Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 334 A Different Ending
As soon as he came back from Hong Kong, Lin Chaoyang got busy. He finally finished writing the script of "The Chess Master", which had been delayed for a long time, during his visit.

I spent five dollars and asked Tao Yumo to copy it, which I planned to send to Chen Huaikai in two days.

He was busy writing a creative talk for "Huacheng". While he was in Hong Kong, "Huacheng" sent a letter saying that the response to "Crossing Boat" was extremely enthusiastic and many readers hoped that Lin Chaoyang could write a creative talk.

He spent two days writing the creative talk and mailed it to Huacheng. Then he took the script of The Chess Master to Yanying Studio at No. 77 North Third Ring Road.

After entering Yanying Studio, he went straight to the third floor of the main building, which was the home of the director department and the literature department.

Unfortunately, the veteran directors and screenwriters here only show up for meetings every week, and the office is full of middle-aged people and rookies.

Ma Bingyu, director of the director's office, is director Shuihua's eldest disciple. Although he is now the director, he is actually a general manager who has to take care of two families at the same time, and he has to come to the office to be on duty every day.

When he heard that Lin Chaoyang was here to deliver a script to Chen Huaikai, he immediately became alert, ran to the Literature Department to call someone to be on duty in the Director's Department, and then took Lin Chaoyang to Chen Huaikai's house.

When Ma Bingyu brought Lin Chaoyang to Chen Huaikai's house, he was leisurely listening to the radio on a recliner. When he saw Lin Chaoyang, he cried out "Ouch" and got up from the recliner.

"Have you finished writing the script?"

He stared at the booklet in Lin Chaoyang's hand with some excitement, his eyes full of anticipation.

Lin Chaoyang slapped the script on the table and said, "A little slow. Are you getting impatient?"

Chen Huaikai and others were indeed a little anxious, but Lin Chaoyang's efficiency could not be said to be slow. It was normal for editors at their Yanying Studio to spend one or two years working on a script.

Lin Chaoyang finished writing it in just a few months, which is considered fast.

Chen Huaikai held the script in his arms and was reluctant to let go. "No more slowness, let me take a look first."

He had great attainments in film creation and was even known as the underground director of Yanying Studio.

Because almost all directors like to ask him to watch sample films and give guidance after finishing their films, and many screenwriters will also show him their finished scripts.

Often he would hit the nail on the head about the film and the script in just a few words.

Moreover, in order to film "The Chess Master", he had read the novel many times, and he had discussed the adaptation direction of the script with Lin Chaoyang more than once, so he read the script very quickly.

It took him just over an hour to read the 30,000-word script. Of course, this was just a rough read. The subsequent interpretation of the script was his most important job as a director.

"Well, it's better than the scripts written by many people in our studio. Even I, as a director, can't find any fault with it."

After reading the script, Chen Huaikai was all smiles and praised it generously.

"Then tell the finance department to pay me the royalties."

"How can our Yanying Studio, a large organization like ours, still owe you royalties?"

Chen Huaikai didn't mention the matter of royalties, and pulled Lin Chaoyang to discuss the handling of the storyboards with him. Lin Chaoyang really wanted to say: This is another price.

But think about it, after all, I received 10,000 yuan in royalties, so I can't be too stingy. Not all writers are as stingy as Lao Cha.

When the two were about to discuss, Chen Huaikai realized that there was someone next to him.

"Bingyu, how about staying here for lunch?"

The old man's words were very reserved. Ma Bingyu stared at Lin Chaoyang's script and said reluctantly, "No, no, I have to go back to work."

"Then I won't send it to you."

Ma Bingyu was chased away, and Lin Chaoyang complained: "How rude! At least let him have some food!"

"The food at our house is not as good as the one in the cafeteria." Chen Huaikai defended himself and said, "Come on, come on, read the script."

After waiting for a long time for the script, Chen Huaikai's time to gather strength came in handy, and he wanted to drain all of Lin Chaoyang's thoughts and ideas.

The two stopped discussing until Chen Kaige came back from hanging out in the afternoon.

"Uncle Lin!" Chen Kaige greeted Lin Chaoyang.

"Keigo is back!"

Lin Chaoyang said to Chen Huaikai again: "Come on, you talk to your son about the script. I have to go home. If you have any ideas, let's make an appointment to talk about it later."

