Overturned Tower

——Faith is a bird. It felt the light and sang when the dawn was still dark.

February 16, 2022, to March 31, 2023.

Thirteen months, 1.87 million. Russell's story ends here.

Just like what I said when I put it on the shelf - this is a story from cyberpunk to space opera.

The core of its creation is a romantic feeling and it tells the story of a "hero". But this is not a story of heroism, but a story of people’s lives.

What is a hero?

I am a pioneer.

"Humans. Without wings, how can you go up?"

The same sentence, but from the standpoint of "light" and "mirror", it has different meanings.

The former tells about the self and praises the never-ending progress and rise of the individual. "The eternal woman leads us upward" is Goethe's "Faust"; while this one tells about Tagore and praises the group. greatness, love for the world.

——There are no traces of wings in the sky, but I have already flown through.

This is still a story about "love and hope".

At the beginning, I said that this book is connected with the previous one. In the beginning, when you look at the "fanatics", you think they are "heroes", and when you look at the "heroes", you think they are "fanatics." Because when you look at the light, you can only see what the light illuminates; when you look at the mirror, you can only see what is reflected in the mirror.

And when we get closer to the end, we can see why the theme of the story is the hero.

Light is one, has no room for shadow, and is not kind. But mirrors are ordinary and can be seen everywhere. He reflects everything but himself.

Anyone with courage becomes a hero.

Then let’s talk about the motivation for this book.

I've seen many readers discover that - yes, the original inspiration for this book was an animated short called "Out of the Dark". When I first saw this video, I had tears in my eyes after watching it. After that, in October of 2021, my editor Penglai and I talked about this story.

"I want to write a story about breaking through the darkness and taking back the blue sky." I said.

Based on this idea, I decided on the beginning and end of the book at that time. Now you can look back and see that the chapter names of the first ten chapters and the last ten chapters of this book are exactly opposite and mirror images. This is also an elaboration of the theme of "mirror".

It is a cycle that leads to an infinite future.

Since the core of this book comes from Tagore, the writing method should also talk about Tagore: what ends in exhaustion is "death", and what ends in infinity is "a happy ending".

For stories about groups and heroes, we need to reach the infinite future!

My parents are both workers and our family is very poor. When I was in junior high school, my father cheated on me, and my mother had to work very hard to raise me.

I paid for my college tuition myself. I had no money at the time and had not yet started writing Mercury Blood. After my senior year of high school, I went to nightclubs and wore cheap suits and front desk. Tiantian bowed at the door with a smile on his face and blurted out a very smooth "Good evening and welcome." When there are few customers, she will also work as a waiter to clean private rooms and take out the trash.

My waist was only 1'8" at the time, and the skinniest pants a man could buy were too baggy. There was no working belt, so I had to take it off, cut it short, and put it back on.

I go to work at 5:30 pm every day, get off work at 2 am, and occasionally work overtime until after 3:00. And before that I didn't even go to bed later than twelve o'clock at night. We eat at eight or nine every night. The big pot rice we eat changes every day. There are three kinds of rice that change back and forth. The characteristic is Schrödinger's meat - it seems that you can taste the meat, but there is no meat. Although each person has a bowl of food and the steamed buns are quite filling, I have a small appetite and can only eat half. My favorite thing to eat is a winter melon stewed chicken. Although it is full of winter melon and almost no chicken can be found, at least the soup is delicious.

At that time, my monthly salary was only 1,500 yuan, while a private room cost 1,880 yuan a night. After working for half a month, I met all kinds of strange people and understood that life is not easy. After getting two thousand and four, school started.

When I was in school, I worked part-time in the school’s milk tea shop and as a waiter in a coffee shop. Then I started writing Mercury Blood... Maybe I did have the talent in this area. My first month's royalties were one thousand eight hundred.

I was very happy. But at that time, I did not regard writing as my future goal in life.

I thought very well - I can find a more ordinary and leisurely job in the future, and the monthly salary of only two thousand yuan is enough. Because I can also write novels at night, which doubles my income. In our small third- and fourth-tier cities, it is enough to support ourselves and live well.

Later, my royalties became higher and higher. By the time he was in his junior year, his income could reach over RMB 10,000 steadily. He was also well-known in the school and became the head of the Information Department. But at that time, I still didn't give up the idea of ​​finding a job, and my idea became more and more relaxed, "I can just find a job casually."

Although life was very busy at that time, I was full of hope for the future. I have many friends and a lovely girlfriend. I also established a good relationship with the local newspaper, and the teachers liked me very much. Seeing that the savings are increasing - although in the middle of writing "Hymn to the Devil", there was a period of time when I stayed up late to write until five o'clock every day, and then had to get up at nine o'clock to go to class, which caused angina pectoris. The sudden death experience at the beginning of "To Four Thousand Years Later" was a personal experience.

But fortunately, the Quick-acting Jiuxin Pill is pretty awesome. I managed to survive, and then I took Chinese medicine for just two weeks and recovered.

