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"The Revolutionary Army, whose goal is to overthrow the Celestial Dragons' rule... I want to see what you're capable of," Akainu said calmly.

Long Wei was slightly taken aback.

The transvestite king, who had been mentally prepared for battle, was also stunned for a moment, his jaw almost dropping to the ground.

"Could it be... that the Navy's new Admiral Akainu is planning to join our Revolutionary Army?"

"Don't misunderstand," Akainu interrupted him coldly.

He will not become a revolutionary, because to uphold "complete justice," becoming a naval admiral is the most suitable position.

But... is becoming a marshal enough?

For some reason, whenever he thought about this problem, a fat, bloated, bat-like black shadow would appear in his mind.

...................

"call..."

Akainu suddenly woke up from his sleep, covered in sweat.

"I can accept Bat King and Sigurd... but why did I dream about... the Celestial Dragon Charl Marco Saint?"

"There are clearly no Celestial Dragons left."

Most of the Celestial Dragons, including Saint Charmaco, were sent to the execution platform long after the World Government collapsed.

He simply got up and pressed a button on the wall.

With a heavy rumble, the wall slowly descended, revealing a display case behind it containing the crimson, dog-head-shaped, masked bodysuit.

Seeing this bodysuit that he hadn't worn in a long time, Akainu felt a rare sense of relief.

He went back to bed and fell into a deep sleep once again.

...........

P.S.: I'll post my closing remarks tonight or tomorrow.

5. Author's Closing Remarks 2

The initial motivation for writing this book was simply a whim to write an interesting novel.

Before I knew it, I had been writing for over a year and a half, reaching 350 million words, and then it was finished.

On average, the annual update volume is just over 200 million.

I've maintained perfect attendance for a year and a half. (0-3 leave requests per month don't count, so I haven't missed a single post. Even with a 996 work schedule, I still get four days off a month. So I have perfect attendance.)

............

Here I'd like to share my outline again.

I posted it once in the chapter summary of the past chapters, which was 10 words at the time. Now, the total word count of the complete outline and detailed outline has reached 20 words.

What does 20 words mean?

The free portion of the book published by Hedgehog Cat is around 13 to 15 words, while my outline is longer than the initial release period.

It shows as 298 pages in WPS, representing over 600 days of painstaking, day-to-day work.

Sig's total number of lies is 20, most of which are within the outline.

Through this 20-word outline, the 350 million-word main text was used to fill in many plot holes and foreshadowing elements that spanned over a million words and a year.

If you're a reader who doesn't use "Red King Reads," you'll likely see how many plot holes from hundreds of chapters or even millions of words ago have been filled in this book, and how many plot holes that readers might not even have noticed...

By the end, most of the plot holes related to the main storyline in the entire book have been filled in.

It would be quite boring if Hong Wang were reading a book while complaining about how many plot holes he hadn't filled.

It's quite an accomplishment to see grains of sand accumulate into a tower.

However, if I have a new book, I definitely won't do this anymore; it's too tiring. Once is enough of this kind of thing.

................

The word count in the outline demonstrates that I truly put my heart and soul into writing this book.

Let's talk about subscription performance.

By the time the book was completed, it ranked 12th on the Hedgehog Cat Bestseller List, which is quite a good result.

Judging from the subscription data, the book's subscriptions remained stable after it reached one million words, and this stability continued into the later stages.

The story is based on a silly theme, the outline guides the direction, and the final result is indeed quite good; the direction was correct.

There are also many attempts and transformations throughout the book. For me, writing this book was basically outside my comfort zone, and it was quite difficult.

The content and writing style underwent significant changes throughout the early, middle, and late stages.

The direction was right, but the difficulty was much higher than I had initially expected, it was really giving me a headache.

Over the past year, this book has actually experienced quite a few twists and turns, and even almost caused me to lose my composure and be canceled halfway through.

Looking back, I'm truly glad that I didn't let the negative comments ruin my mindset, that I got through the creative block period of writing humorous stories, and that I persevered until the very end, bringing this book to a complete close.

It's not easy.

.....

Let me take this opportunity of finishing this story to talk about my low point.

This book started with idioms.

All kinds of silly, funny, unconventional, and imaginative articles, or even comedy sketches, funny videos, and TV dramas, get boring very quickly, meaning they fall apart quickly.

The logic is actually quite easy to understand. Scrolling through one joke on your phone is quite fun, but what if you scroll through a hundred jokes, and all one hundred of them were written by the same person?

