wrong."

"Do whatever you want. They're both at the 2nd layer of Qi Condensation. Go kill them with just the pressure of your damn vocal cords. They are that weak." Simon shook his head.

"Zhao Ye isn't any good either, you know? He seduced Xin Meng's mother."

"Does Xin Meng know that?" 

"Nope."

"Anyways, let's take our leave." Simon got up and left towards the west, followed by a confused Blue.

"Why are we heading over here? All of the action was back there!" Blue shouted somewhat childishly, feeling wronged. 

"You asked about the protagonist right? Well we are going to find him."

"And we are going to find him with what? Your very amazing map descriptions?" Blue dismisses Simon's claim.

"No, I wrote that he can be found west of the last scene within the next 10 minutes. This will be the part when he gets beaten up by some disciples and realise that he can't just wait for a rare treasure to come into his life. This is not one of those stories of a protagonist that gets an OP treasure and becomes the strongest by just relying on it. This protagonist worked hard."

"Let me guess… he found the correct combination of techniques and crushed everyone else by having good foundations." Blue plainly spoke.

"Yes. Since the other disciples tended to favour overbearing techniques and neglect their foundations."

He simply wrote his objection to standard Xianxia tropes of protagonists collecting overbearing techniques and treasure to defy the heavens. He decided to create a barely above average protagonist that only had one card, his iron will.

"So does the main character end up with a huge harem, like in all of those other Xianxia novels?" Blue seemed interested now.

"No, he marries a woman that he met while he was concealing himself as an average cultivator. She was the only one that showed interest in him despite his apparent mediocrity, therefore he married her and had 100 children."

"Do you think my protagonist would be so shallow as to have a harem of people that only like him for his power?" Simon glared at Blue seriously.

"No… it's just I've read a lot of these novels, and I know a fair bit about the tropes. Main character finds treasure, then collects a huge harem of beautiful women. Along the way, he fights a bunch of young masters and their families. Basically a sh*tshow."

"Well haven't you heard? People have started to write unique stories now. The standard formula no longer works when attracting readers. Even if this book will never be published, I will not write a cookie cutter story. Abstinence of cliche is the new cliche."

"And I like it."

Chapter end