Ultimate Freedom

Recently, while reviewing and systematizing my publishing workflow—distilling the technical principles of single-device full-stack production and the concept of living publishing—I arrived at a clearer statement of my publishing philosophy: to let books, like software, become living works—evolving, developing, and keeping pace with their time.

Why do I work this way? Why have I insisted on developing a streamlined process for publishing and updating, and then practiced and refined it continuously for eight years?

For freedom.

Think freely, write freely, publish freely—this is the life I seek.

Amazon、Apple、Google、Kobo

My trilogy One Hundred Years of Sinking gives the term “sinking” a new meaning: the collapse of a civilization.

In twentieth-century China, not only did the territory fall under Communist rule; the social foundation—the self-governing, self-sustaining rural order—was also destroyed. Through that destruction, a historical continuity spanning thousands of years, together with its culture, social structures, moral codes, rites, and norms of conduct, was severed at the root. This is a deeper sense of “sinking”: the collapse of an entire civilization—far more difficult to reverse than the loss of territory to barbarian forces.

The trilogy traces this process step by step, not by piling up historical events, but by portraying fully realized individuals whose lives, separations, losses, and encounters with death unfold within the gradual destruction of a civilization, all built upon a precise historical framework.

A work of this kind can only be written freely in a free world. Before I began writing, I had already decided to disregard the mainland Chinese market entirely. I wanted to speak without restraint, never allowing my thoughts to be confined by censorship or my words to be constrained by imposed limits.

The trilogy—three volumes in six books, totaling over 1.2 million words—was completed according to this principle. I did not wish for any publisher to alter it, not even by a single word. I wanted my work to be published exactly as I intended.

Moreover, with a work of this scale, textual adjustments are inevitable after publication. If a book is released and I can see errors or imperfections but have no means to correct them, then I am not free.

For this reason, from the very first day of publication, I set a goal: my books must not only be easy to publish and release, but also capable of being revised at any time—quickly, directly, and without obstruction.

Thus emerged my single-device, full-stack living publishing workflow. Single-device, full-stack production ensures that my work is published in its original form, entirely according to my will. Living publishing allows the work to remain dynamic—continuously refined, updated, and perfected.

Through this technical practice, my pursuit of freedom—of thought, of writing, of publication, and of revision—has taken concrete form.

The writing, production, and distribution of my work depend on no external party—no publishing house, no single sales platform. Beyond that, I do not rely on any particular word-processing software. Even if Word or Pages were to vanish, I could immediately reconstruct my books from plain text and images in a new environment.

The taste of freedom is the most wonderful taste in the world.