Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 119 Is a three-act play so great?

When I got home in the evening, Tao Yushu had not come back yet. Recently, "The World's Number One Restaurant" was touring various universities in Yanjing in full swing. As a member of the crew, she was busy until very late every day before going home.

It was almost ten o'clock when Tao Yushu finally dragged his tired body back home. As soon as he entered the house, he threw himself onto the bed.

"If you're too tired, don't do it." Lin Chaoyang said with concern.

"That won't work."

After listening to Lin Chaoyang's words, she sat up all of a sudden, as if she had suddenly regained her vitality. "That won't work. How can we give up halfway?"

"I see you are working so hard, it's just a student drama and we don't make any money," said Lin Chaoyang.

Tao Yushu gave him a mysterious smile, "Who said there's no money to be made?"

"What do you mean?"

Tao Yushu pulled out an embroidered handkerchief from his pocket and shook it at Lin Chaoyang, "Look at this!"

Lin Chaoyang came closer and she slowly unfolded her handkerchief, revealing a stack of banknotes inside.

"Where does this money come from?" Lin Chaoyang asked curiously.

This money definitely didn't come from Tao Yushu's own pocket, otherwise she wouldn't show off like that.

"Given by the school."

"School? Your school?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

Tao Yushu nodded and divided the money into two parts. "This part is the performance subsidy given by the school to our students, one dollar and fifty cents a day. We performed for ten days, so the total is fifteen dollars. And this part..."

Tao Yushu held up another thick stack of banknotes, "This is given to you by the school."

"For me? I get a share too?" Lin Chaoyang was a little surprised.

"You didn't expect it!" Tao Yushu looked proud. "It was Teacher Huang who got it for us. This time, our "The World's No. 1 Restaurant" has brought honor to the school. The school leaders asked us to go on tour everywhere. We can't pay for it ourselves, right? We all got paid, so how can you not get paid? Teacher Huang also got you a big share!"

Lin Chaoyang glanced at the money in Tao Yushu's hand. It seemed to be quite a lot. "How much is it?"

Tao Yushu's eyes turned into "$" shapes. Without saying a word, he spat on his thumb, then carefully counted the bills one by one, looking like a little money-grubber.

When she got to the end, she smoothed over the bills and said, "Three hundred dollars."

In fact, she had already counted the money, and now she was just satisfying her desire.

"Three hundred dollars? Your school is pretty generous."

Lin Chaoyang was amazed when he heard this number. The People's Art Theatre only gave 200 yuan in formal royalties, but Yan Normal University gave him 300 yuan.

“The main thing is that the influence of “The World’s No. 1 Restaurant” is really huge this time. It is not just as simple as letting our school show its face among the major universities in Yanjing.

Let’s put it this way, at least it has contributed to the development of our Chinese department, and maybe we can get a lot more funding next year.”

Lin Chaoyang nodded in understanding, "No wonder."

He smiled at Tao Yushu and said, "I have something good to tell you, too."

"what's up?"

Lin Chaoyang took out some money from his pocket and said, "I went to the People's Art Theatre today and they gave me the royalties, 200 yuan."

"Wow!" Tao Yushu exclaimed in surprise. She put the two sums of money together and said, "Five hundred yuan, that's too much!"

Lin Chaoyang had published novels before and received royalties far exceeding 500 yuan, but this time the money was a bigger surprise to the couple than any previous novel publication.

Because originally none of them had thought of making money from this script, but they didn't expect to earn 500 yuan in one go, which was really a pleasant surprise.

"Another five hundred dollars, enough money to buy a TV later!"

Tao Yushu happily calculated the use of the money, and then put it all into her small treasury.

"Oh, by the way, the leaders of the General Political Department Repertory Theatre went to see our performance today." Tao Yushu said to Lin Chaoyang.

"General Political Department Drama Troupe?"

"Well. If you didn't go to see our performance, you wouldn't know. There are theater troupes and people from the cultural circles in almost every performance. The influence of our play has been completely established." Tao Yushu said with pride, and she asked, "What do you think the General Political Department Drama Troupe is here for?"

Lin Chaoyang pondered and said, "The subject matter of "The World's No. 1 Restaurant" is somewhat different from the creative direction of the General Political Department. They shouldn't be coming for my script, right?"

Tao Yushu nodded and said with a smile: "They are here to inspect the actors."

"To observe the actors?" Lin Chaoyang looked surprised.

Several main actors of "The World's Number One Restaurant" are all students. They had no acting experience at all before, let alone skills. The General Political Department Repertory Theatre actually came to the crew to inspect the actors, which really showed that they recruited talents without any restrictions.

