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

In the days that followed, Lin Ying was extremely busy, breaking down her time down to the minute.

São Paulo's homework was not reduced by half a page just because she was first in her grade; Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons were filled with intensive computer literacy and math olympiad classes. Mr. Shao was no longer satisfied with having them type simple English letters and began to teach basic programming logic.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have to go to the dance studio to stretch my legs despite the excruciating pain, and on Saturday mornings, I have to go to the swimming pool to practice my lung capacity.

On Sunday, she took the car to the Su family home in Causeway Bay as usual, and made Su Cheng and Su Jun tutor their homework.

The remaining late nights all belonged to "Death by Light".

In that cramped bedroom in the Yufa Building, the incandescent light bulb often stayed on until late at night. Lin Ying laid out her St. Paul's textbook on the left and her yellowed manuscript paper on the right.

One second I was working on a complex advanced math problem, and the next second my thoughts had shifted to the absurd plot of a coffin shop assistant stumbling upon a fake Taoist priest swindling money in the middle of the night.

Several times when Lin Lanying got up at night, she saw light coming through the crack in the door and couldn't help but push the door open to feel sorry for her.

"Little sister, time to sleep."

"Mommy, I'll go to sleep after I finish writing the choreography for this action scene."

"You said the same thing last time!" Lin Lanying never tolerated her, snatching the pen from her hand. "Writing scripts can earn money, but you've finally recovered your health. Don't ruin your life just to make money!"

Lin Ying obediently closed the manuscript and went to sleep.

--------

During this month, the Su family was also very busy; after hearing Lin Ying's words, Su Zhihao found a top lawyer specializing in commercial contracts the next day and, with a combination of pleading and cajoling, brought Lin Lanying to a high-end law firm in Central.

Facing the conference room with walls covered in English legal texts, Lin Lanying showed not a trace of fear.

"Everything my daughter writes must be written clearly in black and white," Lin Lanying said, looking at the senior lawyer opposite her. "Profit sharing is profit sharing, signature is signature, and no clause can be fooled with those convoluted foreign words. If even one word is missing, I won't sign it."

The lawyer turned his head and glanced at Su Zhihao next to him.

Su Zhihao said directly, "What are you looking at me for? Write it exactly as Mrs. Lin says! Don't try that nonsense about dual contracts; lay all the terms and conditions out in the open!"

That afternoon, the contract was finally finalized.

At the pre-production meeting for "Death by Light", the total investment for the entire film was raised to 2.6 million!

In early 1980s Hong Kong, this was undoubtedly a huge sum of money that could buy several thousand-square-foot mansions.

The structure of this scheme is clear: Su Zhihao, as the largest investor and actual controller, put in 1.3 million, taking a 50% stake; in order to raise this money, he even staked in the revenue of some venues in Kowloon City, essentially revealing all his cards.

Another investment tycoon surnamed Peng was recruited by Su Zhihao from the poker table. Boss Peng was a big player in import and export and short-term real estate speculation, with a lot of cash on hand. After reading the portfolio, he became very interested, and seeing that Su Zhihao dared to invest his entire fortune, he casually threw in more than a million yuan, taking a 30% stake.

When signing the contract, this bigwig was very frank: "I'll provide the money, but I won't interfere in anything. If the auction goes well, I'll get a share of the profits; if it goes badly, consider this my bad luck this year, and I'll just throw all the money into the sea."

The director's surname was Zou. He had previously directed several low-budget martial arts films for Shaw Brothers. While the films weren't box office hits, he was efficient and good at saving money. Director Zou gave up most of his salary as equity, taking a 10% stake.

This final 10% profit share naturally went into Lin Ying's name. Since she was a minor, the profits were temporarily managed by Lin Lanying as her guardian.

Therefore, among these four groups, apart from Boss Peng, the other three can be said to have risked their lives and fortunes.

