Hello, I felt the need to reach out to you in the flurry of activity that followed your translation as a kind of response, I suppose. First things first though, I would just like to say that I am from ExR, but am in no way here to speak on their behalf. In fact, I have not even seeked permission from them prior to sending this, only to ask for forgiveness afterwards. Instead, I will be speaking on behalf of myself alone, as a fellow translator and fan of Founder of Diabolism/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/魔道祖师. If the fact that I am from ExR in any way discourages you from reading this, please feel free to overlook either that fact or this message, and I hope you will continue contributing to the Chinese bl community as we do not garner as much attention as Japanese circles do. Which is a shame, because I'd say that we have quite a lot to offer to the western communities.

This monopoly you speak of does, unfortunately, exist. I don't know if you are involved in the Japanese scanlating community (either as a scanlator or as a reader), but roughly a month ago there was a series of what some like to call 'scanlator drama', primarily concerned with groups poaching projects off of other groups. I personally think that your pastebin entry is simultaneously completely right and wrong in this regard - jealousy, discouragement, viewer-stealing and ad revenue are definitely factors in some cases, as unfortunate it may be. I certainly know of cases where one group would poach a chapter that they know for a fact another group is in the process of scanlating/translating simply for petty revenge. This behaviour is expectedly frowned upon by both groups and fans. On the other end of the spectrum, though, is the logical reason (and textbook answer given by any group in situations like this) why poaching/redundancy is considered bad: there is simply no need for two copies of the same text when one party can spend their time on another project. Perhaps one can argue that fans should be given the right to choose between two editions, but wouldn't you agree that having twice the amount of content is superior to having the same content with minor differences? In the end, it still is the same source material being adapted. Obviously, there are groups who claim that this is the reason when in reality they just want to monopolise the project, but that does not invalidate this argument in any way. I will admit here that I do not fully agree with some of the actions taken by ExR in response to situations such as this, but who am I to say? ExR is a very efficient group without my input, and if their current system of dealing with unsavoury situations allows them to remain that way I am more than willing to condone it and even defend it as part of the group as I believe they are the best people for the job. Your point with being an artist is a good one that would certainly apply to some, but art and text are inherently vastly different mediums. A piece of art is, on average, looked at for perhaps a few seconds, perhaps more if one wishes to admire it more or to study its composition. Text, on the other hand, takes the reader on a journey that could last anywhere from minutes to years, and its power lies only partially in its choice of words and mostly in the overreaching plot. This is only my personal opinion, but in this case the end justifies the means; if the end result is that the community receives more translated material, it is a win-win situation for both parties and fans alike.

But the pressing concern is still there - why you? Why doesn't ExR step aside and work on another project? Please forgive me for this following paragraph, as my intent was never to launch a personal attack. Just to make it clear, I am not the translator of FoD at ExR. I realise that this has little credibility, but unfortunately my word is all I can give you, because I also realise that it is possible (and rather simple) to ask another member to provide evidence as them as I write this. It is to my personal opinion that ExR are producing a better translation of FoD. The first and most forefront reason is that ExR has bought and is translating the revised version. This version includes both minor and major changes to the text, and allows the translator to gain access to exclusive content such as smut that cannot be posted publicly due to censorship and extra chapters that take place outside of the main story. The second reason is that ExR is able to produce chapters at a very fast rate and at comparatively high quality. The longest time taken between chapters according to Novel Updates is nine days, and that is chapter 9, the chapter with the most characters (5000+ compared to the 3000+ of previous chapters) until chapter 18 (9000+). The quality of each chapter is much harder to compare as everyone may have different perceptions, but I have always regarded the ExR version of FoD to be one of the best Chinese translations of any novel. Perhaps not as refined as WuxiaWorld, but they are one of, if not the, best translation groups around. In fact, the reason I joined ExR in the first place was because of their FoD translation. I cannot predict your update schedule, but I have faith in ExR's. The reason I may seem narrow-minded and unwilling to give new things a chance is simply because there has been too many cases where a group takes over a project and either neglects it or produces it at a slower pace than before. Perhaps you will update twice a day should you continue, and that would indeed be my loss; so far, though, I am willing to trust ExR to keep up its content output. I too am a fan of FoD and was very ecstatic at having a good translation of my favourite novel so that more people are exposed to it. I guess the point of this paragraph is that to me, it's not that ExR was there first; it's because that I have genuinely placed my faith in ExR to produce a better FoD translation. And so far, they have.

If you've read this far (or just scrolled here), thank you. (Sorry, I had to.) Seriously though, thank you very much for reading this. I too know the struggle of being more fluent in English than Chinese, and I'm very sorry that your hard work couldn't be shared with the rest of the community. If there's one thing you take away from this, I'd like it to be that no matter what, please don't give up on translating just because of this. Chinese is a lot less mainstream and receives a lot less attention than Japanese, and as I mentioned before, we need every person we can get to spread this across language barriers.

I hope that this situation will be able to end on a positive note.