1980 My Entertainment Era

Chapter 72: Corpse Reincarnation

Dachun came to Xia Tian's house and handed Xia Tian a copy of Sartre's "Being and Nothingness".

He borrowed it to read yesterday.

Xia Tian asked, "How was it?"

Dachun grinned and nodded: "Very good! No wonder everyone likes to watch it! It's really good!"

"Oh?" Xia Tian was a little surprised, "What did you see?"

Dachun touched the book on the table and said, "I read it very late last night..."

"Well, then what?"

"And sleep well!"

Dachun: Although I don’t understand it, it helps me sleep!
Xia Tian: ...Get out of here and don't touch my books anymore! I'm afraid my saliva will drip on them!
……

Dachun pursued a "trend", but unfortunately the trend did not welcome him.

However, Xia Tian did receive a letter.

It’s not a letter from a reader, it’s a letter from old Pai Luo across the sea!

No, it should be said that it is a package.

After all, the envelope couldn't possibly be that thick.

Xia Tian and Da Chun rode their bicycles to the post office to pick up their international mail, and they had some ideas in mind.

On the way back, Dachun also picked up a very straight stick.

He happily took the stick and sat on the back seat of the bicycle. Then when he returned to the alley, he fell off with a loud bang!

Xia Tian stopped his bike and looked back, and saw Dachun lying on the ground with his four legs up, holding a stick.

——No, you've reached the entrance of the alley, don't you know to put the stick upright? !

He actually held the stick horizontally, got stuck by the walls on both sides of the alley, and fell off the back seat of the bicycle?!

Xia Tian pulled him up and said, "Dachun, you really can bring me new surprises every day!"

Dachun didn't care about Xia Tian and went home to deal with this rare stick.

In the summer, I go home to check my emails.

After peeling back the layers of brown paper, I discovered that it was an English magazine with a brightly colored cover and bizarre contents.

"Weird tales" literally means strange stories.

However, Xia Tian prefers to translate it into "Strange Tales", which is more faithful, accurate and elegant.
This is an American magazine, and a genre magazine that includes works covering a wide range of fields including weird, science fiction, fantasy, horror, etc.

The famous Cthulhu culture originated in this magazine!

HP Lovecraft, the father of Cthulhu, is known as one of the "three great writers of Weird Tales".

Xia Tian put down the magazine and opened the letter from Old Palo first.

"Oh, dear summer, God bless you. Your letters and manuscripts have been so delightful and heartening to me..."

Since Xia Tian chose to submit his work to a magazine like Weird Tales, it was natural that what he wrote was not a normal story.

Literature is like looking at a mountain, one does not like flatness; the words will not stop until they are shocking.

If you want to write stories in American magazines as an Oriental, you have to use some "unorthodox" methods.

The short story written by Xia Tian is called "Corpse Immortal"!
Do you know what Chinese horror is?

Do you know what weird is?

Chinese Cthulhu, check it out!
When the profound Eastern metaphysical culture is combined with the unknowable fear of the unknown, that feeling is something foreigners have never experienced before!

The English name of "corpse disappear—Ascended" is "corpse disappear—Ascended", which can be regarded as a lich, a corpse wizard, or it can be regarded as Ascended, the ascended one!
The protagonist is a second-generation Chinese immigrant who opened a second-hand store, or antique store, in a small city.

After receiving a decades-old notebook, various strange phenomena occurred. Unable to resist the urge to find the truth, he gradually approached the abandoned house of an old Chinese man who had passed away many years ago in a remote village...

During this period, Xia Tian was studying these metaphysics and cultivation things...

It didn't take me much time to write the novel, after all, I was quite familiar with it.

For Xia Tian, ​​this is a more mature type of novel.

However, it still took a lot of effort to translate it into English.

It is indeed not easy to translate that kind of atmosphere.

Moreover, there are several specialized words, which were "invented" by Xia Tian, ​​and these "special terms" had to be explained skillfully in the text. Let the mysterious and weird feeling permeate the lines...

At the end of the novel, the protagonist Charlotte obtained the secret notes that allow people to "ascend" through death and become another special existence.

"He seemed to hear a voice in the distance calling him - come back, come back."

I intentionally left a suspense and didn’t tell you what Charlotte’s choice was… maybe I can write about this short film series in the future!
Xia Tian also felt that if his brain was not extraordinary now, he probably wouldn't be able to do it.

What about CET-4, CET-6, and CET-8? That kind of English is really far from being able to write and translate literary works.

In the letter, Old Palo praised Xia Tian's novel highly.

Because of his limited Chinese vocabulary, he even mixed a lot of English into the letter.

He said that after reading the novel, he felt a chill down his spine, and now whenever he passes by an antique shop, he wants to go in and have a look. But he's still afraid!
He also repeatedly begged Xia Tian to tell him the truth - does the Celestial Empire really have such strange magic? !
He said that after his efforts, Weird Tales finally set Xia Tian's manuscript fee at 23 cents, which is $0.23 per word.

During this period, the first-rate American magazine writers could earn about $1 per word—but they had to be famous best-selling authors.

Xia Tian's level of royalties is relatively good for a novice author, but it is understandable considering that the subject matter is too unfamiliar and weird from the East.

