The sixth part is so short that there's not much to summarize. Let's mainly talk about the structure.

This is a fairly typical structure of two lines running in parallel and converging in the end. However, with the help of the "Mind Corridor" as a medium, they are integrated into the experiences of the same person, rather than constantly switching between two teams.

The advantage of writing in this way is that the key information needed for one line can be placed in the other line, creating a sense of impact, shock, and astonishment when they converge.

To be honest, when naming the sixth part "Astonishment," the most difficult thing was how to astonish people. Failure to achieve this effect would mean that this part was not well written.

In the era of chapter comments, many friends like to use their imagination, and the subsequent plot is often guessed. The guessed plot will inevitably fail to create a sense of astonishment.

Forced twists, sudden twists without any foreshadowing, will cause the story to collapse ninety percent of the time. Once the foundation of the plot is lost, it can only be maintained by imagination and further sudden twists, like a derailed train, with very few good endings.

So, telling stories is sometimes a battle of wits with the readers. Either bury the clues deeply, be good at hiding them, or dare to do things that readers dare not guess, and think about the development after doing them.

According to my personal experience, there are three ways to hide mysteries and achieve a shocking or astonishing effect.

The first is to put the clues in seemingly irrelevant descriptions, in the details, hidden deep, and then connect them all together.

The second is to constantly mislead everyone in another direction, making them ignore some important hints.

The third is to hide the key points in another line, and then explode when the two lines merge in the end.

This time I used the third method because the fact that the Big Boss was the Controller of Fate, although also unexpected, was guessed by many friends, failing to achieve the astonishing effect I wanted. So I needed to turn it a little more, drag it a little more. At this time, it's quite difficult to pull out something that readers can't guess from the original line, so I can only consider merging, intersecting, and exploding another line.

Okay, I'm quite satisfied with this part. Both the volume title and the volume preface are presented in the meaning. The seventh part is called "Fantasy," derived from Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastique."

According to惯例(guanli, convention), the next part will be a longer one, so I'll take a three-and-a-half-day break after this part is finished, starting from this afternoon (yesterday evening was an advance update, not an extra update, haha).

That is to say, on February 3rd, the third day of the Lunar New Year, I will resume updating.

Originally, I would take another ten days of leave during the Spring Festival as usual to spend time with my family, but, being in Hangzhou, because of the online car-hailing I took, the previous passenger was a close contact, and I am now in centralized quarantine, sad. Since I'm idle anyway, let's update normally. After the quarantine is over, I'll find an opportunity to update less frequently for a while to spend time with my family and make up for the lack of Chinese New Year.

Yeah, that's roughly the arrangement. Of course, everything is uncertain and I can't guarantee it. What if I get infected and sent for treatment, right?

Finally, I wish you all a Happy New Year's Eve, a Happy Spring Festival, may the year of the Tiger bring you vigor, and may everything go your way!