In the new year, I wish everyone smooth sailing in all things, joy and happiness!
This author sincerely apologizes for stopping updates for so long before. At first, I really only meant to rest for a couple of days and adjust my health and the state of my life. But once I put down the pen, it was like a loosened string: when it sprang back, it tangled and shrank into a ball, becoming a ball of yarn in a cat's paws. By the time I untangled the loose end in my heart and picked up the pen again, a month had passed.
During this month, temporarily setting writing aside actually didn't make life any better. Instead, a clump of guilt and hope I could hardly part with would faintly appear from time to time each day, like a hairball swallowed into a cat's belly. It was only a tiny thing, yet it seemed to hide a whole world inside. However, once the world within a book has been created, it no longer belongs only to the author, but also to all its readers—to everyone who has read it and imagined it—and it cannot be lightly abandoned by the author.
Within the mustard seed of Sumeru are ten thousand scrolls, and also countless thoughts and musings. They wander over invisible clouds, gazing at us, their emotions linked together like the Heart Dragon in the clouds. These are feelings that must not be let down, just as hopes and other people must not be let down. And we once rode together upon the clouds to witness thoughts shuttling back and forth and passing by, to imagine the unreal truth and grandeur: like the Cloud Snake dancing, like the Feathered Serpent falling into the sea, while Black Wolf transformed into The Sun.