Soul Returns to Hong Kong: From Tailor Shop to Richest Woman

Peng Xuebin's shout of "Why?" silenced the office.

"Boss Peng, keep your voice down." Shen Yanwen flipped through the receipts one by one. "You're disturbing my accounting; 180 million is no small sum."

Peng Xuebin sat back on the sofa, genuinely puzzled. He had gone to England to negotiate distribution channels, and after two or three months of filming abroad, he produced "The Bell Rings," a film that was both fantasy and action, which ultimately yielded a net profit of 30 million!

But now this movie, "The Heart Exchange Contract," which doesn't tell any story and only features men and women crying and sobbing in a wealthy family, has actually raked in 180 million!

This completely overturned his common sense about making movies.

It took Shen Yanwen more than forty minutes to check the last invoice before he said, "Mrs. Lin, Ah Ying, the accounts are all cleared up; the total net profit is 180 million. Ah Ying will take 20%, and after deducting the taxes payable, she will receive 36 million Hong Kong dollars. The numbers are exactly the same."

Su Zhihao immediately got up and opened the safe; he took out an envelope that had been prepared in advance and pulled out the bank draft stamped with HSBC's name inside.

"Ah Ying." Su Zhihao handed over the promissory note with both hands. "Here's your share of the profits."

Lin Ying took it and handed it to her mother, Lin Lanying, who glanced at it and immediately put it away.

Peng Xuebin then asked, "Screenwriter Lin, did you know this thing would sell so many copies when you were writing it?"

Lin Ying honestly said, "Uncle Peng, when I started writing, I had a feeling it would become a hit."

"A premonition?"

"Because it's a precisely targeted emotional product," Lin Ying said directly. "But I really didn't expect it to become this popular! The number 180 million shows that I underestimated the Asian market and the emotional outburst power of female viewers who have been suppressing their emotions for too long."

Su Zhihao chimed in, "That's right! That's what it means to understand the audience!"

Zhou Yawen, who had been sitting quietly on the side sofa drinking tea, sighed: "Boss Peng, actually, I was just like you at first, quite opposed to this stuff."

Zhou Yawen was initially skeptical: "I thought it was full of flaws and lacked literary depth, but..."

She pulled out several script manuscripts from her handbag: "Recently, the pen name 'Xu Yue' has become popular in the industry, and people all over Asia are asking who Xu Yue is; film companies outside can't find the real person, so they start to follow suit."

Zhou Yawen pointed to the manuscripts and said, "Many film companies came to me with scripts written in a copycat style, asking me to be their literary consultant and help them revise the lines."

Su Zhihao became interested: "What did they write?"

"They have everything." Zhou Yawen said, her words tinged with disbelief. "There's a script where the female lead is being chased by four gang leaders at the same time, simply because her singing makes her glow! And another one, where the male lead, to stop the female lead from jumping into the sea, calls in ten helicopters to cover the sea with roses, only to have the helicopter rotors blow her off course!"

Su Zhihao directly mocked, "It's blown up? Wouldn't this have turned out to be a comedy?"

"That's why I said earlier that I was initially opposed to Ah Ying's script." Zhou Yawen shook her head. "But recently I've come across a lot of scripts like this, and I think Ah Ying's 'Heart-Swapping Pact' is quite normal! The characters are punished for their mistakes, and the emotional tension is just right."

Lin Ying nodded: "Teacher Zhou has hit the nail on the head. It doesn't win with logic, it wins with an emotional loop. Audiences go to the theater not to see how real marriages work; they go to see a man who is usually high and mighty admit his mistakes, bow his head, apologize, and pay the price."

Lin Lanying, who was standing nearby, added: "In reality, many women who have been wronged will never receive an apology."

Peng Xuebin is a businessman. Businessmen don't need to reason with the market; they only care about money. With 180 million yuan right here, Xu Yue's name is now a cash cow for cinemas across Asia.

"Screenwriter Lin, no, Professor Xu Yue," Peng Xuebin rallied, "get me another one of these, under the pen name Xu Yue! I'm not going to be so pretentious anymore, I'm going to give it a try!"

Su Zhihao's expression immediately changed: "Old ghost Peng! You've come to my territory to snatch someone away?"

