Rebirth 04: Starting from Taking an Unconventional Approach

Chapter 163 The Return Journey

"Your Uncle Chen didn't go into too much detail," Zhang Qiming said, reaching out to straighten his chair, "but the implication was that he felt Qingniao not only ran the business smoothly this time, but also used public opinion and administrative resources so well that it deserves a thorough review at the headquarters level. Maybe they should give some more substantial policies."

Zhang Ruiyi sat back down in her chair: "Does Han Fei know?"

"I haven't told him yet, so you can pass on the message to him."

Zhang Ruiyi leaned back in her chair, gazing into the air, lost in thought. After a while, she slowly nodded.

"Dad, do you think... during the headquarters meeting, someone might bring up the Guangdong system crash and blame it on Han Fei?"

"Ruiyi, you don't need to worry about that," Zhang Qiming said. "The headquarters has already determined that yesterday's events had nothing to do with Qingniao; it was purely a dereliction of duty on the Guangdong side. Besides, your Uncle Chen said something very interesting on the phone yesterday. He said Han Fei turned an accident into a story. Think about it, how would the truly knowledgeable people at headquarters view someone who can turn a crisis into an opportunity, a system crash into a technological breakthrough?"

Zhang Ruiyi hoped her voice would remain calm, without revealing any excitement: "I hope they won't blame us."

"Not only will they not blame him, but every time a battle like this is fought, Han Fei's credibility at headquarters will increase by an inch."

A long silence followed. Zhang Ruiyi coughed and looked down at her hands. "Dad, I'm the Director of Media Affairs now, but Han Fei always puts me in a difficult position. Am I... not strong enough?"

"You're not in the spotlight because you're needed more behind the scenes," Zhang Qiming said, a gentle smile on his face. "He's protecting you not because he's afraid something will happen to you, but because he's afraid you'll be consumed by public opinion. You're partners, not superiors and subordinates." He paused, "I have no other requests, I just hope that no matter how far you go, you won't forget to come home for dinner."

Zhang Qiming gave Zhang Ruiyi a meaningful look, and Zhang Ruiyi chose to believe that he was deliberately speaking ambiguously.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Han Fei returned to the publishing house and received a call from Xu Cheng. Xu Cheng congratulated him on resolving the lawsuit smoothly and impressively, and announced some news. Xu Cheng defined it as "good news" because they had prepared a "Strategic Cooperation Memorandum" that they claimed would be highly beneficial to both parties, which would be delivered to the publishing house on Monday.

They're really pressing them relentlessly.

As usual, Han Fei displayed acting skills comparable to Robert De Niro, responding positively and amicably to the information Xu Cheng presented, satisfying Xu Cheng as he hung up the phone. He then called Fang Jing. Since Xu Cheng hadn't revealed the contents of the "Strategic Cooperation Memorandum" on the phone, Fang Jing told Han Fei that headquarters would discuss countermeasures with him after learning the specific terms on Monday.

At 10 a.m., Zhang Ruiyi had already issued a statement via fax to several media outlets, clearly stating that Qingniao believes in the law and will no longer comment on the details of the case.

At 2 PM, a veteran author who had left Qingniao after its transformation announcement arrived at the publishing house, bringing a manuscript and expressing his hope to continue collaborating with Qingniao. The author was a middle-aged man around forty-five years old, writing under the pen name "Yuanfan." He had written rural essays and novellas for many years, his writing was very delicate, but his style was traditional. During the transformation controversy, he hadn't spoken in the group chat; he had simply left quietly and hadn't submitted any manuscripts since. Han Fei had Lu Hai take him to the office.

"President Han, I'm here today to deliver a manuscript," Yuan Fan said. "And also to surrender to you, to submit to our Qingniao."

Han Fei could tell that Yuan Fan was waiting for him to say something witty, but he didn't have anything to say.

Yuanfan took an A4 envelope from his bag and placed it on the table. Han Fei reached out, picked it up, opened the envelope, and flipped through the stack of manuscript papers. The novel was titled "My Dad is the Village Chief."

My dad is the village chief.

In our village, the village chief is like a local tyrant.

I hate him.

It wasn't because he embezzled the money for road repairs. The road had been under construction for three years and was still a dirt road, while his yard was paved with cement.

It wasn't because he slept with Aunt Wang—Aunt Wang's husband had his back broken by a steel pipe at the mine and had been bedridden at home for three years, during which time he "took care" of him for three years.

