“Little brother, can Third Sister…”
“Little brother, whether Third Sister can marry freely depends on you, please help me.”
In the wealthy families of Hong Kong at the time, many girls were “spoiled”, studying and going to school just to marry a good husband, so that they would have something in common after marriage. However, the rules of the He family were a little different.
If you can’t suceed before the age of 14, no matter you are a boy or a girl, you have to stay and marry. The family would continue to support you, but don’t expect anything more. And if you break out, it would be a completely different situation, and you can decide both career and marriage.
He Chengjue was able to marry Li Yufeng by taking advantage of this rule, and in order to marry her he managed to transform a prodigal son into a promising young man (although he later turned back into a playboy).
His third sister started filming TV dramas when she was in college, just for the right to “freely choose marriage”.
She was a new director with little experience. Even if she spent money to accumulate experience of failure for her first film, her mentor, Mrs. Mei, was a famous director in Hong Kong. Teacher Mei is a woman. She originally studied opera, and later made dramas and movies. Because she is very talented and hardworking, she was now a household name as a director.
“’Master Teacher isn’t finished yet, why did you choose this, Third Sister? Aren’t you worried that the later parts won’t be well drawn and you won’t be able to read them?” For a comic that doesn’t even have an ending, wasn’t she worried that there would be a big surprise at the end?
His cousin’s face suddenly showed an intoxicated expression that was unique to a fangirl: “No, how can Gu Pansheng’s drawings not be good-looking? I, who never read comics before, also like “Master Teacher” very much. Filming a TV series takes so long, we can draw while filming, isn’t it just right?”
“If we want to film it, will you be the main director, or will Professor Mei be the main one?”
Seeing An Yinong’s expression, the cousin knew there was a play: “Mrs. Mei will shoot, and I will learn from the side. Don’t worry, I will find a good screenwriter, photographer and actor.”
It was equivalent to a film used for field teaching. Professor Mei had not made a film for a long time since she got older. If it was this model…
“Third sister, actually, I am the agent for the copyrights of both of you. So, can I meet with Professor Mei and have a good talk? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but you know that Yinong and Gu Pan are the two most profitable cartoonists under me. If the TV series is not well made, it will really affect their reputation.”
His cousin was overjoyed, and really did something good: “Okay, I’ll help you contact Professor Mei. But, little brother.”
She came closer: “Can I meet Gu Pansheng once?”
“Third sister,” An Yinong said thoughtfully, “You don’t have to like the hen that lays the egg just because you like an egg. Gu Pan is younger than you and very shy. If you wanted to meet her, you wouldn’t have entrusted me to be responsible for the copyright issue.”
“You are so petty. I am not the kind of bold girl who would play with ‘boys’ hearts.”
At a family gathering, there was actually a TV copyright. Although the cousin’s ability was average, she could use the He family’s film and television resources, and with Director Mei in charge, An Yinong was very optimistic. Of course, such a good thing should be shared with my dear boyfriend who has a temporary license plate.
“Dad, I’m going to go get something.”
“What’s not here? Do you want to go back and get it?” He Chengjue, who was drawing cards, turned his head and saw An Yinong’s back as he ran out. “This kid.”
The cousin from his aunt’s house across the street couldn’t help but say, “Tong seems to have grown up a lot, but cousin, don’t spoil the child too much. Boys are inexperienced and have no future.”
He Chengjue was fine, but his aunt was very unhappy at the time. She played a card: “Atong is our youngest child. We wanted him not to experience other things, but he was too successful. He has made a small magazine company that was almost bankrupt become very successful.
“I originally wanted him to know how difficult life is and learn the truth by losing some money. Who knew that he would make money and now is planning to build branches abroad. Ah, that kid, was he born with the ability to do business?”
“Is it true?” A cousin curled her lips and played a card.
“Hu!” The aunt who sat down picked up the card, “Plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum, spring, summer, autumn and winter, Eight Immortals crossing the sea, give me money, give me money.”
Everyone exclaimed: “Eighty-eight?”
An Yinong drove back to the villa at lightning speed, entered through the front door, exited through the back door, and took a detour to the next door.
During the Chinese New Year, Xie Jiu stayed at home, but he did not stop working, and he was still communicating with foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers in fluent English. An Yinong did not speak English well, so he only understood the general idea, and knocked on the door to indicate his presence.
Xie Jiu looked surprised, and hung up the phone after quickly talking to the client.
“Weren’t you going back to the old house?” Xie Jiu came over, touched the cold fingers, and wrapped them with his hand.
“Missed you, do you miss me?”
