Chapter 61

Yesterday, I completed Volume One, "Vermillion Bird's Glimmer, Sky-Scorching Fire."

This inexplicable poetic line inexplicably popped into my head last year when FPX won the championship, so I wrote it down.

Volume One went through many different openings over half a year before I finally settled on this one! This is because Xiang'er in this version is the coolest Xiang'er. Everything in Volume One also began one day when the line "Zhao lost his land, so my name is Xiang" suddenly appeared in my mind. (The male protagonist's name also contains a foreshadowing!)

Many readers expressed confusion about the timeline at the end of Volume One, so here’s an explanation of what happened:

In his previous life, Ning Changjiu cultivated until he was sixteen, then broke off his engagement. He cultivated for another twelve years before being killed by his Master. Then, time inexplicably flowed backward, returning to twelve years prior! When Ning Changjiu woke up, he found himself in the body of "Ning Changjiu"—the same person, but following a life path where he had not yet met his Master.

In other words, in the life where he met his Master, he would achieve enlightenment through cultivation and smoothly become a powerful figure. However, in the life where he didn't meet his Master, he was just an ordinary young Daoist priest with mediocre talent, constantly being swindled and deceived, eventually being used as a scapegoat by his own master, Ning Qinshui.

Both of these lives are considered among the infinite possibilities of time. He died at 28 in one life and then returned to 16 in another, yet it's still the same world.

Overall, Volume One should be a relatively compact story. If you reread it, you might discover some interesting small details, such as the junior sister leaving the courtyard gate open, or Tang Yu not being present when the junior sister went to fetch medicine.

As for Volume Two (the title isn't decided yet), the protagonist will follow Lu Jiajia to cultivate at the Yu Jian Tian Sect. It will be a more ordinary, somewhat conventional volume focusing on sect cultivation, which should be relatively relaxed. The unfortunate part is that I started writing too hastily; this book only has ideas and core settings, with no detailed outline... So, I'm having to create the outline as I write, and I'm a bit afraid of the story falling apart...

A spoiler and a question many readers are concerned about: Are the Master, the Empress, and the Saint the same person? Answer: No, they are three different people.

Regarding the question of whether I've finished my thesis...

My first draft was criticized by my teacher, who asked why I wrote it so poorly. I explained that I was busy with other things for the first draft and rushed it, promising to write the second draft much better... My head aches. I feel so stressed until this thesis is done. Besides paying someone to ghostwrite it, do any of my fellow readers have useful tips? (This is actually the main reason I'm writing this standalone chapter about Volume One).

If you have any other plot-related questions, feel free to ask in the review section. I'll reply to those that are easy to answer without revealing major spoilers! Questions involving core settings might be difficult to answer.

As for when I'll consistently post two updates a day! Once I finish my thesis and the outline is mostly complete, I will try to evolve into a "two-update beast"!

If you liked Volume One, please recommend it to your friends.

Well, that's it!

(Outstanding updates: 0/10! Seeing this denominator makes me feel hopeless. I'll slowly start making up for them in Volume Two!)