It was because he gave my wife to a prostitute in town.

Just to get a mining license.

Han Fei looked at Yuan Fan, raising one eyebrow. Yuan Fan smiled, revealing his teeth. Han Fei continued flipping through the pages.

The novel is only a little over ten thousand words long. The gist of it is that the village chief's father forces his daughter-in-law, Xiulan, to marry a local horse breeder in order to obtain a mining permit. As Xiulan is being forced into the horse breeder's Santana, she glances at the protagonist with eyes full of disappointment, but no resentment.

Later, Xiulan became pregnant, and rumors circulated in the village that the child was illegitimate. The protagonist was transferred by his father to a remote construction site, only allowed to return to the village one day a month. He waited day after day at the construction site, waiting for that day to come, and also waiting for an opportunity.

Finally, on the day of her father's sixtieth birthday, all the prominent figures in the town were present, but Ma Liuzi and Xiulan were nowhere to be seen.

Three months in advance, the protagonist bribed a doctor to obtain a piece of bone from the amputated leg of a horse with a tumor. He ground it into powder and soaked it in wine. At the birthday banquet, he presented his father with a cup of "bone wine".

After the father drank it, the protagonist publicly announced that the wine contained the leg bone of a horse with a tumor. The entire room erupted in cheers. The protagonist then produced a paternity test report. It turned out the child was his, not the tumor's. The protagonist's father clutched his chest and collapsed to the ground.

Just then, Xiulan called and told the protagonist that his father had planted over thirty kilograms of explosives in the courtyard where the birthday banquet was being held, and the remote control was in his father's pants pocket. The protagonist looked down and saw his father's hand reaching into his pocket, a smile on his lips.

Han Fei put down his manuscript: "Your style has changed so drastically! I'm really not used to it."

Yuan Fan sighed, "President Han, to be honest, when Qingniao was transforming, I neither supported nor opposed it; I just quietly left. My thinking at the time was simple: I didn't want to write that kind of stuff, and I didn't want to offend anyone. So I pretended not to see it and went wherever I wanted. But..." He clicked his tongue, touching his chin with the tips of two fingers, "A few days ago, my wife asked me if my royalties for this month had arrived yet, because the rice jar was almost empty. I could only tell her it would be soon. At that moment, I suddenly realized that my aloofness couldn't put food on the table. But your royalties, President Han, could."

"Hmm? After leaving Bluebird, you haven't submitted any articles to other publishing houses?"

"Yes, I have..." Yuan Fan gave a weak laugh. "I went to *Wilderness* magazine, the one where I used to submit articles, but they informed me a few days ago that they're changing the publication frequency from monthly to bimonthly, and the payment is being halved. The editor told me on the phone that literary magazines like this are already hard to sell, and now there's this new one, *Bluebird*. *Wilderness*'s subscribers have dropped by almost 40%, and 30% of its distribution channels have left. They have no choice but to downsize. He also told me that if I have other places to go, I shouldn't stick with them. Listen to that, is that even human language?"

Han Fei thought about it for a moment.

"I tried to be stubborn and say that I wouldn't leave and that I would live and die with 'The Wilderness'. But my wife heard me, snatched the phone, and kicked me."

Han Fei wanted to laugh, but he forcibly held it back. "So you were forced to come by your wife?"

"No," Yuan Fan shook his head, "I did it voluntarily. Eighty percent voluntarily. The remaining twenty percent is because of my wife. After she kicked me, she made me a bowl of noodles with two poached eggs. I knew then that she was doing it for my own good. I also know that the subscribers lost from *Wilderness* didn't stop reading; they came to your magazine. President Han, I've inquired about your magazine's sales for the past month; it's almost reached 100,000 copies, right? Your publishing house has absorbed half the readers from the entire rural market."

"Um, Mr. Yuanfan, I'd like to ask you a question first. Are you planning to follow this style for all your future articles, or is this just one you wrote for fun?"

"Of course, I'll follow this path from now on. My wife used to say that my old style was like bone broth that had been boiled three times—too bland. I spent several days dissecting all the popular novels that Qingniao had recommended, and wrote over twenty drafts before I finally grasped the basics and managed to write this one."

Yuanfan took out a small notebook from his bag, turned to a page, and held it up to Han Fei.