After he finished speaking, he did not forget to remind her, "Think about paying the manuscript fee."

"Can't forget."

After he left, Chen Kaige was extremely excited.

"Dad, have you finished writing the script?"

Seeing his son eager to try, Chen Huaikai handed him the script and said, "Take a look first. If you have any ideas, talk to me."

"it is good."

A few days later, Lin Chaoyang received a payment invoice from Yanying Studio - ten thousand yuan in total.

This is the largest single payment Lin Chaoyang has received this year, followed by the publication fee for "Crossing the Boat", which is 20 yuan per thousand words, for a total of 5040 yuan.

Another relatively large source of income is the settlement of royalties based on the print runs of the three works "The Death of Van Gogh", "The Chess Master" and "Shutter Island". These three works were published relatively late, so the royalties based on the print runs are very considerable.

After the beginning of the year, each of us received royalties for each copy of the book, totaling 1 yuan.

As for the royalties for the print runs of other works after publication, because the publication time is long and the sales volume is getting lower and lower, the royalties settled are also getting less and less.

The only exception is "The Garland under the Mountain". This novel has been published for more than three years and its total sales have exceeded 700 million copies. Even though the original contract only paid 1% of the print run, the settlement fee is still considerable.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the year, Lin Chaoyang did not renew his contract with Warrior Publishing House. They insisted on paying him only 1% of the print run as royalties, so Lin Chaoyang had no choice but to terminate the cooperation.

For most domestic writers, basic royalties are the final remuneration they can get, but Lin Chaoyang is different. His works have always been best-sellers, and the royalties based on the number of copies printed are often even several times the basic remuneration.

Therefore, he planned to save up the publishing rights of several books and find a publishing house willing to make an offer to have a good talk with them.

There were also some miscellaneous incomes from reprinting of my works, which added up to about 1,800 yuan.

After careful calculation, the income in the first few months of the year was approximately 3 yuan.

That night, Tao Yushu brought a manuscript to Lin Chaoyang and said it was sent by Zhong Acheng.

"He's very efficient!" Lin Chaoyang said with a smile. Before going to Hong Kong, Zhong Acheng told a story at a party, and everyone urged him to write it down. It took only half a month for the novel to be completed. His efficiency is really high.

"Yes, the key is that he writes very well. He really has a talent for writing."

Tao Yushu praised it and asked Lin Chaoyang to read the novel and give some suggestions.

Lin Chaoyang flipped through the novel and found it was indeed Zhong Acheng's famous work "The Chess King", but the novel was slightly different from what he remembered.

"This ending..."

He said in a thoughtful tone, and Tao Yushu asked, "What happened to the ending?"

"Wang Yisheng became a professional chess player at the chess academy. His face was greasy, he had enough food every day, and he no longer had any desire to play chess. Isn't this ending too cruel?"

Lin Chaoyang clearly remembered that the ending of "The Chess King" was that Wang Yisheng played against nine masters at the same time, defeated eight of them, and finally ran out of energy and drew with the national champion.

The novel ends with the emotion of "I", a bystander and friend.

He didn't know why Zhong Acheng changed the ending. The current ending was certainly not bad, on the contrary it was very good, but it was too cruel and gloomy.

Listening to Lin Chaoyang's words, Tao Yushu thought for a moment and said, "It's gloomy, but it's also thought-provoking, isn't it? And I think Ah Cheng may have written it this way on purpose."

"What do you mean?" Lin Chaoyang asked.

“There are indeed some similarities between The Chess King and The Chess Master, especially the one-versus-nine situation at the end.

In your novel, Jiang Nansheng finally fell on the way to defeat his opponent. If the ending of "The Chess King" was to end abruptly at the peak moment when Wang Yisheng defeated nine chess players, it would be too similar to Jiang Nansheng's ending.

This ending is different from The Chess Master and has its own style and flavor. It is a good ending.”

Lin Chaoyang didn't know that the earliest version of "The Chess King" did have two endings.

The original ending that Zhong Acheng wrote was about eating meat, but when the manuscript was sent to Shanghai Literature, the editor thought the ending was too gloomy, so he changed it to the ending that Lin Chaoyang saw.

Zhong Acheng in this world was influenced by "The Chess Master", but wanted to be different from "The Chess Master", so he still wrote such an ending.