During the rehearsal of the play, Lin Chaoyang got familiar with several main actors of "The World's No. 1 Restaurant". He asked, "Who are they examining?"

"Li Luyang!"

This name did not surprise Lin Chaoyang, as Li Luyang was the actor who played "Lu Mengshi" in the drama.

"The Best Restaurant in the World" tells the story of a roast duck restaurant called Fujude. Although it is an ensemble drama, the character Lu Mengshi is undoubtedly the core of the core. Li Luyang has a lot of room to play when playing Lu Mengshi.

"I remember that during the rehearsal, Lu Yang couldn't even recite all the lines. Now, less than two months later, he can already play the role of Lu Mengshi vividly. He really has some talent." Tao Yushu sighed.

"What does the General Political Department think? Can Lu Yang be elected?"

"How can it be that fast? I just finished watching the show today."

After the couple finished chatting, Tao Yushu tidied up, washed up and went to bed.

The next morning, it was already eleven o'clock when Tao Yushu went to bed the night before, and she got up at six o'clock. As it was winter, her face was full of pain when she got up.

"Oh." She sighed while eating breakfast, which made Tao's mother unhappy.

The family eats at around 6 o'clock, which means she has to get up at around 5 o'clock to cook, and she hasn't complained yet.

Having displeased his mother, Tao Yushu had to calm down, ate a few mouthfuls of food quickly, and went out with Lin Chaoyang.

The two separated at Wusi Road. Lin Chaoyang ran for a while in the cold wind and then arrived at the library.

After lunch, Chen Jiangong and Liu Zhenyun came to see Lin Chaoyang together.

"Chaoyang, why haven't you been to class recently?"

"I've asked for too many days off. How can I afford to take classes for free?"

After chatting for a while, Lin Chaoyang asked Chen Jiangong the purpose of their visit.

There was a craze for drama in the Chinese department some time ago, but ever since "The World's Number One Restaurant" was performed at Yan University, I don't know if their enthusiasm has been dampened. No one has mentioned drama recently, and the performance of "Conscience" has also been stopped.

"We are planning to hold a literary symposium. Do you want to come?"

The "we" that Chen Jiangong mentioned refers to the Chinese Department class of 1977. This class of students seemed to be particularly keen on various sports and activities.

"I won't go." Lin Chaoyang directly rejected Chen Jiangong's invitation.

Chen Jiangong was about to persuade him again when a voice suddenly came from the side, "Jiangong, instead of having time to hold a symposium, you might as well spend more time writing." When they heard the voice, they saw Zhang Dening standing not far away.

As soon as Zhang Dening showed up, he brought great pressure to Chen Jiangong, "Novel... Novel..."

"I heard that you've been busy with a drama recently?" Zhang Dening asked again.

Chen Jiangong looked embarrassed, "It's just for fun. My classmates encouraged me to do it, and I just followed their lead."

"Just for fun?" Zhang Dening asked.

"Of course. De Ning, you know me. I don't write poetry anymore. I write scripts just for fun. Novels are my destiny."

Chen Jiangong swore solemnly, like a scumbag swearing to his girlfriend.

Zhang Dening nodded with satisfaction, "I definitely believe you. But it's already the end of the year, and I haven't seen your manuscript for a year."

"Well... the academic workload is heavy this year, the academic workload is heavy!" Chen Jiangong wiped the sweat off his face and trembled, vividly interpreting how humble and vulnerable a writer who couldn't write a manuscript was in front of an editor.

Zhang Dening looked at Chen Jiangong's performance and nodded secretly, thinking that there was still hope.

"De Ning, are you here to find Chaoyang?" Chen Jiangong decided to divert the trouble away, and his trick really worked.

Zhang Dening looked at Lin Chaoyang and said, "Chaoyang, I saw the play you wrote for Yanjing Normal University. It's really well written. Please give it to us to publish in Yanjing Literature and Art!"

Chen Jiangong: ???

I am not doing my job just because I write scripts? He wrote a script and you begged him to publish it?
Chen Jiangong was furious at Zhang Dening's differential treatment, which was simply too much.

"De Ning, my script..."

"Isn't yours a one-act play?" Before Chen Jiangong could finish his words, Zhang Dening's casual remark seemed to shut him up.

What's wrong with a one-act play? Is a one-act play not a play? Is a three-act play so great? Why not write a four-act play or a five-act play?

Chen Jiangong looked at Zhang Dening with resentment, but she didn't have time to pay attention to him. She waited for Lin Chaoyang's answer with anticipation.

Lin Chaoyang never expected that Zhang Dening came to him today to ask for the publishing rights of the script. He had never considered the issue of royalties when he wrote "The World's Number One Restaurant" before, but he did not expect that after the play was staged, royalties would come in one after another.

