A Little Afraid Everyone Will Come After Me, So I'm Posting an Explanation in Advance

I felt that web novels would be replaced by animated dramas sooner or later. I barely read novels myself anymore. I'd just lie down with my phone and watch short dramas on a certain Guo app, laughing every day.

Novels simply couldn't compare with animated dramas. Animated dramas were so polished these days.

I even felt that the entertainment industry would be replaced by animated dramas sooner or later.

Traffic for web novels was declining now. You could probably feel it too.

Leaving everything else aside, at the peak of web novels, three thousand readers following a book still wouldn't get it onto Sanjiang.

Now eight hundred could get it onto Sanjiang.

When I started this book, I was already mentally prepared for that. Mainly, I really had been through too much recently, and I wanted to find something to distract myself, so I wrote this book. My mindset really had changed compared with before.

Sigh, I didn't want to talk about my private affairs anymore. Anyway, it wasn't as outrageous as the rumors online made it sound. The main reason really did lie with me, and it wasn't deliberate; it was a matter of my personality.

Friends who often read my books could probably tell that, at heart, I was a very selfish person. Just like what I wrote in the novel: when the female lead wanted a phone, my first thought was to buy myself a new one and give her my old one.

That shallowness was part of my character. I couldn't change it.

It wasn't that I didn't want to love someone. I really didn't know how to love.

I really wasn't cut out for marriage.

Then, when I started writing this book, I figured that as long as it got some results, I'd keep writing it.

I'd been writing for so many years, after all, and I knew myself somewhat. I knew I kept going over the same old three things, entertaining myself in my comfort zone. I'd never thought about breaking out into the mainstream or anything.

I knew perfectly well that the people reading my books had always been that same group of old friends.

I'd thought about changing styles before, but I flopped terribly. Then a reader came to chat with me. He said, "Old Zhou, you don't need to change styles. The main reason I read your books is that I like your style. The way your books deliver that thrill is different from everyone else's.

"Other people's thrills are over once the rush is gone.

"Yours come through between the lines when you least expect them.

"When I'm bored at work every day, with nothing to do, I can flip through your novels, and it feels really nice.

"What you write isn't important. What matters is that you keep writing."

I was actually pretty touched when he said that. Afterward, I stopped thinking about innovating, so I adapted one book after another within my comfort zone. In the end, every book got about the same results.

One time, I started a new book, and it had 1,500 readers following it on the first day. My editor was thrilled. She thought I'd found the right thrill and was about to soar into the sky, and she kept congratulating me.

But after the book had been out for a week, it had gotten a front-page promotion and a little loudspeaker promotion. After that whole round of recommendations, it still had 1,500 readers following it.

My editor was left speechless.

After that, no matter how good my results were, she wasn't surprised anymore, because she knew that, no matter how I went about it, those were about the only results I'd get.

I'd accepted my fate too. A few years ago, readers told me to compete for a spot among the Twelve Heavenly Kings and that a Platinum contract was within reach.

I really was tempted at the time. Now I found it funny to think about.

I knew my own ability. I thanked heaven and earth that you readers gave me a way to put food on the table. As for anything else, I really didn't think about it anymore.

As for this book...

My mindset really had changed. There were new things in it: I cut out the most common childhood-sweetheart setup and switched to a different style, but the personalities of the roommates hadn't changed much.

Because I hadn't experienced much myself. No matter how much I wrote, it was all those little things from college. Even if you asked me to change, I couldn't come up with anything else.

The people I'd met only had those few kinds of personalities. I couldn't write any more than that.

Then there was one slightly ridiculous thing about writing this book.

Traffic for web novels had declined.

Before, it took three thousand readers following a book to get onto Sanjiang. Now eight hundred was enough.

And yet I still had 1,500 readers following mine...

So it was pretty awkward. By the time I'd written 80,000 words, I'd already met the standard for Sanjiang.

Then the site directly gave me four major recommendations for the following week.

I checked the backend data and thought, well, would you look at that. Everyone else's traffic had fallen, but mine had never changed.

I thought, Once these recommendations go up, who knows how many people will come and curse me out again?

They'd say I was milking the same book for a living, that Jiang Lang had exhausted his talent.

But I couldn't help it. I only had that much plot in me, and if people wanted to read it, of course I'd write it. I didn't have much else to do anyway. I'd originally been able to get married.

But now I'd broken up with my partner, and every day I did nothing but scroll through Douyin and write novels.

And if people liked reading my novels, of course I'd keep writing.

Thinking about it now made me quite emotional. When I was little, I watched Pokémon, Dragon Ball, and One Piece. Before I knew it, they'd been with me throughout my childhood.

And now someone had said to me, "Old Zhou, you really were with me through my entire youth!"

He said he'd downloaded my first book, Reborn: I Really Didn't Mean to Be a Male God, and read it over and over. It was the first time he'd realized a novel could be written that way.

When I was in middle school, I read Very Pure and Ambiguous from the evening all the way until five in the morning.

And now someone had told me that he'd read my first book under the covers from evening until daybreak. It had been such a thrill!

He said he'd read my first book a full twelve times.

He said I'd been with him through his entire youth.

When he told me those things, I really felt quite a sense of accomplishment. I didn't quite know how to put it.

Anyway, I was pretty happy.

In this age of exploding data, I'd found that everyone was actually pretty empty inside. Some people might read novels in pursuit of vast worldbuilding, knowledge, and so on.

But I felt that, for most people who read my books, it had already become a habit. It was simply inertia, I supposed.

I often chatted with my readers. I felt that my way of writing had fallen behind the times and was no longer mainstream. The people reading my books were mostly friends around my age. They told me they'd started reading my work in college, and now their children had been born. They said married life was really tiring.

Every day, they just went to work and earned money to support their children and wives.

They didn't have much money on hand either. Their only pastime was reading a couple of chapters of my books when they had some free time.

With them saying all that, what else could I say? Rather than trying to innovate, I might as well stay on my own little plot of land and tend it diligently.

A lot of people said that everything I wrote was exactly the same, and that reading one of my books was enough.

What I wanted to say was, sigh, every one of my books was actually different. Each book had new changes. How should I put it? You could say they were multiple if routes in the same world.

But no matter how much I said, people who didn't like my books still wouldn't like them.

All I could promise here was that I wouldn't forget why I started: I'd make sure all the women were taken into the harem, that it was their first time, and that there were no poison points.

My readers were actually pretty tolerant of me. They had only those few requirements, and of course I had to meet them.

So, to all the readers who came here through recommendations, please don't flame me when you see similar plotlines. I really didn't have any other skills. I could only entertain myself on my own little plot of land.

I figured that, at this rate, I wouldn't be able to keep writing for much longer. Really, watching animated dramas was better than reading novels-you could just let your brain lie down and watch.