"This market is so big, can you swallow it all up by yourself? If I don't fight for it, plenty of others will!" Peng Xuebin glared back. "I have more theater distribution channels; Ah Ying, if you just give me the script, I'll give you 30% of the profits!"

The screenwriter takes 30% of the net profit, which is an extremely high price in the Hong Kong film industry.

Su Zhihao panicked: "Peng Xuebin, are you crazy? How are we supposed to do business like this after you raise the price so high?"

Peng Xuebin ignored him and instead asked Lin Ying, "Ying, how is it?"

Lin Ying quickly went through the timeline in her mind: she would be entering the third year of secondary school in the second half of the year, with physics and chemistry added to the curriculum, increasing the academic workload; she needed to reply to Professor Smith's overseas letters; the new house in Taikoo Shing was under renovation; and the whole family's move would also take time.

"Uncle Peng," Lin Ying said, having finished her calculations, "I can get a new notebook."

"But I only have twenty-five days of vacation left; after Form Three starts, I absolutely will not touch the script; I will try my best to finish writing it for you in these twenty-five days, and if I can't finish it, it will have to be postponed to my winter vacation;"

Peng Xuebin didn't hesitate: "No problem! I can wait as long as it takes you to write it!"

With the matter settled, Lin Lanying and Lin Ying left the office building in Wan Chai together.

By the time we got back to Taikoo City, it was already completely dark.

The room on the fifteenth floor was filled with the aroma of food; He Dazhu had finished work early and prepared two dishes and a soup.

"You're back?" He Dazhu came out carrying a plate. "Would you like to eat first or wash your hands?"

Lin Lanying walked over and whispered, "Dazhu, the distribution has been completed."

"How many?"

Lin Lanying whispered the number into her husband's ear; He Dazhu's plate wobbled and almost fell to the ground.

Lin Ying walked into the living room and looked at Lin Yue: "How many questions did you get wrong today?"

Lin Yue quickly covered her test paper: "Big sister, I got them all right today!"

"I'll check it myself after I finish eating. If I find even one mistake, the number of questions tomorrow will double."

The living room was filled with the familiar aroma of cooking and the sound of nagging; Lin Ying quickly finished half a bowl of rice at the dining table: "Mommy, Daddy, I'm going back to my room now."

"Are you going to look at the questions again?" Lin Lanying said with a hint of heartache.

"Don't look at the questions, get to work!" Lin Ying walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

The new script cannot repeat the plot of "The Heart Exchange Pact"; it must have a different setting and capture the underlying emotions.

What do female viewers prefer?

The first line sets the tone: a domineering CEO falls in love at first sight.

Lin Ying began typing on the keyboard, setting up the character.

The male protagonist is the heir to a wealthy family in Hong Kong; he has a cold and hard personality, a strong desire for control, and doesn't believe in any nonsense about love, only in interests.

One day, on the street or at a banquet, he saw a... vibrant girl, his gaze lingered on her, and he fell in love.

Then, the main plot shifts; the elders of his family intervene, arranging a business marriage for him and forcing him to marry the eldest daughter of another family with whom he has a long-standing friendship.

The male protagonist smashed a glass in refusal. He raised his chin and declared, "I will never accept this loveless marriage! Whoever wants to marry me can have me!"

Then came the twist: the male protagonist went to great lengths to pursue the girl he fell in love with at first sight, only to discover that the girl's true identity was the very person he had publicly rejected as his fiancée.

He personally ruined his chance to rightfully marry her.

As she wrote this, Lin Ying frowned as she stared at the screen; one-way pursuit was too mundane, and there needed to be strong external resistance.

She added a storyline for the female lead.

The girl agreed to cancel the arranged marriage because she already had someone she liked: a doctor who had been her childhood sweetheart since she was little, from an ordinary family but gentle and considerate, and who took good care of her.

Now, the engagement is dissolved; the girl turns around happily, ready to be with her childhood sweetheart.

The male lead has no right to interfere, no status to stop it... Forced acquisition, misplaced marriage, male mistress's failed attempt to take over... Once these three labels are attached, the emotional tension of the whole play is greatly enhanced.

Lin Ying stopped typing. When this script, titled "Preference," was placed in front of Boss Peng, the film companies across Asia that had followed suit by writing scripts about laying roses on helicopters would have to re-examine their own scripts.