Chapter 43: Cliffhanger Hack

[Page 1 of 3]

“Editor in Chief!”

“Editor in Chief!”

He Chengwei came trotting over, clutching the manuscript as though he had found a treasure.

“You absolutely have to read this!”

“What could possibly have you so excited?”

“Read it first, read it first!”

The editor in chief took it from him in bewilderment, while He Chengwei stood by and waited.

After a long while, the editor in chief finally lifted his deeply buried head. He looked remarkably like a hyena in heat as he demanded, “What comes next? Is there more?”

“That’s all there is!”

“Oh, this author is infuriating! If you’re going to tell a story, you have to finish it!”

The editor in chief was indignant as well. After a moment, however, he calmed down, and his indignation gave way to enormous excitement.

“We’re always complaining that there are no good stories. Well, look at this! Here’s one right in front of us. That’s why we must be patient—the real masters are hidden among the people!”

“I don’t agree. All the real masters have gone to Budding and Harvest. Who would submit to Story Club? He may have copied it from somewhere.”

“Don’t belittle yourselves. Popular literature is precisely what the people love to read. I’ll wager this fellow is a true master. Anyone who can stop the story at the moment the hero falls from a cliff knows how to tell a story!”

“Then does this need editing?” He Chengwei asked.

“There are a few minor places we can smooth out, but the story itself need not be changed at all.”

The editor in chief pondered for a while, then said, “Publish the whole thing in one installment. If we split it up, the impact will be weaker. The readers will feel exactly as we do—just when they see the hero fall off the cliff, it suddenly ends. Ha!”

He seemed to imagine the scene and suddenly burst out laughing. Then he asked, “Did the author say anything about what happens afterward?”

“He said there would be a second half. He’s writing it now.”

“Excellent, excellent! Cut down the page counts of those other stories and leave them all for The Cotton-Padded Cassock. Put it first in the table of contents as well. Make it stand out!”

Story Club ran ninety to one hundred pages per issue. In its small octavo format, a page filled entirely with text and no illustrations held roughly eight hundred words. The Cotton-Padded Cassock was twenty thousand words—more than twenty pages, but not especially long.

In those days, material was scarce. To fill the magazine, a single story might be given more than thirty pages.

“Where is the author from?”

“He’s on Mount Lu. He says he’ll return to the capital before winter. If we send him a letter, we’ll have to calculate the timing carefully.”

“Mount Lu? Returning to the capital?”

The editor in chief scratched his head.

“His background sounds rather unusual. What pen name does he use?”

“Um…”

He Chengwei returned to his desk and picked up a sheet of paper. Then he came back and read aloud:

“Midnight Butcher, Little Qiang, I Want to Do Something Big, Northeastern Sweet-and-Sour Pork Is the Best, Jade-faced Little Mengchang, Timely Rain of the Capital, Sleeping Makes Me Fairer…”

[Page 1 of 3]

[Page 2 of 3]

“If we all reject those names, then let’s call him Aqi!”

“…”

The editor in chief stared in astonishment, then burst into hearty laughter. The other editors began laughing too.

“What an amusing fellow. Aqi? Yes, that will do. Write to him at once and convey our respect and friendship.”

“Of course!”

He Chengwei returned to his seat. Before he could put pen to paper, the editor in chief called out again.

“Xiao He, why don’t you make the trip yourself? Go meet this fascinating fellow.”

“That sounds good. I’ll leave tomorrow!”

He Chengwei secretly rejoiced. It was exactly what he had hoped for.

“And what about the payment rate?”

“Obviously, give him the highest rate—seven yuan per thousand words!”

…

The Cotton-Padded Cassock was a martial-arts film from the mid-1980s, directed and written by Tsui Siu-ming.

At the time, he was working for Hong Kong’s Rediffusion Television, later known as Asia Television.

In 1981, he filmed the television series Huo Yuanjia, starring Huang Yuanshen, Mi Xue, Leung Siu-lung, and Wai Siu-ngor. It became a sensation throughout Hong Kong and was the first Hong Kong television drama imported into the mainland, where it likewise swept across the country.

Its theme song, “The Great Wall Shall Never Fall,” began:

“The Great Wall shall never fall,
The Yellow River rolls for a thousand miles,
Mountains and rivers unfold in splendor—
Tell me, what ails our nation…”

For many people, it was their introduction to Cantonese songs.

