Curry Mush Text

Hahahaha to ha!

Long time no see, everyone, it is Andlao here, who has vanished for some time.

First of all, I repent.

Secondly, I repent again.

I originally planned to release the book in June, but as a result, a huge mess of inexplicable things happened and it dragged all the way out until today.

Rounding it up, it has also been an interval of a year since I typed out words.

Sigh, a year went by so fast, and I did not even have any real sense of it.

The long serialized life is about to start again. To be honest, at this very moment of releasing the book, I am quite panicked about things like sales, average subscriptions, readers' disappointment, feedback, and blah, blah, blah.

What is more, after adding word-typing into a leisurely daily life, I do not know what life will turn into once again.

Sigh.

Let me briefly talk about what I did during this period of disappearance. During this spell, I have constantly been working out and losing weight, transforming myself from a heavy-armored otaku into an elite troll.

Then, because my exercise was too intense, it led to an athletic injury in my ankle, and I even went to get a small surgery—numbed.

After the surgery ended, I slowly got fat again, and now I am continuing to work out.

All right, that is it.

Ha.

Let us talk about work first; I will toss my rambling to the back.

Regarding the new book, I have made a lot of preparations, and in a certain sense, I have carried out a huge writing change.

In my previous few books, the worldview was actually not grand. When all was said and done, there were only a few places, and only a few factions doing any fighting and killing.

Most importantly, the development of the plot was just like Monster Hunter; the protagonist accepted commissions, knew the time and place, and then went on a mindless killing spree.

In the new book, I have made some changes. The protagonist will not join some super organization at the start, nor will there be cozy commissions allowing him to spend the plot's development looking like a workday.

I designed a grander worldview—at least to my previous works, that is how it is—along with detailed faction settings, historical settings, and city settings.

In the previous few books, whether it was Ashes or Endless, there was actually no clear outline, only a vague main thread that let me write and make it up as I went along.

This led to the issue where, when the updates caught up to my train of thought for making up the story, I had to pad out a few chapters just to buy time, causing the plot to become bloated, or discrepancies to appear between the earlier and later settings, or even the continuous patching of holes in the later stages.

However, it was no big deal. Under the blessing of my Path of Time, I still managed to round the stories back out fairly successfully.

Still, I could not blindly be lazy in this way, so when the previous book was upgraded, I wrote a very detailed outline, figuring out all the plots and so on right from the start of the book.

Then, the sales were not too great, but as a work testing out an outline, I was still very satisfied. I had finally learned how to write an outline.

Compared to the loose and scattered nature of before, the plot would become a bit tighter, but it would not keep fighting and killing all the time and leave everyone unable to catch a breath.

Therefore, drawing lessons from my previous few books, this time I set up a very detailed outline. The prequel plot plus the outline for the first three volumes are close to fifty thousand words, which is more than all my previous books combined.

Then, in terms of character design and plot conflicts, I also put in a fair amount of effort. At least the situation where I had to pad out word count just to continue making up the plot further down the line will not happen again.

Each character's design also has a clear past and future, along with relevant plot conflicts, rather than everyone only faintly remembering a mere handful of characters by the end.

The stock of pre-written chapters is currently very abundant, and it is still continuously increasing.

As for expected sales... I am very optimistic. For an author whose highest initial subscription for a single book has only been two thousand, no matter how terrible the start is, I can write on with an ordinary state of mind.

Hia, do you think I want to maintain an ordinary state of mind? I have simply never been well-off.

If there is anything else... actually there is not much else to say either. Saying anything more would inevitably feel like spoilers.

The novel's story has not yet begun, and any further discussion is just pie in the sky or feels like getting high on one's own supply. It is better to wait until the end of this volume before considering it.

Anyway, as a book stepping toward thirty years old and preparing to be middle-aged, I am still very much looking forward to it.

Hia, there is still a sort of helpless feeling.

Next is my personal rambling; feel free to read selectively, everyone.

Also, I do not understand either why everyone wants to read this, or even wants to tip for extra chapters and such things.

