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

After the start of the new school year, Lin Ying's days were once again filled with textbooks.

The workload for sixth graders at São Paulo was even heavier than the previous semester. With the crucial period for secondary school placement approaching, Ms. Chen spent most of her time in the classroom talking about grades and rules.

English reading reports are due twice a week, and the difficulty of the complex word problems on the math test is similar to that of previous years' high school entrance exams. In addition, students need to digest administrative knowledge and historical logic from the general knowledge class. Many students in the class have been under so much pressure since the start of the semester that they have dark circles under their eyes every day.

Lin Ying continued at her own pace, without rushing or getting impatient.

In the morning, she attends sixth-grade classes at school. During lunch break, she goes to the library to look through her Form 1 science books. After school, she goes back to her old house in Yu Fat Building to finish her schoolwork. After dinner, she opens the complete set of Form 1 textbooks that Teacher Chen lent her and systematically breaks down the basic vocabulary of the all-English secondary school curriculum.

Lin Ying's studies were busy but not chaotic, and He Dazhu was not idle either.

After returning from that ill-fated family visit to his hometown, He Dazhu seemed like a different person. Before, in Master Su's jade carving shop in Yau Ma Tei, he was a quiet, hardworking man who only knew how to follow instructions to grind the material and lay the foundation.

Things are different now. He's more proactive now, paying attention to customers' preferences, keeping accounts, and even practicing drawing lines on scrap materials when Master Su isn't busy.

One weekend in mid-April, the whole family returned to Taikoo Shing; He Dazhu came back from work carrying a red cloth bag.

Lin Qian, with his sharp eyes, immediately leaned over: "Old Dou, what treasure did you bring back? Did you get a bonus?"

He Dazhu placed the cloth bag on the coffee table and peeled it open layer by layer. Inside was a piece of fine-quality bluish-white jade, carved into a three-dimensional reclining Pixiu. The carving skills seemed a bit immature, but the Pixiu's mouth, claws, and the coin patterns on its back were all clearly carved.

Lin Lanying walked over and glanced at it: "Dazhu, did you do this?"

He Dazhu said happily, "My master let me try my hand at it. From inspecting the materials and drawing lines to carving the face, I did it all myself."

Lin Qian reached out to touch it, but Lin Lanying slapped his hand away: "Go wash your hands! You're so clumsy! You'll have to pay for it if you break it!"

"What did Master Su say?" Lin Ying asked.

"My master said I have a steady hand and am good at judging large pieces," He Dazhu said with a proud smile. "He said this piece could sell for a good price. He'll let me handle some of the decorative pieces in the shop from now on. If I can keep up, he'll start teaching me how to make Guanyin pendants and large landscape pieces next month."

"That's good." Lin Ying gave a thumbs up. "Old Dou is going to make a lot of money and become rich in the future."

The days passed in a steady, busy routine. March came to an end, and April began.

The box office for "The Gambling King" in Hong Kong cinemas has been completely sold out. Su Zhihao is always beaming with joy whenever he calls, and the videotapes are selling like hotcakes overseas.

The highly anticipated international blockbuster, "Magic Academy Exchange Students," has remained largely silent.

When they were having dinner at the Peninsula Hotel, Boss Peng said that the location shooting could be completed as early as March or April, and the filming could be finished in May. Lin Ying understood that cross-border cooperation with foreign teams could not be edited in a month or two like local Hong Kong films.

As it turned out, Boss Peng had overestimated the efficiency of these foreigners.

It wasn't until a Friday afternoon in mid-May that the landline on the fifteenth floor of Taikoo Shing finally rang.

Lin Ying and her family had just returned home when Lin Ying answered the phone.

"Screenwriter Kobayashi."

"Uncle Peng? The sample photos are out?" Lin Ying asked immediately upon hearing Boss Peng's voice.

"It's out," Boss Peng said. "I've worked myself to the bone for this film. Tomorrow, Saturday, at three in the afternoon, in my company's small screening room again. Call Su Lao Er too, let's come and see the goods together."

"it is good."

The next afternoon, Su Zhihao's car stopped on time at the foot of Taikoo Shing, picked up Lin Ying and her daughter and headed straight to Boss Peng's company; He Dazhu couldn't leave his jade carving shop, so he went to Master Su's place; Lin Qian went to his swimming lesson.

The curtains in the small screening room were drawn tightly, with only a few floor lamps left on.

As soon as Boss Peng entered, Su Zhihao exclaimed, "Old Peng, did you go abroad to film a movie, or did you go to do manual labor for someone? How did you end up looking like this?"

Boss Peng had lost a lot of weight; his suit was wobbling under his clothes, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

He slammed his cigarette case onto the small round table: "Dealing with those foreigners is more time-consuming than negotiating with the gangsters in Kowloon Walled City. Watch the movie first, then I'll start cursing."

The lights in the room went out, and the screen lit up.

Lin Ying sat in the middle seat and took out a pen and notebook from her bag.

The first long shot opens in a snowstorm at a Western castle. A Gothic tower, a gloomy sky, and a pure-blooded student in a black magic robe walks arrogantly down the corridor. It's well-shot; the lighting and shadows look great.

Then, the camera zooms in. An Eastern youth dressed in white ancient costume stands in the crowd, carrying a cloth bag on his back, from which the hilt of an ordinary longsword is visible.

As the plot unfolds, Lin Ying occasionally notes the editing rhythm and the fidelity of the dialogue.

The preceding scenes clearly established the situation. The Eastern boy was ridiculed for not being able to hold his wand properly in a Western magic class... The director captured those disdainful and ostracized looks with great subtlety.

