—Words Before the Ten Updates
Since Chronicles of the Cultivating God was uploaded on January 6, 2010, exactly four years had passed as of today. Tanhua dared not judge how well the story of Chronicles of the Cultivating God had been written, but its results were plain for all to see. To put it bluntly, it had utterly flopped!
In truth, Tanhua had known as early as 2010 what those results would be. Chronicles of the Cultivating God had initially been signed under a cooperation contract; one could say Tanhua was a temp worker among writers. Later, Tanhua kept applying for a proper contract through the backend, but the reply was always, "Your work has not yet met the standards for a contract. Please keep working hard." It was the same at 30,000 words, the same at 60,000, and still the same at 200,000. Eventually, Tanhua simply stopped applying. This continued until September 2010, when Chronicles of the Cultivating God had reached 1.2 million words. At last, the editor sent me an internal message: it could be signed! As for why it was signed, it was not because Chronicles of the Cultivating God was outstanding, but because it was simply too long. Besides, quite a few novels under cooperation contracts had become official contracts by then. I also tried sending the editor a message on QQ. Though he did not reply, he had still seen it, and because of Tanhua's hard work, the contract was granted. After signing came another long wait. The editor told me that if it could not be put behind a paywall in December, I should consider calling it quits and starting a new book. But Tanhua remembered clearly that I replied without the slightest hesitation: "It must be finished, even if it never goes paid!"