The Chinese version of "Corpse Reincarnation" is less than 35300 words, which is about words when translated into English.

"Weird Tales" decided to publish "The Corpse Transmigration" in three issues, and the final royalties were more than 8,000 US dollars!

The current exchange rate is about 1.5, which is... ?!
"We really have to go out! It's easier to make money from foreigners!" Xia Tian sighed.

However, the money will not be returned in a short time. The remittance process is very complicated, and it must be converted into RMB through the foreign exchange bureau. As long as the money comes in, it must be converted into RMB.

The country is now short of foreign exchange, very short of it.

Xiatian has an idea, but it can only be implemented with US dollars...but this amount of money is not enough, let's think about it later!

Although distant water cannot quench immediate thirst, this water is indeed pleasing to the eye when viewed from afar.

Seeing the "benefits" in the summer, I can't help but become diligent.

I quickly took out another manuscript and started translating it.

This one is a novella of more than 100,000 words!
If this is published, woohoo~take off!

……

I work hard on translation in the summer to earn US dollars.

He spent another small sum of money - 8 yuan to buy a pen holder from a stall selling second-hand items.

It is made of porcelain, with a plum blossom painted on it and a line of poetry: "I know it is not snow from afar, because of the subtle fragrance."

Xia Tian felt very good about this pen holder. According to his judgment, it should be from the middle of the Qing Dynasty, either the Yongzheng period or the Qianlong period.

Although it is a work from a folk kiln, it is of good quality and well preserved.

After buying it, Xia Tian’s little gold bag shrank further.

He held the pen holder and gave Zhu Youguang a look, who nodded.

It's not that this thing is so precious. Old Man Zhu has always instilled in Xia Tian a concept: antiques can't just be judged by their value, otherwise it's a mistake. It's more about whether you have a liking for it and whether you like it! As the saying goes, money can't buy what you love.

As for this Qianlong pen holder, Xia Tian's judgments were all correct. This shows that he has learned something!
"Well, it's okay. It's not far from graduation." Zhu Youguang commented.

Unexpectedly, the next summer when I was shopping, I met a second-hand goods seller.

It was said that they were moving, and they were selling some of the unused items at home to make some money.

Xia Tian looked at it and saw that the little gold bag had deflated again.

"Uncle, please show it to me again." Xia Tian took it to show off to Zhu Youguang.

The underglaze red pen holder with cloud dragon pattern has a diameter of 6.5 cm and is cylindrical in shape with the mouth and bottom of the pen similar in shape.

The outer wall is painted with underglaze red, with patterns of sea water and two dragons playing with a pearl.

One of the dragons soared into the sky, while the other one appeared and disappeared in the sea water.

The outer bottom is inscribed with six characters in three lines in blue and white regular script: "Made in the Daoguang Period of the Qing Dynasty".

Open the door at a glance!
It only cost 3 bucks in the summer!

Zhu Youguang looked at Xia Tian suspiciously: "Do you pick up money as soon as you go out?!"

I go to that flea market every day, why don’t I find anything good?!

……

Apart from "picking up" two pen holders, the other thing this month is the midterm exam.

The midterm exam at the end of the month was really a torture for Dachun.

After the exam, the head teacher gave him a good scolding.

teacher:

"Ah? That's how you learned it? Who taught you?!"

"Look up to the sky and laugh loudly, then go out, then come back and lean on your stick and sigh?"

"Standing up from a dying illness, soaring up to 90,000 miles?"

"The mountains and rivers are so dense that there seems to be no way out, leaving only the green tomb facing the dusk?"

"If friends and relatives in Luoyang ask me, has my light boat passed through thousands of mountains?"

Filling in the blanks in ancient poems has already given the head teacher high blood pressure, and writing essays makes the Chinese teacher dizzy.

The main theme of the composition is maternal love. Dachun wrote it according to the templates given by Xia Tian:

My family was very poor when I was a child. On my tenth birthday, my mother took me out to a restaurant for the first time.

When the food came, my mother took the fish head away first.

I was stunned and asked, "Mom, why are you eating fish heads?"

The mother smiled and said, "Silly child, I like to eat fish heads, you can eat the rest!"

I choked up at one point - then all that's left is chopping peppers!

Wow - for this reason, the Chinese teacher made a special home visit to Dachun's home.

Xia Tian thought that the teacher might want to meet Chun Ma, who likes to eat chopped pepper fish head!
At that time, Dachun's family had just bought a new piece of furniture - a Shuangxi brand pressure cooker.

Chun's mother was feeling happy when suddenly her eyelids twitched.

Chun Ma is of the older generation after all, so she said directly: left eye twitching means wealth, right eye twitching means feudal superstition.

As a result, his son brought the teacher into the house...

While Dachun was being cleaned up, Xiatian had also finished translating the new novel.

Carefully packed and mailed to Lao Pai Luo in the United States.

This time because it is a parcel, the postage is more expensive.

Xia Tian thought that I should transfer the royalties from "Corpse Reincarnation" back to China as soon as possible, otherwise I will have to find a way to make money!

And this novella is called - "Bloodborne"!
(End of this chapter)