Making Things Difficult

President Dai's office.

Dai Ying turned back to the part about Shen Liang's suicide. She found it deeply moving:

Bao Zheng said to Shen Liang, his heart heavy with grief, "Xiao Ai, the woman you killed with your own hands, told me. Her suicide note made everything perfectly clear. The first time I saw it, I thought something was strange. Look at the character for 'adultery.' It's made up of three instances of the character for 'woman,' and all three are exactly alike in their strokes, handwriting, and arrangement. Why is that? Because Xiao Ai didn't write the character herself. You traced it. You traced the components from other characters and put them together. Now look at this: the last line of Liu Yuxi's 'Wuyi Lane,' which Xiao Ai wrote while she was alive: 'They fly into the homes of common folk.' You traced the components of the character for 'surname' from that line. Xiao Ai hadn't been learning to write for long, so her handwriting was childish and uneven. It would have been hard to imitate. You could only trace it. And you even taught her that character in the last piece of writing you taught her. By then, you'd already decided to kill her. That piece was really a death warrant, leading Xiao Ai to the gates of hell. Am I right?"

Seeing that the truth was out, Shen Liang burst into laughter. "That stupid woman was just too stupid. She was stupid beyond belief. I'm a Khitan! A Khitan! I'm cruel by nature. Ha! Ha! She kept coming closer to me. Was she stupid or what? When we went on that outing together, wasn't she terribly down? She'd already figured out my intentions. Hahaha! Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid woman! She was so stupid, so stupid. I was always trying to avoid her, but she didn't understand. She didn't get it. Then she finally understood, but she still kept coming near me. Tell me, wasn't she a stupid woman? I'm Khitan. I'm a murderer! Why? Why did this happen?"

Dai Ying looked up at Li Xun. She knew he was gifted, but could he really have written the scripts for all six episodes in just two days?

"Wind and rain, the sounds of reading—every sound reaches the ear."

"Family, state, and the world—every matter weighs on the heart."

"Ten mouths, one heart, thinking of home, the state, and the realm."

He had answered two couplets in a row, both perfectly matched.

Whether it was Gongsun Ce's "Eight eyes admire, admiring flowers, the moon, and the Mid-Autumn Festival,"

or Bao Zheng's "Eight eyes add congratulations, celebrating the year, the month, and peace,"

weren't both of them written by the man right in front of her?

She'd searched online. None of the couplets—or even the riddle whose answer was the Xinwei year's top scholar—could be found anywhere. In other words, they were very likely all his original work?!

Just what kind of monster was he?

"Ahem!"

Li Xun cleared his throat.

Dai Ying came back to herself and said, "I just checked. Historically, Bao Zheng's hometown was Fei City. If the Goryeo Envoy entered by sea, they would have landed on the Shandong Peninsula. There's no way their party should have passed through Bao Zheng's hometown of Luzhou."

The two timelines had diverged at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. In this world, there was no Three Heroes and Five Gallants, no Bao Gong case stories, and no series of storytelling performances and operas about Bao Gong. That was why Dai Ying's first reaction on reading the script for Young Bao Qingtian had been to ask who Bao Qingtian was.

It was only after searching the keywords online that Dai Ying learned that there had been an official named Bao Zheng in the Northern Song Dynasty, and that his hometown was Luzhou, present-day Fei City. That raised a question for her: why would a Goryeo tribute mission have passed through Bao Zheng's hometown?

In scriptwriting, a minor inconsistency with history was no big deal. The story came first; small deviations from history were details no one would care about. Sometimes, to make a story more compelling, screenwriters even deliberately shifted times or places so people who could never have met would cross paths, and events that could never have happened would unfold.

Dai Ying had brought this up for one simple reason: she couldn't stand Li Xun acting as if nothing had happened.

Heavens knew that every time she saw him, her heart raced and she remembered that night when she'd been drunk. How could he be so casual, as though nothing had happened? How could he be so calm?

Li Xun smiled faintly. "So that's what you meant. In the twelfth month of the eighth year of Tiansheng, during Emperor Renzong's reign, Yuan Ying, Minister of Goryeo Affairs, led a delegation to present local products as tribute. After that, Song and Goryeo officially severed ties for forty years, until they resumed relations following the adoption of the 'ally with Goryeo to counter the Liao' policy. Since the traditional northern sea route, which passed through Dengzhou, Laizhou, and Mizhou, was constrained by the Liao State, in the seventh year of Xining, Goryeo sent an envoy to petition: 'We wish to avoid the Khitans and request permission to change our route and travel to the imperial court by way of Mingzhou.' The Song court approved. And the journey from Mingzhou to Kaifeng did indeed pass through Bao Zheng's hometown of Luzhou. Of course, that doesn't mean Goryeo's tribute missions definitely took that route at the time. But it was certainly possible."

Young Bao Qingtian was, after all, a show from twenty years ago. People online had long since picked apart all its plot holes. While writing the script, Li Xun had fixed whatever issues he could. He also knew which things weren't actually plot holes, even if people often mistook them for such.

