Chapter 87: A Few Words About This Book Before Launch

A few words before this book goes on sale.

Tonight at midnight it goes on the shelves — there's still a little over an hour to go.

This book comes from a story idea I'd thought up before, but I actually agonized for a long time before putting pen to paper, because… the censorship.

It's not the web-novel censorship — urban fantasy, urban cultivation, that kind of thing can be written for the web. Take my neighbor Fei Long's The Corpse Retriever, for instance.

The one who tried to talk me out of writing this book was my licensing partner. They urged me again and again — don't write this one, pick a different story.

Because under an urban worldview, any surrealist subject matter can only be done as superpowers or sci-fi. (Like my last book, Hold Steady, Don't Drift — that counts as superpowers and soft sci-fi.)

But if you write urban cultivation, urban fantasy… then you're completely shut out of any film-and-TV adaptation, and you can't sell the animation rights either.

Because animation and film-and-TV, thanks to censorship issues, simply can't buy the rights to urban fantasy or urban cultivation material — superpowers and the like can still skate by, riding under the soft-sci-fi label.

Cultivation, dropped into a modern urban setting, completely kills the IP road. Under the current censorship framework for film-and-TV and animation, the urban setting absolutely cannot have anything supernatural or ghostly in it.

But… I was willful once again.

Writing some other story isn't impossible, but… only this one do I actually feel something when I write it.

Actually, there's an even more lucrative project — an urban sci-fi subject — and last year the client had already approached me about it. They were willing to guarantee the licensing fees, meaning the rights would essentially be pre-sold before I even started writing. But I looked at that framework, didn't like it, felt I had no feeling for it, so I turned it down.

Maybe a forty-something guy like me is still this willful a creature.

I just wanted to write about a slippery little shyster who, after leaving a big company, is forced to become a charlatan.

I just wanted to write a little fake-cute boy with a thick northeastern accent.

I just wanted to write a timid-as-a-rabbit but adorably cute unlucky girl.

I just wanted to write a cynical, superstitious old grandma.

I just wanted to write a stepmother romance…

…And there are plenty more interesting characters waiting to appear later on…

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Frankly, this book's performance so far isn't as good as my last one. I know the reason very well — the later parts of the last book had terrible update consistency.

It hurt a lot of readers' trust.

So this book's performance is quite a bit worse than the last one, and I accept that willingly — every cause has its effect, after all.

But I really am writing this story seriously, putting my heart into it.

Before writing this book, I summed up my past experience, so this book's framework won't be huge, and I never want to do that thing again where I dig myself into a logic trap and back myself into a corner I can't get out of.

The framework isn't complicated, so it should minimize the chances of getting stuck as much as possible.

The framework isn't big, so it probably won't run very long. My own plan is to keep it within two to two-and-a-half million characters — over a million fewer than the last book.

·

Let me talk about some of the reader feedback this book has gotten so far.

The similarity between Chen Yan and the last book's Chen Xiaogou… in terms of being slippery, the two characters do have some overlap there.

Add to that the fact that both characters share the surname Chen, and that the last book ended and this one started back-to-back, so some readers always feel they can't shake the impression of the last book.

Actually, if you keep reading, the differences between the characters are still pretty significant.

The biggest difference is that Chen Yan is actually a bit colder in personality than the last book's Chen Xiaogou.

Chen Xiaogou was the type who longed for warmth and affection.

Chen Yan is cold to the bone… he doesn't want any warmth or family ties. The Old Grandma is his only attachment in this world; apart from her, he's actually someone with a closed-off heart.

Because people who've been hurt are different from each other.

Someone who grew up without a dad or a mom, raised by his grandmother — from childhood on, he would have faced a lot of discrimination from the environment around him, from the world.

So his heart is cold; he watches this world with cold eyes.

So far, among the characters who've appeared, no one has gotten into his heart.

Gu Xiaoniang hasn't — that's a partnership of mutual interest. Chen Yan helps Gu Xiaoniang complete the ghost marriage, and Gu Xiaoniang serves as his backer.

Even with Lu Sisi — Chen Yan hasn't actually fallen for this girl. It's just a young man's natural attraction to a beautiful member of the opposite sex.

So when they went on their date on the commercial street at Qixia Temple, Lu Sisi was gazing at Chen Yan with stars in her eyes, while Chen Yan…

His eyes weren't actually on Lu Sisi.

Like a young man who doesn't understand feelings, he just stumbled into getting close to a girl, pulled along by natural attraction.

Love… that thing, for Chen Yan, hasn't sprouted yet.

The Laotaitai Sect taught him a lot — how to handle people, how to handle matters, and so on… but the one thing it couldn't teach him was "feelings."

And Chen Yan comes across as more mature than his peers, more capable of steeling his heart than his peers.

That's actually a trait only someone who grew up without parents, bullied and discriminated against for years, would have.

On this point, the last book's Chen Xiaogou was different.

Chen Xiaogou had that top-tier big-shot swagger, that effortless ease with heavy matters.

Chen Yan, on the other hand, is just a cold young man who got a bit of a lucky break, and is — with curiosity, but also with caution — trying to inch his way along a path of his own.

·

Gu Xiaoniang isn't Lu Xixi, and Lu Sisi isn't Sun Keke either — rest assured on that point. I do have a little skill when it comes to writing characters.

So far, this book's worldview hasn't been fully laid out yet — the scroll of the Domain Realm has only been unrolled a corner.

Just watch how I tell you the story!

·

Tonight at midnight it goes on the shelves — please support the official subscription.

Especially the first-chapter subscription numbers right after launch are extra important for the book's performance. If you can support it, please do!

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PS: I won't be taking part in the February monthly ticket rankings — I already posted a single-chapter announcement about that. I'll write this book steadily for a year first, rebuilding my reputation. Until I've rebuilt my reputation enough for everyone to be satisfied, I won't fight for the monthly ticket rankings.

I am not yet worthy to ask for your monthly tickets.

Being able to support the subscription, especially the first subscription, is already a great support to me!

We will meet promptly at twelve.

—Tiao Wu.