The patrons want me to write twenty thousand words, but to be honest, with my barren state of mind and experiences at present, I truly cannot write that many words. Saying any more would just be some repetitive complaining, with nothing interesting about it.

Readers who have read many of my postscript messages should know that I somewhat have problems. The terrible thing is that the problems have not improved with the passage of time; on the contrary, they are running all the way in the direction of deterioration.

Of course, I believe this is merely a problem.

During the period of my disappearance, I simply wanted to try dealing with this problem, but very regretfully, a year has passed and I still have not conquered it. I am truly very sorry.

If I were to divide my life into two parts, I would probably choose middle school as a node. That was the starting point of my writing path.

Before middle school, I was a person full of vitality. I was not accustomed to staying at home, thought about going out to play every day, frequently fought with classmates, had a temper that would explode at the slightest touch, and threw heavy punches at everyone. I was purely a numerical freak and always tier zero.

After I started writing, it was like a barbarian being tamed by the Civilized World. Both my personality and my attitude toward life galloped all the way in the exact opposite direction.

I would huddle in a corner all day, writing and drawing in notebooks, being kind to others, and never resorting to force.

Sometimes when I look back, I am amazed, as if some great force had forcefully spliced together the lives of two completely different people.

But thinking about it carefully, whether in high school or middle school, I actually had problems similar to my current state.

The most distant memories even trace back to my kindergarten days; logically, I shouldn't remember things from that time, but perhaps my emotional fluctuations back then were too intense, for they remain extraordinarily clear to me even now.

It's just that I was young at the time, with classes every day and a life packed full, so I didn't have the time to dwell on such personal emotional matters. I don't know where it started, and I've forgotten how it ended back then.

Yet I dimly remember that perhaps I was young at the time, a genuine little brat, and so I simply cheered myself up with that carefree attitude.

Coupled with the fact that I am indeed a very forgetful person, after stopping writing for a period of time, I would forget what I had written before, and even my past days were muddled and without a fixed pattern.

Whenever readers chat with me about certain plot developments, I wear a blank expression, just like that Sasuke meme.

"What on earth are you talking about, man?"

I find it very hard to be alone with myself. Once I am left with nothing to do and stay by myself for more than half an hour, a series of noises wells up from the depths of my heart, bringing surges of panic.

Especially once night falls, roughly between 11 PM and 2 AM, it feels as if I am wrapped in a cold, heavy cloth. During the day I rely on busyness to tear open a gap to catch my breath, but when night comes, this cloth slowly tightens again.

I mentioned in a previous post-script that I find it hard to imagine life after the age of thirty. It is like a taut string, concealing a panic over the passage of time, and even more, the despair of being unable to grasp anything about my current self.

This tug-of-war of feeling like I am wasting time despite doing nothing, wanting to escape yet staying rooted in place, has lasted for several years. Even self-hatred has grown exhausting, like punching the empty air and ultimately only hitting oneself.

I need to do something to calm my inner self. I will play games, read novels, browse videos, and so on; but when it comes down to it, it's not that I want to do these things. My sole purpose in doing them is to kill time and pacify my mind.

Friends have once suggested that I participate in more activities, and I have tried, but the effect was not significant.

No happiness can last forever. In the gaps of any joyful moment, a jumble of chaotic thoughts would suddenly flash through my mind.

My mind is filled with chaotic, catastrophizing thoughts.

To be honest, they aren't heavy, but they aren't light either, much like a fat cat pressing down on your chest—you can still breathe, but it takes a bit of effort.

Whenever this happens, I miss my carefree days, such as the period right after graduating from university, or even further back in high school and middle school. Those really were genuinely carefree times.

I also know that these remarks of mine are actually quite pretentious and a case of groaning without being sick; after all, my life is already better than that of the vast majority of people.

No commute, an office space less than a meter away from my bed, a generous salary, and so on.

Troubled as I am, I truly deserve a thousand deaths.

I often ask friends a simple yet complex question.