"Look, I took careful notes. The first paragraph of 'Li Yuanyuan' has four white lines. The suspense is built up from the beginning. In 'The Door Closed by Brothers,' the first sentence is a moral taboo, grabbing the reader in a second. In 'Living as a Widow,' the widow river scene itself is the conflict."

He turned to the next page, which was densely covered with writing and annotations circled in red pen.

"I also calculated the density of your key quotes. On average, there's a small climax every 300 words and a small plot twist every 500 words. I carefully counted the quotes in my manuscript against the table, and it basically meets the standard."

Han Fei nodded, revealing an asymmetrical smile: "Professor Yuanfan, are you writing a novel or doing academic research?"

"It's all the same, all the same," Yuan Fan waved his notebook. "Writing is practice, research is theory. Theory guides practice, and practice feeds back into theory. That's called walking on two legs."

Yuanfan sat down again: "President Han, I left without saying goodbye back then; I was blind. I came back this time for two reasons. First, because I saw your words to us authors in the *Shanghai Morning Post*: 'A page in *Bluebird* is always available for you.'" I read that sentence and thought about it for three nights. I thought, since the president has already opened the door, it wouldn't be noble for me not to go in; it would be foolish. Second, because I have no other way out. *Wilderness* is going out of business, and several other established magazines are also cutting pages. Writers our age are stuck in the middle. *Bluebird* is the only path I can still walk, and am willing to walk. If you don't mind, and you think this article is alright, then... then I'll give you a chance. If not, just consider this a visit; we can still be friends."

Han Fei looked at Yuan Fan. This desperate old author wasn't an isolated case. He suddenly realized that the emergence of Qingniao had not only stolen readers but also indirectly accelerated the collapse of traditional literary journals. Qingniao was siphoning off the core author resources of traditional literary journals, and more authors like Yuan Fan were likely to seek it out. This could rapidly expand the content library, but it also meant that these authors were probably only temporarily joining, not genuinely identifying with Qingniao's ecosystem. If the market shifted again, they might leave once more.

However, the fact that Yuan Fan wrote a novel like "My Dad is the Village Chief," which perfectly fits the logic of a blockbuster, after only a few days of research, shows that veteran authors do indeed have a significant advantage in terms of basic skills. Such a person is worth signing, but shouldn't be immediately placed in the core author pool, and certainly shouldn't be given any special treatment, lest it create an implicit arrogance among authors that "we are still superior to the weeds."

"Teacher Yuanfan, I've accepted the manuscript. It will be published next month. As for the contract, since you've studied our rules, I won't beat around the bush. According to the system, the contract level is determined by the length of your contract. Qingniao's logic is very simple: however long you're willing to stay with Qingniao, that's how much Qingniao will share with you," Han Fei said.

"I know," Yuan Fan said with a smile. "President Han, I'd like to ask you something first: do you think someone like me, who turns back halfway, can stay at Qingniao for long?"

"Now that you've chosen to come back, Bluebird needs you just the right time," Han Fei said. "Your basic skills, your narrative rhythm, and your grasp of rural themes are among the best in the entire pool of authors. You were able to master our novel style in just a few days, which shows that it's not that you can't write, it's that you don't want to. I've said before that Bluebird welcomes every talented author who is willing to stay. Whether you can stay long has nothing to do with how many years you've written, but rather depends on whether you're willing to continue writing in this style for your next and the one after that."

Yuan Fan nodded: "I understand. I used to think that writing required backbone. You can't bend your spine for the sake of royalties. Now I realize that without royalties, you can't even afford to eat, so where does the backbone come from?"

"Well, so it's up to you to decide. If you're not willing, I certainly won't persuade you to sign a long-term contract. Bluebird isn't a shelter, nor is it some kind of literary sanctuary. We're just a shop that sells stories. If the story is good and the readers buy it, we get a share of the profits. If the story isn't good, no matter how many articles you've published before, it won't matter."

"Okay," Yuanfan said, "then to be on the safe side, let's compromise and sign a second-tier contract first."

"Okay," Han Fei said, taking out a pre-printed template of a secondary contract from his drawer and pushing it across the table. "The minimum wage for a secondary contract is 65 per thousand words, but if your manuscript makes it into the top ten of the online paid charts for six consecutive periods, I'll convert it to 80 for you anytime."

"Alright, alright," Yuan Fan picked up the pen and began to sign, his eyes sparkling with a smile. "President Han, to be honest, I didn't expect you to still be willing to take me on. When I left back then... I was being immature. My wife would be so happy if she knew."