Chapter 72: Author

While writing this multiverse novel, I had already failed with several previous books, always wanting to write a solid xianxia, yet always falling short; I read some guidebooks on how to write novels and became mentally rigid, feeling I had planted many foreshadowings, but what I wrote felt awkward and unnatural. Later, I read the Linji Lu, which had a line roughly meaning: to force oneself to tie up a donkey just to fit in—that is, to be unnatural.

When the author writes uneasily, emotion cannot be invested; writing used to be a joyful thing for me, but I had made myself stiff.

So I let myself off the hook, decided to write something free and natural, and began Gu Qing’s story.

At first, this book was meant to be about a system for developing a power base—I tried it in the Qianlong novel, but after writing it, I felt I couldn’t capture the protagonist’s uniqueness, so after finishing The Book and the Sword, I cut it entirely.

Then this book came to be.

This book has had decent retention, once even Youwang for the Three Rivers recommendation, but again and again and again and again and again it failed to make the cut; however, it did get Strong Recommendation, and tomorrow it will launch with Strong Recommendation.

After launch, updates will increase from two to three chapters per day, but I can’t guarantee more—my previous books pushed hard for updates, but the harder I pushed, the harder it became to write, and story quality kept declining.

I don’t want to overthink this one anymore—just tell the story solidly, maintain quality, and never skip updates.

I also hope that, amid their busy lives, readers who stumble upon my updates can find a moment of joy—that’s enough.

(End of chapter)