Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

"Do you want a mouse or a fish?" the old fox asked.

“Fish,” Shoumu said.

A larger fish flew out. Shoumu looked at the palm-sized fish in front of him. There were some peeled chestnuts and pine nuts picked up by the fox den. The old fox seemed to have taken pity on him and even gave some chestnuts and pine nuts to Shoumu.

But looking at the meager food in front of him and the way the black cat was wolfing down a small fish, Shoumu felt that these monsters were actually quite pitiful.

Some difficulties currently encountered

Originally, I didn't want to engage in dialogue with readers outside of my works, but I have indeed encountered some difficulties in writing.

In conclusion, there will be fewer updates this month than before. Starting tomorrow, the daily update frequency will be temporarily reduced from 4,000 words to 2,000 words.

It's not that I want to be lazy, it's just that I want to write more slowly and spend more time thinking.

In fact, there was a period when I was rushing to write every day.

Many times, I haven't figured out how to write 4,000 words, but in order to make up for my attendance record, I have to try every possible way to finish writing those 4,000 words.

What I want to say is that the original framework of the entire book was not what everyone sees now.

The outline has been revised many times. The original plan was to write an episodic series where each story has its own independent villain.

For example, the old abbot of Baima Temple in Yidu was originally one of the planned villains, directly related to the human trafficking case, or rather, he was the culprit.

The envisioned style is somewhat similar to a detective story.

Da Chun, Yun Ling, Senior Sister, Senior Brother, and many others participated in the investigation. There were monsters colluding in the red-light district. Initially, a chess spirit responsible for being silly and a yellow dog were also set up. The setting of the supernatural beings should have been developed here.

The White Horse Temple, situated in the city, relies on incense offerings to amass wealth and fame, but its monks actually lack real skills. In contrast, the Xuanqing Temple, located on the mountain, is home to true practitioners.

In an attempt to prolong his life, the old monk concocted longevity pills from children. Despite his evil deeds, he still harbored a kindness towards his old friend. Ultimately, he broke with his friend, and a life-or-death battle marked the end of this chapter.

Things like wheat and cotton are just a diversion at the end of the story.

However, all the settings and outlines for this series were scrapped.

The second volume should be related to monsters. The initial setting is that a group of monsters fled to the vicinity of Qingxuan Mountain because of the Great Cold. After a battle with the protagonist, the protagonist taught these monsters how to farm. Bai Yu then used the strengths of these monsters to gradually establish a merchant guild and trade organization related to the protagonist, and the monsters were also in it.

The third volume should be related to Yan Huai'an. In the original setting, she traveled around in order to seek death. She had a pact with the dragon, and she went to seek death after fulfilling the pact.

The volume about Yan Huai'an was very difficult to write because many of the related settings were changed. The original idea was that after she was about to die, she would transfer Xiao An's soul into her body so that Xiao An could be resurrected in her body. However, the protagonist was kept in the dark about this and only found out at the end. Xiao An's struggle for survival and Yan Huai'an's hidden desire for life beneath her numbness were also revealed. I had imagined that at this point, Yan Huai'an would be like a minor character in "Mob Psycho 1," releasing her emotions and learning to cry and laugh.

The villain in this volume is Xiao An, who will have some rather extreme emotions.

The reason I didn't continue writing according to the outline is because I felt that these rather extreme and "hysterical" emotions were quite out of place with the current atmosphere in the book.

No matter how I write it, it gives me a strange feeling because I've already removed a lot of extreme emotions from the beginning of the book. If these kinds of emotions reappear, it feels very out of place and makes me feel that it will only make things worse.

So after many revisions and deletions, the outline became a mess and turned into what it is now.

A story without villains or dramatic twists and turns truly tests a writer's skill.

As it turns out, I am still very immature.

In the process of writing this book, I also discovered that I am a person with very poor creativity.

If I write within a given framework, with a relatively traditional and complete worldview, such as a framework like "apocalypse," "Western fantasy," "infinite flow," or "mortal flow," I can perform better.

