Thank you all for your support, which has given me the chance to share a few words now that the book has reached the shelves.

Thank you all very much.

The book goes on sale tomorrow at noon, so I wanted to say a few words in advance. At long last, I have a chance to say them.

There is so much I want to say that I hardly know where to begin, so let me start by sounding a little pitiful...

Since I have hardly ever used the author’s note feature before, I thought I’d talk a bit about myself.

It really has been rather miserable. I once wrote a few tens of thousands of words on another novel before abandoning it. As a newcomer, I simply did not understand enough. Fantasy is a very difficult genre, and I could not see any hope of getting a recommendation. My state of mind was poor as well, so I ended it in haste.

After that, I followed a friend to Tomato to write free fiction. Getting signed was easy, but making money was hard. He wrote for a month and earned five hundred; I wrote for a month and earned one dollar.

I felt as though I had been thoroughly stunned, but I had no particular talents, and my job prospects were not much better, so in the end I came back to writing novels.

I also tried several openings before this, but none of them were accepted.

While reading a new book by a certain master, I got the urge to write this one. Some readers already know what I mean, so I will not mention the title here. Mainly, I was not sure whether it would be appropriate to bring it up.

Then this book passed review and was signed. I am grateful to my editor, Qingzhou. At the time I submitted to several editors, and none of them accepted it, but he gave me the chance.

When the book was released, he had already been promoted to gold-medal editor and was transferring the authors he handled to Wushu. I was worried that I might end up as someone no one wanted, but he still took me along. The wording may be a little ambiguous, but that is roughly what I mean.

The early data was only average. Some days I would gain four or five favorites, and sometimes there would not even be a single reader following along. I even gave myself monthly tickets, recommendation votes, and tips, thinking it might help. In truth, it did not seem to do much at all.

To be honest, my mental resilience is very poor. Every day I was anxious, having stomach trouble and unable to sleep, wondering whether I had messed up again and whether I ought to abandon the book.

The only reason I did not was that I had already prepared several tens of thousands of words before starting, and I had to finish posting them. Now those drafts are gone...

Later, the book entered the new-release showcase, which every new title gets. There are roughly a thousand books in it, and the urban fiction section alone had more than one hundred and fifty. You can imagine the effect.

But for me, it was already wonderful. My favorites went from only a handful a day to more than thirty.

Some readers also left comments saying what I wrote was not bad, and I felt indescribably happy.

However, that new-release showcase only lasts ten days, and competition in the urban fiction section is fierce. By the time it ended, I still had not accumulated enough continuing readership to qualify for the first recommendation round, meaning one hundred readers opening the latest chapter.

Well, not only was it not enough then, it still had not reached that point even after one hundred thousand words.

Without recommendation, a book that is released bare has almost no exposure, and it cannot go on sale. I shamelessly asked some masters for advice, and they told me to hold on a few more days and see how the intelligent recommendation system would work after the book reached one hundred thousand words, to see whether readers might be willing to give it a look.

When I was close to one hundred and twenty thousand words, the algorithm finally kicked in, and the book at last began to show some promise and got a recommendation. Then I became even more anxious. I did not know whether what I was writing was actually any good, whether it was too thin and empty, or whether I still could not create anticipation or satisfying payoffs.

On top of that, I felt that writing about patrol duty all the time might lead to reader fatigue, so I wanted to switch positions. That meant a plot transition in the middle, which was extremely difficult to write. A newcomer like me was basically dazed.

Later, I sorted through my thoughts and felt it was probably all right, so I improved a little. But while my brain understood it, my hands did not. The result, in my view, was not very good, and perhaps you could feel that too. So I became anxious again and was running to the bathroom several times a day.

At times, I would also think all sorts of pointless things, but seeing that everyone was willing to keep reading, I held on once more, and then made it all the way to the day of release.

As a newcomer, I know very well that what I write is not that good. It is only because all of you generous masters have not looked down on me. I have nothing to repay you with except to bow deeply to you all.

Thank you for putting up with my rambling. I should also mention this here: as for updates after release, I am truly slow-handed, and I am writing this part alongside a job. To keep up a four-thousand-word update, sometimes I have to write until after one in the morning. This is not me trying to sound pitiful; I really am slow-handed. In an hour I can only manage around a thousand words, and I often wish I could just swap hands.

On release day, I will post ten thousand words. After that, I will aim for at least six thousand words every day. If I am in good form and manage more, I will post more. I will give you everything I can.

Finally, I ask for your subscriptions. Please support the book generously, and monthly tickets are also very welcome. If you feel comfortable while reading, I would be grateful for any tips as well. I hope we can accompany one another and share a stretch of time together.

With deepest thanks.