Chapter 575 Closing Remarks
As I typed the last word on the keyboard, I felt a mixture of emotions.
While I breathed a sigh of relief, a feeling of loss came over me.
After taking a look, I was shocked to find that this book has a total of more than 1.2 million words.
I never thought I would write such a long novel.
I have never responded to some comments, but I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts.
When I wrote this book, my thoughts were simple.
It is to integrate the delicious food in life into the novel and show the food culture to readers through warm and pleasant stories.
After deciding on the character and background of the heroine and her family, I started writing.
I didn’t think about much else, I just wrote about food.
Although the theme seems to be food, I actually want to express the cultural and historical background hidden behind the food.
In my opinion, delicacies are not just food, there is a lot of cultural history and folk heritage behind them.
In fact, according to the original plan, this novel was going to be about a lot of delicious food.
If I only write about food, I can write until the end of time.
At least this book will cover all four seasons, with specific foods from each season and festival taking turns.
But for various reasons, I decided to end this novel at this time.
Don’t be sad if you are reluctant to put down this book. I will make up for some of the plots that were not developed in the main text in the extra chapters.
Here are my responses to the novel readers’ comments:
1. About the female lead CP
From the beginning to the end of writing this novel, people have been asking me whether the heroine has a CP.
It’s not that I don’t want to answer, but that I don’t know the answer.
When I first started thinking about the novel, I wanted to give the heroine an official partner.
But as I was writing, I suddenly didn’t know what kind of official match to give the heroine.
I used to hear people say that when authors write novels, they would put themselves into the role of the protagonist. I don’t know why, but as I wrote, I automatically put myself into the role of the old mother.
Some of the male characters seemed pretty good, but when I thought about having them be the official partner of the female lead, I suddenly could find many flaws in them.
This is what being a parent must feel like.
Worrying that someone with bad intentions will appear around the child and worrying that the child will be too far away from me.
I worry that my child won’t grow up, and I also worry that my child grows too fast.
Worry that the children are not having a good life.
I really can’t imagine how difficult a mother-in-law I would become if I really gave birth to a daughter.
╮（╯＿╰）╭
In this way, the worried old mother was picky and left the heroine single until the end.
The heroine will have a special story, and I should be able to arrange a more reliable official match for her by then.
If you insist on not having a CP, you can skip the heroine's extra story and just watch others'.
Second, why is the computer science major so good at cooking?
Some people questioned why the heroine, who was obviously a computer major, could cook so many delicious foods and was even better than a chef.
In fact, the heroine’s character has a prototype. The computer girl can also be a foodie who can eat and cook.
Maybe a chef can only cook the dishes he is good at, but foodies can’t help themselves and want to try everything.
What major you study does not conflict with being good at cooking.
Maybe this foodie is just stubborn and must thoroughly understand the food he likes and try every possible way to reproduce it perfectly.
3. Do you get hungry when writing novels?
A reader asked me if I felt hungry or greedy when writing novels.
The answer is no, hahaha.
Because most of the time, whatever the protagonists were eating, I was either eating at the same time or had just finished eating.
Or maybe it's the food I usually eat.
Only food tasting written in this way can be the most authentic.
4. About the food in the novel
I often see readers asking why the book mostly writes about Southern cuisine, especially Cantonese cuisine.
Why is there so little northern food?
It's very simple, because the author is from Guangdong.
A novelist cannot create a world beyond his own cognition, and it is also difficult for him to write well about food that he has never seen or tasted.
There are also many delicious foods in the north, but I prefer to start writing about the food that is familiar to me.
5. About the various ingredients in the book
At first, I was quite happy writing.
Sometimes when I don’t have time, I will think about the plot on the high-speed train or plane, and then write it down.
Start writing as soon as you get home or to the hotel.
But slowly, I started to feel lost, and even fell into a misunderstanding that new authors may encounter. (If there are new authors reading this, I hope you can avoid this.)
For a time, the book attracted many different types of readers.
Even though I emphasized at the beginning that this was a fictional story, there were still people who gave it bad reviews, saying that my writing was fake and lacked logic.
For example, beef was not allowed in ancient times, there was no such sauce or that sauce, and butter and gelatin were impossible in ancient times...
Some even say that even the emperor in ancient times could not eat live seafood, let alone other people.
(￣▽￣)"
In fact, I really want to say that among so many dynasties, not every capital was located inland.
Even inland, the emperor could eat live seafood if he wanted.
Some people were afraid that I wouldn't see it, so they went to the author's post and criticized me for not being rigorous enough and being fake.
I was surprised when I saw those comments.
Shouldn't we read fictional novels for their logic? Why should we look for historical logic in the book?
Even though they treated it as a historical novel, they did not use any authoritative documents to support their arguments.
The basis for those people's denial is that they think it is impossible.
In fact, many readers believe that various mushrooms and sauces that were introduced to my country later have already existed in ancient times.
Take for example curry sauce and enoki mushrooms, which some people have emphasized as being recent inventions.
In fact, as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, it had been introduced as a spice and colorant, but no one made it into curry sauce.
The "Records of the Island Barbarians" also records that Quanzhou maritime merchants imported berberine, cinnamon, cardamom, pine nuts, coconut and jasmine from the Arab world as medicinal plants and food seasonings.
