Hold Steady, Don't Wave

The story opens with an absurd scene: Heaven is closed and Hell is full. Chen Nuo, leader of a supernatural organization known as "Yama" who has dominated the underworld and earned the wariness of intelligence agencies worldwide, chooses to end his own life under heavy surveillance—only to unexpectedly be reborn as a high school student in the year 2000, living a second life under the identity of a boy who shares his name. In this life, he has no desire to rise again or seek revenge. He just wants to be a "salted fish" basking in the sun, living an ordinary life amid the bustle of everyday city existence.

Yet the threads of his past life refuse to let him go: companions who once stood by his side and suffered cruel fates need to be pulled one by one out of the mire; old grudges and factions buried years ago resurface; and the city of Jinling, full of hidden dragons and crouching tigers, sees powers rising and falling in endless succession. Chen Nuo scrambles to keep up with campus and family life while finding time to right wrongs and dispense a little everyday justice—until he is ultimately drawn into a grand scheme centered on the "Matrix," touching even on the hidden causal link between an alien civilization's plan for destruction and his own rebirth.

The novel uses "rebirth and lying flat" as its contrasting starting point, employing witty and vivid language to lay out the warmth of daily life before gradually unfolding a rule-tier supernatural power system and a blackly humorous ensemble cast. It features such memorable supporting characters as Lu Xixi, the mentally unstable Starry Sky Empress, and Niver, the multiple-personality Hummingbird. The work was selected for the 2021 "Web Literature Youth List" annual ranking.