An Yinong’s straightforward love words always make Xie Jiu feel helpless, but also warm. “Of course.”
As for An Yinong and the possibility that “Master Teacher” could be made into a TV series, Xie Jiu actually still remembers “Gu Pan”. He was older, gentle and considerate, which perfectly matched An Yinong’s aesthetics. Moreover, when An Yinong shouted “Master Teacher” before…
As a mature and rational person, Xie Jiu naturally would not show his childish side, such as jealousy, at this time. He just analyzed rationally and thought that this matter was doable.
“Why are you looking at me?” Xie Jiu looked at An Yinong strangely.
“Aren’t you jealous? I remember you said before that you should treat your elders like elders.”
Xie Jiu: …Ahem.
“Oh no, I seem to have done something to you, Uncle Jiu, that shouldn’t be done to an elder. What should I do?”
Just when Xie Jiu was thinking about how to explain, An Yinong leaned forward and kissed him: “There are so many elders, so many older and gentle men, but I only want to do this kind of thing with you.”
“The driver is still waiting for me. I’m leaving.”
Xie Jiu looked at him like a clever little animal fleeing, and stretched out his hand to touch the place on his cheek where he was kissed: I came here just to tell you the news, and there’s a kiss?
After seeing off the two aunts, the New Year passed quietly.
An Yinong made an appointment with Professor Mei, and after communicating with her, he finally felt relieved to hand over the script. The TV version of “Master Teacher” entered the preparation stage.
At the same time, the animation of “The Imperial Spirit Girl” officially entered the production process.
At this time, someone knew about this, and the newspaper reported that Gu Pan’s “Master Teacher” had sold the TV rights. The director was new, but her background was not ordinary, she was from the He family, and it was suspected that the magazine owner was the middleman.
“Does the director of that publishing house really have an ordinary relationship with Gu Pan? They’re publishing overseas, making cartoons, and now they’re making a TV series. Why doesn’t ‘Yinong’ have one? The martial arts comics are so good!”
This was really unfair to An Yinong. Wasn’t he working on the film rights of “Heroes of The Desert”? Even the director had been found, but the director had something else to do recently, so it may not start until the second half of the year.
These things were not reported in the newspapers, and the He family’s newspaper company did not hold back when it came to slandering their own magazine company, adding fuel to the fire. The news that “the former good friends have broken up” was spreading more and more widely. Yinong’s readers and Gu Pan’s readers simply disliked each other, and the friends were about to turn into enemies.
An Yinong was at a loss for words and had to come out to explain again.
It was explained in the newspaper under the name of “Yinong” that the director had actually approached him, but he thought that Gu Pan’s “The Imperial Spirit Girl” was more suitable for animation and had a wider audience. As for the TV series of “Master Teacher”, it was because the director was a fan of the book, and there was no malicious competition between the two.
Then Gu Pan spoke up to congratulate the film “Desert Heroes: Devil City” which was about to be made into a movie, and the huge success of “Monster City” overseas.
The onlookers then discovered that the overseas sales of the “Monster City” single volume had broken records, not only breaking the previous single volume record of “The Spirit Girl”, but even surpassing the local comics in their country, firmly staying in the top three of the sales list.
A critic commented on it this way: You can see from it the author’s worry, awe, and reflection on the conflict between culture and technology, and you will deeply feel that electronic technology is changing the world, and human history has really entered an unprecedented new era.
In addition to this, there are many comments from readers posted in newspapers, which was why they recommended this comic.
“A huge and rough flying machine, a living environment as dense as a pigeon cage, a colorful virtual world that seems to have everything, and a pale and speechless reality, sitting intimately on a bed, but with their backs turned to each other, each having a virtual love… A simple story with a rich core, this is why it attracts me.”
There are many more messages like this, which fully show that people liked this work from the bottom of their hearts. This was a great thing, to be more direct, and even a little boost to national self-esteem. It sounded great to defeat foreign comics on foreign soil.
As a result, Hong Kong’s newspapers extensively publicized the event. “Yinong” and “Monster City” became very famous. Later, the neighboring country of Sakura approached the magazine, hoping to have the novel translated and published.
Why should the publisher in Sakura Country make this money? An Yinong immediately found a publisher in Sakura Country to cooperate in publishing the single volume of “Monster City” and share half of the copyright of the translated version. He needed to find cooperation, but because the Sakura Country was xenophobic, it was more appropriate to cooperate with local companies.
Taking advantage of this cooperation, the president took all the employees to travel in the country of cherry blossoms for a whole week. Food, accommodation and transportation were all paid for by the company, which was considered a benefit.
“Work hard and play happily.” This was what the young and wealthy boss said.
