Story Club

"Knock, knock, knock!"

He stood outside the upstairs room and knocked three times.

The noises inside abruptly stopped. Then the door creaked open, revealing a pretty face without a trace of makeup.

"Comrade Little Chen!"

Gong Xue wore a sleeveless white dress and a pair of white high heels. There was a trace of shyness and fluster in her eyes, as though she had been secretly doing something in the room.

"Huh? You live upstairs from me?" Chen Qi really hadn't known.

"Mm. Did you need something?"

"I was trying to write just now and heard some noise upstairs, so I came to see."

"Oh! Then I disturbed you. I'm terribly sorry!"

"It's all right, it's all right. I was just asking. What were you doing in there?"

"I..."

Gong Xue's pretty face flushed slightly. "I wanted to practice walking in high heels. I've never worn them before."

"Oh, that does take practice. If you've never worn them and suddenly put on a pair, it's like walking on stilts. It's easy to twist your ankle, too."

"I'm sorry. I won't practice in my room anymore."

"It's fine, really. You make me sound so petty. All right, I'll head back..."

Chen Qi was just about to turn around when he suddenly remembered something. "By the way, you're from Shanghai. Do you know a Shanghai magazine called Story Club?"

"Story Club?"

Gong Xue thought for a moment. "Do you mean Revolutionary Story Club?"

"Are they the same thing?"

"I think so. I read Story Club when I was little, and later it changed its name to Revolutionary Story Club."

"Then do you know how the magazine is doing now? I mean, does it accept popular fiction submissions?"

"I'm not sure. I can ask around for you. Are you in a hurry?"

"No hurry. Thanks in advance!"

The two of them stood chatting in the doorway for a few minutes. Chen Qi didn't dare go inside, and Gong Xue was even less likely to let him in.

At her age and mine, people will talk whether anyone wants to listen or not. Wagging tongues can crush a person to death, and even jumping into the Yellow River wouldn't wash me clean. I have to be mindful of that... Chen Qi patted his face, turned, and slipped away.

Gong Xue closed the door and quietly took off her shoes.

She had only walked for a little while, but she had twisted her ankle and it hurt a little. After some thought, she sat down at the desk, gently rubbed her ankle with one hand, and picked up a pen and paper with the other to write a letter to her parents.

Her family was in Shanghai, so it would be easy for them to ask around.

After reform and opening up, the environment for literary and artistic creation gradually relaxed.

National and provincial literary journals resumed publication one after another, and local areas also began launching magazines. Even county-level organizations were publishing them. From the late seventies to the early eighties, a magazine craze swept the country.

Starting a magazine was easy during this period; any organization could do it. By 1981, there were 634 literary and arts magazines across the country.

Meanwhile, thinking in the mainstream literary world remained firmly in the grip of major journals such as People's Literature, Budding, and Harvest. They pursued serious literature, prized profound ideas and strong literary qualities, reflected the times, and so on...

There was nothing wrong with that.

But just as in the music and film worlds, after enough time, certain people naturally came to regard themselves as synonymous with the mainstream. From their lofty perch, they defined those who came after them: the obedient were admitted into the mainstream, while the disobedient were labeled non-mainstream.

Then again, so many magazines of uneven quality had thrown the market into chaos.

First, they greatly squeezed the space available to mainstream magazines. Put simply, sales were down. Second, they wasted paper. That was no joke: everything was in short supply now, including paper.

So the authorities first shut down a number of terribly shoddy local magazines, then issued a regulation in 1984 requiring them to be responsible for their own profits and losses, with no more funding.

To survive, these local magazines turned to popular literature and began publishing martial arts, romance, thriller, and other novels. This also brought about the flourishing of popular literature in the eighties.

Of course, that hadn't happened yet.

Right now, ninety-nine percent were publishing serious literature. If there was one percent that stood apart, it could only be Story Club!

Reader, Zhiyin, Yilin, and Youth Digest were the four great classics of reform and opening up. Why wasn't Story Club among them? Because Story Club stood above them.

It had set a sales record of 7.6 million copies for a single issue, reaching the worldwide peak for circulation of an individual magazine issue.

Before 2000, it sold an average of four million copies per issue. Even today, when many people think it has already kicked the bucket, it is still holding strong at five to six hundred thousand copies a month.

Chen Qi didn't think submitting to Story Club was low at all. On the contrary, he quite liked it.

Now he returned to his room. Upstairs had already gone quiet.

Sitting down at his desk, he continued sorting out his ideas. He wanted to write a martial arts novel, though the term "martial arts" wasn't popular at the time; people called them "fighting" stories.

