Chapter 103: Thoughts on Premium Release

Hello, fellow shareholders. We haven’t seen each other for three days, but it feels like nine autumns have passed.

I just posted a standalone Chapter a couple of days ago, so I’ll keep this brief and not take up too much of your time. Here is the TL;DR version:

I received notice that this book will be going premium on Thursday, February 5th at midnight. I’ll be mass-releasing 8,000 words of the main story plus a 20,000-word side story (which I personally think is of very high quality—please look forward to it)!

Below is just me rambling. If you’re short on time, you can adjourn the meeting now!

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\o/\o/ [Gratitude Section] \o/\o/

I consulted with Editor Jiguang and Editor Xueli, and they both mentioned that sci-fi and mystery genres need a substantial word count before the book’s performance undergoes a qualitative change.

The early-stage ability to attract traffic and retain daily readers for sci-fi is indeed not as strong as meme-filled urban novels or light novels. Plus, my pacing is quite slow. It’s clearly a post-apocalyptic theme, yet even as it goes premium, the apocalypse hasn’t actually started yet, hahaha.

A friend comforted me, saying, "Don’t worry, the Three-Body Star People hadn’t even arrived by the time the first Three-Body book ended." Hahaha, thank you all for the emotional support!

However, I am truly extremely satisfied and moved. As a newcomer, this book managed to stay at number one on the Sci-Fi New Book Chart until it aged off. And thanks to the support of you fellow shareholders, it even secured a spot in the top ten of the overall Sci-Fi Monthly Ticket Chart. This has completely exceeded my expectations.

I am incredibly grateful. A deep bow to all you shareholders!! And a deep bow to my seniors, Editor Jiguang and Editor Xueli!

Thank you to all the brothers who read daily, comment, cast every single monthly ticket and recommendation ticket, and give tips!

I’ve looked at every single username. I know what you’ve all commented before, and I’ve kept it all in my heart!

Also, to the brothers who recommended this book to the people around them and posted about it on Xiaoheihe and the NGA Xuanwo Academy forums—thank you so, so much!!!

It goes premium at midnight on Thursday, February 5th. I’d like to ask all the shareholders to please support the first-day subscription so my stats look a bit presentable. Otherwise, it would be too embarrassing for the Sci-Fi channel, hahaha.

Regarding updates, I currently have about 200,000 words stockpiled. It’s not that I don’t want to release them quickly, but rather that I want to build up my reserves. This gives me more time to polish the writing, allows a margin of error, and prevents the story from collapsing.

That’s also why I’m mass-releasing a 20,000-word side story but only 8,000 words of the main story for the premium launch. I specifically wrote a high-quality side story to satisfy everyone while preserving my main story stockpile (sneaky.jpg).

I personally feel this side story is of even higher quality than the main text. However, due to going premium early, the timeline of this side story takes place on the weekend of November 23rd in the story.

(Currently, Chapter 43 is set on Friday, November 16th. I originally thought the premium release would be pushed back a few more days. It won’t affect your reading experience. The only difference is that Xiaoxiao’s feelings for Brother Cos have changed slightly, but you’ll understand the reason once you read up to Chapter 52.)

I have genuinely poured too much blood and sweat into this book and stayed up countless nights. Because of this, I want to keep more main story Chapters in reserve to ensure the quality, so I can do justice to all the readers and to myself.

...

\o/\o/ [Reading Comments Section] \o/\o/

Below are my responses to the concerns of a small portion of readers leading up to this premium release:

1. Concerns about whether the plot is too ambitious and overextended:

The starting point of this story is a very grand setting. The genre I chose is ’Sci-Fi: Doomsday Crisis.’ The works that have deeply influenced me include Three-Body, Attack on Titan, Steins Gate, and others. (There’s also Li University’s Winter Time Renderinge; although it’s not a grand narrative like the others, this book had a profound impact on my writing style.)

The story I want to write is also an epic of humanity struggling against fate. (Whether I can write it well is another matter, haha.)

Although the narrative uses a limited third-person perspective and the story’s development is entirely from Brother Cos’s point of view—meaning the field of vision is restricted—the world continues to move forward outside of Brother Cos’s life. Many people and many organizations are acting according to their own plans.

2. Concerns about whether certain settings haven’t been thought through:

Readers who have made it this far should be able to feel that I’ve put a lot of effort into the world-building and the outline.