Humorous articles, comedies, and skits are also the funniest when you first read them.

Maintaining the same level of freshness and humor throughout is virtually impossible. This applies to sketches, comedy movies, and stand-up comedy.

Even if the quality doesn't decline and remains at the same level, readers will still leave because they get tired of it.

An iced Coke costs three yuan in the summer, and the first sip is worth two yuan and fifty cents. The subsequent sips, even if they are not fundamentally different from the first sip, are certainly not as refreshing.

The initial intention of writing this book was to be fun and entertaining, but in trying to capture the feeling of the first sip of Coke, I found it increasingly difficult, my confidence gradually crumbled, and I gradually fell into a state of obsession.

At the time, I was a newbie author who was starting a book on Hedgehog Cat for the first time, and I couldn't distinguish between trolls and ordinary readers.

"This book isn't funny anymore," "It's not as interesting as the beginning," "It's lost its charm," "The author has run out of ideas"—these are all comments without using profanity... I won't post the others.

I can ignore mindless criticism, but these words were probably as damaging to me as telling a girl that she's gotten fat, ugly, or old.

The expectations of others can also be a form of pressure.

For example, in one chapter, after the bald guy appeared, someone posted a comment saying, "I started laughing when I saw this part."

Yes, that's a meme.

But I was a little panicked when I saw this post, because I had no intention of doing anything funny in the next chapter.

Then I changed the content of the next chapter, modifying the text to meet the readers' expectations and create some fun...

Someone commented in a forum post, "This book is my source of happiness."

At first glance, it seems quite heartwarming, but in order not to disappoint, I have to keep racking my brains to come up with new jokes...

After enduring this for a while, I gradually became obsessed, and my anxiety grew stronger and stronger.

The amount of hair falling out on the bedroom floor is indeed a bit alarming.

Looking back, rather than saying that the early stages were about "crowdfunding to write books," a more accurate description would be that we were "led by the nose by readers."

At the time, I was trying to please all the readers. If anyone said something was wrong, I would change it, and I was indulging in a self-satisfied feeling of "respecting the readers".

Not a complete newbie, but suffering from severe newbie syndrome.

Revising books based on reader feedback only results in one thing: ruining the book. Experienced readers who read a lot probably don't even need me to give examples; they can probably name a few titles in their heads.

No book can please everyone at the same time.

I thought I was respecting the readers, but at the time I wasn't actually trying to please the broad group of "readers," but rather the trolls in the comments that I couldn't distinguish at the time, the condescending people who were telling me how to write a book, and the people who didn't like the book.

Some people can't be pleased; trolls won't just quietly leave if they don't like a book. After all, how can they seem clever without launching into a lengthy critique?

Harsh words can be as chilling as a summer's day.

In fact, malicious comments have always been in the minority, and the comments on the posts have always been mostly positive. It's just that I got stuck on the issue of trolls at the time.

Some readers who are focused on following the book may not have noticed that the book has a pacing, because I was just obsessing over this detail.

Trolls cannot represent the readership; the readers are the active part of the forum, but also the silent majority.

The above is hindsight; at the time, I was already becoming obsessed and sinking deeper into the mire.

One post that left a deep impression on me during that period was something like, "Haha, I wonder if the author laughed themselves silly when they wrote this part?"

But the actual situation is...

By the time I got to that part, I couldn't laugh anymore. My whole body felt numb.

When I saw the post, I was suddenly jolted awake and felt quite sad. Writing humorous articles was almost making me depressed.

Mingming's original intention in writing this book was simply to write a fun and funny book as he pleased.

Why did writing it become such a heavy burden as it progressed?

When I realized this, I was in a very bad state, and my mental state was on the verge of snapping.

At the time, subscriptions were halved... In fact, this happens to most of Hedgehog Cat's books, and I'm not an exception.

What's even more painful than losing money is that this book has strayed from my original intention and turned into a heavy torment.

Reason tells me that this situation cannot continue any longer and must come to an end.

If you treat writing a book as a job, then you're probably already fed up with the 996 work schedule and ready to switch jobs.

I'm not a complete novice writing a book for the first time. I do have some professional skills. If I don't write silly stories, I can also write a more relaxed book that's less torturous for me and that I can still make a living from.

Other authors I know also advised me to end the story early if I couldn't take it anymore, saying that survival was the priority.

Once a subscription is lost, it's lost. That's how it is with Hedgehog Cat; once it's lost, it won't come back. Just accept reality, start a new book, and learn from the experience.

I have indeed given this matter serious consideration.