Good night, Boring Notes.

It has actually been a very long time since I wrote anything on paper. A physical work can reach only so many readers, and preserving it creates problems of its own. While packing for my departure, I happened across these notebooks. So I read them.

It was an evening neither moonless nor especially windy. We were still in middle school. After one week of military training, the school extended the arrangement into a full month of “military-style management + study.” That was probably my first evening self-study, though not my first self-study session. After elementary school, I often ran with a classmate to Hangzhou No. 14 High School beside Wawayu Primary School, where we would finish our homework together. We wanted to complete it as quickly as possible and spend the remaining time roaming the high-school campus, so I developed formidable homework-speedrunning skills. (As for that classmate… we were still chatting a few days ago.)

That evening, I finished the inevitably light homework of a new semester, flipped through the poetry booklet our teacher had distributed—which most students would never touch again before graduation—stared at the empty ceiling, tried to talk with my roommate, and received a glare from the teacher. With absolutely nothing left to do, I opened a notebook.

At the time, I watched a self-media series called Boring Unboxings. Most of its unboxing process consisted of absurd but genuinely funny nonsense, and for a long while it was a reliable source of happiness. So I named my notebook Boring Notes—shortened from here on to BN—and began writing about my day. I even added a stick-figure drawing of myself standing at attention during military training. (Wow, we really did have that little homework…)

That was also when I invented a pen name for myself: “Zhuge Tianyao.” Zhuge Liang was my favorite historical figure. “Tian” came from my real name. “Yao” suggested the stars while also standing for obsidian. (Yes, the Minecraft block.) I had no idea that Honor of Kings, a game I had spent years pretending to understand without ever playing, would later introduce a hero called Dongfang Yao. For ages afterward, everyone assumed I had chosen such a chuunibyou name because I was an Honor of Kings addict.

Using the five colors available to me—black, blue, red, green, and pencil—I decorated a name in several different typefaces. (No typo there. I was rather artistic at the time.) Then, having confidently signed the great name “Zhuge Tianyao,” I launched Boring Notes in all its serialized glory!

BN always had a small circle of readers. Most were classmates beside me, looking for entertainment between lessons and something to laugh about for comfort. The earliest reader remains one of my closest friends. Inspired by me, he took the name “Sima Zhaobai” and began his own All-Purpose Notebook. I had the honor of reading it; his prose was far better than mine. (But I am still the senior here, hahaha.) There was also a classmate who shared his name with a celebrity—I hope he sees this Moment. When I became lost and uncertain about writing, he declared without hesitation: “If you stop, what are we supposed to read?” That carried me across the great chasm from volume two to volume three. (Better than a certain game company that cannot count to three.) And then there was the only reader who followed every update throughout my high-school years. Together we invented all manner of impossible, ridiculous ideas. I still have not even delivered his birthday present…

The contents of BN covered everything under heaven. Sometimes it was simply a notebook, used for drafts or records. More often, it became a “demiplane” in which I could release my imagination.

During that first military training, the instructor responsible for our third row used the codename “Lynx.” As we stood at attention beneath the blazing sun, he joked that anyone whose hands failed to press tightly against their sides belonged to the “Crotch-Covering Sect.” He therefore became, by perfectly legitimate succession, the sect’s founding master. (What part of that was legitimate? Hey!) Afterward, through various bits performed directly in front of our instructors, we acquired a second- and third-generation master. The second master later became my cycling companion on the way to and from school; we even visited the old campus together last time.

I began planning a Constructed History of the Crotch-Covering Sect, determined to preserve the funniest stories of military training in the most absurd and chuunibyou way possible. Thus our sect acquired its “Eight Artifacts of Every Direction”—the forbidden items that had earned classmates disciplinary action—and its “Laws of Succession.” I became “technical support,” then ascended to the seat of fourth-generation master. Reading it today makes my toes curl hard enough to excavate a three-bedroom apartment, yet those words truly hold all the laughter of that period.

Later, like most middle-school students, I began writing novels. Time was limited and I loved studying. (Did I?) Most stories never became more than openings on paper. Some expanded into “setting bibles” stored in Notes; others became childhood memories for my two younger brothers through my performances as a storyteller.

I still remember their names. Legends of the Celestial Realm, inspired by The Adventures of Lolo and my earliest experiences in Minecraft. (Even the title came from a famous Minecraft map.) Twilight Apocalypse, born from flying everywhere through the enormous Twilight Forest mod because I was too afraid to play Survival. The First Light of Dawn, based on my shallow experience with an RPG server. Beneath the Starry Sky, inspired by a survival map and stitched together with just a tiny billion elements from Soul Land and Yueying Yancie’s video series Beneath the Calamity. (When is episode four coming?!) And Star Ruins: I read too much science fiction, including The Three-Body Problem, decided to write science fiction myself, and still ended up under the influence of The Mysterious Courier Family, producing an all-out superpower brawl.

Only fragments of these stories appear in BN, but opening any one of them leads into another very long tale.

However—and yes, only now do we reach the point—none of the above was the main content of Boring Notes.