It’s not that I haven’t thought of many things; it’s just that the information in Brother Cos’s hands is limited, and the puzzle isn’t complete yet. As someone in the thick of it, Brother Cos can’t see the forest for the trees. His guesses and deductions aren’t necessarily correct; they are merely speculations based on currently known information.

Let me use Brother Cos’s analysis of the "Smiling Suicide Case" as an example:

1. When Brother Cos was initially exposed to the "Smiling Suicide Case," he asked his older cousin, "Xia Li hasn’t run into this kind of thing too, has she?" At first, he thought the two incidents might be connected;

2. When Brother Cos learned about the suicides and the "Doppelgänger Syndrome," he thought, "Is this related to Shi Zuozhou’s sudden dislike of cilantro?"

3. Later, when Brother Cos saw the obituary for Professor Gao’s suicide, he guessed whether Professor Gao had been replaced by a "doppelgänger."

4. After reading his parents’ posthumous thesis, Brother Cos wondered if those suicide victims had undergone vectorization.

5. When Brother Cos saw the behavior of the people at TDI and learned about the "lethargy" symptom, he felt that the suicides were definitely related to TDI.

6. When Brother Cos experienced TDI for the first time, he realized that those suicide victims had actually been "trained"!

7. When Brother Cos later bought the Midnight Bus audio, he wondered if there were malicious commands hidden within it.

You can’t say Brother Cos’s analysis is completely baseless. It’s just a case of not being able to see the forest for the trees because he’s standing right in the middle of it. Plus, as a normal person in the real world, Brother Cos wouldn’t jump to wildly imaginative conclusions.

It’s like if you heard a loud BANG upstairs in the middle of the night in real life. Most people would think, "Did something drop on the floor?" A normal person wouldn’t immediately think, "Could someone have been assassinated?" unless they lived in the world of Detective Conan.

Readers are following Brother Cos’s line of thinking, but the readers’ and Brother Cos’s ways of thinking aren’t necessarily entirely identical.

Coupled with the limited third-person perspective, what Brother Cos sees is what the readers see. For instance, there might be a flood somewhere, but if Brother Cos doesn’t pay attention to it, the readers won’t see that plotline.

When it comes to simple questions like, "Why didn’t so-and-so take action?" those are naturally part of the setting too. I can’t give any spoilers, so everyone will just have to keep reading to find out.

For basic world-building questions like this, I believe that readers who have made it this far will trust that I’ve definitely considered them.

After all, having created such a complex setting, I certainly wouldn’t overlook the simplest and most direct elements.

"Seeing a mountain as a mountain, seeing a mountain as not a mountain, and seeing a mountain as a mountain once again."

It just depends on how many layers deep everyone has thought about it. (It’s a classic case of 4D chess, but I’ve seen some readers guess a few points correctly.)

3. Regarding the future development of the book, and whether I’ll drop it if the performance is poor:

There’s absolutely no need to worry about me dropping the book. I’m not writing this to make money; it’s purely out of passion. So, regardless of how it performs, I will earnestly finish writing it.

My personal plan is to put my heart into finishing this book no matter the results, and then try adapting it into a Japanese-style calendar-based narrative game, similar to Persona 5 or Volcano Princess (game development is my old profession, after all).

This is because I’ve been writing it using P5’s calendar structure. What happens every day and what major events occur are very clearly laid out. The theme is also quite suitable for a narrative game adaptation.

...

[Epilogue]

I’ve rambled on for two thousand words. Thank you to the shareholders who have read up to this point, and please forgive me for taking up your time. Finally, I’d like to dedicate an adapted modern poem to all of you, hoping it might touch your hearts just a little across the screen:

The youth insists on setting sail against the rain, refusing to turn back even if the Milky Way hangs upside down.

Seeking the torrential, seeking the drenched, seeking the revelry.

Vowing to move heaven and earth to fill the bottomless abyss.

Wanting to be an Ark that cleaves through giant waves, rather than a broken ship drifting with the current.

Willing to brave the turbulent seas for just a single ray of light.

Finally, thank you once again for your support!!

A deep bow!!

May we all still be here, may the story remain unbroken, and may the people I’ve penned finally be able to look up and see the sunlight.

Penned by Mu Yema on the night of February 4, 2026.