Exciting 1979!

Chapter 409 Wei Ping'an: My Father?

The IBM 5150 is already in short supply in the US market. IBM's original five-year sales plan can be completed in about a year.

Although it is a personal computer, it is not a laptop and still has a considerable weight. Without the monitor, the whole machine weighs 11.34 kilograms and is priced at $1565. With the monitor, it is $2880.

However, even if you raise the price to $3000, you sometimes still can't buy it.

Wei Ming, through Li Aiguo's connections, managed to get a slightly higher price and purchased two units for $7000.

Wei Ming couldn't carry the two enormous cardboard boxes himself, so he had to check them in as luggage. He was already looking forward to the convenience of creating English novels on his computer.

These two computers came pre-installed with Visicale spreadsheet and Easywriter text editing software, which are considered the predecessors of Office and are perfectly adequate for writing.

After buying the computer he had been longing for, Wei Ming went to an electronic music studio to listen to Elton John's audition results.

He already had some knowledge of electronic music and had a solid foundation. His interpretation of this song was quite good. Although it may be slightly different in style from the original version by A-God, Elton's singing ability is too strong. Wei Ming thinks this version may be more suitable for the 80s.

Elton is very confident about this new song, and whether he can turn his life around depends on this.

With Li Aiguo as witness, Wei Ming officially signed a contract with Elton John, and Wei Ming's share of the profits will be directly transferred to DreamWorks.

Melinda figured that with Wei Ming's income from writing books and songs, it seemed like she could buy a publishing company. So she kept urging Wei Ming to finish the new book so she could quit her job and go solo.

Melinda's urging for more updates is very sincere, or 2.

The next day, Wei Ming and his two companions met with MGM representatives again, but this time they were invited to the MGM headquarters, and the person in charge who received them was of a higher rank and had the authority to make decisions.

Upon arriving at MGM headquarters, they saw posters for many familiar classic works, such as "Gone with the Wind," "Tom and Jerry," "Ben-Hur," "Waterloo Bridge," "Doctor Zhivago," and "Singin' in the Rain," as well as the "007" and "Rocky" series from United Artists, which had merged with MGM.

No wonder that no matter how high MGM's debt became, people were still willing to buy it; its foundation was simply too deep.

MGM has shown considerable sincerity this time, offering a $20 option fee, but not for one year, but for three years.

If the script development and technical environment are insufficient to secure funding within three years, the copyright will revert to Wei Ming's hands, or MGM will renew the contract, which would then be $300,000 for three years.

If filming is confirmed, the adaptation fee is $100 million, which is an astronomical sum in Hollywood. However, there is a catch: the previous option fees must be included, meaning that you will only need to pay an additional $80, for a total of $100 million.

Wei Mingfang made concessions in this regard, but refused to budge on issues such as sequel development, a 5% share of box office profits, and revenue from derivative rights.

To make a sequel, the rights to his novels must be purchased again, which is also to prevent him from manipulating the box office profit sharing.

If the first film is a huge success, a sequel is inevitable. If a sequel is made, then the original author cannot be bypassed, which greatly reduces the possibility of manipulating box office profits.

Although Wei Lingling herself studied law, she is not a lawyer. This time, it involved hundreds of millions of dollars in profits, so she still used a professional law firm. Li Aiguo's father, Old White, got involved because of his son's connections.

Seeing his father making money, Li Aiguo was really envious. He had only one thought: to pass the US bar exam as soon as possible, so that he could handle all the legal cases Ming Ge needed in the US!
Thanks to Melinda, a professional, Wei Ming's work had no copyright disputes in the United States. All the necessary registrations were completed, and the contract proceeded smoothly, with the signing completed on the same day.

Three days later, the $20, after deducting taxes and legal fees, will be deposited into DreamWorks' account.

However, Wei Ming couldn't wait three days. He had been away for more than a week, and it was already March. He didn't know what the situation was like at home.

So he boarded a flight home alone, Melinda went back to London, and Wei Lingling stayed in Los Angeles for a few more days because the Smurfs blind box toys sent from Hong Kong were about to arrive, and she had some specific tasks to handle.

This time, the plane didn't go to Hong Kong; it went straight to Beijing.

However, his story is still circulating in Hong Kong, because the film magazine "Film Biweekly" announced the nominees for the first Hong Kong Film Awards, and Wei Ming was on the list.

Vivian Chow had never bought this magazine before; she only learned about the Hong Kong Film Awards from her classmates.

Then she asked, "Did 'Seven Days of Wrong Love' get nominated?"

"Of course! If this movie wasn't nominated, there would be no point in holding this award. Box office success and critical acclaim are equally important!"

"Come on, let me see!"

Ultimately, they listened to Jackie Chan's advice and made the awards very comprehensive, with 3 to 5 nominees for each award.

