A New Idea

In 1895, the British missionary Li Deli had obtained a permanent lease on 4,000 mu of land halfway up Mount Lu through illegal means. He named it Cooling, and the place later came to be known as Guling.

Guling became a summer retreat for Westerners in China and unexpectedly developed at a rapid pace.

By the Republican era, Mount Lu had become the Kuomintang's "summer capital." Old Jiang went up Mount Lu seventy-seven times. By then, Guling had chapels, cinemas, a library, a hospital, schools, tennis courts, bathhouses, photo studios, banks, newspapers, and more. It was a completely different world from the one outside.

After the founding of the People's Republic, Mount Lu's status remained unchanged. The Chairman went up Mount Lu three times to preside over central meetings, and some senior leaders also came here to recuperate.

Mount Lu therefore had strong political associations, and Romance on Mount Lu happened to tell a story about a marriage between Kuomintang and Communist families. It could hardly have been more fitting to set it here.

At noon, at the Guling Hotel.

Chen Qi was exhausted from the train journey and slept comfortably for most of the day before waking up. Yawning, he pulled back the curtains. Outside was the little town of Guling, surrounded by mountains. The breeze blowing through them was refreshingly pleasant, a world apart from the capital.

"What a place! No wonder everyone comes up here."

He washed up, opened the door, and went out.

Filmmaking was a state assignment these days, so wherever a crew went, people usually did everything they could to cooperate. The local administration was extremely welcoming and gave the crew a great deal of support. As usual, he had a single room, as did Wang Haowei. The rest shared either double rooms or larger rooms.

He ambled downstairs to the dining hall. Tang Guoqiang, Gong Xue, and the others had also just gotten up and were eating. A master chef sat beside them, talking with spit flying.

"It was September 1970. A big conference had just finished here, and suddenly they called us all outside. I didn't know what was going on either. I went out and looked, and oh my, guess who I saw?"

"Who did you see?"

Chen Qi chimed in as he sat down.

"I saw the Chairman himself!"

The chef was delighted to have someone play along. He slapped his thigh. "Right there on that open ground, at 2:14 in the afternoon. I remember it clear as day. The Chairman was very tall, and he even waved at me and said something, thanking me or something like that. It's a shame I was so stunned that I forgot to answer..."

"Did you take a group photo?"

"We did, we did! It's hanging right there on the wall. I was standing behind the Chairman... It's as if I can still see him and hear his voice. I'll never forget it as long as I live. How could he have passed away? It's been three years before we knew it..."

"Please don't be too sad. The Chairman surely wouldn't want to see us crying our eyes out. We have to pull ourselves together. The revolution will surely succeed!"

"That's right, that's right. You're a young man with a high level of political awareness! Oh, you haven't eaten yet, have you? I'll get you some food!"

"Thank you!"

"..."

The chef got a tremendous emotional boost and walked away, beaming.

The others gave him sidelong looks. What was he doing? Was he a crosstalk performer? Would he die if he let a remark fall to the ground without catching it?

Chen Qi paid them no mind. He looked around and asked, "Where's Director Wang?"

"Out scouting locations!"

"So we're free?"

"We have to work on understanding our characters. You're free for now," Tang Guoqiang said.

"Oh, so have you worked them out?"

Tang Guoqiang knitted his brows. "Little Chen, I've noticed that whatever comes out of your mouth somehow sounds improper."

"People who are proper naturally see me as proper. People who aren't proper naturally see me as improper. That's not my problem."

"Uh..."

Tang Guoqiang was left speechless, while Gong Xue lowered her head and secretly laughed.

The chef personally brought the food over: steamed buns, rice, a stir-fried dish, and some soup. Chen Qi ate and chatted with his colleagues. As the screenwriter accompanying the crew, he really did have little to do most of the time.

Almost every film crew ran into situations where scenes had to be changed on the spot.

On less particular crews, the director and actors would just work something out themselves. On more particular crews, the screenwriter had to make the changes.

Screenwriters accompanying crews now were different from those in later years. In later years, they were all treated like grandsons, or were employed by big-name stars as private screenwriters. No names would be named here-take Song Dandan, for example!

