One (a)

The weather is getting warmer. The collation and writing of "Taiping" has also been completed for more than half of it.

On the basis of the original structure and chapters, according to the reading and management characteristics of the uploaded Chinese Simplified Chinese website, I redistributed the text and optimized the volumes, and reformulated the titles and frontispieces for different volumes.

The most regrettable thing is that the website that uploaded the work, the title of "Taiping" has been preemptively registered, and the overall title of the whole book can only be changed to "Gino's Scimitar". There is no deep meaning in this name, but because the word "Gino" is rarely used, and no one is sure to register the name first.

In order to follow the new general title, I have gone back to the whole text and made certain adjustments and additions, and constantly took into account the title of the book that echoes "Gino's Scimitar" at the beginning, during and at the end of the chapter, and in different volumes, so that the integrity of the work will not be greatly damaged.

Because the original manuscript of this book is really very long, all the first drafts add up, about 27 million words, and such a long serialization is impossible for today's readers to accept. No one can persevere for such a long time, especially when the content of the text still has a certain depth and the truth involved still has a certain degree of profundity. Therefore, for many plots, they will no longer be laid out. For many chapters, I have written in a synopsis style, jumping quickly and concisely, leaving only the main parts and climaxes that can deeply describe the characters' personalities. In this way, the length of the manuscript was reduced to about 1/12 of the original manuscript. More than 2 million words is also quite a considerable number of words.

According to the analysis data provided by the publisher, the best-selling novels today, whether it is electronic channels or traditional channels, are best with 600,000-700,000 words, and the sales data of more than 1.5 million words will drop sharply. Of course, there are exceptions, like the long-form master Ken. Follett's "The Fall of the Giants" series has broken the sales law of the industry all over the world, and with a scale of 3.5 million words each, it has long occupied the sales charts of electronic and bookstores around the world.

However, I don't mind how the sales data is.

This book is a sacrifice that I have wanted to sacrifice to you for a long time.

If I want to write anything in this life, in fact, the only thing I want to write is the words in this book.

I've made a living out of words all my life, and it's all because I wanted to write this book.

All the other words I have written before, after, and at the same time as this book are merely a foreshadowing and foil for the book to come out.

To me, writing this book is a sacrament.

(b)

In between writing, Yichen and I, as well as other partners, often go to the shores of Donghu Lake to relax. There, we can see billions of years of battles between forests and grasslands.

The grassland constantly spreads all kinds of wild grasses into the woodland, and the woodland will constantly shake the seeds of various trees on the grassland.

All kinds of plants of high and low sizes are intertwined with you and me, and I have you and grow and reproduce.

The land has been burned by fires or flooded, and trees have been burned or collapsed, turning into grassy flats, and sometimes growing into lush forests.

Grasslands and forests alternate in different geological epochs, accompanied by different biological systems that are born and die on the land.

Mr. Yichen said with emotion: "However, in the last 100 years, human beings have appeared here with their technology, huge machinery and greedy desires, and as a result, the grasslands and forests have been destroyed. ”

The country was founded on a fertile wilderness, but, now, with the modernization of the country, the pristine wilderness, is rapidly disappearing.

Mr. Yi Chen wrote in his column during this time: "The wilderness is all one. But the small town built by human beings is to a large extent the antithesis of all things. ”

On the weekend, Mr. Yichen couldn't help but comment to me: "I don't understand why those couples go to the cinema to watch movies on weekends? ”

"They should come here and stay in the forest," he said. Here, they can see the most magnificent stories on the planet, not the boring soapy plots and trivial ......"

At this point, he suddenly stopped.

He smiled slightly self-deprecatingly and said, "Okay. That's what we write about movies – films that are small, trivial, and boring compared to the stories of nature. ”

I looked at him with a smile.

He immediately said with a little apology: "I'm sorry, I said it in a hurry, blurted out, did I not take care of your feelings?" ”

I smiled and shook my head, and I said, "No." No - in fact, I couldn't agree more. ”

We talked about the work of SPE director Shunji Kojima, as well as the work of Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-hsien. In their works, long shots like this are often used: the protagonist has experienced the pain and frustration of life, returns to the countryside, and encounters the old man in the village plowing in the farmland, and the protagonist squats down on the ridge and chats with the old man. He asked the old man how the rain was this year, how the temperature had changed, what the crop harvest was expected, what price he could sell at the market, what fertilizer was applied now, and so on. Then, the camera gradually zooms out, from these two people in the field, to the whole field, to the whole land, the camera zooms farther and farther, and the two people talking and chatting in the field are getting smaller and smaller, smaller and smaller, and even almost invisible.

Mr. Yichen said that he likes this lens language the most.

This vividly reflects the director's outlook on life: the unbearable heavy pain in our lives is actually very small in the vast expanse of nature. The two of them chatted about ordinary farm affairs in nature, and when they chatted like this, their hearts became open-minded, and the pain was no longer in front of them like a mountain, and the joys and sorrows of human beings unconsciously melted into the magnificent symphony of nature, and their hearts were purified and healed.

Mr. Yichen said: "It's like a Chinese landscape painting. Tiny tourists stand on the side of towering mountains and wide rivers, and all emotions, even if they are all the history of mankind, all the so-called achievements, between heaven and earth, in the mountains and rivers, in fact, are nothing great. ”

I think so.

It is the pristine wilderness and forest environment of Winter Lake and its surroundings that melts the wounds in my heart during the writing process, allowing me to cross the rapids and rapids of my life, all the way forward, forward, forward.

It was then that I decided to write a volume of "Notes on the Winter Lake" as a postscript after finishing all the main stories, thanking nature for its inspiration and tolerance.