Chapter 36

Chapter 37

The first trouble after school started was not Experimental Middle School wanting me, but Crimson Youth being ordered to suspend publication.

This was my fault. As early as late April, Dong Qinghua had spoken to Zhang Xiaotong about getting a legitimate periodical registration number. I had not taken it seriously, and we paid dearly for it. The authorities' reasons for suspending publication were simple: books could not be used as periodicals, and its ideological content was objectionable. Of course, family gossip magazines that talked about crimes of passion every day faced no such trouble, since their readers were not students.

-Not having a content rating system really was a pain. At the very least, it made finding fault far too easy.

Dong Qinghua had taken care of all the relevant connections, yet this had still happened. After learning this painful lesson, I began going back over every link in the chain, considering where things had gone wrong.

Zhang Xiaotong thought the problem might lie with the cultural authorities. She had always had good relations with the education system and had done plenty to bring it credit. She counted as a minor cultural celebrity, after all. Even if the education bureau would not help her, they would hardly trip her up. I agreed.

The suspension caught Dong Qinghua somewhat off guard too. He had been happily running around handling distribution when this suddenly happened. It was like going limp halfway through getting intimate with a woman; anyone could understand his frustration.

Zhang Xiaotong advised him to secure the registration number first, and to ask their friends at Inner Mongolia Press for help again. Spending more was fine, as long as he got it.

Dong Qinghua set off on his rounds with cash and fine liquor. The cultural bureau had eight directors; heaven knew which one had gotten a bee in his bonnet.

The suspension meant we could not resume publication for at least two or three months. Zhang Xiaotong and I suddenly felt empty inside. After all, this was our first mistake, and we could only look at each other in silence.

I sighed to her, "There are only two of us, after all. We can't cover every angle..."

Zhang Xiaotong gave a wry smile. "It's all right. We just have to do better in the future."

I agreed. Once something happened, there was no point endlessly regretting it. We only needed to think about how to solve it, and naturally we would learn to avoid it next time. Constantly complaining in the face of a problem was the worst approach. After spending eight years with me day in and day out, many of Zhang Xiaotong's attitudes toward handling things were very much to my liking.

We could only put the magazine aside for now. The editors, left idle, continued receiving their salaries. Zhang Xiaotong asked Dong Qinghua to find them something to do. Put plainly, Zhang Xiaotong was paying their wages while they worked for Dong Qinghua. Delighted, Dong Qinghua worked even harder to help her resolve the registration number and cultural authorities issues.

After some time, the full story gradually surfaced. As it turned out, several "highly respected" "veteran children's writers" had seen sales falter at the few mainstream magazines they had long remained loyal to, and their manuscript fees had been reduced slightly. In their anger, they jointly wrote an open letter to the Ministry of Culture denouncing Zhang Xiaotong's magazine. The ministry felt this was making a mountain out of a molehill, so it passed the problem to the provincial cultural department. Having received this headache, the provincial department reacted swiftly, ordering Crimson Youth to suspend publication and rectify its problems. Normally, if a magazine with sales already approaching 270,000 suspended publication for two or three months, losing 100,000 sales would be no problem at all. A token suspension like this would avoid offending the veteran artists while allowing the highly promising Crimson Youth to save face. Balancing both sides, it counted as the best solution. They had heard that Sun Group funded Crimson Youth. They could not push that wealthy backer too far.

I more or less understood what had happened. Wasn't this just like King of Comics being shut down back then? It was merely a conflict of interests.

Back then, veteran artists had also completely killed off King of Comics, which promoted Japanese manga, with a jointly signed open letter titled "The Schoolbag Is Crying." The semimonthly magazine, whose presses ran twenty-four hours a day, disappeared from public view just like that. But everyone knew that after that year, Japanese manga thoroughly took hold in China. Many things had been changed completely, even though the iconic magazine that had first represented it was gone.

Setting aside King of Comics serializing Japanese manga, what made me feel it had been treated unfairly was that it had actually kept working to foster original comics. Almost all of China's first generation of comics creators had debuted then.

Besides, all that alarmist talk about cultural invasion... had these people never heard of Lu Xun's doctrine of taking what was useful?

