1985, the year of the great writer, began with Infernal Affairs!

"Thank you." Xie Lu then looked at He Chongshan. "Editor-in-Chief He, please wait a moment. I'll be back in about twenty minutes."

"No rush, no rush, take your time."

He Chongshan now believes that Xie Lu wrote Infernal Affairs himself, and his attitude towards Xie Lu has changed. In He Chongshan's eyes, Xie Lu is simply an unpolished gem. If Xie Lu were not a freshman and his old classmate were not watching him closely, he would have wanted to poach him. Who wouldn't like a student like that?

Xie nodded, turned and walked out of the office.

The door closed.

The office was silent for a few seconds.

Then He Chongshan let out a long breath.

He muttered to himself, "Incredible, truly incredible."

Zhou Shaoyuan looked at him: "Do you believe me now?"

He Chongshan nodded: "I believe it. To be able to come up with a trilogy, to be able to plan a complete storyline, and to be able to bury all kinds of foreshadowing so deeply, this is definitely not something someone else wrote. This kid... is a genius."

He Jinqiu asked softly, "Dad, is the original story really that good?"

He Jinqiu's literary insight is still inferior to that of He Chongshan and Zhou Shaoyuan, who have decades of literary experience. So even though Xie Lu only gave a brief explanation, they were able to automatically fill in the relevant story details in their minds and roughly understand what kind of story Xie Lu was describing.

He Jinqiu cannot do this yet.

"If it's on par with the second part, that would be amazing."

"Infernal Affairs is good enough. If there were a prequel to develop the characters and a sequel to deepen the themes, this series could very well become a classic."

He Chongshan spoke these words with great seriousness.

Zhou Shaoyuan remained silent for a moment.

He knew that his old classmate He Chongshan had an extremely discerning eye, and there weren't many people he would use the word "classic" to describe.

He Chongshan suddenly remembered something and looked at Zhou Shaoyuan, asking, "By the way, Shaoyuan, how has Xie Lu usually behaved?"

"I just asked his counselor, who said he is usually quite calm and doesn't talk much, but he seems very reliable."

It's only been a few days since school started, so it's too early to tell much, but...

He paused for a moment, then said, "For you to choose me, I must be someone special."

He Chongshan smiled and said, "It wasn't me who chose him, it was him who chose me."

He submitted "Infernal Affairs" on his own initiative; I didn't commission it.

This shows that he has confidence and vision, and knows what kind of works are suitable for contemporary times.

"That's true." Zhou Shaoyuan nodded.

He Jinqiu listened from the side, her eyes fixed on the door, waiting for Xie Lu to return.

He Chongshan glanced at his daughter, whose soul seemed to have flown away with him, and sighed inwardly.

This girl seems to really care.

But he's not in the mood to worry about that right now.

His mind was filled with the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Time passed by, second by second.

He Chongshan couldn't sit still, so he stood up and paced around the office, checking his watch every few steps.

He took two more steps and checked his watch again.

Zhou Shaoyuan found it amusing: "Chongshan, sit down, you're making me dizzy."

"I'm in a hurry! You have no idea what a good piece of work means to an editor."

It was an oasis in the desert, starlight in the night.

"Is it really necessary?" Zhou Shaoyuan couldn't help but chuckle, rarely seeing He Chongshan so out of sorts.

He Chongshan said seriously, "As for it, I've been an editor for so many years and I've seen quite a few good works."

Each one of them was like a treasure, but among them, Xie Lü was the greatest treasure.

Just then, footsteps came from outside the door.

He Chongshan immediately stopped and looked towards the door.

The door opened.

Xie Lu walked in, holding about ten pages of manuscript paper. The paper was ordinary lined paper, a little wrinkled, but the handwriting was very neat.

Xie Lu walked to the coffee table and handed the manuscript to He Chongshan.

"Editor-in-Chief He, this is the beginning of the prequel, about five thousand words long. Take a look."

He Chongshan took the manuscript paper, his hands trembling slightly.

He sat back on the sofa, put on his reading glasses, and began to read.

Zhou Shaoyuan also came over, while He Jinqiu stood behind her father, tiptoeing to see.

The title was written on the top line of the manuscript:

Infernal Affairs 2

The story begins with Ni Kun, the head of the smuggling crime syndicate, and Han Chen, at this time, is just a capable henchman of Ni Kun.

At the beginning of the story, Han Chen was chatting with Officer Huang at the police station. At this time, Officer Huang and Han Chen had a good relationship, far from the bitter enmity that would later develop between them.

Officer Huang first mentioned his experience when he first entered the profession eleven years ago. He and his senior went to New World to investigate a case and got into a melee with more than a dozen people wielding knives and sticks. His senior was stabbed in the body with an iron pipe.

"My mind went blank at the time. All I knew was to shoot all six bullets into that kid. I don't remember exactly how many years he was sentenced to later."

But two years ago I ran into that kid again. He was dressed smartly, drinking with a group of people. The guys with him were Ni Kun's men.

Officer Huang flicked his cigarette ash: "Murderers and arsonists wear golden belts, while those who repair bridges and roads leave no trace."

After saying that, Officer Huang gave a self-deprecating laugh.

This incident had a great impact on Officer Huang. Officer Huang was not a completely righteous character, but a person, a vivid and real person. As a person, he was not entirely extreme; people have two sides.

This incident shook Officer Huang's beliefs, and he gradually came to believe that the only way to deal with people like Ni Kun was to use violence to combat violence. Therefore, he hinted to Han Chen to take down his boss.

At this point, Han Chen was far from the ruthless man he would become later. Now, he knew how to be grateful. Ni Kun's promotion and kindness towards him made him decisively reject Officer Huang.

"My master often warned me that karma and retribution always come in time, and I was also afraid that I wouldn't be able to eat with you in my last few years."

The conversation between Han Chen and Officer Huang was a testament to the mutual respect between the two opposing sides.

Just one scene was enough to make He Chongshan want to keep watching.

Because it was only a first draft and many parts were still incomplete, Xie Lu had only written out the general outline of the prequel to Infernal Affairs.

The scene shifts.

Young Liu Jianming was walking down the street when he wandered into a drama troupe. He decisively pulled out a gun and shot an old man dead.

And this old man was none other than Ni Kun, the person in charge of the smuggling crime syndicate.

Upon seeing this, He Chongshan blinked in disbelief, momentarily doubting whether he had seen it wrong.

Huh? After all that buildup, Ni Kun just died so abruptly?

Zhou Shaoyuan, standing behind him, felt the same way; wasn't this all too hasty?

If Ni Kun died so early, why was there so much buildup?

He Chongshan and the other two continued reading.

When news of Ni Kun's assassination spread, it shocked the entire smuggling crime syndicate, especially Ni's five henchmen: Han Chen, Gandhi, Black Ghost, Guo Hua, and Wen Zheng.

The three of them looked down again.