After Novel Protagonists Invade Reality

Wang De is an unremarkable university student who, after a night of reading harem novels, awakens with the protagonist halo of a stud-horse novel. He gains the ability to attract beautiful women and hear the inner thoughts of others, transforming his mundane life into a series of romantic conquests. His sudden rise catches the attention of the Novel Crisis Management Bureau, a secret organization that handles invasions from fictional narratives into reality. The bureau’s Third Team, led by the lethargic but highly capable Captain Duan Chunshui, along with his subordinates Jiang Nian, Xiao Xu, and a three-and-a-half-year-old girl named Zhu Zhu, tracks Wang De to a university campus. They intervene just as Wang De is harassing the campus belle, He Jun, who has been deeply influenced by the novel’s will.

Wang De is taken to the Bureau’s headquarters, where he discovers that he is not the only protagonist in the world. The facility operates like a government office, with different departments handling various novel genres such as Domineering CEO, Romantic Lead, and Yandere. He learns that his type of harem novel is considered outdated and low-tier, placing him at the bottom of the protagonist hierarchy. He is forced to sign a Mutual Non-Mockery Contract and is registered under the Romantic Lead Department, despite his self-perception as a top-tier male lead. During his processing, he meets Zhu Zhu, a genius child protagonist from a runaway-pregnancy trope, whose ability to have her inner thoughts heard by others makes her significantly more powerful and respected than Wang De.

The story shifts to a new case involving Xu Xue, an ordinary office worker who reports to the police that a wealthy CEO, Ji Chunshan, is obsessively pursuing her with private jets and luxury yachts. The Bureau identifies this as a Domineering CEO novel invasion, with Xu Xue having received the female protagonist’s halo. Duan Chunshui’s team intervenes, with Duan Chunshui revealing a personal connection to Ji Chunshan as his biological cousin. The team accompanies Xu Xue to the Ji family estate to resolve the situation. There, they encounter Gu Yongsheng, a man who claims to be the real young master of the Ji family after being swapped at birth. Gu Yongsheng is a protagonist from a True and False Young Master novel, possessing a halo that ensures he will be loved and spoiled by his wealthy relatives upon his return.

However, the Ji family’s reactions contradict the typical tropes of Gu Yongsheng’s novel. Instead of favoring him, the family members behave in ways that align with other genres: the father admires Wang De, the mother tries to buy off Xu Xue, and the eldest brother speaks in cringeworthy CEO lines. Gu Yongsheng becomes confused and distressed as his protagonist halo fails to produce the expected narrative outcomes. Meanwhile, Wang De finds himself unexpectedly validated by the family patriarch, further disrupting Gu Yongsheng’s script. The convergence of multiple novel invasions within the same family creates chaos, challenging the protagonists’ expectations and forcing the Bureau to navigate a complex web of conflicting narrative forces.

As the team investigates the Ji family, they uncover that the novel invasions are not isolated incidents but part of a larger pattern affecting elite households. Duan Chunshui’s demotion from the First Team to the Third Team is hinted to be related to his handling of high-profile cases involving his own relatives. The narrative explores the absurdity of rigid genre tropes colliding with reality, as characters from different novel types interact in unpredictable ways. Wang De, initially arrogant about his protagonist status, is repeatedly humbled by the Bureau’s staff and the superior abilities of other protagonists like Zhu Zhu and Jiang Nian. The story concludes with the team preparing to address the escalating complications at the Ji estate, where the boundaries between fiction and reality continue to blur.