Don’t Yield the Land — having written it to this point, this is probably the book I carry the most regrets about.

The greatest regret, when I say it aloud, you may not believe — it’s that… I should never have written a book like this.

From the brimming confidence of the early days, to the feeling of walking on thin ice that came later — that process was truly agonizing.

Because The Long Ning Imperial Army had already been written to its absolute pinnacle — the grandest, most sweeping heights the Great Ning Empire had to offer.

Leng Zi, too, was at his pinnacle. He was considerably more endearing than Diudiu’er. And then there was Grandpa Cha — also considerably more endearing than Elder Brother Gao.

You all love Grandpa Cha and Leng Zi so dearly. So do I — which is precisely why I didn’t dare write something too similar.

That placed shackles on Diudiu’er and Elder Brother Gao. The further into the story I went, the more this flaw made itself felt, and the harder everything became.

Diudiu’er was manageable — after all, having his character shaped somewhat similarly to that foolish Leng Zi was something readers could accept. But Gao Xining could not be molded into an exact copy of Grandpa Cha.

In the early stages of conception, the image of Gao Xining in my mind was a woman of swift and decisive ruthlessness, with a meticulous and calculating mind — even a touch of cold, cruel cunning.

But a woman written that way is truly difficult to like. So I kept overturning myself, and as a result, by the time I wrote her later chapters, Gao Xining’s character had grown blurry and indistinct.

With Grandpa Cha’s brilliance standing before her like a pearl before jade, shaping Gao Xining was genuinely agonizing for me. On this point, I was utterly and thoroughly defeated.

Now, as for the plot.

Perhaps because there was too much foreshadowing from Long Ning spilling over — at the time I didn’t think it would matter — but once I began writing Don’t Yield the Land, I realized those spoilers were a fatal weakness when it came to the satisfaction of plot payoffs.

There were times I even thought to myself: even if I wrote about the Great Chu’s Xu Qulu, or simply wrote about the time-traveler Mr. Li, either of those would have been simpler than writing Diudiu’er’s story.

This book itself has no fault. The fault lies in my own stubborn fixation. I had intended to write a trilogy set in Long Ning’s world — but I can only bring things to an abrupt halt here, with Don’t Yield the Land.

The new book, as I had originally conceived it, was meant to be the third entry in the Great Ning series — a mystery novel set within the framework of the Great Ning Empire.

The protagonist would have had nothing to do with Diudiu’er, nothing to do with Leng Zi — just a wandering traveler from the jianghu who stumbled upon Mr. Li’s hidden treasure.

But that story was abandoned. I had confidence in it as a story, but it couldn’t sustain a full-length work.

So I had no choice but to bring forward a different concept I had been saving for after the Great Ning trilogy.

I’m sorry, everyone — the new book will have no connection to the world of Great Ning. But the concept for the new book was born precisely out of concerns that continued Great Ning stories would lead to aesthetic fatigue for readers.

Personally, I believe the brilliance of this new book should surpass Long Ning — otherwise I wouldn’t dare use it to stand against the Great Ning trilogy that exists in my heart.

Don’t Yield the Land carries too many regrets. Like the character-shaping issues I mentioned just now, like the arc of this book from beginning to end.

There are many smaller regrets too — for instance, the review section fell just over two thousand comments short of reaching one hundred thousand.

But all these regrets will gradually fade as Don’t Yield reaches its conclusion. To borrow a rather scoundrel-like turn of phrase: I am not a man who grows tired of the old and chases the new — I simply always find myself yearning toward new and beautiful things.

So — after the New Year, see you in the new book.

And finally, a small epilogue.

……

……

The winds of the northwest were still as rough and raw as ever — rough enough to make one fear they might wound the tender new green that had only just begun to push up from the earth.

An elderly man with hair gone white and grey crouched there, looking at a tiny new shoot. He unstopped his wine flask and tipped a single drop of wine toward this small grass that had barely shown its head above the soil.

His face bore the full weight of years — weathered and worn, etched with the lines of a long and turbulent life — yet somehow he was still such a handsome old man.

“Grandfather.”

A small boy who looked to be about six or seven crouched beside the old man. He wasn’t looking at the new sprout. He was looking at the thing hanging at the old man’s waist.

“What is that?”

The little boy asked.

The old man smiled, and unhooked the thing hanging at his waist. It was a wine cup.

“This, ah… this is the little copper cup my brother and I drank from before we parted ways.”

The old man held the cup up. Years of being turned over and over in his hands had polished it bright.

Sunlight poured down onto that copper cup, and in its gleam was reflected the light in the old man’s eyes — a brilliance that outshone all the rivers, mountains, and ten thousand things of this world.

“With a little cup just like this one, my brother and I — we could drink a thousand cups.”

“Grandfather is bragging — a thousand is so, so many.”

The little boy didn’t believe it.

He reached out his hand: “Grandfather, can I have a look?”

The old man handed him the copper cup. The little boy took it, lifted it by the thin cord bound around it, and the cup began to spin slowly in mid-air.

A sudden whim struck the little boy. He unhooked the small, unsharpened little dagger at his own waist, and tapped it gently against the copper cup.

Ding…

The sound rang out clear and bright, and lingered — lingered as though it drifted away ten thousand li into the distance.

The old man smiled. As he smiled, his eyes grew faintly, gently wet.

“What a lovely sound.”

The little boy tapped it once more.

Ding…

This time the sound seemed to carry even further, and it came back with an echo.

Ding…

From far away — that echo rang out just as beautifully.

The old man jolted upright. In an instant, his expression changed entirely. He turned slowly, slowly around to look — his hands already trembling.

In the distance, there came another remarkably handsome old man, seated on horseback, one hand holding a thin cord, at the end of which was bound a small copper cup.

The little boy tapped once. He tapped once too.

Ding ding ding. Ding ding ding.

Ten thousand li away.

Yet what is ten thousand li?