A Step into the Past? Twin of Brothers? A bit too horny, and they're so damn long I can't remember them anyway!

Old Devil Han, the Azure Cloud Sect's cast-off disciple? That's immortal cultivation. Maybe in a few years.

Ghost Blows Out the Light? I'd probably be shot for five minutes for inciting people to rob tombs!

Shaolin Temple?

The name suddenly popped into his head, and he sank into thought. Shaolin Temple should already be in preparation, so he'd better not write it, but he could do something with the Shaolin Temple subject.

There were many stories behind Shaolin Temple. Chen Qi couldn't get involved right now, but he was certainly going to get involved, because this film would be of great use!!

He didn't know what Gong Xue would find out, but he would write it first anyway.

His mind made up, he picked up his pen and began to write.

The scratch of his pen sounded beneath the lamplight.

"Over here, over here! Move it!"

"Ma'am, sorry for the trouble, but could you move aside a little? You'll be in the shot!"

Three days later, the Romance on Mount Lu crew officially began filming. In this era, of course, they didn't follow the Hong Kong gangster custom of burning incense and offering a pig's head.

Chen Qi felt embarrassed to sit idle, so he came over to help carry equipment and the like.

Mount Lu was home to the famous White Deer Grotto Academy, where Zhu Xi had once vigorously promoted education. A swift, surging stream ran through the academy, with a great rock resting against its flow, giving it the name Pillow Stream Stone. A bridge crossed the stream, called Stream-Pillowing Bridge.

The two characters for "pillowing the stream" had been written by Zhu Xi himself.

The crew had only one movie camera, which seemed meager, but Beijing Film Studio made several films a year, sometimes shooting them at the same time. One camera per film was already quite generous.

Journey to the West was truly strapped: one camera carried it through twenty-five episodes.

"It's really hot today! Even in the mountains, it's no cooler."

Having finished moving the equipment, Chen Qi stood on the bridge wiping away his sweat. A crew member laughed. "There's no shade here, of course it's hot."

"There are trees over there. I'll cool off in a bit... Hey, that mountain peak looks interesting."

He pointed to the peak on the northern side. Its shape was distinctive, resembling five old men seated on the ground.

"Oh, that's Five Old Men Peak!"

"Five Old Men Peak?"

Chen Qi scratched his head. Why did that sound so familiar?

A little later, he remembered. Oh, Shiryu's master Dohko was the dried-up little old man who damn well hung around Five Old Men Peak, powered up and transformed into the Libra Gold Saint!

Come to think of it, Shiryu was bloody useless, always gouging out his eyes whenever he fought. All Shun ever did was look for his brother, all Hyoga did was think about his mother, and Seiya was Saori's biggest simp. Ikki really was the strongest!

"All right, get ready!"

"Let's run through it first!"

Film stock was precious, so they saved it wherever they could. Before shooting for real, they had to rehearse the scene several times until it was up to standard.

Today's scene was about the male and female leads' first meeting.

Zhou Yun came to Mount Lu for a visit and stood on the bridge, wanting to photograph Pillow Stream Stone. But Geng Hua wandered into her shot, and the two had their first conversation...

They filmed Tang Guoqiang's part first.

He wore a long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up, army-green trousers, and black cloth shoes. He was experienced; carrying a book, he walked over and sat on Pillow Stream Stone to read.

"Good, that'll do!"

He got through it easily. Wang Haowei nodded in satisfaction and called, "Gong Xue, get ready!"

Gong Xue became visibly nervous.

She wore the light purple floral puff-sleeved blouse, red bell-bottoms, and high heels, along with a little Western-style hat. Her naturally somewhat curly hair had been permed to make the waves more pronounced.

It was just as the saying went: fine clothes make the person.

Dressed like this, she did indeed look fashionable and foreign-fashionable in a way that suited Chinese tastes, not the American kind of fashionable with drugs, promiscuity, rock music, and biker gangs.

"Let's run through the scene first!"

"Ready, three, two, one!"

With a bag over her shoulder and a map in her hand, Gong Xue searched for Pillow Stream Stone, checking the map as she went.

She was supposed to walk down the path, step onto the bridge, and glance at the stone. That would complete the shot. But as soon as she began walking in her high heels, Wang Haowei frowned.

After Gong Xue had taken another couple of steps, Wang Haowei called out, "Stop! Stop!"

"Gong Xue, what are you doing?"

(Thanks to cryFengzi and Tingshuo Wuyue Hui You Jiguang for the alliance leader support!

That's all...)

(End of chapter)