After listening to Tao Yushu's words, Lin Chaoyang did not insist any more. Both endings were good anyway, so he just let him go.

He smiled and asked, "Congratulations to Comrade Yushu for another wonderful work."

Hearing this, Tao Yushu smiled proudly. Probably the greatest sense of accomplishment as an editor is being able to discover influential writers and works.

"I think Acheng's novel should have some influence, right? Will anyone say it's too similar to 'The Chess Master'?" she asked.

"The two novels only have those few similarities. It's a stretch to say they are similar. The novel is very well written and will surely receive a good response after it is published."

Lin Chaoyang's solemn promise made Tao Yushu very happy.

Half a month passed in a flash, during which time Chen Huaikai came to Lin Chaoyang's home twice to discuss many issues including the script, filming, and actors.

Lin Chaoyang spent most of the rest of his time concentrating on organizing materials and preparing for the novel he had promised to publish for Huacheng.

On May 5, Teng Hongsheng from the co-production company suddenly arrived and said that he invited Lin Chaoyang to attend the press conferences of "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace" and "The Last Emperor".

"Is the movie going to be released?" Lin Chaoyang asked in surprise.

The film only started shooting in August last year, and it has been nine months so far. It shouldn't be so fast, right?

"No. It's a wrap-up press conference, for publicity purposes..."

After Teng Hongsheng explained for a while, Lin Chaoyang finally understood that the mid-term shooting of the two films had been completed, and the next step was post-production. It would take another three or four months for them to be released.

He accepted Teng Hongsheng's invitation and came to the Yanjing Hotel two days later, on the morning of the 27th.

When he saw Li Hanxiang, he said jokingly: "It's really not easy for you to get the royalties. You still have to work for me after the filming is finished."

The film that took several years of hard work has finally reached its final moment. Li Hanxiang is in a good mood and said with a smile:

"There will be hundreds of domestic and foreign reporters coming to the press conference. I'm giving you a chance to become famous."

"I'm a screenwriter, who would pay attention to me?"

While the two were chatting and laughing, Lin Chaoyang also greeted several other actors.

In the early stages of preparation for "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace" and "The Last Emperor", Li Han-hsiang had always adopted a strategy of keeping it secret in order to avoid impacting public opinion in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Unfortunately, the secret did not last long. Less than two months after the filming began, Hong Kong’s Oriental Daily broke the news that Li Hanxiang was filming in mainland China.

The incident caused a huge uproar, not only in the Hong Kong River and the Macau River, but also in Taiwan Island, people were talking about it.

Nowadays, there are huge differences between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong and Macau in terms of economic development level and ideology. Although Lin Chaoyang and his colleagues encountered friendly smiling faces when they visited Hong Kong, that's because everyone is a member of the Z faction.

In fact, in Hong Kong today, the British colonists are the rulers, followed by the Y faction, and the Z faction does not have that much room to survive.

Therefore, when Li Hanxiang went to the mainland to make films, the response he aroused was mostly negative comments, with comments such as "taking shortcuts" and "losing one's integrity in old age" dominating.

What's more, there are rumors that Li Hanxiang is now on the blacklist of Taiwan Island, and his works will no longer be able to be shown in Taiwan Island in the future.

At that time, Li Hanxiang was still making movies in mainland China. He invested enormous energy and effort in "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace" and "The Last Emperor". Once the arrow was shot, there was no turning back.

Even though the Hong Kong media contacted him many times and tried to report more content, Li Hanxiang ignored them.

By now, the film has finally been completed, and it can be said that the outcome is set in stone. Li Hanxiang has nothing to worry about, so he simply held a press conference openly.

This is also in line with the external propaganda effect that the government wants. After all, in order to help Li Hanxiang shoot the movie, the country not only mobilized more than 60 units and thousands of staff members, but even opened the Forbidden City.

At this year's first Spring Festival Gala, CCTV even played clips of "The Burning of the Old Summer Palace" and "The Last Emperor".

It would be unimaginable in later generations that the Spring Festival Gala would promote two movies for free.

"When you return to Hong Kong, you'll have something to brag about. You're the first director in the world to be able to film in the Forbidden City!"

Lin Chaoyang's teasing made Li Hanxiang couldn't help but smile.

“It’s all about the movies, it’s all about the movies.”

(End of this chapter)