A note on the paid release

Hello, everyone. I'm Yi Weixie.

After a month, this book has finally reached the day of its paid release. As is customary, there's something to be said for the occasion, and this book is no exception, so let me chat with you all.

After finishing my last book, I originally planned to write a story with a cyberpunk setting, but my editor advised me to switch categories out of concern for the audience, so I ultimately dropped the idea.

As it happened, I also wanted to try writing something lighter and more entertaining, without any emotional gut punches or heavy content, so I ultimately chose this romance with a Japanese light novel feel.

The broad setting of this book came from the previous book I abandoned because of my health, but I completely reworked both the story and the characters into something entirely different.

At its heart, though, the most fundamental inspiration for this story actually came from the anime "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War."

I really liked its idea that [love is war], which also fit this book's main storyline: the male lead, Yan Huan, matching wits, clashing, and falling in love with the various female leads who possessed Modifiers.

Plenty of works besides "Kaguya-sama: Love Is War" have explored romantic games of strategy. Even adding cheat abilities to the mix isn't uncommon on Qidian, which was why I introduced the concept of the "Weird Cheat."

If the female leads possessed dangerous cheat abilities from Japanese anime, that would undoubtedly make the games the male lead faced more dangerous and interesting. I really liked that.

So, as the male lead whom the Modifiers would be used on, he had to be extraordinarily appealing: good looks, a good personality, and a healthy physique.

It's easy to understand if you turn it around. If an anime's female lead were ugly and had a repulsive personality, you, as the male lead, probably wouldn't even feel like using a Modifier on her, would you?

Also, I didn't really want scenes where the male and female leads blasted each other with cheat-powered magic, so I weakened the male lead's cheat ability.

That might be fun between the female leads during a romantic showdown, but doing it between the male and female leads would only make their games less dangerous and give the female leads fewer opportunities to attack.

But that didn't mean the female leads could attack without a care.

In these "romantic games of strategy," Yan Huan possessed a terrifying ability, so much so that any individual female lead needed a Modifier just to barely hold her own against him.

Overall, the female leads with Modifiers had the advantage, while Yan Huan, currently on the defensive, was slightly weaker.

That dynamic would gradually change as their feelings evolved, the Modifiers progressed, and romantic showdowns occurred.

And as for the female leads on the offensive, I still need to stress that their personalities had flaws, and the Modifiers would undoubtedly magnify those flaws.

I didn't really want to portray five flawless, completely obliging female leads and then have them wield Modifiers, turning their games into an unusual sort of romantic spice.

The five Modifiers weren't cheats or cheat abilities in the traditional sense, either. They were five [sins], the abnormal desires harbored by the five female leads.

I established strict backgrounds and rules for all the Modifiers, but I won't spell them out directly. Instead, they'll be revealed bit by bit through the plot.

Their attributes, relative strength, personalities, counters, and so on.

Aside from these interesting elements of the setup, it's time to talk about the romantic storylines.

Unlike the single female-lead storyline in my last book, this one takes the approach of advancing multiple storylines together.

The advantage is that the female leads' relationships with the male lead won't progress at vastly different rates. Instead, they'll develop slowly together.

It's fairly exciting, with a sense of one rising as another falls. I'll also work in some entertaining [daily life and interludes] as transitions.

The downside is that each individual female lead's storyline can feel fragmented.

So sometimes I'll also write a stretch devoted to one particular female lead, along with major events that bring together many elements to establish milestones.

That's roughly the design of this book and the plan going forward.

Personally, I think a paid-release note is better suited to giving some "advance explanations" of the paid content to come than to being an author's rambling outpouring of feelings.

The longer I write, the more I realize that I'll never be able to satisfy every reader.

Whether it's the writing style, characterization, or plot, there are often just as many people who hate something as there are people who like it.

There's no helping that. I don't think I'm good enough yet to win over most people, either.

So, to keep you from wasting your money, I've already written about every female lead over the first thirty-three chapters, with the diction and pacing woven throughout, to let you get to know this book as well as possible.

I've also explained issues such as "daily life," "the male lead's cheat ability," and "the female leads' flawed characterization" above. I hope you'll read through it carefully before subscribing.

Next, there's the matter of updates.

Most of the time, the chapters are actually already written. I just have a habit of reviewing and revising them after finishing a draft.

Sometimes I'm especially unhappy with a finished draft and need to make major revisions, only to get stuck while revising.

That happens quite often, including last night and on some earlier days, so I sometimes keep you waiting.

This story will be long, and I don't intend to make it a short one. But no matter what, I won't abandon it. I'll finish it.

Tomorrow's update will be twenty thousand Chinese characters, followed by five to six thousand a day. When I reach key plot points, I'll write very long chapters, like chapter fourteen.

Readers of my last book should know that I sometimes write long chapters of over ten thousand Chinese characters. I generally divide chapters according to the plot.

In short, I'll work hard on writing after the paid release.

And I still hope those of you who can afford it will support the official release. That matters a great deal to me.

I also hope to see your comments in the chapter comments. I personally enjoy reading comments when I have nothing else to do, and I read pretty much all of yours.

Later, I'll create a VIP group for full subscribers with entry requirements. I'll post things like side stories there, much like with my last book. I'll set it up once I've written a little more.

All right, everyone, that's all my rambling. Thank you for being willing to listen this far.

I'll start uploading chapters after noon tomorrow and keep going into the evening. Please look forward to it!

That's all.

7.31.2024