The nominees for Best Film include "The Story of Woo Viet", "Seven Days of Wrong Marriage", "Father and Son", "The Marginal Man", and "Modern Bodyguard", which are mainly works by directors of the New Wave.

The Best Director award goes to the directors of these five films.

As for the Best Actor and Actress awards, only Ye Tong's nomination for Best Actress made Amin pause for a moment before turning her attention to the Screenwriting awards.

Haha, as expected, Amin made it to the finals!
Moreover, he was nominated for more than one award. In addition to Best Screenplay for "Seven Days of Wrong Wedding", he was also nominated for Best Original Film Song for "Seven Days of Wrong Wedding", which was his song "Let Everything Go with the Wind".

In addition, the Hong Kong Film Awards will also select ten outstanding Chinese-language films and ten outstanding foreign-language films, which will be announced at the awards ceremony and in the next issue of the magazine.

Amin immediately wrote to Wei Ming, asking if he would attend.

~
Wei Ming had just landed in Yanjing and hired three tricycles. Two of them were for transporting computers, and the last one was for transporting him.

These two computers were so heavily packaged that even a small car wouldn't be able to transport them easily; a tricycle was the best option.

Three tricycle drivers surrounded him at the same time to recommend themselves, and then Wei Ming said he wanted them all.

The two people assigned to pull the computers were very happy because the cargo was much lighter than the people.

Wei Ming was riding in the last car. He shouted, "Don't ride too fast, the things inside might go crazy."

"Comrade, what's inside?" asked the middle-aged man who was pulling Wei Ming.

"Computers, you know?"

Wei Ming underestimated the people of the world. They were tricycle drivers, which is considered taxi drivers. It would be an understatement to say they knew everything from astronomy to geography. How could they not know about computers?

"You got this computer from overseas?"

"yes.

"Personal?"

"correct."

"How much did you buy it for?"

Wei Ming became wary: "Master, why are you asking this? You don't mean you want to raise the price, do you? We've already agreed on this."

"What are you talking about? My son is taking the college entrance exam this year, and he says computers have a promising future and he wants to study them. I'm just asking how much they cost, maybe I'll buy one for him someday," the tricycle driver said.

"Wow, your son has good taste! He absolutely must learn computers!"

As for the price, Wei Ming didn't say, but only told him: "As long as you study, the school will definitely provide you with a computer. As for whether he wants to buy one himself, let him buy it himself when he earns money in the future."

They first went to a two-courtyard house in Nanluoguxiang and placed one of the machines there, while the remaining one was transported to the Overseas Chinese Apartment.

These two places became Wei Ming's main activity areas. He even considered temporarily moving the police chief and Ginkgo to Nanluoguxiang to save himself the trouble of going to Beichizi to feed them.

Wei Ming wasn't surprised that no one was home at the Overseas Chinese Apartment. Having slept enough on the plane, Wei Ming first installed the computer in his study and tested it. It worked, but it was an English display, so he couldn't write Chinese characters; he could only write English novels.

After settling things with the computer, Wei Ming took the books that Bu Suanzi had asked him to bring back to Tsinghua University, where he unexpectedly ran into Wei Hong, who was holding a Rubik's Cube event.

"Brother! You're finally back!" Wei Hong ran up to her older brother and then introduced him to the members of the Tsinghua branch.

Wei Ming: "Do you have any biology majors here?"

“Teacher Wei, I have a fellow villager who is…”

"It's okay if you don't have any. Do you know where the head of the biology department is? I have some professional books that an international student asked me to bring."

"It's Bu Suanzi!" Wei Hong guessed immediately.

"Ah."

"Brother, you saw him!?" Although she had guessed it, Wei Hong was still a little surprised.

Wei Ming: "Yes, I made a special trip to Stanford for you and took some photos. I'll show them to you later."

Guided by his Tsinghua classmate, Wei Ming successfully completed the task entrusted to him by Bu Suanzi, and then said, "Director Sun, could you ask our Peking University Biology Department to make a copy of these books?"

Director Sun smiled and agreed.

Hehe, this trip was worthwhile.

Then Wei Ming went to the library for a walk, and his colleagues congratulated him. The whole country already knew that he had won a major award in the United States.

In fact, Wei Ming already knew. As soon as he landed, he bought some recent newspapers to find out about the hottest news, and he was the hottest news figure recently.

Wei Ming's identity as a musician is becoming increasingly well-known. If it weren't for a newspaper report that Ba Jin and others had begun selecting nominees for the first Mao Dun Literature Prize, many people would probably have forgotten that he writes novels.

"Don't leave after work, let's grab a bite together!"

Every time Wei Ming comes back from leave, he treats his colleagues to a meal, since they help him with his work.

So, in other workplaces, if someone is always taking leave, their colleagues will definitely not like them. But Wei Ming is different. Everyone is happy when he takes leave, and they even wish he would take more leave.

