Rebirth 04: Starting from Taking an Unconventional Approach

Are you dead?

Chen Dajian opened his eyes, and the outline of a person's head appeared beside him. The person's face merged into a ball of white light. Was that his wife? Was she coming to pick him up?

"Are you dead?" the bright voice asked again.

He didn't answer, because he didn't know if his eyes were open or if he was just dreaming. Or perhaps, as the voice asked, he was already dead.

The man moved his head, and Chen Dajian saw the treetops, the blue sky, and the gate of the Hujiang Literature and Art Publishing House. His pupils adjusted to the light, and he remembered walking to the entrance of the publishing house, sitting on the steps, hesitating whether to go in. He must have been asleep. A little boy squatted down beside him, a pair of curious eyes staring at him.

"Are you hungry?" the little boy asked.

"I'm not hungry," Chen Dajian said.

The little boy stared intently at him, making him feel a little awkward. Perhaps the little boy thought he was a beggar, lying on the ground because he was too hungry to get food and waiting for a kind person to give him alms.

"Where's your mother?" Chen Dajian asked, avoiding the little boy's curious gaze.

"There," the little boy turned his head and pointed.

Not far away, two young women were sitting on a bench by the roadside, and three children were playing and laughing around them.

What grade are you in?

"Fourth grade," the little boy said.

Did you know that one of my articles was used as a reading comprehension question on a fourth-grade midterm exam?

"I hate reading comprehension the most."

Chen Dajian reached out and pinched the little boy's nose, causing the boy to squeal with delight. Chen Dajian then saw the two women turn around, and one of them stood up. Chen Dajian released his grip.

"Your mother," Chen Dajian said, turning to look at the woman walking towards them.

"Mommy!" the little boy called out. "Look, there's a boastful old man here."

The woman gently patted the little boy's head. Chen Dajian smiled, but the woman avoided his gaze, her eyes fixed on her son. The little boy finally obeyed and followed his mother away. When they turned back towards them, the woman's gaze merely swept over Chen Dajian, as if he didn't exist.

Chen Dajian wanted to explain to the woman that he was not a beggar, but a writer who had been writing since he was sixteen and had published more than two hundred works in nearly twenty different magazines over the past thirty-eight years. He had devoted a great deal of energy to this, giving his all, until he had little time left to live, but he still could not let go.

Chen Dajian walked into Hujiang Literature and Art Publishing House. This publishing house was even smaller than Qingniao Publishing House, with a lower magazine circulation, and was on the verge of bankruptcy. He chose this publishing house because its president, Zhou Zhengru, still adhered to his principles and maintained respect for literature.

Chen Dajian signed a two-year cooperation agreement with the publishing house, requiring him to submit a qualified manuscript every month.

It's not that complicated anymore.

He decided to use his remaining energy to create one last work, a work he had always wanted to write but had yet to put pen to paper.

That will be his final work.

......

"How much are you planning to drink at the celebration party tonight?" Han Fei asked Zhang Ruiyi, gently nudging her with his elbow to signal her to move forward in the ticket queue.

They were at the Times Cinema on Huaihai Road. After leaving the hospital, Han Fei originally wanted to return to the publishing house to review manuscripts and complete the ranking of entries for the "New Rural Novel Competition." Zhang Ruiyi insisted on dragging him to watch a movie, saying that a balance between work and rest is necessary to go further, that sharpening the axe doesn't delay the work, and that popcorn and disaster movies are the best way to wear people down.

"Do you want some?" Zhang Ruiyi asked.

"I'll pass."

"Are you afraid of drinking?"

"I'm afraid of getting drunk," Han Fei said. "At drinking parties, once you start drinking, it's hard to stop. This person offers a toast, that person clinks glasses. The first drink is for friendship, the second is for appearances, and the third and fourth drinks become the rules. By then, it's not up to one person to decide whether to stop."

"You talk like you know everything. Fine, I won't drink then. Have you decided what to wear tonight?"

"Isn't this outfit fine?" Han Fei said, looking down at his black T-shirt and jeans.

"Who dresses like that to a party?" Zhang Ruiyi said in surprise. "Don't you have a suit?"

Han Fei thought for a moment: "Hmm... My last suit was the one I bought the year I graduated from university, for my graduation party. Although my weight hasn't changed much over the years, my clothes always seem to quietly become ill-fitting."

"Okay," Zhang Ruiyi said, "Let's go to the suit store later, I'll help you pick one out. How about the tenth row?"

Han Fei stood at the ticket window and bought two tickets for the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".

"I don't think this movie will be good," he said.

"Why?" Zhang Ruiyi asked, "Because I chose it?"

"It relies too much on special effects. Do you know how I felt when I saw the trailer for 'The Day After Tomorrow'? The Statue of Liberty was submerged by waves, and New York was frozen by a blizzard—it was truly breathtaking. But after watching the trailer, I basically already knew what the whole movie would be like. Usually, the biggest problem with these kinds of movies is that they treat the disaster as the main character, and the people are just extras. How the waves come, how the buildings collapse—the special effects team spends half a year rendering a ten-second shot. It's exciting to watch, but you forget about it completely after a while. Want some popcorn?" Han Fei nudged Zhang Ruiyi again in the popcorn queue.

"But aren't disaster movies always like this?"

"Titanic is not."

"Isn't that a romance movie?"

"The brilliance lies in combining the two genres. If you calculate the time carefully, from hitting the iceberg to the complete sinking, the ship sank for forty minutes out of the roughly two-and-a-half-hour film. In other words, for the first hundred minutes, they were all in a love story. It's a disaster film, but the main characters are still human."

Zhang Ruiyi rolled her eyes at him: "Treat me to a large serving of popcorn."

As it turned out, *The Day After Tomorrow* was much better than Han Fei had feared. However, halfway through the movie, when Professor Hall was preparing to cross the ice field to rescue his son trapped in the library, and Zhang Ruiyi was in tears, Han Fei suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him, and then he fell into a deep sleep. He dreamt that he was standing in front of an open door, light shining through the crack. He opened the door…

When he woke up, his head was resting on Zhang Ruiyi's shoulder. A gentle female voice came from the loudspeaker, announcing that today's screening had ended and that he should take his belongings and leave through the designated exits. If any items were lost during the screening, please contact the staff. Thank you for choosing Times Cinema; we look forward to seeing you again.