At the same time, the publishing house also received many letters from overseas readers. They were so enthusiastic, praising the concept of this future vertical community, all kinds of cool technology products, and all kinds of powerful and “mysterious” monsters (?).
Some readers even sent in similar articles, which were very creative.
“I think our magazine needs to open an ‘Author’s Comments’ section at the end, which can be used to thank readers for their support and to answer questions and resolve confusion.” An Yinong later divided his time into two parts and answered some of the questions that readers at home and abroad were concerned about in the two magazines.
Because “Monster City” was famous, some foreign film and television companies had taken a fancy to it and wanted to buy its film and television rights. Unfortunately, they were not satisfied with the price offered, so they had not agreed for the time being. Although the film and television copyright had not been negotiated, it did not prevent “Monster City” from continuing to be popular overseas.
Many people were curious about the densely packed community inside. They heard that the prototype was the Walled City in Hong Kong, and many of them actually flew over to see it. Those fortresses were like precious antiques that were suddenly discovered, surrounded by a group of wide-eyed foreigners.
They marveled at the architectural structure of the walled city, the existence of such a densely populated community, and took pictures crazily with their cameras.
Now that he was not paying attention to Yinong and Gu Pan, An Yinong had a little peace. And he needed to prepare for school – the tragedy of summer vacation happened again, the break was almost over, and the homework was not finished yet.
His career had been going smoothly, but his studies have not been going smoothly. An Yinong could only be lucky that part of his final score was the interview score. If it was all written test scores, he would be dead.
This year he had a very good ‘tutoring boyfriend’ who was responsible for reading texts and homework questions with an elegant male voice, and also helped practice spoken English.
“As expected, you were admitted to the medical department of a university at the age of fourteen. I heard that Uncle Jiu’s teacher still regrets that you didn’t continue your studies?”
“If Atong told us that you are ‘Yinong’, you can enter the university without taking the exam.”
“Is it true? Is there such a good thing?”
“Yes.” Xie Jiu looked at An Yinong biting the pen and meditating hard, and couldn’t help pinching his cheek. The young master was delicate and his pink cheeks left a mark when pinched, so Xie Jiu withdrew his hand awkwardly.
An Yinong rubbed his face and suddenly said, “What if I tell you that I am Yinong and Gu Pan?”
“What?” Xie Jiu suspected that his ears were the ones who asked the questions, and soon he suspected that his eyes were the ones who asked the questions – An Yinong took out a stack of original drawings of “Master Teacher”.
“That’s it.”.
Half an hour later.
“Do you believe it now?” An Yinong poked his face with a finger.
The desk was already piled with original drawings of his previous works, “Legend of the Desert Heroes”, “Monster City”, “Spirit Girl” and “Master Teacher”, as well as some of An Yinong’s casual drawings. On one piece of paper, there were two styles of objects.
“You are a talent.” Xie Jiu was finally convinced.
Xie Jiu didn’t understand comics, but he knew that if one wanted to break through their original style, it would take a lot of effort. It was rare to be able to do this, to draw works of different styles so thoroughly that there was no connection between them.
Other cartoonists all have their own fixed style, but An Yinong was very unique. He would think of a story and then change his style based on the story to make his painting style more in line with the story itself.
Xie Jiu has never thought that ‘Gu Pan’ and ‘Yinong’ could be one and the same, and he was afraid that readers will never have such an idea. Reality was more absurd than conjecture.
Xie Jiu still remembered that he had been jealous of Gu Pan for a long time…
“You have to take care of two identities and go to school. Do you have enough time?”
“It’s okay now, but I won’t have so much time when school starts, so I may have to hire two assistants.” An Yinong has two serials, and he also has to pay attention to cartoons, TV series, publishing and other things. He was really overwhelmed and has to hand over part of the work to his assistant cartoonist.
Later, An Yinong really placed an advertisement in the newspaper to recruit assistants. After interviewing many assistants, he hired one man and one woman and asked them to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Although the price of violating this confidentiality agreement was high, the monthly salary offered by An Yinong was far above the industry average, so the two assistants signed anyway.
An Yinong took them to his villa. The small reception room on the first floor was newly decorated and is now a large office. Each assistant has a large desk and is fully equipped with tools.
“Where is this place?” Both assistants said they didn’t quite understand.
“Let me formally introduce myself. I am the director of a publishing house. At the same time, I have some small hobbies, such as painting. In fact, I have two pen names, one is ‘Yinong’ and the other is ‘Gu Pan’.
“It will be a cooperative relationship from now on.”
The pair extended their hands: “Happy cooperation.”
WhiteMoon x BlackSun 