The reason why the website charged for reading half of the novel was because the website would deduct a certain percentage from your purchase fee to pay for the server and operating costs to ensure the website's normal operation and provide better service. There were also some novel websites that didn't charge a fee, but they usually needed to adopt some additional strategies or methods to attract readers, such as providing additional content, promotional activities, and so on. Therefore, if you want to find a free novel website, you need to carefully search and compare different websites, and also pay attention to whether their service quality and content are good enough.