Chapter Text
Honestly, he set out to write A Dragon’s Treasure with less than sincere intentions.
After a year of publishing chapters, he still cringed at his writing, the lewd descriptions and nothingburger story were far from what he preferred creating. But at least it made money.
Ren had been low on funds, wanting to write another story he treasured just as much as his first, but everything in his life was so expensive—emotionally and financially— so he took the easy way out.
Ren’s first novel had been successful at the start, but people lost interest in it because it wasn’t living up to expectations. His audience had said the main character was too perfect, and that his relationship with his close friends, the other main characters supposed to be his comrades, seemed one-sided.
(He was also aware that people were frustrated with him for not giving the main character any love interests, considering the fans demanded that he get with any woman he interacted with.)
Other readers, however, said that the plot was compelling, with how intricate it was. The first stream of forum comments he received following his chapter publishing, he cried. After getting a payout from the first edition’s sales, he cried harder.
This time, he had used a very different plot, but with the same characters. There was now a clear difference: this novel, unlike his last one, was geared towards female audiences. His first novel hadn’t been aimed at them, as it was a romanceless Wuxia, but the female fanbase’s support (and shipping) had been the foundation to his good fortune at the beginning. He had felt nothing but grateful to them.
That’s why, in this next novel, he created something he had never thought he’d be writing: romance.
The first novel, called Shape of the Clouds, had been a story about a group of friends saving their continent, the Xianzhou Alliance. This group was dubbed the High-Cloud Quintet, with the main character of his story being Dan Feng, a powerful Dragon Lord who came from a race of beings called the Vidyadhara.
The rest of the Quintet consisted of Dan Feng’s closest companions, a mortal forgemaster named Yingxing; Jingliu, a blind swordsmaster who had allied herself with Dan Feng following the war; Jingliu’s nephew and disciple, Jing Yuan; and a Nameless traveler who joined after returning to Xianzhou, Baiheng.
The five of them fought to save their home from the rise of the creatures of Abundance, monsters arriving from the Abyss, and discovered a dark secret of the Alliance: a cult called the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus orchestrated the chaos, as their usage of dead citizens in order to revive their god, Yaoshi, and created those abominations.
Ren made his new story a loose rip-off of Shape of the Clouds with a more romantic touch. For the new story, he slightly sidelined the rest of the High-Cloud Quintet and made sure to swap away any emotional scene of characters with Dan Feng to center around only Dan Feng and the female lead, Zhang Hua, regardless of the subject.
He also made the plot revolving around the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus very vague in order to get to Zhang Hua and Dan Feng’s victory quicker— and to rid the story of its major angst points.
In the original novel, Yingxing got kidnapped by the Disciples and the torture he had experienced in that week changed both him and the group’s dynamic completely. Originally, Yingxing had woken up without the ability to feel in his fingers, and as a meticulous craftsman, it sent him into a panic and later triggered his attempt to kill himself. While he did recover, it had been a major part in the rest of the Quintet’s character development, with the knowledge that, while a week was nothing to them in the grand scheme of things, it was something Yingxing could never get back.
In his rip-off, Ren turned Yingxing into a less capable individual— a weak link in the group, who Dan Feng wasn’t as worried about— and a minor antagonist following his kidnapping by the Disciples. He did ease up the torture, where it was more about them turning him against the Quintet than holding him captive. Dan Feng did not hesitate to obliterate him when he tried to kill Zhang Hua in a fit of rage following his week of captivity.
Readers never liked Yingxing in the novel, so the quick murder at the hands of Dan Feng was quickly brushed aside. The High-Cloud Quintet had simply gained a better member, Zhang Hua.
Sorry, Yingxing.
And sorry to his old fans, who expressed consistent disappointment with him as he attempted to further line his pockets with digital cash. ColdDragonYoung, his first commentor, had him blocked now.
To fans of his new novel, Dan Feng was a cold— well no, Ren had never even intended to have him come off like that— and aloof dragon who could not find a reason to continue being the leader of his people, the Vidyadhara, during this time of war. He didn’t understand why only he had to suffer a burden he did not choose, cursing his past lives for not doing anything useful.
Zhang Hua was the daughter of an Arbiter-General, eager to help the famed High-Cloud Quintet with her talents of healing and strategy, only to be met with Dan Feng’s unenthused demeanor along with the stiff formality of the rest during their first collaboration for the war. She did manage to pique Dan Feng’s interest in that first meeting, as she laid into him about the upcoming battle. Fans often described it with ‘He fell first and harder’ or ‘She really brought light back to his life’. Ren leaned into the horrible new characterization of his favorite character— yes, Dan Feng, his own creation was his favorite— to keep making money.
So, as the story went on, Dan Feng became possessive, clingy, and increasingly… lustful. When he hit the relationship arc, Ren began writing the detailed sex scenes in solemn embarrassment. He still had Kafka blocked after she loudly read his notes for the scenes in her voice messages.
Yes, Dan Feng was a dragon. Yes, he had two of them. Yes, he could transform. Yes, his tail could pick just about anything up.
What kept his apartment ceiling over his head was slop.
There was now no proper development following any victory, smut every few chapters because they caused sales to repeak, and constant mischaracterization of his characters to create popular cliches that wouldn’t happen otherwise because those sold.
And, now— he was Yingxing, the same character he sidelined and turned into a minor antagonist to get Dan Feng to realize his feelings for Zhang Hua.