First, I must declare that I'm a verbose person with no ability to write prose, so please bear with me. Anyway, this is a free bonus gift. Bow, bow.

Qing Yu Nian has been written for ten months now. Three hundred days have passed in the blink of an eye, so quickly that, apart from the extra money in my account, I haven't even felt any change myself.

But the content of the book is changing. This volume, "Jinghua Jiangnan," still clings tightly to the theme, with two lines intertwined, finally explaining the matters of the capital and Jiangnan. It was originally planned for one hundred and fifty chapters, but in the end, it was a few chapters longer. My control is indeed not perfect, but there is no such thing as perfection in this world, so I shouldn't be so strict with myself.

In the epilogue of the fourth volume, "Northern Sea Mist," I once said that "Northern Sea Mist" mainly wrote about the handover, with the romantic figures of the previous era dying and the romantic figures of the current era appearing. And this volume, "Jinghua Jiangnan," is actually a process of succession.

In fact, between the older generation of Xiao En and Zhuang Mo Han and the younger generation, there is still a middle generation represented by the Emperor, the Eldest Princess, and the Four Grandmasters. Their strength is the strongest. If Fan Xian and Haitang want to take over, they must break through this tough barrier, but this must be a long-term process. With the current strength of Fan Xian and Haitang, they can only slowly wait for opportunities.

Fortunately, that group of middle-aged people is not a monolith. Big problems will happen between them, which is the main content of the last two volumes.

The succession in this volume is a very difficult job. Destruction is always easy, and construction is always difficult. In this volume, Fan Xian fights princes in the capital and takes over the Ming family in Jiangnan. Although neither achieves complete success, he has at least achieved the expected goals. However, the process is too troublesome, and after the troublesome process, Fan Xian finally truly possesses the Supervisory Council and the Internal Treasury.

Let the aura of dominance begin to emanate...

Some friends have suggested that the fifth volume is well written, but the style is too gloomy.

I admit this. There is no such thing as a sunny political struggle. In an imperial society, internal contradictions cannot be digested by criticism and self-criticism alone.

The reason for this feeling, in addition to the content of this volume, is that I am not very good at writing these strategies. My IQ is only at the level of the general public, so the writing naturally feels a bit gloomy and stagnant.

The first half of the fifth volume is better. The struggle with the Eldest Princess and the Second Prince was foreshadowed in the previous four volumes, so it was easier to write. Plus, there were some new characters that I liked, so I was happy to write.

Those characters include the Eldest Prince, Shadow, the woman...these.

When it came to going down to Jiangnan in the middle, I was stunned. It's not that I hadn't thought it out; I had thought it out a long time ago. But I just didn't enjoy writing it. The key was that Fan Xian's opponent was the Ming family, that gloomy, shameless, weak, bastard Ming family.

There are no good people in the Ming family.

But in this volume, Fan Xian can't be ruthless, which is really unpleasant.

But then I thought, didn't I write this myself? Why do I have such a big opinion of the Ming family? If I want to criticize, I should criticize the hand on the keyboard.

So I would like to give special thanks to Fei Liguo here.

Yes, that Fei Liguo who makes a cameo appearance in many books.

Around December 1st, around the time when Fan Xian went down to Jiangnan to take over Xia Xifei, I had a long conversation with him on QQ for a whole day, discussing the years in Jiangnan.

Thank you to him. He gave me many good ideas, made many good suggestions, and gave me serious criticism, believing that I should have some confidence in myself and not always think that I would write badly. Once I thought I would write badly, I would really write badly...and so on, many verbose words.

I really thank him. I took all those ideas and all those suggestions. Ring by ring, they filled my initial design with exceptional fullness, so even if the style is gloomy, I'm not afraid anymore...I believe everyone can see the effort in this volume.

Most importantly, I regained my confidence... Many people say I'm narcissistic. People who love me say this in their blogs with the tone of looking at a cute puppy, and people who hate me say it gnashing their teeth on the forums. In fact, narcissism is just a strong reaction to a lack of confidence.

I always think I can write better, so I'm not confident. But later I finally understood that what I wrote is good enough, at least it's worthy of the money everyone spends on subscribing, and that's enough.

Two or three cents per thousand words, well, thinking of the suffering when writing, it's really worth the price.

At the same time, I would also like to thank the several book friends on QQ who have been generous with their advice, Huahuo, Zhentou, especially Yi Lian Huai Xiao, the one who strongly demanded that I use a Wang Cheng extra, and several others whose names I have suddenly forgotten, Wu Geng Leng? Meihua? Sorry, I won't list them, thank you all TV.

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In the fifth volume, "Jinghua Jiangnan," what I like the most is the casualness and freedom that can be revealed in the occasional chapters in the first half, such as listening to the wind and rain in a small building, such as an assassination on a rainy day. Although they are all intense things, they have a very full spirit, not only writing out the sense of picture, but also writing out the texture.

And then there's the plot in the second half, with each link interlocked, the rhythm appropriate, and the foreshadowing able to be grasped... This is not narcissism, but a kind of self-comparison. I have been writing novels for more than six years, and I have rarely been able to write such solid words. This is really a kind of progress for myself.