Tsui Siu-ming subsequently made Chen Zhen and Huo Dongge, both of which were equally popular and helped turn Leung Siu-lung into a martial-arts star.

Later, Tsui traveled north and co-produced The Cotton-Padded Cassock with the mainland. Yuen Biao played the villain, Qi Tianyuan, and became an overnight sensation.

Tsui Siu-ming was a complete talent. He could direct, write, act, sing, and serve as a martial-arts choreographer. Lee Siu-fung was his disciple. By all rights, he was at the height of his fame in the 1980s, yet he suddenly vanished from the public eye.

Most accounts say that he moved behind the scenes, but they never explain why.

At the time, Taiwan was the father of Hong Kong’s entertainment industry. Ninety-nine percent of Hong Kong performers had to watch Taiwan’s every move. Taiwan forbade Hong Kong stars from working with the left, let alone traveling north to the mainland to make films. That was practically considered an unforgivable crime.

Take Leung Siu-lung, for example. After Chen Zhen became a huge hit, he returned to the mainland once. Taiwan ordered him to write a letter of repentance. He refused.

“I did nothing wrong. I merely went home.”

He was then blacklisted. If not for Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu, Leung Siu-lung would have faded into obscurity.

Tsui Siu-ming suffered the same fate. As soon as he made The Cotton-Padded Cassock, Taiwan branded him a “collaborator with the enemy” and imposed a total ban on him. Later, when The Cotton-Padded Cassock won the Ministry of Culture’s award for outstanding film, Taiwan changed its strategy.

After all, Taiwan needed united-front propaganda too.

Imagine how prestigious it would be if a filmmaker officially recognized by the mainland returned to the embrace of the Republic of China!

[Page 2 of 3]

[Page 3 of 3]

So Taiwan declared: “As long as you write a letter of repentance, promise not to make films in the mainland again, describe how the people there are suffering terribly, and affirm your loyalty to the nation, we will forgive and forget.”

Tsui Siu-ming’s response was: “Damn it, I’m not writing one!”

He had no choice but to move behind the scenes.

Even many years later, when those trashy people in Hong Kong were insulting China, Tsui Siu-ming still stood up to speak for his country.

Do not assume that the entertainment industries of Hong Kong and Taiwan were purely about entertainment in those days. They were always deeply entangled in politics. It is merely that no one talked about such things. But that is beside the point for now.

In any case, Chen Qi had his own plans. He had created The Cotton-Padded Cassock, and sooner or later he would certainly make it into a film. He still wanted to find Tsui Siu-ming and bring him into the project. If one did not protect one’s own people, what kind of people would they be?

He had made several changes to The Cotton-Padded Cassock. Originally, the male protagonist was a monk. The heroine had always loved him, while he wore a battered hat and kept his hair, refusing to reveal that he was a monk. The logic was strained, making him look very much like a scoundrel.

Chen Qi disliked that arrangement. He changed the protagonist into a lay disciple, and made the love between them mutual. That way, when the hero eventually decided to become a monk for good, the sense of fate playing a cruel joke on them would be much stronger.

…

Mount Lu lay more than six hundred kilometers from Shanghai.

He Chengwei traveled at an unhurried pace, taking two days to reach his destination.

He arrived at Guling and found the hotel according to the address. The place seemed somewhat strange to him. He went inside and asked, “Hello, comrade. I’m an editor from Story Club. Someone here submitted a manuscript, so I’ve come to pay him a visit.”

“A submission? You must have the wrong place. We’re accommodating a film crew,” a server replied.

“A film crew? Are you shooting a movie?”

“That’s right!”

He Chengwei was bewildered as well.

“The address is correct. His pen name is Aqi. Do you know him?”

“Aqi… Oh!”

The server slapped his palm happily.

“You mean Little Chen? His name is Chen Qi. He’s the screenwriter.”

“The screenwriter…”

A proper screenwriter had submitted a manuscript to Story Club?

Before He Chengwei could even react, the server said warmly, “He went out with the crew today. You can wait here; he’ll be back this afternoon. Let me tell you, Little Chen is a good man. He’s wonderful at telling stories…”

(Comrades, please keep sending those monthly votes!

That’s all for now…)