Sometimes a joke needs cross-talk, or even an entire sketch, rather than one person delivering stand-up. Inspired by the “Cast Meeting” afterword in The Mysterious Courier Family, I split myself on the spot into n personalities and began writing nonsense in dialogue form. Naming characters, a problem that had tormented me throughout my novels, suddenly became trivial. Their names were simply A, B, C, D, E, and F. Their personalities emerged naturally as I wrote them again and again.

A was the furious older brother. Like the readers demanding updates in Year Hare Affair, he might turn the author into soup. B played the straight man, like the protagonist of One Hundred Thousand Bad Jokes, and specialized in trading lines with A. C was the intelligent but perpetually unhappy one. He had very little presence, and A and B constantly stole his scenes. D was the absent-minded fool who occasionally revealed great wisdom, though he did not receive many scenes either. E was a certain Zhaobai’s incarnation within BN: sometimes role-played by me, sometimes written by the man himself. F was A’s younger sister, carrying every fantasy I ever had about wanting a little sister. She was calmer and more mature than her brother and possessed legendary martial arts worthy of a hidden grandmaster.

A and F came directly from Legend of the Guardians, a story I wrote in elementary school after a sudden explosion of inspiration from the Great Wall Guards in Honor of Kings. (There is the callback.) Yes, it shared a title with the Guardians of Ga’Hoole film. Back then, A was the male protagonist Xu and F was his sister Yin. Their father, Yan, served as a main force against the demons and died in battle; their mother died giving birth to Yin. (The phrase “died in childbirth” kept Zhaobai laughing at me for an entire semester…) Some of this appeared near the end of Boring Notes 2.

The outline later merged with the classmates from my elementary-school walking-home group and became the “Survivors’ Alliance.” Even now, one person’s summons will occasionally bring us together. Our fixed meeting point is the McDonald’s tucked into a corner of West Lake Intime. (Sadly, I missed the last gathering because I was still in Malaysia… when will the next one be?)

Oh, and the cast also included the indispensable [Narrator]. Yes, his dialogue came with square brackets. Early on he attempted absolute neutrality; by the end, he too had joined the grand army dedicated to persecuting the author. (Do I have masochistic tendencies? Why else would I split off this many Mortises to replace me?)

The overall structure of Boring Notes greatly resembled Journey to the West Through Jokes, another work by the author of The Mysterious Courier Family. Heaven alone knows how deeply that series affected elementary-school me… Innocent little me grew up a great deal after listening to a certain deskmate suppress his laughter while attempting an explanation. Please allow me to apologize retroactively! The main text wandered carelessly from joke to joke, then the ending suddenly turned serious and chuunibyou. The contrast created solemnity—and the solemnity created another joke.

What a coincidence: BN contained its own Journey to the West: A New Adaptation, the only work serialized and completed entirely within its pages. I still believe that counting “century-egg and pork congee” among the Four Great Continents was an act of genius. So was the ending: after all his disciples had left him (meaning: died), Tang Sanzang faced the gods and Buddhas demanding, “Have you attained enlightenment?” His answer was “Wukong, Wuneng, Wujing”—the names of his disciples, each beginning with Wu, “awakening.” Some material was copied directly from Journey Through Jokes, but most of the jokes were original, and even now they are almost impossible for me to read with a straight face.

After writing all that, it was time for an ending.

Normally, Boring Notes would conclude with an enormous free-for-all like Ultra Galaxy Fight. Unfortunately, without Sakamoto directing the action, a high-quality battle scene was difficult to achieve. (Was there ever a real battle scene? Hey.) Then everyone would shout, “That’s a wrap!” and pose for a group photo. Volume two ended during the pandemic, so its photo combined robots with pictures of everyone’s faces, inspired by the unusual graduation photos appearing in the news at the time.

The ending also contained a puzzle. Whoever solved it first would receive a “generous” reward from Zhuge Tianyao, though nobody appears ever to have claimed one. Then another cycle would begin: an absurdly long opening windup reviewing the past, nonsense and assorted stories through the middle, and an obligatory final battle! Then everybody makes dumplings! (Applause.)

Gradually, however, I wrote less and less.

It was not because I could not find the notebooks—BN was required equipment on every long journey. Nor was it because I lacked free time—my parents constantly complained that I had too much of it. (Then when I actually joined a Puzzle Hunt, they were unhappy about that too.)

Part of the reason may be that my truly “boring” hours became rarer. Once I began Omnibus, especially, nearly all my literary energy went into essays. Those filled three entire physical notebooks before I moved online and began posting to the Telegram channel “Morning Star Studio.” You are welcome to visit @morningstar_high!

Another reason may simply have been my hunger for readers. Writing a private diary in a notebook for my future self was no longer enough. I wanted immediate feedback. I wanted recognition.

And so I began writing Sojourner’s Diary.

Wow. I looked away for one moment and wrote all of this. It feels as though I have reviewed the entire first half of my life, haha.

I have been fortunate. There have always been readers and companions beside me, willing to listen. No matter how nerdy my writing becomes, someone is still willing to read it—and to demand an update when, for one reason or another, I fail to publish on time.

I am truly grateful to every person who has left a mark on the notebook of my life: those I mentioned anonymously, those I accidentally forgot to mention, and those who never needed to be mentioned.

Above all, I give thanks to the final Author of this notebook.

That Author is not me, but the Lord in heaven.