What are the key points in the fifth volume besides the main thread? I think it's nothing more than the women around Fan Xian. I don't need to mention this too much, and I don't like to use "taking over" to describe anything. Si Si can be considered taken over, but what about Haitang?

I always feel that Fan Xian was taken over by Haitang...

Wan'er will have children, Haitang will not marry someone else, and Ruo Ruo will return home after completing her studies. This is not a promise I'm making, it's just what I want to write.

Later there will be more fun things, just thinking about it is fun.

So the next volume is called "Dian Qian Huan" (Court Revelry).

Revelry...literally that's what it should mean, but actually it has three layers of meaning. After writing it, everyone will know. It's quite fun.

But no matter how fun it is, people will die.

In this new volume, there will definitely be good scenes to write. I hope everyone will be satisfied. I will work hard, but the state is sometimes exhausted, and perhaps some chapters are not so good. Please be considerate, I will make it better.

Okay, that's the end of the summary of the fifth volume.

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Below, let's talk about the past year of 2007.

In the past year, several relatives have passed away, which is a very sad thing.

Besides that, it's been tiring. I started writing Qing Yu Nian in May and have been writing it until today, without taking a rest, not even a single day... Although I went to Beijing in July to attend that awards ceremony and didn't write for a few days, those days were also very tiring. Although I didn't write for these ten days during the Chinese New Year, it was actually more tiring than writing. I'll explain in detail later.

Every day, besides typing, I'm still typing. This kind of life is really not so easy, so I admire those writing colleagues who work every day for several years in a row. I've only persisted for more than half a year, and I'm already almost unable to hold on.

Thinking back to when I was writing Zhu Que Ji, when I was writing the most frantically, I would still take a day off every week, but now I've even thrown away that one day.

Why do I make myself so tired?

Three reasons: One is that everyone is waiting to see it, two is...I can earn money, and three is that I know I'm a lazy person. As long as I rest for one day, it will form a habit, and it will be very difficult to wind myself up again, so I don't dare to let myself relax.

And the biggest reason I can persevere, besides the first two reasons mentioned above, is naturally because...I like to write.

I really like to write. When I write something I'm proud of, I'll really slap the table and shout "Good!"...Alas, it seems like I've proven my narcissism again.

Then I won't say it.

Last year, besides being sad several times and tired, everything was very good, very good, very good, there's nothing to say.

So thank you all.

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Finally, let's talk about the story of returning to my hometown this time. I originally planned to write a novella, but I found that I really didn't have the strength, so I'll just explain a few words casually.

I took a bus and a boat back to the county town on the morning of the 29th. In the afternoon, it was the family reunion, forty or fifty people. I hadn't seen my cousins and nephews for a long time. We drank and wished each other well. Someone shed tears during the meal, very touched.

On the 30th, I accompanied my aunt for the reunion dinner, gentle and silent, drinking more than ten small cups of Wuliangye, happy.

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, I returned to the mountain village. The car drove on the mountain road. I was very grateful for the "Life Project" the government had done, building guardrails next to the mountain road... However, the winding mountain road to the top of the mountain had no guardrails. My cousin's driving skills were not good. She stalled on the uphill, slid back, was terrified, switched drivers, and succeeded.

Arriving at the mountain village, I was filled with many emotions, the hometown of my mother. In 1990, I was ordered by my family to spend a summer here. I still remember the lush green trees surrounding the village, the towering rock formations. I took three little girls climbing trees and fighting, playing "Struggle Upstream" with six decks of cards, and performing programs in the twilight, competing to see who could sing more songs.

At that time, I was twelve or thirteen years old, and I was listening to Luo Dayou for the first time. The girls, who were a few years younger than me, didn't understand, so we competed to sing children's songs and folk songs.

That summer, the song I sang the most was – "Today is Your Birthday, My Motherland" – it seems that was the name.

The day I arrived at the mountain village, I went to see the trees and rocks I had climbed before, taking my brother-in-law and niece who had never been there before. Unfortunately, I only found the large rocks, and those trees seemed to have been cut down.

I wanted to go see the house where my third uncle used to live, because I used to live in that house, and I always thought that house was the quietest and most beautiful villa in the mountain village. But before I had taken a few steps, I heard a dog barking... I suddenly remembered that in 1990, I had also entered the house with trembling legs, greeted by two large yellow dogs on either side. So I became afraid. Unexpectedly, the one who came was a black dog, which looked a lot like Chen Shuping.

My third uncle had already moved to the county town. In the village there were several uncles, no, there were many uncles, busy with New Year's greetings, busy reminiscing, busy being moved. The four days passed in a flash. In these four days, there was no internet, no computer. My cousin didn't move the TV into the newly built building by the roadside, so I didn't even watch TV.

At night, I would stand on the terrace of the new building, staring blankly at the scattered lights in the mountains opposite. The night in the mountain village was very dark, and those lights really looked like stars in the sky.

It's not that I'm trying to be bourgeois, although it really is a bit of that, and the main reason is that we went to that mountain one time on the second day of the New Year.

