A Fish's Gaze

[Mainly an apology to readers who supported me before, the story outline, character bios, and a campus novel originally planned to be 100,000 to 200,000 words. The entire book is an apology and a farewell. After apologizing to the original author yesterday, I didn't have time to formally apologize to the readers who have supported me during this period, so I'm including a detailed apology here. I never said anything about thanking readers. I thought this through carefully last night and felt the apology still wasn't appropriate enough, so I opened this page to add an explanation. But after saying all this in the middle of the night, I woke up and felt it still wasn't enough, so I've added the statement below.]

A temporary statement:

My apology to readers and related content will be included in the afterword. I'm not sure whether putting it at the beginning would lead reviewers to consider it irrelevant, so after reflecting on everything these past few days, I'll organize it and upload it. I deactivated my account, deleted my posts, and closed the comment section because I wanted to minimize the impact on people around me. Some internet users followed links from my account to find people who had interacted with me and pry into their lives. I don't want what happened to me to affect anyone I've ever had dealings with. Also, as soon as this happened yesterday, I contacted the original author and admitted my mistake. I didn't ignore the situation or try to evade responsibility. The reason I was silent all day was that I was dealing with the problem: contacting people who had interacted with me and asking them to remove posts and comments related to me so they wouldn't be disturbed. I want the criticism of me to be directed at me alone, without spreading any further. My priorities throughout were to apologize to the original author first, then respond to and resolve matters with people around me, and address other people's concerns after that. The timeline was roughly this: the original author posted a statement a little after seven. Around nine, I found out, began drafting an apology, and started dealing with the posts on my account and the account itself to reduce the impact on others. Around eleven, I sent my first apology after repeatedly editing and revising it. Then I contacted my editor and waited for them to be rested and available to reply. In the meantime, I began contacting people who had interacted with me or this book, asking them to remove related content. Finally, I issued a formal apology based on what the other party requested. Throughout this whole matter, my consideration was to minimize the impact on people connected to me and this book, apologize proactively, and resolve the problem. I hope people won't take things too far or make related speculations and personal attacks.

Of the three books, Fish Peeking, Love-Brained, and Seeing Qing, the original inspiration for Fish Peeking came from a passing urge to write a story about a sensitive, overthinking person and a gentle person offering one-sided salvation, set on a university campus. Love-Brained came earlier. It was inspired by the popular tragic romance genre at the time: two alphas, a woman seeking revenge and a man submitting to her. I changed the title only at the end. I heard that this could prevent piracy, and the original title was the text on the cover. Later, I wanted a more straightforward title and looked at many naming approaches. Then I saw a neighboring author's title and borrowed it as inspiration for the new name. The content is not the same, so please don't brand me a habitual plagiarist because of that. I'll own up to what I've done, but I won't take responsibility for what I haven't done. The inspiration for Seeing Qing came directly from two lines of poetry: a green mountain with an extra stone radical, and a mountain-guarding stone. I wanted to write a story about two people, one who loves freedom and one who has difficulty getting around, breaking up and then getting married and back together.

I'll explain the mistakes I made with Sickly Bones in more detail in the apology in the afterword, along with my reflections. These explanations are based on my admission of wrongdoing, not an attempt to excuse or conceal anything. The platform handles requests to remove VIP status together on Wednesdays, so the order of events is that I can have the book removed from VIP and the earnings refunded next Wednesday. After that, I'll include a detailed apology to my readers in this book, along with another apology to the original author, and then stop writing.

There are two parties I have wronged in this matter: the original author and my readers.

This statement will remain until the afterword is updated.

The apology won't be updated right away. I also need time to reflect on my problems during this period.

[Below is the original blurb, restored after I was reminded. I opened this page yesterday mainly to add an explanation, and I didn't thoroughly check for the omissions in my earlier conduct. I'm very sorry. I settled on the first version of the blurb below as soon as I came up with the idea. Later, I felt that my writing wasn't formal enough, so after reading the blurb for another work by the original author, I chose to learn from it. I had no intention of plagiarizing. I thought inspiration could vanish in an instant, so I wrote it down first. Later, I felt that this version didn't clearly define my female lead, and I planned to revise it into the longer format I usually use, but I never had the time. I also shouldn't have put a draft written for practice on the front page as if it were a finished work. Now that I've been reminded of the controversy, I've chosen to restore the original version. I sincerely apologize again to the original author for the inconvenience and discomfort I've caused.]

Shen Xu said, "Tan Jinzhao is a little hard to pursue. She has a shell, just like a turtle's, and she's very good at backing out."

Tan Jinzhao said:

"Shen Xu, once we're together, we can talk through anything, but please never yell at me."

"I cry very easily, but over the years I've learned how not to cry when people yell at me."

"Being with you might gradually help me let down my guard, but I don't want you to treat me that way, so I want to make this clear in advance."

"If something happens, don't be harsh with me, and don't speak too coldly. Otherwise, I'll feel like crying."

"You'll always be this gentle with me, okay?"

"I'm not good at arguing either, so don't pick on me."

I forgot how I wrote this before, so I just filled it in however.

One-on-one romance, both leads are each other's first love, university campus.

Both are 19-year-old university students.

Slow-moving, overthinking, sensitive x ?

Theme: You can decide which way the branches of your future will grow.