Winter Time Rendering

Hello everyone, I’m the author of this book, Sydney.

Ahhh—

By now, I’m sure we’ve already said our hellos.

The book opens with this sentence:

"After an eight-year absence, Zhang Shutong returned to the island where he grew up."

For me personally, this is the first time in three and a half years that I’ve written a launch announcement. I’m incredibly excited, as pathetic as that sounds.

If you have the patience for it, I’d love to share the story of this book’s creation with all of you.

First and foremost, I must thank all of you, my readers. Without your continued support, this ill-fated book would never have made it this far.

Its performance may not be stellar right now, but compared to when it only had four or five library adds upon initial release, and hadn’t even broken a hundred by the 50,000-word mark, today’s numbers are a wonderful surprise. It’s your companionship that has brought it this far.

Equally, I must thank my editor, Jianan. Boss Jianan is a humorous, refined, and insightful editor with a unique vision who is absolutely freaking awesome (I promised him I’d praise him to the high heavens for this launch announcement, but I’m running out of compliments, so please bear with me).

Okay, praise delivered. Job done.

Ahem. All jokes aside, Editor Jianan is my benefactor. I owe him a debt of gratitude for discovering me.

I’m not just saying this to suck up or flatter him. I can tell you all, in all seriousness, that without Editor Jianan, this book would not exist.

When I first pitched the 9,000-word-plus opening internally, I was rejected by three consecutive editors. The feedback was always the same: it lacked a hook, no one would want to read it, the subject matter was a dead end, and so on.

I’m not a new author; I’ve had a small measure of success on other platforms. If you had asked me back then what my expectations were for this book, I certainly wasn’t optimistic. I would have said that 500 initial subscriptions would be a victory.

Judging by its style and subject matter, it was destined to be a niche book, not a mainstream hit. But to be denied even a single contract, and to be politely refused even when I asked if I could just publish it directly under an editor’s team for a trial run... it left a complicated taste in my mouth.

So, I had given up. I’d already started writing a new story. It was around 3 p.m., and I had just under a thousand words in a new document when a red notification dot suddenly appeared on my QQ email. I clicked it open, and the message this time was completely different from all the others—

"This is approved. Add my QQ."

The rest is history.

Well, actually, there is a bit more to say. At first, I figured this editor just had a soft spot for picking up flops and was giving me a chance. I assumed that even if I got a contract, I’d be left to fend for myself—which, of course, is the normal state of affairs for most authors.

But who would have thought? The very day I added him on QQ, the boss chatted with me at length, recommending many works with similar themes. Before I published the first Chapter, he helped me revise the synopsis. I thought that was already more than responsible enough. But just a few days after I started writing, he got me some Chapter recommendations from other authors. He constantly encouraged me to focus on writing and not to worry about the early stats. Our conversations never stopped, and he provided a ton of brilliant inspiration.

To this day, if you were to ask me who I’ve chatted with most on QQ over the past few months, I’d take a look and—holy shit, it’s my editor.

We could probably activate the "Best Friends" feature at this point.

I want to thank Boss Jianan again for cultivating my work. Since the book began, he’s called me several times to talk. The longest call lasted two hours, and the latest one went on until one in the afternoon. Plus, he’s such a refined gentleman; he never curses on the phone, which always puts me in a good mood.

He also recommended many works that were "beneficial for creativity," like a romance story where the female lead is actually a femboy, or a wholesome romance manga where the heroine suddenly pulls out a dildo and wants to peg the hero... Truly nourishing stuff. Thankfully, my tenacious willpower allowed me to filter it all out.

Finally, I also want to sincerely thank those three editors who rejected me. And I’m not being passive-aggressive when I say this—

Thank you for the favor of not signing me!

Sometimes fate works in mysterious ways. If one of you had actually signed me back then, I never would have met Boss Jianan.

------------------

The rest of this note is about the book’s inspiration and its characters.

When I started this book, around April, I drove to a small island near my hometown to attend a funeral. Yes, you read that right. I know many of you think the beginning of the book is a lot like *Summer Time Rendering*, but that series was actually my smallest source of inspiration. In fact, I haven’t even finished the anime. The beginning is based on my own personal experience.

The island is called Weishan Island. Some of the geographical descriptions, like it being "the largest inland island in the north," the ability to "drive your car onto the ferry from the dock," the ferry schedule "running from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., with no way on or off the island at other times," and even the "college student incident" at the beginning—none of these were fabricated. They’re all real.

Of course, there is no Cyan Snake Temple in reality, no Temple Priestess, no wealthy young mistress, and certainly no murder cases. A real shame, isn’t it?

