New Book: I Make Games Entirely by Imagination

To be honest, when I saw the completely fractured metacarpal bone on the X-ray, I thought to myself, "Ah, Xiu'er is finished (with a crying voice)."

Whether the treatment going forward involved conservative management or surgery, this novel, *Starting as a Toxic Healer in the Marvel Prison*, was bound to go on hiatus or have its update frequency drastically reduced for quite a long time.

Not to mention that my case was relatively severe; I ended up spending ten full days lying in the hospital bed. (I really must vent a little about the nurses' rounds during my stay. They would come in almost every hour or two at night, turning on all the lights immediately upon entering, which would shock you fully awake in an instant. I hardly got any decent sleep at night, and during those days in the hospital, it felt like the 24 hours were split between IV drips, meals, and desperately trying to catch up on sleep.)

Yet, those rounds were truly necessary. For instance, the elderly grandfather in Bed 8 right next to mine was discovered to have lost consciousness precisely during a nurse's round, and he was promptly rushed to the intensive care unit for emergency treatment.

That scared the living daylights out of me because that grandfather and I had surgery on the exact same day—I was the first case, and he was the second.

Furthermore, my surgery was considerably more complex than his. His was minimally invasive, involving just two tiny incisions and two Kirschner wires inserted. As for me, I had an eight-centimeter incision made on the back of my hand, a steel plate installed, and eight screws drilled directly into my bone.

Even during the daytime, my blood oxygen levels were much lower than his, and my systolic blood pressure soared to between 140 and 160.

Logically speaking, all of that grandfather's vitals were normal, so he should have been fine. Besides, if something were to happen to him, wouldn't I—someone with even worse physiological readings than him—be in far greater danger? That entire night, my mind kept running wild, scaring myself half to death.

Then, by the afternoon of the following day, that grandfather passed away.

Sigh, such is the impermanence of the world.

I still remember when I was wheeled out after finishing my surgery, that grandfather was just being wheeled in, and our eyes met. He seemed to smile at me with his toothless mouth (or perhaps it was just my anesthesia-addled brain playing tricks on me; after all, who smiles during surgery when they are terrified out of their wits?).

I am getting a bit off track.

When I finally finished my surgery, got through the danger zone, and was discharged from the hospital, it was already the tenth day of the hiatus for *Starting as a Toxic Healer in the Marvel Prison*.

Consequently, I had no choice but to face the fate of this book.

I am certainly not a heavyweight author like Elbow, who can maintain normal serialization despite a ten-day break. You must understand that for a small-fry author like me, a ten-day hiatus is enough to drive away the vast majority of readers.

Not to mention that I would need at least a month or so to recuperate my left hand. By then, even if I tried typing with one hand, my output could never be guaranteed, and the updates would inevitably dwindle more and more.

Under such circumstances, would the already meager number of remaining readers completely vanish due to this trickle of updates?

Coupled with the massive loss of readership, the already pathetic economic value of this book would be squeezed until practically nothing remained.

So, I asked myself: if this book could hardly make any money going forward, would you still keep writing it?

After pondering for a while, my final answer was:

No.

This is the most realistic question imaginable. If not for money, who would slog through an exhausting day of work, only to resist the temptations of video games, television, anime, relaxation, a girlfriend, and everything else, just to sit rigidly in front of a computer for hours until their lower back aches and legs grow stiff? And on top of that, after finishing a chapter, they check the comments only to be cursed at viciously by trolls.

To be frank, writing stories truly has been my childhood dream. I am passionate about crafting one touching or tragic tale after another.

Yet, these stories can simply be imagined within the mind. In every lonely midnight hour, it is often these self-spun tales in my head that help me pass the time. So why bother breaking my back to write them all down?

The primary driving force that pushes me to write them out is:

Money, and the recognition of readers.

Of course, because *Starting as a Toxic Healer in the Marvel Prison* was poorly written by me, I barely received the latter, so I had no choice but to focus all my attention on the former.

Now that the former is gone as well, naturally, there is almost no motivation left to write this book.

Yet, despite having no motivation, I agonized over the decision to abandon the book for a very, very long time. The main reason for my hesitation was precisely those readers who persistently spent money to read my book and kept waiting for my updates (though there might not actually be many...).

I constantly felt deeply apologetic toward them.

Thinking of them always filled me with guilt.

Therefore, please allow me to offer my most sincere apologies to these readers, orz.

In my next book, I will try to post as many free chapters as possible as a token of apology to everyone. (Of course, this is not some scheming trick to lure you into reading the new book; it is purely because I cannot think of any other way to compensate you, and I am resorting to this desperate measure.)

Perhaps someone will ask: "Ah, you abandoned this book like a eunuch, what if you do the same to the next one? I'm certainly not going to read it, hmph!"

Regarding this, I would like to explain. Actually, when *Starting as a Toxic Healer in the Marvel Prison* had only 29 subscriptions for the first chapter, my plan was just to scrape by for three months of full-attendance bonuses, keeping the pace fast so I could wrap up the story around 500,000 to 600,000 words.

However, who could have anticipated how incredible you all were?

You supported a book with only 29 initial subscriptions all the way up to an average of 470 (which recently climbed to 497 average subscriptions).

You must know that on Qidian, anything above 500 average subscriptions allows an author to keep collecting monthly attendance bonuses. At that time, I intended to keep writing. Following my writing style back then (padding the word count), I could easily have reached one to two million words.

