Chapter 389: The New Book Month Has Finally Ended, Gratitude and Thanks

The new book month has finally ended. I am deeply grateful and want to express my sincerest thanks!

I’ve just posted four Chapters, totaling 12,000 characters, so please be sure to read them.

It’s over. The new book monthly rankings are finally over. We finished in seventh place. I didn’t predict the start, but I did predict the end, haha. To all the friends who fought alongside me for these past 24 days, I, Lao Ya, bow to you all in gratitude.

I haven’t been this exhausted since I first started writing, but despite the fatigue, I’m incredibly happy and content. It’s because there are people eagerly awaiting my book, pointing out its strengths and weaknesses, helping me with ideas, and fighting to get me monthly tickets...

One must learn to be grateful. A kindness as small as a drop of water should be repaid with a gushing spring.

If it weren’t for all of you, I might still be a complete failure of a writer, unable to support my family. Any man with a shred of self-respect knows the shame of earning less than his wife. After failing for so many years, starting new books time and again only to be met with disappointment, changing countless pen names, and writing countless opening Chapters... it was you who gave me the confidence to feel that I could keep on writing, that my books were something people were willing to pay to read.

At my lowest point, I could write for a whole month and earn almost nothing. Sometimes, my books wouldn’t even make it to the premium shelves for monetization. I wasn’t married yet back then. My wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, kept telling me it was okay, but I knew I was letting her down. She was already burdened with a mortgage, and on top of that, she had to support someone who was unemployed and barely earning a dime.

For a woman to willingly give the best years of her youth to you, especially when you’re the classic short, ugly, and poor loser—that’s a debt of gratitude too immense to repay. So I persevered. I worked my tail off, for myself, for the one who loves me, and for the ones I love.

Times were tough back then. My wife was a school teacher, and she managed to get me a job as a substitute at her school. Many of you might not be familiar with substitute teachers—we did the most work for the least pay. The salary was 1,600 a month, but it wasn’t paid monthly. It came every two or three months, and each payment would only be 1,703. The rest would be settled at the end of the semester. To this day, I still haven’t figured out why they paid it like that. In any case, I remember that exact amount crystal clear; I could never be wrong about it.

I didn’t actually want to take the substitute teaching job. It wasn’t because of the low pay, but because I felt... I was living off a woman. And my salary was far lower than my wife’s.

A lot of people at the school talked behind my back, saying that only the most useless men become teachers—and I wasn’t even a proper teacher, just a substitute... In truth, I felt pretty useless. I was a daydreamer, earning a pitiful amount of money each month, unable to support a family. All I could do back then was sit alone in front of my computer late at night, grit my teeth, and chase after my dream.

With this book, *Endless Dantian*, I was actually fully prepared to fail again. It was all of you who gave my dream the wings to fly. Thank you, I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I never imagined someone would be willing to spend a thousand or two thousand yuan just to become an Alliance Leader for my book. I never imagined someone would be willing to write a knock-off version of my book. I never imagined that readers, in order to boost my book’s popularity, would advertise it everywhere, facing scorn and getting into heated arguments with others for my sake...

This book has brought me so many things I never expected. It was you. You are the ones who gave me all of this.

That’s why I went on a crazy update spree this month—purely to express my gratitude, purely to say thank you.

In truth, there were several times this month when I almost couldn’t go on. I never said anything before because I was afraid of people accusing me of playing the victim to get sympathy. I won’t even go into things like proctoring the national college and high school entrance exams; that’s just part of the job, and I can’t complain about it. The real reason I almost gave up was that my body started having some problems.

Back in college, I used to have occasional chest pains, but after many check-ups, they never found anything wrong. More recently, my whole body would go numb to the point where I could barely type. My wife dragged me to the hospital for a full examination, and it seems there’s an issue with my cervical spine; it’s compressing a nerve. The only solution is to not sit in front of the computer for too long.

There were a few times I was writing late at night when my whole body went numb and I nearly passed out. I felt like I really couldn’t go on, like I was about to die. I was ready to give up! But I felt that doing so would be letting down all the friends who support me, and even more, it would be letting myself down. I’d finally crawled my way up from being a total failure to, well, at least not a *complete* failure. If I were to give up in this first month of success, what would have been the point of persevering for six years?

I finally have a chance to change my life. To give up now would be unforgivable!

So, I kept going!

I don’t write in pursuit of some noble literary dream. I don’t have such lofty ideals, nor do I have the right to them. My reasons are simple: for the money, and to prove that I’m a man who can provide for his family, both young and old.

Life may have beaten the arrogance out of me, but my pride is still intact. I just want to use my own two hands to give my family a better life, because I love my wife, and I love my daughter.

And finally, I made it through. ℯ

This month, between the donations and the massive burst of over 500,000 words, my earnings should break 10,000 yuan. This is the first time I’ve ever made this much in a single month on Qidian. I have all of you, my patrons, to thank for putting food on my table.

I know this is all getting a bit sentimental, but every word comes straight from the heart.

Lastly, let’s talk about the update plan for next month.

As for the story so far, while I personally think it’s been decent, many veteran readers can probably tell that I’ve borrowed many plot devices from the Great Gods of the genre. Sometimes, in the interest of creating a quick thrill or rushing to meet a deadline, I wrote things that frankly disgusted even me. So, this coming month, I plan to make some major adjustments. I’m going to strive to write in my own style and find a path that truly suits me.

This path will certainly not be easy to find, but I hope all of you, my friends, will walk it with me. I hope you’ll continue to give me encouragement and support, offer your honest suggestions, and help me go further than ever before.

This month, I’ll be slowing down the update pace. There will be a guaranteed two Chapters a day (totaling 6,000 characters), with occasional bonus Chapters. The two regular Chapters will be released at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM. If there’s a bonus Chapter, it will likely be posted around noon or midnight.

Finally, I’d like to ask for your base monthly tickets. Last month, we received over eight hundred monthly tickets in total. Can we make this month just as glorious?

......

(To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian.com to vote with recommendation tickets and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)