Japan had been subjected to American cultural invasion for decades. Even its girls copied the Americans by going to the beach to soak up ultraviolet rays, and now it had begun counterattacking with video games and animation; South Koreans watched Japanese pop and television dramas every day, and after 1995 they scattered Korean dramas and second- and third-rate pop groups all over the world, and began making games and animation too.

They had originally had none of these things. They learned from abroad, took them for their own use, repackaged and revised them, and turned them into their own culture to influence others.

Guerrilla Song put it well: "We have no guns, we have no cannons; the enemy will make them for us." Yet our attitude toward culture had already become so harsh that even taking what was useful was unacceptable.

Really, when you got down to it, wasn't it all about interests? Their own creations were no good, they refused to broaden their horizons or open their minds to find solutions, and they could not compete with others, so they could only invoke the national cause to crush them.

China's intellectuals had this habit. Whether arguing with others or discussing academic questions, they would invoke the national cause and morality at the drop of a hat to browbeat people, as though the morality and principles of the entire nation rested on their shoulders. Whoever opposed them or touched their interests was effectively opposing the whole nation.

The principle was actually simple: as long as there was enough profit to go around, people would stop using such frightening rhetoric to attack each other.

How could there be enough profit? Didn't prosperity have to come first, before anything else?

In the early nineties, hardly anyone in China would listen to the Black Cat, White Cat Theory. And now? Now they had all gone off to be good cats...

Once we knew the reason, we felt reassured. We were neither the first nor the last victims of this typical, distinctive sort of affair. At worst, we would suspend publication for two months and then resume. Judging by how things had been going, at least, Crimson Youth should count as a success. It was only two months. We could afford the break.

A break was fine too. I had been writing like mad lately, and suddenly having nothing to write made me happy to rest.

After Crimson Youth suspended publication, a few people kicked us while we were down, popping up like flies to gloat. In several youth magazines whose sales had been threatened, they attacked us through insinuations and indirect barbs. The idle editorial staff began trading insults with them in newspapers in their spare time. Go ahead, curse away, I thought. The livelier, the better. Just don't forget about us. We have to make this publicity count during our break.

The magazine had suspended publication, but life had to go on. Everyone at home expressed varying degrees of concern and indignation over the suspension of Zhang Xiaotong's magazine, then went back to their own business... I felt a little chilled. Time really did reveal people's true colors. If this was how they acted over a small problem, they would probably pretend not to know us if something serious happened.

With no magazine worries weighing on me, I began paying attention to Third Brother's movements. Guo Zhen became the go-between for Third Brother and me, coming over every few days to tell me how things stood. I learned from Guo Zhen that after registering the transport company, Third Brother first contacted a group of old friends. Some dealt heroin, some sold illegal guns, and others ran massage parlors and casinos. I gave Guo Zhen a wry smile. "After all the hard work of being a law-abiding citizen for over a decade, now I'm mixed up in prostitution, gambling, and drugs..."

Guo Zhen laughed so hard he nearly rolled on the floor. "You? Don't make me laugh... You're shadier than anyone..."

"You even saw through that. I'll have to kill you to keep you quiet..."

"Oh, give it a rest. In another couple of years, you might stand a chance against me."

Thinking it over, I had to agree. With a body not yet twelve years old, there was only so much training could do. In an actual fight, I was still completely useless.

According to Guo Zhen, Third Brother had gathered these people to establish sales channels. Smuggled goods were not as difficult to move as stolen goods. Simply funneling them into the market through a few major dealers offered little profit; controlling the entire distribution chain ourselves would be more convenient.

I had one doubt. This required a firm hand and strict rules. Could Third Brother manage it with his current influence?

Guo Zhen explained that this was why they needed more time now. First, they had to make sure things were settled with customs. Second, they needed to bring the scattered operators in the underworld into line, drawing this loose collection of people back together into a new circle bound by shared interests. After all, for most people, loyalty was not what mattered. Profit was.

My greater concern was Third Brother's father, the so-called Old Master. How would he react when he learned about this?