That mountain ridge is called Zhongxing Liangzi, directly opposite our mountain village. Between the two mountains is a river, and there is a beautiful stone dam on the river.

The problem is, that mountain is very high, even from the hillside on this side it looks very high, let alone climbing up and down.

But we still had to go.

Because that was where my mother lived and fought thirty years ago. After graduating from teachers' college, she was assigned to teach at the elementary school on that mountain, where she lived with my older sister and grandmother for more than five years.

When my mother left that mountain, she was already eight months pregnant with me, and she went down the river to Yichang.

I have always been curious, how did my mother walk down when she was so pregnant?

My mother is now in her sixties, and she told us clearly that she couldn't climb up anymore, so we children naturally had to do it for her, and go to see the mountain village elementary school from thirty years ago on her behalf.

And my sister was also very motivated, because she lived there until she was more than five years old, and her feelings were even deeper than mine.

On the second day of the Lunar New Year, I, my sister, my brother-in-law, my eldest cousin, my second cousin, and my youngest cousin, a group of six people went up the mountain, with me holding a bamboo stick that my niece had whittled.

We met my cousin and her husband coming down from the mountain. After a few words of joking, we crossed the river and climbed to the middle of the mountain on the opposite side.

I decided to give up.

Tired, it was really fucking tired. My eyes started to see stars. This shows how harmful my typing work is to my body, and it also shows how difficult it is to climb that mountain...

There is no need to go into detail about the emotions in the middle. Anyway, after being coaxed and deceived by my sister and brothers, and resting every three steps, we finally successfully climbed to the top of the mountain.

The top of the mountain is flatter than the mountainside, with fields and houses, and naturally people, and therefore an elementary school.

The old school from thirty years ago has been demolished, but the new school is still on the mountain.

We went to the new school first, took some pictures, and then found many people playing pai gow (牌九) and gambling in a noisy classroom.

Then we went to the "site" of the old school, chatted with the residents next to the school, and found that only a dam (坝子) was left of the old school. My older sister was a bit emotional, saying that she used to play on this dam (坝子), how and how.

There was fog on the top of the mountain, it was cold, and I felt a bit... I couldn't say. When I was buying water at the general store between the residences, I heard a name, something Cui, and I remembered that she was my older sister's playmate. I asked a few questions and learned that that older sister had married far away in Hubei.

The most successful thing was that next to the old school, we finally found the home of one of my mother's good friends back then. Unfortunately, that aunt had gone to visit other people's homes. We only saw her uncle and her youngest son. The uncle couldn't remember what happened back then, but he remembered my mother's and father's names, and he remembered that my father was a soldier back then.

The aunt's youngest son was at Chengdu Sports University. We exchanged phone numbers and said polite greetings to each other, and each of us was moved.

Then we went down the mountain, returned to the village, told my mother the details, and also told her the phone number. In the next few days, she contacted that aunt and prepared to have a good chat later.

After returning to the village, we met the son and daughter of my eldest cousin who came to see us. I was very sad. My eldest cousin was the older sister I mentioned in the article a few days ago, who had already passed away. Okay, I won't talk about this matter.

The days in the mountain village were very good. My niece and younger siblings had a lot of fun. I also had a lot of fun watching everyone playing Dou Dizhu (斗地主), and I also had a lot of fun climbing mountains. It was like a pilgrimage.

My sister said, "If you don't climb up there, you will definitely regret it for the rest of your life." I believe this now, because I have already gone up there. In the future, one day, I will let my niece climb there again.

My mother's days on that mountain must have been difficult, but she didn't go into detail. Fortunately, she had many uncles who could help carry things up. She only said that the first day she, my sister, and my grandmother moved into that elementary school, there was a heavy wind, thunder, and rain on the mountain, and the three women, old and young, hugged each other.

My grandmother comforted my mother and said: "Daughter, don't be afraid."

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I left the village on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, and on the fifth day, I went to warm up my brother-in-law's new home. My brother-in-law was a very close person. Now that we meet across the yellow earth, it's not as sad as it was when I first heard the news. It's more of a comfort... The younger generations are all living well. After kowtowing and burning paper, we arranged the wine and dishes along the cemetery fence, and sat with my brother-in-law, toasting, eating, like a picnic.

When going down the mountain, I could see those white banners? I don't know if that's the name. Okay, I won't talk about this matter either.

In short, after returning to my hometown, I found that the new county town was very beautiful, the elders were all very healthy, the brothers and sisters were all very wealthy, and the younger generations were all very well-behaved. I was very happy.

Oh, by the way, to mention one last thing, on the few days of the Lunar New Year, after drinking, we went to sing karaoke, and one of them was one of the girls who competed with me in singing in the small mountain village back then. Now she has graduated from university for several years and works in Haidian.

The well-behaved Youyou (有有) was ordering songs, and the big girl was singing.

I was holding a glass of wine and drinking, listening to the music, and almost spat it out. I stared at her stupidly, thinking that it's been eighteen years, and you're still singing folk songs? Are you trying to continue to challenge me?