But if I were to write a worldview on my own, my knowledge and perspective would make this world seem somewhat petty.

I am not someone who has thoroughly read classic works or Chinese history. My understanding of stories and worldviews comes entirely from the entertainment works I have watched and the games I have played, and I have not conducted in-depth research on these.

Without a crisis and without a villain, the story lacks tension and becomes dull.

Unless I write the story as a joke to laugh at every day, which was the effect I initially wanted, it's clear that I didn't write it well.

Looking back, I should have directly adopted those "classic" settings. At least the cultivation stages are clearly defined: body refinement, qi refinement, foundation building, golden core, etc. It wouldn't be wrong to use them. Some things were written too vaguely.

Of course, I'm not saying that it's impossible to write like that, it's just that I don't have the writing skills to write them well, but for quite some time I didn't realize this.

If I were to rewrite it from scratch now, I would set the story in a chaotic world, where demon mountains and man-eating demons are everywhere, and Xuanqing Temple should be dilapidated and in need of reconstruction. This would provide many goals and tasks for the story to be accomplished.

But that's all hindsight.

And now I've finally made up my mind.

I want to cut out some unimportant parts and write down the part of the story that I most want to write.

There are a few scenes I've really wanted to write down, things I've wanted to write about since the moment I started the book.

I probably made this plate of dumplings just for that little bit of vinegar. And the reason I chose this book title is because of those fleeting, random thoughts.

I want to simplify the story and focus on the main plot.

However, deleting too much, without considering the context, would seem somewhat frivolous.

So I want to write more slowly; I don't want to force myself to keep filling in the gaps.

Spending more time thinking might be better.

But I'm also a very lazy person; once I completely relax, it's hard for me to pick myself up again.

So there will be fewer for now.

I'm really sorry I didn't do a good job, but I wanted to do my best to give the readers a good ending.

Finally, it is estimated that there will be 300,000 to 400,000 words of content. Some parts will be briefly mentioned. It will no longer be written year by year as before. Sometimes there may be a span of several years.

Whether I can do it well or not, I don't know, but as a creator, I certainly hope the work will be good more than anyone else.

I hope my fellow book lovers can understand.

That's all. I'll update tomorrow.

Chapter 320 The Rules of the Monster Association

The dried-out fish landed on the mud in front of Shoumu, covered in a little dirt.

Monsters don't use bowls, plates, or chopsticks, at least not the monsters in this forest. The black cat beside it was already greedily tearing at the dried fish. It held the fish down with its front paws, biting the gills and tearing it backward. If others saw this, they would never guess that it was a cat demon. It looked no different from any other cat they could see.

Shoumu withdrew his gaze and looked at the fish.

In the past, when the king cooked fish, he would wash it thoroughly, scrape off the scales, and clean out all the dirt from the fish's belly. He would then steam or braise it in a pot, and sometimes add some mushrooms and radishes to make a fresh fish soup.

The king taught them that they should not eat unclean things and that they should remember to wash their paws before and after meals.

Shoumu hasn't eaten a fish this unclean in a long time.

It was clear that the fish hadn't been treated much; it had simply been scooped out of the river, tied to a vine, and hung under the shed to dry. It seemed as if a fire had been lit, because Shoumu could smell a smoky aroma.

The old fox knew that drying the meat with fire would preserve it for longer, but that was all.

This fish was hardly a delicacy to Shoumu, not even remotely comparable to the baked flatbread, dried fish, pastries, or dates he ate on a regular basis.

But it doesn't mind.

In the past, I would go hungry one day and eat whatever I wanted on the mountain. With a single swipe of my paw, I would devour moss, tender grass, and mud.

When you've experienced a snowy winter, when the cave where you've lived since childhood collapses, when the fruit you painstakingly collected throughout the autumn is buried, and when you're forced to leave home, walking hungry and cold in the snow for days and nights, only finding a little warmth by huddling together with your brothers, you'll stop wasting food.

