Publishing and the Start of School

They had arranged to meet at a café near the school. Zeng Li had gone shopping with her best friend early that morning, so Wei Jin had to come alone. He arrived fifteen minutes early.

On the way, Wei Jin had also been considering his negotiating strategy. After all, this concerned the initial capital he would use to leverage a small stake into a fortune.

He chose a seat by the window, ordered a coffee at random, and briefly gathered his thoughts.

About five minutes later, a man around thirty walked over to Wei Jin's booth.

"Excuse me, are you Eighteen Scholars, Mr. Wei Jin?"

The man was well-mannered and did not sit down before receiving an answer.

"Hello, I'm Wei Jin. Please, have a seat. What would you like to drink?"

Wei Jin responded just as courteously.

"Thank you."

The man sat down across from Wei Jin and, when the waiter approached, ordered a latte.

"Mr. Wei, I'm Shen Haobo. I asked to meet you because I want the publishing rights to Snowstrider."

Shen Haobo got straight to the point and seemed very sincere.

Unfortunately, Wei Jin knew little about literary figures in either his past life or this one. Otherwise, he would have known that the man before him would found Motie Books a few years later,

and, in just three years, publish The Years of Grass, Jade Dynasty, Those Things in the Ming Dynasty, and Grave Robbers' Chronicles, scoring four smash hits in a row.

"Mr. Shen, what terms can you offer me? Do you have full authority to make the decision?"

Wei Jin was fairly direct too, even questioning Shen Haobo's authority, though there was really no need.

"Mr. Wei, I've read every installment of Snowstrider. I love the martial world you've portrayed. I think it can absolutely be called the wuxia bible of the post-Jin Yong era. I'm confident I can get sales above a million copies."

Shen Haobo seemed almost fanatical when he spoke about Snowstrider.

"You flatter me, you flatter me."

Black lines appeared on Wei Jin's forehead. Shen Haobo had gone straight to dividing eras at Mr. Jin Yong!

This was praise meant to kill. He himself knew perfectly well what caliber the novel was, and what caliber he was.

So he kept a respectful distance from Shen Haobo's praise, and the pie in the sky Shen Haobo had painted did not tempt him in the slightest.

"I don't know what your projected sales of a million copies are based on. Why don't we be direct and discuss your offer?"

Seeing that his pie in the sky had failed and realizing that Wei Jin was a very practical person, Shen Haobo pondered for a moment before speaking.

"Mr. Wei, a ten percent royalty, plus a payment of 300 yuan per thousand characters, and an advance deposit of 300,000 yuan. That's already my most sincere offer."

It was clear that Shen Haobo was full of sincerity. Before coming, Wei Jin had also made some basic inquiries about publishing:

Ordinary authors received royalties of around eight percent, while well-known writers could get ten to twelve percent, and the industry's leading names could command fifteen to twenty percent.

Royalties were actually calculated quite simply. Say a book had a cover price of twenty yuan; ten percent was two yuan. If 100,000 copies were printed, he could receive 200,000 yuan in royalties.

Novels currently sold for around fifteen to twenty-five yuan. If sales exceeded a million copies, that meant Wei Jin could earn over a million yuan in royalties from Snowstrider!

After making a quick calculation of his earnings, Wei Jin was very satisfied. The negotiating lines he had prepared were completely useless.

"Mr. Shen, I can feel your sincerity. I have no objections to the price. I have only one request."

"Mm, go ahead."

"Publish it as soon as possible, and don't delay royalty payments."

"No problem. You can rest assured on that point."

"Then, here's to our partnership?"

"Here's to our partnership!"

Thanks to their straightforward, decisive natures, the two reached an agreement in less than half an hour.

A few remaining details were settled after both sides' lawyers arrived.

Two hours later, Wei Jin politely declined Shen Haobo's enthusiastic invitation and returned to apartment 501, with an extra 300,000 yuan in his bank account.

That evening, Wei Jin shared the good news with Zeng Li when she came home. Seeing her boyfriend's talent recognized, the beauty shared in his pride.

That night, Wei Jin experienced tenderness like the watery towns of Jiangnan and taught the beauty quite a few entirely new things.

On the first day of school, Zeng Li dressed Wei Jin up to look exceptionally handsome, like a wife seeing her husband off to work.

When Wei Jin arrived at school, he first went to the director's office and met Zhang Jiandong, the director and instructor of the class of 2002's directing department.

"Hello, Teacher Zhang!"

Zhang Jiandong looked at Wei Jin, who seemed taller and more handsome than he had been last semester, and could not resist teasing him.

"Wei Jin, you really should have gone to the acting department. Your talents are being wasted here with me."

"Teacher Zhang, it's not my fault I'm good-looking."

Wei Jin put on a helpless expression. "Compared with making a living off my face, I'd rather rely on my talent."

"Haha, quite right. Youth fades easily, but talent becomes ever more outstanding as time lets it mature."

The directing department did not have many classes to begin with, and its students were pitifully few, so Zhang Jiandong was happy to chat with Wei Jin.

"By the way, how is your recovery going?"

Before this, Wei Xingbang had been the one contacting Zhang Jiandong directly. He only knew that Wei Jin had been discharged from the hospital, not the details, so he asked.

"I've recovered very well. I feel healthier than before."

After more than a month of high-quality sleep, Wei Jin's physical condition had indeed improved considerably.

"By the way, Teacher Zhang, I came this time to apply to move out of school."

Upon learning that Wei Jin had already rented a place outside, Zhang Jiandong readily agreed and told him to go to the academic affairs office himself to arrange the paperwork.

His dull campus life officially began. Every day he traveled back and forth between two points, learning knowledge by day and imparting it by night. He was having the time of his life.

The days went by. He had intended to rely on his extraordinary memory to learn by rote, but to his surprise, Wei Jin discovered that his ability to learn had also improved dramatically.

His brain was like a sponge, greedily soaking up all kinds of knowledge, quickly comprehending it, then forming memories that ultimately turned into images.

After this discovery, Wei Jin began to wonder whether he could make arrangements for some of his plans ahead of time.

As a directing student, Wei Jin had continued to further his professional studies. Combined with his deep sleep during this period, his memory had risen to five—meaning he could freeze images in his mind.

This meant he could draw a tiger by copying a cat, perfectly reproducing the outstanding works he had seen in his previous life.

However, the domestic film market was still sluggish, cinema construction lagged behind, and the market would have a hard time accepting Wei Jin, a completely unknown, invisible director in the industry.

So there was no need to consider commercial films for the time being. He would focus on art films first, contend at Europe's big three festivals, and forge a golden body for himself.

But if he wanted to make a film, where would the funding come from?

The royalty payments would come in a little too slowly, so Wei Jin planned to find another way to make money quickly.

His inspiration came from M-Zone. The years before 2007 would be the age of ringback tones.

These years also counted as the record industry's final glory days. If he caught this wave, he could make big money too.

Wei Jin had some ideas in mind, but he still needed to learn the basics of music theory.

In any case, the sooner he became famous, the more say he would have in the industry, and the sooner he could help Zeng Li.

Heaven have pity, Sister Li had been so idle lately that she was practically growing mold. Three years after graduating, she had appeared in only a handful of productions.

Once one of the Central Academy of Drama's seven golden flowers, she was almost an invisible nobody now.

As a qualified boyfriend, Wei Jin felt he really had worried his heart to pieces over her.

He immediately decided: starting today, there would be extra meals at night.