Lin Yu had always believed that pulling all-nighters was a rite of passage for authors. Three energy drinks, a bag of spicy chips, and twelve hours of furious typing later, he'd finally written the words that had eluded him for months:
"And so, the Spring Mate Auction began, where the fates of countless males would be decided by the highest bidder—"
His forehead hit the keyboard.
Just five minutes, he told himself. Just a quick nap, then he'd finish Chapter 47. His editor had been breathing down his neck for weeks about "Savage Hearts, Tender Claws," and he was so close to reaching the good part where his protagonist Shen Yue would meet the first of his destined mates at the auction.
Five minutes turned into darkness.
CREAK.
The sound of wood groaning woke Lin Yu. His neck hurt. Everything hurt, actually, which was weird because his gaming chair, while cheap, wasn't that uncomfortable.
"Finally awake, pretty thing?"
Lin Yu's eyes snapped open. That wasn't his ceiling. That wasn't his apartment. And that definitely wasn't his neighbor's voice, unless Mr. Chen had suddenly developed a deep, rumbling baritone that sounded like gravel in a blender.
He sat up too fast and immediately regretted it. His head spun, and he grabbed onto—
Wood. Rough wood. Bars?
"What the—"
Lin Yu's brain short-circuited as he took in his surroundings. He was in a cage. An actual wooden cage, barely large enough for him to sit upright. Around him were dozens of other cages, each containing a young man in various states of distress. Some were crying. Others stared blankly ahead. A few were rattling their bars and shouting.
Beyond the cages, massive figures moved through the shadows. Not human figures. These were easily seven or eight feet tall, with animal features that made Lin Yu's blood run cold. A man with lion's mane and golden eyes. Another with scales glinting across his bare arms. A third with wolf ears twitching atop his head.
"No," Lin Yu whispered. "No, no, no, this is not happening."
"First time at auction, sweetling?" The voice from before belonged to a guard—a bear beastman, if Lin Yu had to guess, with small rounded ears and a build like a mountain. "Don't worry. Someone pretty like you will fetch a good price. Might even get a gentle master."
Auction.
The word hit Lin Yu like a bucket of ice water.
"And so, the Spring Mate Auction began, where the fates of countless males would be decided by the highest bidder—"
Those were his words. His exact words. From the chapter he'd been writing before he passed out.
"Oh fuck," Lin Yu breathed. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh FUCK—"
"Language!" The bear guard smacked the cage bars, making Lin Yu yelp. "You'll mind your tongue if you want to attract quality buyers. Males with foul mouths get sent to the labor camps."
Males. Males being auctioned. Males who could—
Lin Yu's hands flew to his stomach in horror. In his novel, males who could bear children were incredibly rare in the beast world, prized beyond gold and jewels. They were protected, pampered, and yes, sometimes sold to powerful beastmen who could afford to keep them.
He'd thought it was a romantic premise when he'd written it. The protagonist Shen Yue had been sold at this very auction, only to be rescued by his first destined mate in a dramatic scene that Lin Yu had outlined but never quite finished writing.
Experiencing it from inside a cage? Significantly less romantic.
"I need to get out of here," Lin Yu muttered, mind racing. "Think, think. What did I write about this place?"
The Spring Mate Auction took place in the Crimson Hall, a massive structure on the border between the Wolf Tribes and the Tiger Clans. Security was tight because the merchandise was valuable. Guards everywhere. Enchanted locks on the cages. The only way out was—
Lin Yu's eyes locked onto the cage door. The lock was a simple wooden mechanism, deliberately designed to look primitive to match the beast world's aesthetic. But he'd also written a side character—what was his name? Chen Wei? No, Chen Ming!—who'd been a thief before being captured. Chen Ming had picked a similar lock using a piece of wire.
Lin Yu frantically patted down his clothes. He was wearing rough hemp clothing, nothing like his usual t-shirt and sweatpants. But there—his hand closed around something in a poorly sewn pocket. A bent nail.
"Thank you, trash-tier worldbuilding," he whispered.
The bear guard had moved on, distracted by a commotion at the other end of the hall where someone was screaming about not wanting to be sold. Perfect.
Lin Yu's hands shook as he inserted the nail into the lock. He'd written this scene, but he'd never actually picked a lock in real life. How hard could it be?
Click.
Very easy, apparently, when you were literally inside a story where you'd written it to be easy.
The cage door swung open with a soft creak. Lin Yu held his breath, waiting for alarms or shouts. Nothing. The other captives in nearby cages stared at him with wide eyes, but none spoke. They probably thought he was crazy for trying to escape.
They were right.
Lin Yu crept out of the cage, keeping low. His body felt different—lighter, more agile. Younger? He caught sight of his reflection in a polished metal tray and nearly gasped. He looked about twenty, with delicate features and dark hair that fell past his shoulders.
Of course I'm pretty, he thought hysterically. All the males in this world are pretty. I wrote them that way because I have trash taste.
He needed to reach the eastern exit. That's where he'd written the loading area to be, where supplies came in and where there'd be fewer guards during auction prep. If he could just—
"Well, well. What do we have here?"
Lin Yu froze.
