First, thank you all for your support! You're just too adorable!!!
Actually, you could probably tell from the opening remarks to "Jingzhou Turmoil" that our young Wang would face far greater difficulties and challenges than he did in the first volume.
I know some of you hoped young Wang would immediately erase all his weaknesses, take flight on the spot, and rise to the summit-slapping down any enemy who dared jump up, grinding any villain who crossed his path into dust.
That would certainly be easy to write, but not particularly interesting.
A nine-story terrace begins with heaped earth. Perhaps carving a path through even more perilous terrain might have a flavor all its own?
Very often, the journey is much more interesting than the destination.
Young Wang is "living in the Southern Dynasties," and that word "living" matters.
Through his experiences, I want to offer you an immersive journey through time-not a headlong rush forward, but a genuine experience of every aspect of life in the Southern Dynasties, including the food, literature, religion, politics, customs, and so forth.
I try to ensure that even the smallest object has a source, and every detail of a meal has evidence behind it. I won't claim to have adopted the thesis-writing intensity of "searching everywhere, ascending to heaven and descending into the earth," but I certainly sit up straight and "shut my door amid the human sea, freely plumbing the depths of thought." There is no slapdash writing here.
As I write, I also clear up some historical myths circulating online, but there are simply too many. For one thing, I can't possibly address them all; for another, I don't actually know that many of them.
Last time, I mentioned one way to identify misinformation. This time, I'll offer another.
When you