Dai Ying was left speechless. Her look toward Li Xun turned a little hostile.

When a boss was in a temper, you couldn't argue with them. Lose the argument, and you were incompetent with a bad attitude. Win, and you'd left your boss with nothing to say and backed them into a corner. That would only make things worse for you.

After watching this much, Dai Ying had noticed just one plot hole—and it turned out she'd made a fool of herself because she didn't know enough? Unbelievable!

"'Ten mouths, one heart, thinking of home, the state, and the realm' is an excellent first line. But the second line—whether it's Gongsun Ce's 'Eight eyes admire, admiring flowers, the moon, and the Mid-Autumn Festival,' or Bao Zheng's 'Eight eyes add congratulations, celebrating the year, the month, and peace'—neither quite has the right feel. Go back and think it over. Come up with something better."

Heavens knew how classic Dai Ying thought those two lines were. But she just couldn't stand Li Xun. That night, he'd kissed her dozens of times, then turned around and accepted ten thousand yuan from her? She wasn't short on money, but why had he actually taken it? She was the one who'd lost out! If he was going to take money for that, why not become a gigolo?! Today, she was going to make things difficult for him! Those two lines must have used up all his brainpower, right? Come up with another one? Did he think he was Wenqu Star incarnate?

At Dai Ying's request, Li Xun looked troubled, just as she'd expected.

She still wasn't satisfied with those two lines?

That was too much!

If she didn't like them, she could come up with two lines of the same caliber herself!

Of course, Li Xun didn't dare say that aloud.

Seeing Li Xun's expression, Dai Ying felt absolutely delighted.

She'd never really meant to replace those couplets. She'd only been looking for an excuse to give him a hard time.

Li Xun thought for a moment. "I think those two lines are already quite good. Coming up with another one would be difficult, and there's no guarantee it would be better than either of them."

Dai Ying put on a stern face and scolded him. "As a screenwriter, you must never take a careless attitude toward your work. You have to strive for perfection in every detail. The moment you decide something is good enough, the audience will think it's not worth bothering with, that the show is just so-so and not even worth watching. In the end, a show that could have been a huge hit might get only mediocre results. The first person you'll have fooled is yourself."

Li Xun scratched his head. "I can come up with another one, but let me be clear: I can't guarantee the new one will measure up to the first two."

If those two weren't good enough, then her standards were too high. Li Xun did have another line in mind, but he wasn't sure it was much better than the first two. Still, she was the boss. Since she wasn't satisfied, he figured he should prepare another option if he could.

Seeing Li Xun nod, Dai Ying was a little surprised.

Was he really going to come up with another couplet?

As she watched him ponder, Dai Ying began to feel uncertain.

Was he actually thinking one up right here? He didn't even need to go home and think about it all night?

Then Li Xun said, "What do you think of 'An inch of self, words of thanks—thanking heaven, earth, and the king'?"

This couplet was said to have come from the Qing Dynasty's Qianlong and Ji Xiaolan.

According to legend, Ji Xiaolan missed his parents back home and wanted to return for a visit. Qianlong saw through him and presented him with a couplet. The first line was:

"Ten mouths, one heart, thinking of wife, children, and parents."

Ji Xiaolan immediately replied:

"An inch of self, words of thanks—thanking heaven, earth, and the king."

Qianlong was so impressed by Ji Xiaolan's quick wit that he was delighted and promptly gave him permission to return home for a visit.

Though the first line of this couplet wasn't "Ten mouths, one heart, thinking of home, the state, and the realm," the two lines shared the same structure and a similar sense. It was perfect for getting him out of trouble with his beautiful boss.

"President Dai, what do you think of this one?"

Li Xun asked cautiously.

She hadn't liked the first two, and the third wasn't necessarily any better, so he was still a little nervous.

As for Dai Ying, she'd deliberately been giving Li Xun a hard time. In her heart, she was already very pleased with the first two lines and had never thought he could really come up with another couplet of the same caliber. So when Li Xun casually came up with a third line just as good as the first two, what could she say?

Nothing.

And in her heart, she cried, How is that even possible?

So this was what they meant by a genius?

Would she ever be able to establish any authority over her subordinates?

She was so annoyed. What was she supposed to do? She really wanted to fire him, and the words slipped out: "Don't come in tomorrow!"

Li Xun: "..."

Dai Ying: "Tomorrow, go meet with producer Tang Jiahe and director Kong Teng to discuss the production of this show. Go get their contact information from my assistant in a bit."

Li Xun: "President Dai, can I offer you a suggestion? Next time, try to say everything at once. I really thought you were firing me. You scared me to death."

Dai Ying snorted with laughter. "Get lost!"

Li Xun grinned. "Sure thing!"

After Li Xun left, Dai Ying froze.

She'd actually smiled at a subordinate and told him to get lost. She'd never done that before. She might have sent her subordinates' scripts back for revisions dozens of times, and she might have seemed cold, but she'd never once said "get lost" to any of them.

What had gotten into her today?