Help! I'm the Plot Device: Just Here to Save the Heroes

When the World Glitched

Jerry frowned. "And we’re supposed to believe he won just because he offered a sacrifice at some forgotten temple?"

I do not. System frowned.

He rolled the scroll shut with a snap. “Everything about this emperor is fishy.”

Then our next step should be the Crown Prince’s study. Records there may hold more truth.

He climbed back up. On the main floor a small disaster met his eyes: a puddle of spilled coffee ringed by ants, dozens of them collapsed, immobile, clustered as if some sickness had felled them mid-march. He stared at the insects, uneasy.

Host... I don’t think you’re safe here. Leave. Quickly.

A scream ripped through the courtyard like a torn curtain. Black smoke licked the sky. Jerry turned toward the roar — a thin tongue of flame already licked the eaves of a nearby archive hall. Shelves bloomed into orange.

He ran toward the nearest room and met the terror face to face: flames had begun along the side wall; the air tasted of burning glue and old leather. Doors that had been open a moment ago slammed shut or jammed. Heat folded around him like a living thing.

“I tried better ways yesterday!” he coughed, voice raw. “Am I destined to be a barbecue? Drowning would’ve been easier!”

🧶

The courtyard had a crowd gathered, water buckets in messy rings, people stamping at the flames. Rings of shocked faces, shouting in panicked cadence. Two figures made a hard cut through the spectators at the perimeter: Zhao Yuanzhou in full ceremonial robes, face white but controlled; Yan An beside him, cloak flared, expression flat but every muscle coiled to move.

“—What happened here?” Yuanzhou demanded, voice raw even as it held command.

“Not sure,” Ran Yi called from the front of the crowd, wiping soot from his brow. “It spread quickly—Xiao Dianxia—”

“Yichen!” Yuanzhou’s answer cut him off. He looked at Yan, eyes sharp. “Is anyone still inside?”

An attender from the archives stumbled forward, panic breaking through his masking. “Prince Yichen went in. We did not see him come out.”

“No,” Yuanzhou said, as if the word were a blow. He turned and ran, Yan An already two steps ahead. Ran Yi tried to seize his sleeve. “My lord—” he began, but Yuanzhou shook him off; both men pushed through the press and sprinted toward the smoke.

Host, get ready to run.

"What!?"

When you hear the signal—move.

A bell tolled somewhere deep in the palace—a single, resonant ring that seemed to reverberate inside his ribs. Then, as if the world inhaled and did not let out, everything froze. Smoke hung like black glass, flame blades held motionless. Jerry’s own breath shouted in his ears.

"System… what’s happening?"

I’ve frozen the time flow. I’m interfering with the plot. I don’t know what will happen—so RUN. NOW.

A doorway yawned open as if invited by the pause. Jerry pushed through, lungs burning, legs pumping — and the room shuddered. The walls bent like bad scenery; the shelves winked out and back in.

Time jittered; the air went thin; the world hiccupped. He lunged and, for a heartbeat, he felt hands grab him — solid, warm. He was hauled from the smoke into two strong arms; for an instant he was in Yan An’s grip and Zhao Yuanzhou’s hold, hauled clear among their pressed bodies, the sky open and smoke at their backs.

H…host… so…me…th…ing… wrrr… wrong… its voice bubbled into white noise.

Then reality hiccupped hard. The courtyard dissolved with a sound like glass breaking. The palace fell away, and the air re-wove itself into green and shade and the smell of wet earth.

He landed in arms that were not Yan An’s or Yuanzhou's this time. A woman’s hands — gentle, urgent — gathered him up. Lady Lu’s face loomed, relieved and radiant. Beside her a grown man, broad and calm, crouched to meet them. The world had been rewritten: children’s laughter pricked the clearing; birds argued overhead; the boy’s body in his arms felt small and real.

“Yichen!” The man exclaimed, voice full of warmth. "Appa!" the boy called, twinkled with a laugh — and the voice was a childs, soft cheeks, long hair, small hands flailing with childish glee.

Jerry’s mind slammed against this new shell: What the hell is this? He tried to speak. Nothing. He tried to move fingers; they obeyed the child’s body in jerky, alien motions.

“System! System!” he screamed inwardly. Silence answered. On the outside, little Yichen laughed, and the man — Prince Zhao Jing— cradled him as if nothing were odd. Lady Lu’s eyes shone with maternal relief.

Jerry’s thought raced, frantic and trapped: Why can’t I move?

The world smelled of clean linen and damp grass, and his mind — frantic, adult — was pinned beneath the bright, easy joy of a child’s laughter. The last thing he registered before panic fully took him was the system’s fractured, dying whisper in his ear: wrrr… wrong…

🐱🧶🐱