I originally wanted to take one day off, but after writing part of the detailed outline today, I realized I would still have to write a day's update after finishing it. There wasn't enough time, so I'm taking two days off. Updates will resume Thursday morning or2!
Strictly speaking, the contents of the first three volumes actually made up one volume, divided into three parts. Starting in the book's second chapter, when the protagonist encountered the three lackeys gathering Dragon Whisker Grass, it continued all the way through to the end of He Tianqi's flight south. I wouldn't dare say every link in this plot fitted perfectly into the next, but all the characters really did move along this thread.
That thread didn't end there, either. The first three volumes were only the introduction to the whole book, depicting part of the Southern Dynasty's arrangements within the book's overall schemes and introducing some of the key characters.
The outline for this book's main plot was fairly complete, and the ending was already hung up in the very first chapter. But before starting the book, no matter how hard I, A Guan, racked my brains, I could only come up with seven or eight hundred thousand characters' worth of plot. Beyond that, I only knew the general direction.
By the time I finished Three Rivers Crossing, I had exhausted all my previous preparations. I hadn't even started thinking about how to construct the plot afterward, so writing felt like treading on thin ice. I simply didn't dare put things down carelessly, and could only take two days off to finish the detailed outline before writing again.
Although I only started publishing the book in February, I had been preparing the new book since last June. The discarded drafts I revised and