As time goes by, the villains' dark magic invades; the castle's defensive magic array collapses, and the magicians' wands break one after another in the darkness, with screams and fear filling the screen.

The final battle scene.

There was no holy light, no beam of light from the wand.

The young man from the East stood in the center of the ruins, drawing a longsword from his back that looked as if it would break at the slightest touch. With a flick of his wrist, more than a dozen yellow talismans flew up and landed firmly on the collapsed stone pillars on all sides. The longsword touched the ground, and an Eastern-style array glowed with golden light, forcefully holding back the falling rubble from the ancient castle.

The blond aristocratic students standing behind him, who had once mocked him, stared in shock and disbelief at this force that defied explanation by Western logic.

The image freezes on the Eastern boy's action of sheathing his sword with a backhand motion.

The sample video has finished playing.

The lights in the projection room snapped on.

Su Zhihao clapped his hands and cheered, "Great! This gave me goosebumps! I never knew those few tattered yellow papers could look so impressive flying around on the big screen!"

Lin Ying closed her notebook. She had been prepared for the foreigners to secretly change the script and weaken the Eastern elements, but after watching it, she found that it was exceptionally well-made. The core elements remained unchanged, and the contrast between the decline of Western magic and the cultivation of Eastern culture was portrayed very well.

"It hasn't been changed." Lin Ying looked at Boss Peng. "He's kept his bottom line very clean, and the satisfaction level is off the charts."

Boss Peng leaned back in his leather chair. Upon hearing this, he picked up a cigarette from the table, lit it, and took a puff.

"How could it not be clean?" Boss Peng exhaled a smoke ring, his temper flaring instantly. "Damn it! To keep the core issue unchanged for these few tens of minutes, I haven't been back to Hong Kong for three whole months!"

Su Zhihao was stunned: "Didn't you say filming would be finished in March or April?"

"I also thought they had a sense of contractual obligation!" Boss Peng sneered. "As it turns out, I overestimated these foreigners' bottom line and efficiency. Bad weather meant stopping work, the union protested and demanded holidays. That was bad enough, but when we were preparing to film the final battle at the end of March, the director and producer secretly held a meeting and wanted to cut half of the talisman array, insisting on giving the male lead an oriental-style magic wand! They said they were afraid Western audiences wouldn't accept it!"

Su Zhihao was somewhat surprised: "It's all written in the contract, how dare they change the script?"

"What wouldn't they dare to do? Capital is flowing through their territory!" Boss Peng was clearly furious. "As soon as I got the news, I rushed from central London to the filming location in Scotland that very night! I told him that if anyone dared to give the male lead a magic wand, or dared to change the setting of the Eastern sword cultivator, I would immediately withdraw my investment and cancel the script, leaving their entire crew to starve!"

As Lin Ying sat in her chair listening, an image flashed through her mind of Boss Peng slamming his fist on the table in front of a group of foreigners and the main cast on a snowy Scottish film set.

"So from that day on, I didn't dare leave the set for a single moment," Boss Peng flicked his cigarette ash. "I kept an eye on them every day. I didn't care how the cameras were set up, but I watched the dialogue translation, the special effects, and even how the sword was drawn—I was behind the monitor the whole time. We persevered like that for three months before we finally got the sample footage!"

Lin Lanying was astonished: "Boss Peng, this is a business worth tens of millions, and you, as the big boss, actually went to the film set to supervise the work yourself."

Boss Peng sighed, and as the cigarette burned down to the end, he stubbed it out in the ashtray.

He looked up at the screen, then at Lin Ying, and his anger slowly subsided.

"Mrs. Lin, in my business life, profit has always been my top priority. I can endure any hardship as long as it makes money. But this film..." Boss Peng pointed to the black-haired, yellow-skinned boy on the screen, "This film is different. It's not just about making money."

Su Zhihao asked, "If not for money, then what?"

"It was also made for us Asians," Boss Peng said earnestly.

Lin Ying was a little surprised that these words could come from the mouth of a Hong Kong boss who had spent half his life in the business world.

Boss Peng chuckled: "When I was young, I sneaked off to Southeast Asia, and later I did entrepot trade in Europe and America. Over the years, I've made money, but in the eyes of those foreigners, people with yellow skin are always inferior; they think we only know how to operate sewing machines and sell our labor, and that our culture is feudal and backward. Even if you take money to invest, deep down they still want to teach you to kneel down according to their rules."

He tapped the table: "I'm not going to do that! What you wrote in your script is so exciting! I want to show them that people with yellow skin can break the deadlock and leave them dumbfounded without their rules or their magic wands!"

The idea of ​​cultural export that Lin Ying had been suppressing since returning to Hong Kong suddenly resurfaced. It turned out she wasn't the only one struggling with this.

"Uncle Peng," Lin Ying said with a smile, "the film is excellent. These past three months have been worthwhile."

Boss Peng nodded: "With this sentence being your original creation, I feel much more at ease."

That night was Saturday. After watching the movie, Boss Peng didn't let them leave.

"I haven't had a proper meal in three months." Boss Peng had someone go to Kowloon City to buy braised goose, beef noodles, and seafood congee, which were then placed directly on the table in the company's conference room.

Su Zhihao, Boss Peng, Lin Lanying, and Lin Ying sat around the table, eating and chatting.

Su Zhihao discussed the future distribution of profits from "The Gambling King," while Boss Peng explained how to secure the distribution rights for "Magic Academy" in Europe and America.