From the day he signed the papers, Su Zhihao's anxiety flared up, and the dark circles under his eyes visibly worsened. Before, he swore to act tough and intimidate on the street; now he swore every day because he felt insecure. He couldn't sleep for nights on end, his mind filled with images of money flowing away.

In mid-January, St. Paul's Primary School finally started its winter break.

Lin Ying walked out of the school gate with her report card showing she was the top student in fourth grade, without any surprise. While others spent their winter vacation sleeping in, eating desserts at ice cream parlors, and receiving lucky money from relatives, Lin Ying was picked up by the Su family in a car at seven in the morning on the first day of her vacation and went straight to the film set in the New Territories.

In order to supervise the filming around the clock and take care of his sons' tutoring, Su Zhihao simply moved his two sons' tutoring location to the side of the film set.

The film set was rented in a remote old village house, next to which a temporary coffin shop set was set up. The wooden plaque read "Fu Shou Tang" and the ground was covered with paper figures, incense burners and yellow talismans made by the prop team.

"Why does this paper figure cost twenty yuan?!" Early in the morning, Su Zhihao stood beside the monitor, budget sheet in hand, pointing at the prop master and yelling, "These paper things, do you think they're filled with gold bars?!"

The prop master explained with a pained expression, "Brother Hao, this is for close-up shots. If it looks too fake, the audience will be distracted..."

"You can't steal my money just because you're on camera! You're a disgrace!" Su Zhihao stomped his feet in frustration.

Director Zou sighed helplessly, "Brother Hao, it's the first day of filming, let's wish for good luck, can we please stop complaining about the props?"

Lin Ying stood in the corner, backpack on her back, silently observing everything. Turning the words in the script into real footage was a massive money-burning process. Lighting up cost money, the machines running consumed funds, and even the actors' breaks for water were eating into the 2.6 million yuan investment.

At a folding table not far away, Su Jun was biting a pencil and doing math problems while secretly glancing at the zombie extras jumping around in the distance.

"Brother," Su Jun nudged Su Cheng, who was memorizing English words, with his elbow, "Don't you think Old Dou's temper has been as volatile as a mad dog lately?"

"That's good." Su Cheng suppressed a smile. "He was still walking around the living room smoking at three o'clock last night. I think his eye bags were thicker than textbooks."

Su Jun nodded in deep agreement, his spirits lifting considerably: "I think that's for the best! He's preoccupied with that 2.6 million all day, so much so that he can't even eat. How could he possibly have time to meet young and beautiful women?"

"Right," Su Cheng added, "They won't have time to find us a stepmother."

Lin Ying was holding a red pen, preparing to grade Su Jun's paper, when she heard the two, a brilliant duo, discussing their father's refusal to find a stepmother, and she was speechless.

"Lin Ying!" Su Jun even leaned closer with anticipation. "You have to film this script for a long time! Ideally, three to five years, until I go to middle school! That way, he'll completely forget about finding women!"

Lin Ying smacked Su Jun on the forehead with her red pen: "He doesn't have time to find you a stepmother, but he definitely has time to beat you! If you make another mistake in this fraction addition and subtraction problem, I'll stuff you into that prop coffin right now, without your dad even lifting a finger!"

Su Jun quickly lowered his head and continued solving the problem.

Just then, Director Zou's voice called "Cut!" came from the center of the set.

The first scene was filmed where the male lead, Ah Shun, witnesses a strange incident while guarding the shop late at night. The actor was a newcomer found by Director Zou, who looked honest and timid, perfectly matching the character Lin Ying described as fainting at the sight of blood and being cowardly. However, this newcomer overdid it as soon as he stepped on camera; the coffin lid had barely made a sound before he suddenly sprang up high, his face contorted.

"Your expressions are too exaggerated! Too over-the-top!" Director Zou shouted through a megaphone. "You're already acting like a mad dog in the beginning, and then real zombies jump out later, how are you going to act? Is there no sense of progression at all?!"

The actors apologized repeatedly in embarrassment, and the entire production came to a standstill. Su Zhihao watched the film reel spin aimlessly, his heart aching as he clicked his tongue in frustration.

