AZI Volume 4 Afterword

Had quite a bit of fun writing the last few parts of this volume. Took forever to get to the auction really. If the previous three volumes were to establish the setting, then this volume is considered the volume that dives further into the main character's background and goals.

Some thoughts below:

1. Series finally has a cover. It's done by AI art. Commission an artist would require time and research, since I was looking for a specific art style.

2. So, in Chinese, as a language, we do not have past/present tenses. English is not my first language, so I have a difficult time wrapping my head around this concept. In Chinese, to tell whether something happened in the past or present—the only way we can use to tell it is by context, or by having it stated directly. I'm pretty sure there're mess-ups with past and present tenses through my writing, but it's not something that I can deal with on my own. All my writing is done by me and proofread by me alone.

3. First and foremost, the poem in the epilogue. Truth be told I'm actually kind of afraid to throw poems into this story. This was a poem I had written for a workshop at my school. The number one thing that I fear the most whenever I publish something, is to actually meet someone who reads the stuff I've published in real life. I just find that situation awkward, and that's why I use a pen name. I guess a similar situation is like with Vtubers. 2D characters kind of lose their "magic" if I know the person's face in real life, so I tend to avoid anything related to that. A good example is like maybe, suddenly finding out your favorite Vtuber who you've simped over $10K on turns out to be a dude/gal behind an opposite gender avatar the next morning. I think a situation like that is soul crushing depending on the individual. Personally, I do not see myself as beautiful/handsome in real life, so yeah—feels like any sort of work loses its magic when the creator behind it reveals… Themselves? But yes ultimately, I decided to include the poem because I really did like writing this specific poem, and I do not see any story writers putting heavy amounts of poetry into their writing, and I wanted to do something a bit more different with this story, so hopefully it turned out well?

4. Honestly, any serious interaction between Long Hua and the Tai Xuan Emperor is difficult to write because it feels like it will always turn into a joke no matter what—since the latter is always scheming against the former. I'm always asking myself is the Tai Xuan Emperor being sincere whenever she says anything.

5. Mo-laoban is a character that was created during the second volume, and introduced in the third volume. She was introduced as Mo Xiao meaning "demonic flute," but because this isn't her real name, I felt hesitant to address her as it. In the end, she got stuck with being called Mo-laoban, which translates to Boss Mo—for the duration of this volume. Her proper name should be finalized next volume. The used in this title isn't the same Mo used in demonic flute, but the Mo for ink.

6. Dao He Palace is the sect that Long Hua was a part of during his previous life. It's brought up very randomly because I really didn't know where I could fit a proper introduction for it throughout the volume. Maybe during an intermission? But then, there's too much stuff that I would need to set up ahead of time for this specific sect that I do not have a proper image for as of right now. In any case, Long Hua's poetic talents were cultivated in this sect.

7. "In Dao He Palace, every single individual is a genius of the arts, not a single one of them is a Chinese cabbage," the last sentence about a Chinese cabbage in this context is an idiom, to say that not a single person is ordinary in this sect. It also means to say, they aren't raised for nothing, all of them have the skills to make something of themselves. Chinese cabbages, I felt kind of awkward calling them Chinese cabbages because they're called "bai cai" in Mandarin, which translates to white vegetables. I was tempted to just call them white cabbages.

8. The interaction between Long Hua, Bai Wen, and Zhen Qing Huai—throughout the story so far, it's all been business like. It's something that I want to change gradually. I really like these three's planned interactions with one another. They can definitely be good friends over time—is the feeling that I have if they were real people.

9. Zhen Huai/Zhen Qing Huai, her character was supposed to have been a female from the very beginning. It was mentioned she couldn't hold her drink well. That was a very vague hint to her gender. That's not to say that all women can't drink, it's just as far as I'm aware of, in my native culture—being Chinese, it's not really seen as a good thing for a woman to drink a lot. That might have changed in recent years due to the gap in the new and old generations' ideals/beliefs, but I really wouldn't know for sure. The only reference I had was my female relatives, who I do not see drinking at the small gatherings that we have. In any case, I went through quite a bit to work out her backstory. In fact, in my 140+ page outline, she's the one with the most amount of details written due to her family's circumstances. I'm referring to her as Zhen Qing Huai from now on because that is her real name.

10. The intermission chapter, "The Boy Who Prays, and "the God" That Answers," Long Hua is the name of the boy in this chapter. "The God" is the individual currently in possession of Long Hua's body. This was hinted at starting in volume 2 with Zhui Yun. I wasn't expecting this intermission to be over 1.4k words, I was expecting like 500ish at most. Details about the inner domain's division were done as a means of setting up a premise for the intermission chapter itself, but it will also be used as reference to future events.

11. Weapon Spirit True Body/Partial-Apotheosis, I didn't really think it was appropriate to talk about this in detail during the last volume's afterword because not enough information regarding the Leng Bing Realm had been revealed. There's been hints being dropped here and there with the mentioning of weapon spirits, but none of these things are said directly to Long Hua, so it doesn't feel right to just drop a massive pile of information that the main character has no insight on.