There was no helping it; although writing is entirely for the money, a couple of thousand yuan a month was enough to keep me content, haha~

Had it not been for this car accident, I definitely would have kept writing, at the very least finishing Xiu'er's story.

But with this accident and the broken bones, everything vanished in an instant.

My next book, *I Make Games Entirely Through Fantasy*, compared to the impulsive *Starting as a Toxic Healer in the Marvel Prison*, is truly my passion project.

Ever since I was discharged from the hospital and decided to abandon the previous book, I have been preparing for *I Make Games Entirely Through Fantasy*.

I have even written as many as 30,000 words of detailed outlines for the main text of the first 100,000 words, not to mention the countless character biographies, worldview settings, and the comprehensive master outline.

Therefore, barring another car accident, there is simply no way I will ever abandon such a true piece of my heart.

This new book, *I Make Games Entirely Through Fantasy*, can be considered a fusion of game development and urban Xianxia. Its worldview is logical, the outline and plot structure are stable, and the character portrayals are outstanding. Even I look at it and praise it (like Wang Po selling melons and boasting about her own goods~).

Here is the synopsis:

Other people need an army of a million balding programmers to write game code... Lin Jie only needs fantasy.

Other people need ten million tentacle monsters to draw game textures... Lin Jie only needs fantasy.

Other people rely on recklessly spending vast sums of money to make game CGs... Lin Jie only needs fantasy.

Gradually, Lin Jie discovers that his "fantasy" is by no means limited to merely making games...

Book friends who are interested in my writing style and this genre are warmly welcomed to read it.

......

......

I almost forgot.

Even if a book is abandoned, Xiu'er still deserves a proper ending, doesn't she?

According to my original conception:

The boss behind the Rhino at that point was the Kingpin. Kingpin has a storyline in the original work where his son is targeted in an assassination attempt, driving Kingpin to madness. However, once he calms down, he realizes that a kingpin can never attain a normal life, so he ends up killing his own wife with his own hands and ultimately becomes the undisputed overlord of the underworld.

As for Xiu'er's original avatar, he used his superpowers to save Kingpin's son when the boy was attacked (this was foreshadowed during the first encounter with the mob). Consequently, Kingpin realized the immense importance of supernatural powers in this world, which led him to set his sights on Captain America's Super Soldier serum (I mistakenly referred to it as the Superhero serum earlier). This motivation triggered the subsequent purchase of the Rhino, the dispatch of the Rhino to attack Oscorp (which was the catalyst for Peter and Gwen becoming Spider-Man), and the plot to capture the Hulk.

Later, following the Hulk incident, Xiu'er subdues Banner. With Banner's assistance, he successfully collaborates with Ivan to improve the Space Stone locator device, ultimately locating the Space Stone. By absorbing half of its energy, he completes a step in perfecting his Chaos Physique, causing the system to evolve from the "Slacker System" to the "Chaos Son System."

Simultaneously, Xiu'er's strength increases dramatically, and he gains the assistance of the Chaos Cult. (When Professor X gave Agent May the Chaos Token earlier, it was foreshadowed that Professor X belonged to the Chaos Cult, though my initial design had Professor X opposing the cult.)

The Chaos Cult was something of my own creation, devoutly believing in the power of chaos. (There is an official origin theory for the Infinity Stones stating that in the beginning, when the universe first opened, everything was chaos, and from this chaos, six Infinity Stones were born. My initial premise was that Xiu is this chaos and needs to reclaim the power of the Infinity Stones to make himself whole again.)

Xiu'er's death sentence in prison at the beginning was orchestrated entirely by the opponents of the Chaos Cult. The USB flash drive on Nick Fury's desk in the opening chapters was placed there by the Chaos Cult precisely to rescue Xiu'er through Nick Fury's hands.

Subsequently, with the help of the Chaos Cult, Xiu'er begins scheming to lure Loki in order to acquire remaining Infinity Stones (mirroring the *Avengers* plotline), seizing the Mind Stone and likewise absorbing half of its energy. The Ancient One then bestows the Time Stone upon Xiu'er. (I still haven't figured out the logical motivation for this because, purely through combat, Xiu could never defeat someone as bug-like as the Ancient One; I even considered having Xiu snatch it from Doctor Strange, which remains an unresolved point.)

Later, he schemes to make Thanos work for him to procure the Soul Stone, Power Stone, and Reality Stone. Ultimately, just as Thanos attempts to snap his fingers, Xiu grabs them all, intending to achieve ultimate self-perfection.

However, right as Xiu is about to absorb the final Soul Stone, Professor X appears and warns him that if he undergoes complete perfection, he will indeed become all-powerful chaos, but in doing so, he will extinguish all of his humanity (much like attaining godhood in *Soul Land*).

Thus, Xiu refuses to absorb the Soul Stone.

In the end, Xiu gives the purple sweet potato head (Thanos) a lecture on biological reproduction curves, explaining to him that after wiping out half of all life, it will not be long before the world simply restores itself to the way it was.

The path of life must still be walked by life itself.

Following that, he finds a small farm for the purple sweet potato head, turning him into a diligent farmer.

At the very, very end, Zhong Shenxiu and Wanda embark on a joyous journey of playing and exploring across parallel worlds and other anime dimensions.

I must admit, thinking about this ending now, it truly is clichéd, hahaha.

Well then, everything that needed to be said has been said, and even things that shouldn't have been said have been said.

So let us all share a faint smile and bid each other farewell in the martial arts world!

Of course, it would be best if we meet again in the next book!!! Go Read