Until I was about to graduate, I did an internship in a factory. Yes, many people think that I graduated with a major in philosophy or communication, but I actually majored in engineering. I studied electrical automation.

A group of us took a rickety bus and rode for almost two hours before arriving at the factory in the suburbs. The factory I originally imagined would be a busy assembly line. Everyone is in their own position and performs their duties. Being able to give up thinking and concentrate on work. Just like being a waiter, it can relax your tired brain.

But that's not what I saw.

There is a smell of rubber in the air, accompanied by the smell of dust. The sky is gray.

There is only one hotel within about five kilometers. That store sells wine and food, but they don’t do well. The main specialty is a kind of big buns, which cost five or eight yuan each. They are so big that they are bigger than my face. It's stuffed with leek meat vermicelli. You'll be full after just one, and there's also free rice porridge.

The excavator was squirming back and forth there, not knowing what it was shoveling, and there was a thump-dong-dong-dong sound coming from nowhere. In the empty factory, there are only seven or eight people in one workshop. Everyone was lazily going about their days with fishy, ​​slow movements and expressionless faces. Not a word was spoken. As soon as noon arrived, everyone was smiling and gathering together to play poker.

At that moment, I felt like a gargoyle come to life.

I saw that the work in their hands was basically untouched, and we students had nothing to do. The kind of enthusiastic person who leans in and asks, "Is there anything we can do" and gets the cold reply, "Don't make things worse."

Nothing works.

So the students laughed and laughed together to play who was the undercover, and some went to play FGO, Onmyoji, and Honkai Impact 3. But because there is no traffic, most of them are just scratching the surface. There were only shouts in the empty factory, as if they had just moved to another place to play games. I was reading the II Chronicles at the time, and I went from the first volume to the fourth volume.

The school said that if we want to after graduation, we can be sent directly to the factory. You can work here directly.

——Thump thump thump.

I felt a great fear at that time.

It smelled like death. Not death physically, but spiritually. It makes people feel out of breath. Compared to the flesh and blood factory, I am more afraid of this kind of life where the spirit will slowly rot.

I realized very clearly that if I worked here I wouldn't be able to write anything at night. But something sprouted in my heart, telling me that life should not sink like this.

I've endured pain. But that's not because I can live with it, but because I can see hope in it. I can see the meaning of life, which is to fight - to fight in order to no longer suffer.

He who has endured pain cannot endure decay. It's like putting salt on a wound.

Since then, I’ve written Gamer Super Justice.

Not to vent, but to praise - the more fearful one is, the more one has to sing praises. The world asks me for pain and wants me to repay it with song. So I celebrated the beauty of life, love and hope. Because I always long for an upward spirit and yearn for better.

Players have done well. But I felt a kind of pause fear again, because the player had squeezed me almost as much as possible. I write with all my heart and soul, but this is the only light that can come out.

So I calmed down and sought new progress with this book. There are nine volumes in total, and I tried nine different plot structures and different writing methods. The three volumes that I am most satisfied with are Meteor, Caged Bird, and Core and Shell, while the ones that exposed the most problems are One Day, Flower Touch, and Amber. But whether I am satisfied or dissatisfied, they will all become my nourishment.

As long as it is written, it will not be wasted.

Brilliant brilliance, like sparks and flying birds.

It's always up, always.

Tower's subscription performance is only half that of players, but fortunately the copyright potential is relatively strong. Moreover, this book was nominated for two Galaxy Awards for "Most Adaptation Potential" and "Best Online Science Fiction Novel", so it's not a loss!

With various incomes from towers and players, including copyrights, I have now completely paid off my mortgage. Starting from scratch and having my own fully paid-for house, I can finally relax. Although it is only a third- and fourth-tier small city, I think it is still something to be proud of.

Well, that’s it for this book. Let me rest for more than a month and then come back.

My body can hardly bear it anymore, and I have started coughing non-stop in the past few days. I'm afraid bronchiolitis will be with me for the rest of my life. I also had a toothache a few days ago and I have been enduring it for two weeks. I'm going to have a tooth extracted after that, and then adjust my schedule. If you have time, you can live stream the game on Ah B, which is also a source of information.

Take a good rest for a month, and then start writing the manuscript for the new book in May.

The pair of themes of "Light and Mirror" and "Madman and Hero" are over. The new book is a new set of stories with the theme of "Sun". It's an amber story, although it's not standard. Because I still plan to incorporate some new things into it. But overall, it is a light-hearted story. The theme of the tower is so gloomy that I almost feel depressed when I write it... It’s time to write something light-hearted to heal myself.

The release time of the new book is 521. It is both my love and Xiaoman, which is very auspicious.

Why is Xiaoman so lucky? Because my name is Xiaoman (

Everyone, I’ll see you with the new book then. Hope to see you again.

Finally, I still have to end with that sentence.

——May you always be happy.