How is one supposed to live?

I usually wake up around 9 AM. When I first wake up, my mood is quite good, perhaps rejoicing that I've lived through another day. I'll curl up in bed to browse my phone for a bit and grab a bite to eat.

Around 11 AM or so, my inner restlessness begins, urging me to do something.

Then... then it's finding something to do, feeling restless, switching to another thing to do, feeling restless again—passing the time like this until around evening when friends get off work. We play games together, break up around 11 PM, and I lie in bed alone, continuing to enjoy my anxiety all by myself.

This anxiety will last until around 1 or 2 AM. Once I've exhausted myself completely, I can fall asleep.

Lately, though, I've started playing Delta Force with friends. For the sake of 3x3s, I've been playing so much I'm living like a maggot.

I'd play the whole night through, desperately trying to distract myself, but once the game ends and I lie in bed, a sense of disillusionment upon returning to reality is inevitable.

Sometimes I get up to run a knife raid, sometimes I chat with AI for a bit, and other times I listen to some radio broadcasts.

I remember when I was in primary school, there were no smartphones back then, and televisions still had big fat backs. After 12 midnight, most television stations were filled with all sorts of mosaics...

Back then, I had a radio. To pass the boring hours, I would hug the radio to sleep before bed, listening to all sorts of radio programs.

To me at that time, I didn't know what programs corresponded to which channels, nor what time slots the programs were broadcasted in.

Every time I tuned the frequency it was an unknown. Sometimes I could hear Ghost Blows Out the Light, sometimes emotional programs, or perhaps advertisements for elderly health supplements.

But it didn't matter. For me back then, having something to listen to was already pretty good.

Come today, a certain day on a whim, I wanted to listen to something, like some children's stories.

Instead of opening podcasts like Himalaya, I opened the phone's built-in radio. After a bout of tuning the frequency, every single station was broadcasting elderly health supplements...

It had quite a bit of a Cyberpunk feel to it.

Hahahahaha→Ha! (There was supposed to be a Sword Demon laughter arrow up and down here, but the system doesn't seem to display it.)

The period when the problem was most severe should have been last year, during the serialization of my last book.

Back then, my heart was panicking like crazy. Far from feeling like I was floating in the air, I felt like I was about to plunge straight into outer space.

I talked to people every day, chatting with my parents during the day and friends at night, chatting until people got somewhat annoyed just seeing me.

After all, no matter how we talked, it was always the same stretch of words, repeating over and over without an end.

I constantly played games, read books, and watched shows. Just like I said before, I actually didn't like doing these things; the games I played were utterly meaningless, the books obscure and difficult to understand, and I couldn't wait to watch shows at double speed.

I did all this just to make my time meaningful.

That's right, meaningful.

It was as if there was an invisible yardstick: as long as I did this, my time would be meaningful, it wouldn't be considered wasted, and I would feel at ease because of it.

Much like a terrible mobile game, if you don't clear your stamina for a day, you won't keep up with the progression of the main crowd, and the next day you'll be kicked to death like a stray dog on the roadside in the arena.

How strange.

The good news is that this has kept my inner self in a constant boil, with emotions churning and rolling—for an author, this is a pretty good state to be in.

My heart surged with emotion, filled with a great deal of inexplicable philosophical musings. With absolute enthusiasm, or perhaps simply to escape anxiety and restlessness, I went to pour all of this out.

Like a terrible hangover, I vomited all over the place, pouring it straight into the story I was writing until it turned into a kind of twisted literature uniquely my own.

Oh, using the word literature made me somewhat apprehensive; it would be better to call it twisted writing.

It was much like a glob of curry paste—the taste was actually passable, but the appearance was truly bizarre.

My twisted self was shattered and stirred into the stories I wrote, thereby forming these strange tales. Because the flavor was far too abstract, it ended up becoming a personal trait.

Now, as things stood.

I still felt this wasn't much of a problem; I was merely a bit anxious and slightly annoyed.