Guo Zhen said, "You don't need to worry about the Old Master. All these years, he's always felt he owed Third Brother a great deal. After Third Brother's treatment, he'll be even less inclined to interfere in his affairs. If I'm not mistaken, he'll probably even support him..."

I let out a breath. Good. Having the support of someone who already possessed considerable authority was far better than starting from scratch. At least we had a high starting point, and could easily avoid a lot of trouble at the lower levels.

I asked Guo Zhen to tell Third Brother to establish a solid foundation first. We were not short of money now, so there was no hurry. He could develop things slowly on his end, and simply come to me if he needed funding.

Guo Zhen asked whether we should tell Yang Yuanzhe and the others about the current situation. I hesitated, then decided to wait until the second-generation electronic pets went on sale. By then, I could also consider meeting some other friends ahead of time.

A month after Crimson Youth suspended publication, Teacher Li personally visited my home. Her purpose went without saying: she wanted me to attend Experimental Middle School.

Zhang Xiaotong had long since worked her magic on my parents, and they shook their heads like rattle drums. Since taking up stock trading, both had become more eloquent too. I thought they sounded even slicker than me. "Teacher Li, we would like Xingwen to attend Experimental Middle School, but everyone there is a top student. He wouldn't stand out, anyway. He'd be better off going to No. 13 Middle School. His scores should be enough to get into No. 1 High School regardless. It's only middle school. If he doesn't want to study properly himself, there's nothing we can do about it, wouldn't you agree?"

That speech left my homeroom teacher at a loss for words. She drank three large cups of Tieguanyin and spent over an hour talking, but still accomplished nothing, and left resentfully.

After my homeroom teacher left, Dad was a little worried. "There are still more than six months left. Your teacher won't make things difficult for you over this, will she?"

Seeing that the two of them could actually maneuver around a schoolteacher they had once respected so deeply for my sake, I knew that certain changes had taken effect after all. My happiness was beyond words. "It's fine. They won't pay much attention to students before graduation anyway. Besides, I'm sure I can take first place in the whole school and make her look good."

Mom patted my head. "Always so full of yourself. Be a little more modest."

"I know." I pretended to feel wronged. "I've almost reached high school material in my self-study. This already counts as modest..."

"It's only because we know you study well that we dare let you run around all day. Learn more from your big sister Xiaotong, and accomplish something big yourself someday..."

"Yes, yes, yes... All right, all right... No problem... Definitely, definitely..."

November arrived in the blink of an eye. Time did pass quickly. On my advice, we temporarily stopped our endless haul from stocks and futures. Too many people would go under in 1995; caution was best. As the money in futures trading and stocks gradually turned into cash, we began to have substantial funds available to deploy. Meanwhile, the second version of the electronic pet went on sale. I gave it a very simple name, "With You." It came in six different versions, with the differences mainly in the pets' forms and certain specific details. In short, no single version was the best. It was just as that business maxim said: "Business means giving them not what they want, but what they never thought of."

Before With You went on sale, large numbers of imitation electronic pets had already flooded the market. Our initial profits had been concentrated in the first two months, and after October we had basically been losing money continuously. This release of With You was essentially intended to address the lingering piracy problem from last time. This generation of portable electronic pets sold for around 120 yuan. They could link to the previous generation's electronic pets and inherit their data to obtain super-powerful pets, link to the computer version, and automatically identify electronic pet chips not produced by Sun Electronics. Honestly, this sales approach was already fairly close to the later concept of handheld game consoles, except we still insisted on having only one game per device. The sole difference was that this could download upgrade data from a computer, and only people with verified genuine copies could collect the upgrade data at designated sales outlets.

I knew it would not be long before someone cracked the computer authentication system and pirated discs flooded everywhere. But for now, this was about all we could do. Any time we could buy was worth buying.

With You sold extraordinarily well after its release, thanks in no small part to the publicity effect of the pirated versions. Along with my reflections, I felt a little wistful. Actually, I still supported piracy... If you wanted people in a country with such low per capita income to see so many things and gain access to so much information, what could you rely on if not piracy?

In late November, Liu Mingyao called Zhang Xiaotong and me. What he said was unexpected. "Someone from Sony wants to meet you."

"Who?"

"Ken Kutaragi."

"Huh?"