A man stepped from the shadows, and Lin Yu's stomach dropped to his feet. Not because he looked dangerous—though he absolutely did, with ash-gray hair, pointed wolf ears, and eyes that glowed silver in the dim light. No, Lin Yu's stomach dropped because he recognized him.
Slate. One of the minor guards he'd created for background color. Had literally zero lines of dialogue in his outline.
"Little male, your cage appears to be open," Slate said, his voice a lazy drawl. "That's quite the problem."
"I can explain—"
"Can you?" Slate tilted his head, wolf ears twitching with interest. "Because it looks to me like you picked the lock. That's a very unusual skill for merchandise to have."
Lin Yu's mind raced. He needed a distraction. A lie. Something, anything—
The scent hit him then. Sweet, cloying, unmistakable. Like pear blossoms in full bloom.
Slate's eyes widened. His nostrils flared. And then his entire demeanor changed, posture going rigid, pupils dilating.
"You're—" Slate's voice came out strangled. "That scent. You're a breeding male?"
Oh no.
OH NO.
Lin Yu had written that males who could conceive had a distinctive sweet scent. He'd thought it would be a cute detail. He hadn't considered what it would be like to have multiple beastmen suddenly able to smell that he was—
"I'm nobody!" Lin Yu squeaked. "Just a regular male! Definitely can't have babies! You're smelling someone else!"
Slate took a step forward. Then another. His eyes had taken on an almost predatory gleam.
"The Spring Auction hasn't had a breeding male in three years," Slate said softly. "Do you have any idea what you're worth? What the clans would pay?"
"I'm sure it's a very reasonable amount that we can discuss like civilized—"
Lin Yu didn't wait to finish his sentence. He ran.
Behind him, Slate's howl split the air—a sound of alarm that would bring every guard in the building running.
Lin Yu sprinted toward the eastern corridor, his new body responding with speed he'd never had in his original life. Thank god for protagonist-adjacent reflexes. Doors blurred past. He could hear shouting, footsteps.
There. The loading dock. Crates stacked high, the large doors slightly ajar to let in the night air.
Lin Yu put on a burst of speed and dove through the gap, rolling into the darkness beyond. He came up running, plunging into the forest that bordered the auction house.
The Whispering Forest. He'd written about this place. Ancient trees, dangerous beasts, and—
And he'd never actually described the layout because it wasn't important to the plot.
"Great," Lin Yu panted, stumbling over roots he couldn't see in the darkness. "Just great. Lost in my own fictional forest. This is fine. Everything is fine."
A howl echoed behind him. Then another. They were tracking him.
Lin Yu ran deeper into the woods, branches catching at his clothes and hair. His lungs burned. His legs ached. He'd been a sedentary writer for the past five years; his idea of exercise was walking to the convenience store.
He couldn't keep this pace up.
Another howl, closer this time.
Lin Yu crashed through a thicket and stumbled into a small clearing. Moonlight filtered through the canopy, illuminating—
A man.
No, not just a man. A beastman, collapsed against a tree, one hand pressed against his side where dark blood seeped between his fingers. His face was pale, covered in a sheen of sweat. Wolf ears lay flat against his silver-white hair, and even injured, he radiated dangerous power.
Their eyes met.
And Lin Yu's heart stopped.
Because he knew this face. He'd spent hours describing it. The sharp jawline. The scar across the left eyebrow. The cold, calculating eyes that held winter storms.
Kaelen. The Exiled Wolf General.
The tragic villain who was supposed to die in Chapter 60.
"You," Kaelen rasped, hand moving toward the sword at his side despite his injury. "I can smell... what you are. Breeding male."
"Does EVERYONE in this world have super-smell?!" Lin Yu shrieked.
"Most males can't tell," Kaelen said, his voice tight with pain. "But wolves... we're different. We can sense our—" He cut off, teeth gritting.
"Your what?" Lin Yu asked, even though part of him didn't want to know.
Kaelen's eyes fixed on him, and something in that gaze made Lin Yu's breath catch.
"Our true mate," Kaelen whispered.
Then his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely.
Lin Yu stood frozen in the clearing, the howls of pursuit growing closer, staring at the unconscious wolf general who'd just called him a true mate.
"I should leave him," Lin Yu said to no one. "I should absolutely leave him and run. That's the smart thing to do."
More howls. Getting closer.
Kaelen groaned softly, bleeding out against the tree.
"Fuck," Lin Yu sighed. "FUCK."
He dropped to his knees beside Kaelen and pressed his hands against the wound.
He had no idea how to do medical treatment. But apparently, the universe disagreed, because the moment he touched the injury, knowledge flooded his mind. Pressure points. Herbal remedies. Basic field medicine that every person in this world seemed to know instinctively.
Perks of being in a story, he thought grimly as he worked. The world gives you the skills you need to survive.
The question was: would survival skills be enough when he'd just accidentally attracted the attention of the one character he'd specifically written to be obsessively possessive of his fated mate?
Behind him, branches cracked. Footsteps approached.
"Found tracks!" a voice shouted. "The breeding male came this way!"
Lin Yu looked down at Kaelen's unconscious face, then at the approaching search party, then back at Kaelen.
"I'm going to regret this," he muttered. "I'm going to regret this so much."
But he stayed, hands pressed against the wound.