I could still eat my meals and sleep soundly, and I still had normal physiological reactions when seeing lewd artwork.

I was very healthy, just a bit bothered.

Some classic novel once said that humanity's ultimate philosophy was hope and waiting. As long as one harbored hope and kept waiting, everything would turn out fine.

I didn't deny this possibility; in fact, I had always strongly believed that everyone would achieve absolute fulfillment in life.

The only problem was when this fulfillment would arrive. Perhaps in a few months, perhaps in a few years, or perhaps only when I was old and feeble would there be that single fleeting moment of peace.

So, before this moment of fulfillment arrived, we could only patiently wait.

Yet waiting was always agonizing, and I was weary of this dull and boring routine day after day.

How much longer do I have to endure this~

Still playing Desperate Brawl.

Well, as I mentioned before, I had said this to almost every single friend of mine—some had even heard it until their ears grew calloused—and everyone gave me different replies and different methods.

In other words, everything I said above was merely a conversation repeated countless times with different people. Now I was troubling my dear readers to listen to me ramble through it all over again.

When all was said and done, I didn't need any answers; I simply needed time and patience. Perhaps one day I would suddenly achieve enlightenment.

Just as I wrote in my previous book—or perhaps the book before that, I could no longer remember which postscript it was in—you were all friends I couldn't see or touch.

Friends naturally grew together and witnessed one another. I communicated with all of you frankly and laid myself bare.

For any reader who had been following my books all along, my rambling postscripts should weave together the developmental journey of such a person in their mind.

From the carefree attitude of college to the confusion and unease years later, even though we had never laid eyes on each other.

This was truly wondrous.

Now I poured my heart out to all of you, frankly allowing everyone to catch a glimpse of my twisted inner self.

I hoped that after serializing the new book, it would become an anchor connecting me to reality, adding a little gravity to me and letting my feet land on solid ground.

As I wrote these words, I was listening to the Terraria theme song. It made me nostalgic for my junior high school days when I went back to my grandparents' house in the countryside. Without internet or air conditioning, the only thing I could do every day was hug my phone to read webnovels and play Terraria endlessly.

Back then, I didn't know anything about crafting recipes or main game plots. All I did every day was mine. Like a simple robot, the straightforward, repetitive, and pure act of mining brought me enough joy.

The above was written several months ago. What everyone is reading now was hastily written by me a few hours before the book's release.

My state was much better now. Of course, it might just be an illusion, but anyway, thank you above and below.

Hehe.

However, a person's mental state was really hard to pin down. As for how to actually live life, I still never had a definitive answer.

Not long ago, I went to visit my former roommate. His house held many leftover relics from when we parted ways, and the moment I stepped inside, it was flooded with a sense of familiarity.

Collapsing onto the sofa, I instantly felt as though yesterday was repeating itself.

It belonged squarely in the realm of a retro server.

Ah, it was truly wonderful! But the moment happiness welled up, I couldn't help but sink into a sense of loss.

Retro servers were certainly nice, but yesterday was already yesterday. Even if everything felt familiar, none of it could ever be returned to.

The longer I stayed at his place, the more miserable I felt, so I simply stayed for two days and ran back in a disheveled panic.

Aishiteru.

By now, I felt as though I had a mess of tangled thoughts in my stomach. I frantically shoved my fingers down my throat, but stubbornly nothing came out, leaving only these slightly pale words for all of you.

Fortunately, I had roughly figured out some of my own problems. For instance, my self-imposed limitations were severe; I was like someone wearing a heavy cotton-padded jacket soaked entirely through with water, exhausted to death with every single step I took.

I tried my best to enjoy everything.

Good or bad, I accepted it all completely. What else could I do even if I didn't accept it? I was out of moves anyway.

Because of this mindset, which was akin to breaking a broken pot and letting it smash, I grew quite a bit more optimistic instead... Perhaps that was why I deleted quite a few of the complaining words I had written previously.

At least a few thousand words of complaints, hahaha.

I should get to typing!

Time to go to work, everyone.