A Note on Tang San

Many readers have said that Tang San was hated all across the internet, had no redeeming qualities, and wasn't worth writing about. They said that if I wrote this book the way I did, hardly anyone would read it.

Well, I felt that way myself. Tang Shan certainly had plenty of dark sides, but we couldn't just see those and instinctively overlook his good qualities.

As for all the criticism of Tang San online, people in web fiction circles knew what was happening: many authors instinctively ignored Tang San's good qualities when they wrote about him, leaving Tang Shan painted entirely black.

Personally, I thought that anyone who succeeded must have strengths, even if those strengths included being ruthless, cunning, or adaptable.

Put another way, ruthlessness could be called decisiveness. Being cunning and changeable could be called thinking on your feet. There were other ways to describe those traits, too.

Ruthlessness was practically essential to success. You couldn't say someone was wholly bad just because he was ruthless.

Successful people were bound to have that trait, and it could be counted as a strength.

There were plenty of other examples like that.

Besides, people were changeable and self-interested. At heart, people were gray: there was no absolute good or absolute evil.

In this book, Tang Shan was not kind at heart, but he was not especially dark, either. He was simply a calculating courtier with plans and schemes of his own, as well as tenderness in his heart.

I won't shy away from Tang Shan's dark side in this book. I'll give it particular attention to show the gray in him. Nor will I avoid his good qualities. In short, I want to portray Tang San as neither black nor white, but gray.

I won't whitewash Tang Shan in this book. I'll look at him without any particular hatred.