But the island in the book doesn’t have these same disappointments. Every creator has a different approach. For me, the highest goal is to build a tangible world while depicting a group of living, breathing characters. I want you all to feel that these are real people, whose stories just happen to take place in another world.

If you ask what my role is, you can think of me as a cameraman. Some cameramen go to Africa to film a nature documentary.

Well, I’m the one who carried a camera to the island to capture and edit the story of Zhang Shutong, the two young women, and his best friends for you all.

When I started the book, I wrote out some brief character sketches. In reality, they were just single sentences, something like this:

Ruoping is boy-crazy.

Qingyi has chuunibyou.

Du Kang has a baby face.

Gu Qiuyan has a pair of spirited, beautiful eyes.

Lu Qinglian is in her final form from the moment she appears.

Zhang Shutong is a nostalgic person.

From these single sentences, their characters eventually grew and came to life.

I’m the kind of person who gets intensely interested in things for about three minutes. I’ve tried to learn many things since I was a child, but I almost always give up after a short while. The only thing I’ve never grown tired of is creating stories.

But I’m often pained by my own lack of skill and feel that my ability doesn’t live up to my ambition. The only thing I can promise is that every Chapter I release will meet the standards I’m satisfied with at that particular time.

A musician I admire once said that producing a song requires the spirit of an ant gnawing on a bone. Creating this book is much the same. For example, I know some readers will complain that a certain Chapter is just filler, but trust me, writing actual filler is much easier than this. Writing is about communication. Sometimes you can use 1,000 words to achieve a 6-out-of-10 effect. But what if you want a 7 or an 8? Do you just add another hundred or two hundred words? No, you often have to double the word count.

For me, it’s more like sewing a shoe insole. The thing I’ve stitched together, one thread at a time, might be crooked and ugly, but it’s ugly in a... well, in what way? I can’t exactly say it’s uniquely ugly.

Well, all I can do is thank you all again for your generous support.

Of course, an author can’t just get high on his own supply. My next goal is to make the necessary foreshadowing more interesting, write the kind of plot points you all love to read, and maintain good overall pacing.

Some of my long-time readers might know that with my last book, I was a lazy dog who would sometimes flake on my 4,000-word daily updates. Now, I’ve suddenly evolved into a tentacle monster for whom 5,000 words a day is normal, 6,000 is nothing, and who can sometimes burst out with 8,000 or even 10,000 words. It’s wild to think about.

Ah, if only I could count this launch announcement as a Chapter update. Sadly, that’s impossible. As I write this, it’s 11:14 p.m. I’ll end this note by borrowing a line from the synopsis:

"Deep mountains, a great lake, a sacred Temple, shadows beneath the water, a serial murder case from eight years ago, and a girl’s body growing cold;

This is a story of youth—part heartwarming, part thrilling, and part romantic—that unfolds among a group of teenagers on a small island in the dead of winter."

So that’s the general tone: romance, youth, suspense, and adventure.

Let’s all look forward to the story to come!

-----------------

I’ve set up a reader group. You can find the link in the synopsis if you have a Fan Value of 500 or more. Everyone is welcome to join and pester me for updates.

Next is the special thanks section. Thank you to my operations manager, Ah Bai, for tirelessly answering all my questions about the new book launch process.

I’d also like to thank the great authors who gave me Chapter recommendations (listed in alphabetical order by pen name):

The great Chunjie de Xiaolong, author of *Corpse Fisher*

The great Mizhi Ji, author of *Rekindling Our Youthful Days*

The great Xi Chi, author of *My Incarnation is Becoming the Final BOSS*

The great Yang Xiaorong, author of *Seriously? You Have to Guard Against Gentlemen, Too?*

(These are all the ones I know of for now. My sincere apologies if I’ve missed anyone.)

---------------------

Finally, let’s talk about updates. Don’t worry about me slacking off. As long as I can get in the zone, I’ll be writing like a madman. I’ll post 6,000 words right after midnight, with the remaining updates to follow during the day on June 1st.

And now for the most important thing—

Monthly Tickets.

My operations manager told me to do everything I can to make a push for the [June] [New Book Monthly Ticket Rankings]. To compete for this ranking, this book even gave up a spot on the Sanjiang recommendation list, missed out on two other promotional rounds, and was launched hastily. So, I have to shamelessly ask you all for your monthly tickets. (Please note: these are for the month of June!)

Finally, the rules for bonus Chapters:

[Starting from midnight on June 1st, I will release one bonus Chapter for every 200 monthly tickets received. The tally will be finalized at midnight on June 2nd.]

(And don’t worry, as an author with principles, the bonus Chapters I’m already releasing on June 1st won’t be counted as part of this pledge.)

If it doesn’t kill me, I’ll write myself to death!

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

Happy Children’s Day!

—Respectfully, Sydney Stews Tea