The cultivation and consumption of Flammulina velutipes has a long history. The edible value, medicinal value and cultivation methods of Flammulina velutipes have long been recorded in "Shennong's Herbal Classic", "Book of Agriculture" and "Four Seasons Compendium".
It just hasn’t been promoted on a large scale.
There are many more like this.
Besides, eating beef was not completely prohibited in ancient my country.
Beef can even be bought and sold, but ordinary people are not allowed to slaughter it privately.
Take the record in "Song History, Volume 150" as an example: "Please follow the instructions of the fifth year of Chongning (1106) to buy 400,000 ox horns and 100,000 catties of tendons from all over the country."
What this means is that in the fifth year of Chongning during the reign of Emperor Huizong, the military purchased 400,000 ox horns and 100,000 kilograms of beef tendons at one time in order to make bows and arrows.
400,000 horns require the slaughter of 200,000 cows. The horns and tendons are bought and used to make bows and arrows. So what happens to the remaining beef?
It can't be possible that the seller digested it himself or disposed of it harmlessly, right?
It has definitely flowed into the market.
At that time, some local state governments even set up a beef tax in order to increase revenue.
In other words, after paying a certain amount of tax, you can kill cattle and eat meat.
Why do some people always think that the powerful and wealthy heroine's family can't eat anything? ?
While I was shocked, I began to emphasize that most delicacies do not require any high-tech technology at all. As long as you have the ingredients and know how to cook them, you can make them.
I also wrote in detail in the book about how to make various sauces and ingredients, and emphasized that they should be authentic and reproducible.
At this time, a reader caught up with the latest chapter, clicked on the request for more updates, and then gave a bad review.
They said my whole novel was a recipe and they couldn’t read it at all.
I felt so upset after watching it that I even had a nightmare that day.
( ╯□╰ )
New authors, you must take this as a warning.
When writing a novel, you really can't be too serious.
Otherwise you will tire yourself out and might even get a bunch of bad reviews.
6. About the Imperial Edict
There are several places in the text about the beginning of the imperial edict. Some readers have always said that the beginning must be "The Emperor, by the Mandate of Heaven, decrees that" and not writing it like this is uncultured.
I, with my rebellious nature, said that you must put the imperial edict in front of me.
Otherwise I will never admit that you are right.
There have always been readers who take what they see on marketing accounts or in other novels as gospel truth, and use these to find faults in my novels.
In order to verify the authenticity, I went to the Imperial Edict Museum and a certain Palace Museum to look for pictures.
There are two types, one without the words "奉天承运" and one with it.
The imperial edict in this book will be based on this picture. (Attached here is the picture)
As a side note, it was only after I found the Imperial Edict Museum that I learned that there were actually many imperial edict plaques in ancient times.
The same is "奉".
Then start another column - "Tian Cheng Yun"
Another column - "The Emperor decrees..."
Regarding the character "", it is a variant of "委".
I couldn't find this word in Xinhua Dictionary, so I looked it up in Han Dian. But it didn't show up when I typed it out, I only saw a question mark, so I used "委" instead.
7. About foodies
While novel readers are selecting works, different works are actually selecting different readers.
I think I will definitely be able to find a group of foodie babies through this book.
It’s so fun to share eating and drinking experiences with everyone.
As it turned out, it really attracted a group of very cute and gentle foodie babies.
To all the foodie babies who have seen this, I want to say that this book exists because of you.
When I wanted to give up on this book countless times, you kept me going.
In February, something happened and I was in a very bad state.
I seem to still exist in this world, but also seem to no longer exist.
I feel light-headed every day and fail to get down to earth.
Even though I was obviously depressed, I had to write a lighthearted and happy story.
I feel torn and uncomfortable.
At that point, I wanted to give up on the novel.
Updates are almost sporadic.
One day, I suddenly realized that most of my readers were quietly waiting for my updates, and some would urge them to update as soon as I updated.
Even those who can’t stand the frequency of my updates just leave quietly without cursing.
During that time, I kept paying attention to the backstage and became familiar with the IDs of many people there.
Some people would urge me to update my work every day, some would comment from time to time, some would insist on correcting my typos and grammatical errors, and some would send me gifts every day.
The ID of one of the readers’ babies has no words on it, just a string of numbers, ending with 369.
She doesn't post comments or ask for updates, but she gives me a flower every day.
During that time, I forced myself to keep writing almost every day with the mentality of "as long as there are still people who want to read what I write, I have to finish it."
Now that I have started, I have to write a good ending.
And so I managed to hold on until spring.
The characters in this novel also saw spring.
Sometimes, even one positive feedback from a reader can make an author who was about to give up finish the book seriously.
Thank you to every reader who read this novel carefully.
8. The ratio of plot and food in the book
Many readers have mentioned that the ratio of the plot to the food in the book is 2:8.
I haven't calculated this ratio, but my purpose was very clear when I wrote this novel, which was to introduce delicious food.
I think of it as a food guide.
At least, it is possible in Guangdong.
When writing this novel, I repeatedly emphasized that the food and taste in the book are real.
Some people think I am exaggerating, most likely because they did not eat authentic food.
My advice is to only eat at restaurants or brands recommended by locals, so you won’t be easily ruined.
Finally, I want to say to all the babies -
Eat well and love yourself well.
Live well.
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