Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Luo Jinnian suddenly remembered this animation when he was halfway through writing the script for the second season of "Tales of Wonder".

That day, he was sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the screen. The cursor blinked repeatedly at the end of the last line of the document. He wrote, revised, deleted, rewrote, and rewrote again, finally closing his laptop, leaning back in his chair, and closing his eyes for a while. Suddenly, a song popped into his head, its melody soft, like the sound of wind rustling through a wheat field, so light it was almost imperceptible. Then, images surfaced on their own: a small town surrounded by pink clouds and rainbows, a herd of short, bright-eyed ponies, their hooves pounding the grass as they crossed a bridge beneath which flowed a mint-colored river. He hadn't followed that animation closely in his previous life, but its name and outline were like a layer of fine sand settled at the bottom of his memory by time—something he wouldn't think of normally, but once stirred up by the wind, it would spread everywhere.

My Little Pony. That animated series about friendship, magic, and a purple unicorn.

Luo Jinnian opened his eyes, reached out and reopened his computer, created a new document, and typed a line in the header: *My Little Pony: Friendship Legends*. He knew this animation's target audience was children younger than those of *Charlie IX*. Those five- or six-year-olds to eight- or nine-year-olds couldn't understand Mo Duoduo's adventure stories—too complex, too fast-paced; the experience of "being scared but wanting to know what happens next" was too early for them. They needed something slower, something lighter, a world built with colors, shapes, and repetitive melodies. He remembered a parent in his previous life saying that after their child watched the animation for the first time, they sculpted six different colored ponies out of clay and placed them in a row on the windowsill, saying goodbye to them every morning before school. The first line he wrote was: "In this world, there is a magical land called Equestria. The sky in Equestria is always blue, the clouds are pink, and the river is mint green. The ponies never quarrel because they believe—friendship is the most powerful magic."

He revised the character designs to better suit the reading habits of Chinese children. There are six main characters, six colors, and six personalities. The purple unicorn is the top student in Equestria, intelligent and diligent, who loves reading and learning magic; the pink pony is a party planner, talkative and quick-witted, capable of turning any place into a playground; the white unicorn is a fashion designer, elegant and sophisticated, but also has his own little struggles; the orange pony is a farmer, hardworking and capable, who loves making apple pie; the blue pony is playful, lively, and curious about everything; the yellow pony is the gentlest, the most timid, but can talk to all the animals and is braver than anyone else in crucial moments. He labeled these six characters with colors: purple, pink, white, orange, blue, and yellow, each with a corresponding personality tag and role.

Localizing the settings required more effort than character design. The original animation is set in a small American town called "Ponyville," complete with a town hall, school, and cake shop—things that exist in Chinese children's picture books. However, these needed to be replaced with familiar scenes from daily life for young Chinese readers: a central square, an apple orchard, a library, a carousel, and a Friendship Castle with a domed roof built on a hillside. He disassembled and recombined these scenes to create six to eight fixed story settings, which are then switched between in each book.

Chu Qingning saw the document one weekend evening after dinner. Luo Jinnian printed out the manuscripts of the first two volumes and placed them on the table. Chu Qingning picked it up and casually flipped through a page. After finishing, she turned back to the first page and started reading again. After reading both volumes, she looked up at Luo Jinnian: "Are you going to draw this? Those ponies?" Luo Jinnian said, "It's for you." She placed the stack of manuscripts on her lap and remained silent for a while, as if digesting the weight of those words. "I need to see your descriptions of the colors and shapes. You need to write in detail, the more detailed the better, including the size of the eyes, the curl of the tail, the shape of the hooves. I need to see these details in the text before I can draw them."

That evening, Luo Jinnian added a page to the document titled "Character Appearance Design Description," describing the six ponies' appearances as accurately as possible: the purple unicorn had a deep purple mane with pink stripes, large, round violet eyes, and a short, smooth horn on its forehead; the pink pony had a fluorescent pink mane, like a marshmallow, bright sapphire eyes, and a more rounded body than the other ponies. He sent it to Chu Qingning after finishing, and received her reply the next morning: a drawing. The drawing depicted the purple unicorn standing on a green meadow, its mane blowing in the wind, its gaze gentle and focused, as if listening to something important. He wrote a line below the drawing: "That's it."

After the first volume's layout was finalized, Luo Jinnian messaged Jia Bei: "There's a new set of books, suitable for younger children, with full-color illustrations. Each volume has very little text, about seven or eight thousand words, with illustrations taking up half the pages. The first volume is finalized, and several more volumes are currently being written." Jia Bei asked, "What kind of subject matter?" Luo Jinnian said, "It's about the little ponies of friendship." Jia Bei paused for a moment and said, "Completely different from *Charlie IX*." Luo Jinnian said, "That's precisely why it's different. In a few years, the children who read *Charlie IX* will grow up, and the younger generation will have something of their own." Jia Bei didn't ask any further questions and replied with an "Okay."

The release of the first volume of *My Little Pony: Friendship Tales* was uneventful. There were no promotional events, no press releases, just a brief announcement on Early Spring Culture's official account, accompanied by a cover image—a purple unicorn standing at one end of a rainbow bridge, with a pinkish-orange sky in the distance. The cover was drawn by Chu Qingning, who spent a considerable amount of time on it, using several different colors to create a subtly warm glow in the shadows of the bridge piers.

The first week's sales weren't impressive, but subtle changes began to occur in the second week. Someone posted a photo in a picture book mom group showing their child sitting on a windowsill, engrossed in a book, with the caption: "I bought the first book, and my child has read it three times. She even asked me to read it to her before bed, and after I finished, she said, 'Mommy, I want a friend like that too.'" That post was shared several times, and people started asking, "What book is this? The illustrations look really good." In the third week, a parenting blogger spontaneously recommended the book, posting a video of herself turning the pages, accompanied by a narration: "The colors on each page are very comfortable, not those glaring fluorescent colors, but rather gentle, like watercolor. There aren't many words, making it suitable for bedtime reading. There are no bad guys in the story, only small misunderstandings and heartwarming moments between friends. I think it's a great first bridge book for children."

When Luo Jinnian saw the video, she noticed someone in the comments asking, "This book is published by the same publisher as 'Charlie IX'," and someone replied, "Not by the same author, but both are published by the same company." Someone else asked, "When will a new volume of 'Charlie IX' be released?" The topic had already subtly shifted in the comments section.

Luo Jinnian opened the folder that was already filled with Chu Qingning's drafts. There was a new drawing inside—six ponies standing in a row, with mint-colored river water at their feet and pink clouds above their heads. Sunlight shone obliquely from the upper right corner of the picture, casting a row of short, round shadows on the ground.

"This is My Little Pony."