Shoumu buried his head in the dried fish and started tearing into it. Whether it was delicious fish or not, it was still fish; he wasn't picky about food.

It didn't hold back either, using its sharp teeth to bite open chestnuts and walnuts.

The old fox came out of its den, circled around Shoumu, and sniffed its scent.

“You’re officially part of our monster society now,” the old fox said. “There’s plenty of food in this forest, and it’s far from where people live. Few outsiders wander around here. You won’t have to worry about going hungry until it snows.”

"If you want to eat fish again in the future, you can ask other monsters to take you to the river to catch them. Whether you can catch them or not depends on your own skills."

"Or you can work for our monster association and exchange your merits for meat from me. Besides meat, I also have some magic techniques, such as transformation and invisibility, which are good life-saving techniques. As long as you can produce merits, you can learn them from me."

"If you are not interested in these life-saving techniques, other demon races also have methods of killing. For example, the wolf demon can use its roar to intimidate the mind and fight enemies and prey. It is very useful."

"In short, if you want to benefit, you have to do things for us."

The old fox explained the rules here to the red panda.

"Then what should I do?" Shoumu looked up at the old fox.

“You are a panda, so you must be more agile than those cat demons and dog demons in this forest,” the old fox said. “You can pick fruit from the trees to exchange for meat. If you catch fish or mice, you can bring them to me. If you catch ten fish, twenty mice, or twenty birds, you can learn a magic trick from me.”

"Or, you can go with those cat demons to explore the human village. Every fifteen days, they will go out to scout around the area. Each time they go, they can get a fish. If they can bring back valuable information, that's another story. I will make my own judgment."

"When it gets cold, the demons of our Demon Guild will gather here, and then we'll go and rob people of their things together."

"Are you going to kill someone?" the panda asked.

"It would be best not to kill them if we could avoid it," the old fox said. "But if we are discovered, people will definitely pick up sticks and beat us, and then we'll have to be killed whether we want to or not."

"Besides, human flesh can also be eaten. If a fight breaks out, the flesh-eating monsters probably won't let it go."

"But humans are so powerful, aren't you afraid they'll come and kill you too?" the panda asked.

"Of course we're afraid," the old fox said. "If we weren't afraid, we demons wouldn't have hidden away in a deserted place. If those immortals came, they could just swing their swords and cast spells, and we little demons would be dead."

"My fox demon clan used to only dare to come out and search for food when humans were fighting, picking up some scraps from piles of corpses. But with the snow so heavy, every year the younger generation of our clan freezes to death or starves to death. It's alright for powerful wolf demon clans, but for us little demons, if we don't come out to beg for food soon, our clan will be wiped out before the immortals come to exterminate us."

"This is the only way out."

"Anyway, once the fighting is over, everyone can run away on their own."

"But if we kidnap people this winter, what will we do next winter?" the panda asked again. "Will we kidnap people again?"

"I don't know," the old fox shook his head, muttering to himself, "Perhaps it won't snow so early next year?"

"Okay." The panda nodded. "Do I have something to do now?"

"It's all over." The old fox returned to the shed, lay down, and yawned. "You can find a place to rest for a while. The cat demon and dog demon went out to explore a few days ago. This place has my magic and other demons. You can sleep more peacefully here. Whether you want to sleep or do something else, it's up to you."

While they were talking, the black cat had already devoured the fish, leaving only the main bone.

It carried the fish bone in its mouth and came back to the panda.

“Good brother, don’t you still have four brothers?” The black cat raised his eyebrows. “Let’s go and bring your four brothers over. There’s fish to eat too.”

The black cat said with lingering satisfaction, "Bring your four brothers over, and we can get four more fish. We'll split them together; you can eat the meat, and I'll gnaw on the bones."

“They’re outside the forest,” the panda said.

"That's perfect!" the black cat said cheerfully. "I'm full and have plenty of energy, I'll go run another errand!"

The panda seemed hesitant until its ears twitched twice before it nodded and said, "Okay."