I spent all day today organizing the new plot and setting details, so sorry the update was a little late and only four thousand Chinese characters long.
First, let me report how things stand.
At the beginning of last month, this book averaged about 2,000 subscriptions per chapter; now it's a little over 2,600. I've made my peace with it. It's my first book, so I'll keep writing and do the best I can.
Now, let's start with this volume's shortcomings.
There were plenty:
1. Because I hadn't set up enough anticipation, foreshadowing, or characters connecting the two volumes in the previous volume, the start of the new one felt like an entirely different story, creating a fairly serious sense of disconnection.
2. I failed to capture the leisurely feeling I originally wanted. Instead, rushing to meet deadlines made this volume's pacing a little hurried, without that sense of letting out a breath I wanted to create. It didn't live up to the volume's title.
3. I wasn't very satisfied with the final climax myself. What I wanted was an ultimate eruption after ultimate suppression, but I hadn't built up enough oppressive emotion during the setup, so the final eruption lacked that feeling of exhilarating release.
4. My approach was to establish the final climax first, then work backward to plot what came before. I don't think there's anything wrong with that method. The problem was that, while working backward, I overlooked some logical issues and was a little rough in places, leaving parts of this volume's plot rather awkward. For example, chapter twenty-nine, the Zhang Daobai chapter, could have been handled better, but instead became a sore point for readers.
5. To sum up, I did my best with this volume, but in my own eyes, the result probably