If there is royalties coming to his doorstep, he certainly won't refuse it.

"I will definitely publish it if I have money. How much is the fee?"

"Seven dollars." Zhang Dening blurted out.

Lin Chaoyang was calm and composed. "Why did I hear that the payment standard for royalties will be raised soon?"

"Who told you that? We have to wait for the documents to come down, and we don't know when it will happen." Zhang Dening's eyes flickered.

Lin Chaoyang shook his head and said, "Look at your situation. No wonder Yanjing Literature and Art is not as famous as Harvest."

"This is definitely accurate. I have inside information."

Lin Chaoyang was very confident in his words and was determined to make Yenching Literature and Art spend some money. The main reason was that it was already December. If Yenching Literature and Art really wanted to publish his script, it would definitely be after January. So it was reasonable to increase his royalties.

Zhang Dening looked at Lin Chaoyang with a headache, "You are such a great writer, can you have a little vision?"

"Don't flatter me. Writers have to eat, too. I want to buy a courtyard house now, too."

"Aren't you afraid of being oppressed?" Zhang Dening glared at him fiercely.

"My pleasure!"

In the 1950s, before the collapse of the domestic royalty system, writers had lucrative incomes, especially those in Yenching University. A trend of buying courtyard houses emerged, and many of them bought courtyard houses in what is now Meizhaha Hutong.

However, the good times did not last long, and royalties became a thing of the past, and the writers suffered.

"I'll talk to you about the royalties when I get back. Just give me the script first." Zhang Dening said with a headache.

"At work."

"Then I wait for you."

Zhang Dening planned to sit in the library and wait for Lin Chaoyang's script. Lin Chaoyang reasonably suspected that she was doing this just to slack off.

I came out to get a manuscript and a whole day passed in an instant. Is there anything more wonderful than this?
After finally waiting until the end of get off work, Zhang Dening followed Lin Chaoyang home to get the script and left feeling satisfied.

The next day at work, she took the script to the editorial department and handed it to Zhou Yanru.

"I got Lin Chaoyang's script, but he said he wanted to increase the fee."

"Another increase in royalties?" Zhou Yanru couldn't help but frown upon hearing that.

"Yeah, he's such a terrible person!" Zhang Dening complained, then pointed at the script in Zhou Yanru's hand, "But the script is really good, no wonder it's so popular."

Zhou Yanru flipped through the script and said noncommittally, "Really?"

In recent days, the sensation caused by "The World's Number One Restaurant" in the Yenching University community has continued to spread and has gradually formed a considerable influence in the cultural circle.

Even magazine editors like Zhang Dening and Zhou Yanru had heard about it. A few days ago, Zhang Dening used his connections to go to the Agricultural University to watch a performance.

The wonderful plot and vivid characters of "The World's Number One Restaurant" are still fresh in her memory. What surprised her even more is that Lin Chaoyang could actually write such an outstanding script.

After she took the script home yesterday, she read it again and found that the performance of the Yanshi college students on stage did not bring out the true charm of the script at all.

She heard from Lin Chaoyang that this script had been chosen by the National Theatre of China and would become the major drama promoted by the National Theatre of China next year. She was full of anticipation for this.

Zhang Dening glanced at her expression and said, "The script is indeed brilliant, but the students' stage performance did not really tap the potential of this work."

Zhou Yanru was surprised. She had not yet watched "The World's Number One Restaurant", but she had recently often heard people talking about this drama, saying how excellent this student drama was and how it had the charm of "Tea House".

Now Zhang Dening actually said that the students' performance was not as good as the script. This immediately aroused her interest and she focused her attention on the script.

The whole morning passed in a flash, and Zhou Yanru was called back to her senses by Zhang Dening, "Old Zhou, let's go eat!"

"you go first."

Zhou Yanru responded with one sentence and turned her eyes back to the script.

Seeing that he couldn't call her, Zhang Dening had to go to the cafeteria to eat by himself.

After she came back, she saw Zhou Yanru sitting there with a dazed expression, and asked, "Have you finished reading the script?"

Zhou Yanru glanced at her and took a long time to react before moving her eyes and nodding, "I've finished reading it. It's really well written!"

Zhou Yanru praised the script without waiting for Zhang Dening to ask, and it was obvious that she was extremely satisfied with the content of the script.

"The script is indeed good, but look at the payment..."

Zhou Yanru sighed, "This Lin Chaoyang is good in every way, but this one thing is really a headache!"

She said this, but still stood up with the script and knocked on Li Qingquan's office door.

(End of this chapter)