Some other big stars brought private screenwriters with them every time they joined a production, to help them work over the script.

This working over of the script wasn't intended to make the overall shoot go more smoothly. It was to shift the focus onto themselves, pick out the scenes that would make them shine, and rearrange them into a new plot.

For example, a supporting character might originally have a long stretch of dialogue, but a big star would consider it useless and an obstacle to their own performance. Snip, a stroke of the pen, and it was gone.

In the end, the whole production was left in pieces, impossible to edit into a smooth whole. The big star took the money and walked away, while the production company was left wanting to cry but finding no tears. The company then had to hire someone else to re-edit it and add narration before the plot could be made barely coherent.

That was commonplace in the entertainment industry.

So Chen Qi was quite touched to have the respect of the director and the whole crew, and he was willing to come along and lend a hand.

There was no tourism industry these days. Domestic tourism was open only to foreigners and overseas Chinese. Ordinary people took advantage of business trips to visit attractions along the way, and that counted as tourism.

There were no tourists on Mount Lu, and it was exceptionally peaceful. Mountains rose and fell, their lush greenery pleasing to the eye. After eating, everyone went for a casual stroll through Guling, the little mountain town, as though wrapped in a giant ink-wash painting.

They also took a look at Meilu Villa from outside.

Meilu Villa had once been Old Jiang's residence. Later, the Chairman had also stayed there.

Chen Qi was very interested and compared the sights with those in his memory. When he had visited in his previous life, this whole area had been full of guesthouses and sanatoriums. As he walked, his eyes suddenly lit up, and he ran over to a building.

The building was made of stone and was clearly old. It bore the words "Guling East Valley Cinema."

"This used to be a chapel built by the foreign devils. We turned it into a cinema. Back then, Old Jiang and that old witch often took walks along this street. I was still a kid at the time, and they even gave me candy.

"Now that I think about it, my political awareness was low and my thinking was poor. That was counterrevolutionary candy!"

The staff member accompanying them denounced Old Jiang with righteous indignation. Everyone understood: he might have been criticized because of that piece of candy.

"Let's take a picture. It's not every day we get to come here!"

Looking at the cinema, Chen Qi suddenly made the suggestion.

"Good idea! I brought a camera especially for this!"

A crew member eagerly agreed and opened a bag, revealing a Seagull camera inside.

"Old Tang, stand in the middle!"

"Zhang Jinling, you're tall. Don't stand in front!"

"Little Chen, stand next to Gong Xue!"

"Everybody ready!"

The shutter clicked, and more than a dozen people had their picture taken together. Everyone was excited; chances to travel like this were rare.

Night.

A mountain breeze blew in through the window, circled the room, and slipped out through the crack beneath the door. There was no need for a fan at all; a cross breeze was the coolest.

Chen Qi sat at the desk in a sleeveless undershirt and shorts, with paper and a pen laid out before him.

He had nothing to do for the time being, so he considered writing something else. He had been in too much of a rush with Romance on Mount Lu to give it much thought. Now that he wasn't pressed for time, he could write whatever he wanted.

I'll start with a novel, then adapt it into a script. That way I can get paid twice.

The fee for a novel isn't much, but even a mosquito has meat.

What should I write?

The scar literature that was popular at the moment?

He shook his head. He couldn't stand that stuff.

His conversation with Wang Haowei on the train hadn't been an act. He really did like serving the people and making things the masses loved to see and hear; it would also help pave the way for the future. Having come to this era, he was bound to have ideas that differed from those of his contemporaries. If he just went with the flow, what had he come for?

Hmm, how about I write a wuxia story?

Wuxia is street-stall literature these days. I don't even know if any magazine would be willing to take it. If...

"Thump, thump, thump!"

He had just begun to get an idea when he suddenly heard a faint noise from upstairs.

It stopped briefly, then started again, rather irregularly.

"..."

The sound wasn't loud, but Chen Qi hated being disturbed while he was thinking. He put up with it for a while, and when it showed no sign of stopping, he pulled on a pair of trousers and ran thumping upstairs.