Just as Director Zou was about to step forward and re-explain the scene, Lin Ying, who had been standing on the periphery, suddenly walked over.

"Director Zou." A nine-year-old girl suddenly cut in the middle of a group of adults.

The crew fell silent for a moment. Everyone knew that this was a junior screenwriter hired by the investors, but no one really took a young girl seriously.

Lin Ying looked at the sweating rookie actor: "You're just an employee. You weren't convinced there was something fishy going on from the start. Your current fear is that you'll make a mistake, that your boss will dock your pay, or that there might be some trouble in the coffin that you'll have to take the blame for. For your first scene, you need to be timid and hesitant, not crazy."

Director Zou paused for a moment, pondered for two seconds, and then slapped his thigh.

He turned and pointed at the actors: "Did you hear that?! Listen to the screenwriter, Kobayashi! Tone it down a bit; be afraid of people first, then be afraid of ghosts!"

The second time it was filmed, the feel was instantly right; the comedic contrast between the cowardice and utter misfortune of the little guy was immediately maximized.

When they were eating the boxed lunch at noon, Su Zhihao, holding his lunchbox, squeezed next to Lin Ying and squatted down.

"Ah Ying, your second uncle is convinced." Su Zhihao shoveled rice into his mouth. "Your one sentence today saved me half an hour's worth of film! This film is so expensive it makes you want to cry!"

"Two million six hundred thousand doesn't come easily, so the pace absolutely cannot be slow." Lin Ying took a bite of her greens and instructed, "The worst thing for a supernatural comedy is that the setup in the beginning is too long. The first half hour must make the audience laugh out loud, and the second half hour must make them feel that this ghost is hard to kill. The point that Ah Shun is afraid of blood needs to be used repeatedly later, forcing him to draw talismans with blood. Only this extreme contrast can drive up the box office."

Su Zhihao nodded repeatedly, then obediently turned to Director Zou and shouted, "Old Zou! Come here! You'd better memorize what Ah Ying said!"

The entire winter break ended amidst the hectic filming schedule and the constant tutoring.

In early February, "Death by Light" finally wrapped up filming despite the damp chill of early spring in Hong Kong and quickly moved into the closed post-production editing room.

Su Zhihao had stayed up for three consecutive nights, and he had lost a lot of weight. He sat in the editing room, his beard unkempt, staring at the screen. Even Boss Peng, who only paid and didn't do anything, came in halfway through to watch the rough cut for twenty minutes, leaving behind the words, "That's interesting. Old Su, you might really be turning your luck around this time," before leaving with a cheerful smile.

On the last evening before the holiday ended, all the footage was finally completed.

In the dimly lit screening room, Lin Ying sat on a small stool. When she saw the timid, blood-shy male protagonist accidentally being chased by zombies all over the street, accompanied by absurd and laughable music, she knew that she had made the right risky move.

The film finished playing, and the end credits weren't fully completed, but the cast and crew list at the beginning of the film was already set.

On the large screen with a black background and white lettering, two large characters were prominently displayed:

[Screenwriter: Lin Ying]

Su Zhihao turned to look at Lin Ying sitting in the light and shadow, rubbed his face hard, and took a deep breath.

"Ah Ying, everything hinges on this." Su Zhihao picked up the metal box containing the film prints. "Tonight I'll negotiate midnight screenings and the Lunar New Year release schedule in Hong Kong cinemas! If the box office is a box office hit in Hong Kong, we'll sell the prints overseas and to Southeast Asia. And then we'll look for other avenues; the mainland is a lucrative market too!"

"Whether this 2.6 million will double, whether I continue to drift through the streets of Kowloon City, or whether I can buy a big house on Victoria Peak, all depends on this first move!"

Looking at her name, Lin Ying realized that it wasn't just Su Zhihao's chance to turn things around, but also her initial gain in this era of transcending class boundaries and legally monetizing her knowledge; no one could afford to lose.