Waiting instead of paying

You do not have to buy anything to keep reading. Most locked chapters open by themselves after a wait, and the app shows the countdown on the chapter.

The wait runs whether the app is open or not, so you can start it and come back tomorrow. Stones are the way to skip it, not the only way through.

The newest chapters of a book still being written are the exception; those stay locked longer, because a serial that gives its latest chapter away for free within a day is a serial nobody can afford to write.