In the Chao Yu Scroll, while the character Yu Xiaorong is Li Li’s positive reflection, she was also designed to be Luo Binhan’s sister and wasn’t created solely for Li Li. This is because during my usual brainstorming, I had many fun ideas for the Rational Side. However, after repeated consideration, I often felt their level of sophistication was too low to be compatible with the grand stage of Daoist Monkey’s world. So, I decided to take these ideas out of this novel entirely and create a separate protagonist for a series of short, fun stories. The parting gift between the siblings in the "King of the Garden" Chapter of the Chao Yu Scroll actually stemmed from this concept. My story, Year of Gathering, is the first in this series. Since it’s unrelated to the main plot of Daoist Monkey, I won’t elaborate further here.
Regarding this novel’s world-building, the core framework was laid out in Volume Seven through two dialogues: one between Li Li and Chadwick, and another between Chi Labin and Yu Xiaorong. Everything written since has been the flesh, blood, and sinews built upon that skeleton. As the story has not yet reached that point, it would be inappropriate to discuss it in detail. I sat with my pen for a long time, at a loss. I recalled last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, when I was writing the Wanqing Chapter. I knew in my heart that although this Chapter’s title referred to Zhou’s death, it was actually my plan for Luo Binhan’s end. I speculated on what was to come, and though I had outlined the future Chapters, I had no idea what it would truly look like once I wrote it. Later, I discussed the story with friends and family and wrote down some thoughts in a personal note. Rereading it now, the memory is still vivid, so I might as well excerpt the key parts to conclude this piece:
"...In my heart, two voices are constantly at war over the philosophy of creating fiction. They clash endlessly, leaving me restless day and night and draining my spirit. One voice says that sincerity in creation lies not in the external materials one is given, but in the feelings of the heart. A novel’s themes, style, characters... none of it matters. It doesn’t matter if the content is fashionable or what the market thinks. The only pursuit is that moment when pen meets paper—to pour your own life into the story, to experience the joys and sorrows of its characters, and to let it all flow onto the page. The meaning of writing a novel isn’t to show off novelty, create famous Chapters, flaunt your abilities, or fish for praise. It lies solely in the act of writing itself. The writing is its own reward. Therefore, even if you’re writing a story that has been told a thousand times, a mediocre story, a shallow and bombastic story, its meaning is found so long as you can lose yourself in the process. To express your own feelings truthfully, without seeking to rise above others or to stun them with your brilliance—so long as you have that moment of being lost in the act of writing, that is the only sincerity a creator can achieve.
...However, whenever I put down my pen, another voice speaks to me: ’All of this is outdated. Through endless repetition, it has begun to rot. You shouldn’t be content just to enjoy fictional stories. You have to take them with the utmost seriousness, or they have no value. Look at the development of the novel: meta-narrative and its critique were products of the ’70s and ’80s. Postmodernism began to flourish in the ’90s. The kind of decisionism that imposes coldly metaphorical designs upon a fictional world is an imaginative leap that could only have come from the 2000s. And database-driven, dissociative creation was all but perfected by the 2010s. Now, here in the 2020s, generative large-language models have already surpassed many living creators in their ability to question the future of humanity and provide answers with a kind of bittersweet passion. To continue excavating metaphors in a world like this, to turn virtual worlds into simple models of reality, to tell fables and simplistic, delusional fantasies about the laws of society, to write self-soothing I-novels or bildungsromans about a youth’s coming of age, to smugly believe that by simply manipulating plots from the database you can pose some unprecedented question to your readers and the world... all of these things have been done countless times. They have all grown depressingly old. As a response to such a world, you must be sincere in your creativity. You must try to leave something in this colossal database that has never existed before. Even if its quality is far from perfect, you must give it your all—all your imagination and knowledge. You must force yourself to think of fascinating things no one has ever seen, to imagine brand-new vistas no one has ever conceived. That is the only sincerity a creator can achieve.’
For years, my mind, spirit, and emotions have been tormented, tossed back and forth by the fierce arguments between these two voices. When I write, I am frenzied, as if drunk; when I awaken from the dream, I am left disheartened, my heart turned to ash. This long night is an agony to endure. I put out the lamp, close my scroll, and gaze toward the window. I expected to see the bright Mid-Autumn moon, but I see only the dawn whitening the eastern sky."