Congratulations Misbah on a growing and successful journey! It baffles me about HP how they eliminated comments and yours is the second story I’ve heard of and how you ended up choosing medium.
Glad you’re hear!

I’m no guru nor expert, but I’m relatively certain your read time does not include comments. There’s a glitch where at times the comments are posted as stories and medium calls them stories and gives option to publish to feed, but that is not metered.

That’s my take!

Keep up the great job! Thanks for sharing!!