Heartfelt Voice (Dark Angel—Yexing)

If you're unhappy, go ahead and curse, but I still have to say this!

I don't understand why some people can be so shameless. They never subscribe, yet they sit there pontificating and cursing the author. I'm not trying to scare anyone, but those who are willing to subscribe and support an author will only offer opinions and suggestions. Even if the author's work later stops satisfying them, they'll at most leave a review to remind the author, "What you're writing now isn't good enough. You've already lost a reader because of it," before leaving, or simply leaving quietly. They won't curse the author, calling them an idiot and saying they write a bunch of incomprehensible garbage. If an author can drive the people who genuinely support them into such a rage, then that author has failed beyond measure.

Also, is supporting an author really that difficult? How much does it cost to subscribe to one book for a month? Five or six yuan at most, the cost of a breakfast or two bottles of drinks. I don't believe someone too poor to scrape together five or six yuan would have that much time to leisurely read novels online.

Some student readers might object, so let me tell them this: I started reading novels in third grade. My first was either Mad God or Son of Light—I forget which. Back then, I read on Ruoyu. Later, after bouncing around for a while, I came to Qidian and stayed here ever since. There's nothing much to say about elementary school. Can you really expect elementary school students to have money?

In 2008, when I was in my second year of middle school, I got my first VIP subscription. The money came from the New Year's gift money I received in my first year of middle school. Out of more than two thousand yuan in gift money, only one hundred reached my hands. After spending some during the New Year, only fifty yuan remained for that first VIP subscription. Back then, I had ten yuan a day for pocket money, but I had to buy lunch and occasionally water. Every yuan was hard-earned savings, and I could only top up ten yuan now and then. But even so, I drew a line in the sand. Though I often ran out of money and had to stop reading halfway through a book, I still persevered.

Oh, right. I got that first VIP subscription specifically to support Shadow. That was when I understood what a die-hard fan was: when you only had two yuan, you chose to use one of them to support the author.

I wonder how many student readers have had it harder than I did back then? I believe there are certainly a few people in this world who truly have no money, but the odds of that should be no more than one in ten thousand. Everyone else, in the end, has simply grown used to getting things for free and doesn't want to spend money. It's not like I've never met people like that. Several of my classmates were exactly like this. When I asked them why they didn't spend a little money to support authors, their answer stayed with me for a long time: "Are you an idiot? Why would you spend money reading novels? Got too much money?" When I asked them, "What will you read after authors get driven out by piracy?" their answer left me speechless to this day: "Some idiots will definitely read the official versions anyway. What's there to worry about?"

Fine. I'm one of those idiots. I'm even idiotic enough to spend over a thousand yuan tipping a guild leader. But I firmly believe this world doesn't need so many "smart people." There will always be some idiots who need to give something. This world is held up by idiots. When those "smart people" look down on those idiots with contempt, it becomes obvious at a glance who the real idiots are.