A friend said that only books with completion thoughts could be considered truly and perfectly finished. Otherwise, too many readers who had shelved the book would toss it into some corner—how would they know it was finished? Write some completion thoughts, and when they happened to glance at a book in the corner marked completed, they would suddenly remember it was time to dig in.
The above was purely self-mockery.
Seriously speaking, Great Mountain Lord was finished! Many of the romantic notions, moving moments, bonds, blades, swords, fists, clashes between powers, and even the explosive, fist-to-fist battles inspired by Hong Kong and Japanese manga that I had accumulated over the years had all been realized to some extent.
Was this book outstanding? To me personally, it was. It also won me a great deal of recognition. It ranked first on both Wuxia charts for fifteen consecutive months, first in its category for the year, and first in Wuxia favorites. It changed the embarrassing slump I had been in when my books had flopped for a time. Many of the ideas in this book were also an explosion of thoughts built up over many years.
I remember when I first began writing this book. At the time, I had gone nearly half a year without receiving any decent royalties, and I was still writing a book with only around two thousand average subscriptions. After that book ended, I reflected on why I kept flopping. I found the answer: I had been too impatient. So I slowed down and did not rush to start another book. My friends dragged me into the stock market, where my meager savings took a beating, while I also reflected on what kind of work I should write. At that time, I thought of Wuxia—
Long ago,