His workload is negligible, but Wei Ming always treats him to meals when he comes back, and sometimes even brings gifts. He's so good at socializing that it's impossible to find fault with him.

It was the same Changzheng Canteen across from the school. Unexpectedly, he ran into Uncle Ping An again. But the person sitting with him was even more unexpected for Wei Ming. It turned out to be Coach Wu Bin from Shichahai Sports School.

After settling his colleagues in, Wei Ming quickly went over and sat down: "Uncle, Coach Wu, do you two know each other?"

Wei Pingan: "We just met."

Wu Bin said, "We weren't familiar with each other before, but when I heard that he was Wei Ming's uncle, I felt like he was an old friend."

Wei Ming was still puzzled: "You two are discussing business here?"

I really don't see any possibility of cooperation between Peking University and Shichahai Sports School.

Wei Pingan shook his head: "It's a private matter."

"Oh? Is it convenient for you to say?"

Wei Ping'an: "Actually, it's nothing. It's just that your younger brother really liked 'Shaolin Temple' after watching it, and he insisted on going to Dengfeng to become a disciple and learn martial arts."

Wei Ming shook his head with a wry smile, thinking, "What a foolish elementary school student."

The influence of "Shaolin Temple" on contemporary teenagers is indeed significant, far surpassing that of "Heroes Have Emerged Since Ancient Times".

Moreover, its influence was far-reaching. Even when Wang Baoqiang read it in the 90s, he was still influenced by it to go to Shaolin Temple and contribute tuition fees to Master Shi.

Wei Ming said, "So in the end you compromised and sent him to Shichahai Sports School?"

Wu Bin said, "It's just that I go there on weekends to participate in some physical training. The intensity is not high, and I'm with Wu Jing's group of students."

Wei Ming asked with a smile, "Then Xizi can call himself Junior Brother Li Lianjie from now on, right?"

Wei Ping'an laughed, "I was just advising Coach Wu to accept Xizi as his last disciple, so that the two of us could be officially fellow disciples."

Wu Bin shook his head with a wry smile. Li Lianjie's sudden popularity this time was much stronger than Biaozi and Yanzi's, and it even directly affected him, the coach. He became a hot commodity, which can be considered as benefiting from his apprentice's popularity.

According to the two of them, Xizi has just participated in the first week of practice and can already do somersaults, and her enthusiasm remains undiminished.

Wei Ming felt that it would be good for Xizi to practice martial arts instead of pursuing formal education. If he could improve his physical expressiveness, it would definitely benefit his future acting career.

Taking this opportunity, Wei Ming told Uncle Ping An about "Journey to the West".

"I have recommended Xizi to director Yang Jie to play Red Boy. There will be quite a few action scenes. After studying with Coach Wu for a while, I believe his fight scenes with Sun Wukong will be outstanding."

"Ah, Red Boy, can't he play Nezha? He really likes Nezha."

“That probably won’t work. The director wants Nezha to be older, to differentiate him from Red Boy,” Wei Ming laughed. “If he likes action scenes, I’ll write a script for him for action scenes later.”

After chatting with the two of them for a while, Wei Ming went back and had a couple of drinks with his colleagues, telling them about his interesting experiences in the United States, which left everyone stunned.

When the party ended, Wei Ming walked back to the school with Uncle Ping An.

Wei Ming also told him about buying the computer: "Uncle Ping An, you can consider the research direction of Chinese character cards. This will have a very positive effect on the promotion of computers in China."

Wei Ping'an nodded seriously: "In this regard, we can only start by imitating Taiwan. I heard that they already have Chinese character cards that can be used commercially. We must catch up as soon as possible."

When they arrived at the parking lot, Uncle Ping An told Wei Ming to invite Xiao Hong to his house for dinner the next day.

Wei Ming hesitated for a long time.

"Uncle, I met my great-aunt during my trip to America."

"Oh, really? What did she tell you?"

Wei Ming took out the old photo from his bag: "She gave me a photo of my second grandmother when she was young."

Wei Ping'an was overjoyed: "Let me see!"

However, after receiving it, Wei Ping'an was stunned. This photo seemed to be developed from the same negative as the half photo in his home!
Wei Ming didn't mention who the man next to him was. He turned around, got on his motorcycle, and said, "Uncle, I'll be going now. Xiao Hong is waiting for me at home."

Wei Ping'an nodded, staring intently at the complete photo under the school gatekeeper's light, because his mother had said that the person whose photo was cropped out was his father!
Finally, Wei Ping'an could see the man next to his mother clearly. Judging from their closeness and expressions, they were obviously a couple, and his mother was right.

But why does my father look so much like a young uncle?
……

(Yesterday's guaranteed minimum)
(End of this chapter)