Backtracking to the Age of Literature and Art

Chapter 305 Surprise Comics (ask for subscription, ask for monthly pass)

After the winter vacation, Yu Dong was not in a hurry to go home, he wanted to stay with Cheng Yanqiu at his mother's house for a few days.

Although they haven't had a drink yet, he and Cheng Yanqiu are already a legal couple.Since they are husband and wife, they must not be separated during the Chinese New Year.

So they faced the first problem after getting married, which house to go to celebrate the New Year?
Finally, after discussing and discussing, I decided to spend this year in Shanghai first, and then come to Jinling next year, but before going home for the New Year, I will stay in Jinling for a few days.

In fact, Yu Dong's idea is to take his parents over after the house in Jinling is built, and we will spend the New Year together in the future.Anyway, both of them are only children, which is relatively simple. When the time comes, grandparents and grandparents Cheng Yanqiu will be connected, and the New Year will be lively.

Yu Dong had tested his parents' ideas before, and they were not opposed to moving.The main reason is that there are no elderly people to support, and there are fewer concerns in my hometown.

In the past few days, Yu Dong has been at his parents-in-law's house, and his life is very fulfilling.

After getting up in the morning, I read a book first, and the morning passed quickly. I had a drink with my father-in-law at noon, and then weng and son-in-law discussed calligraphy in the study in the afternoon.

In the evening, after Chen Yuqing got off work, the four of them gathered around for a traditional cultural exchange, commonly known as playing mahjong.

Cheng Liye likes to play mahjong with his son-in-law, because he can always find the feeling of a general who is always victorious. He doesn't win much every night, at most ten yuan, but no matter how much he wins, as long as he wins, he can make people feel happy .

"Are Yu Hua and Bi Feiyu going home for the New Year?" Cheng Liye asked while shuffling the cards.

Yu Dong smiled and replied, "Yu Hua definitely won't come back, Bi Feiyu has to see the situation. There are quite a lot of teachers who don't go back to their hometown, and they are quite lively at school."

"Where's your student Ruan Xiaohu?" Cheng Liye asked again.

"He didn't return either."

Ruan Xiaohu's family has already been separated. There is only a dilapidated earthen house in his hometown, and he has no place to live when he goes back.The eldest brother got married and had a child, and the house is not big, so it is impossible for him to squeeze in, otherwise his sister-in-law would definitely look down upon him.

The younger brother lives with his father, and there is only one bed. When he goes back, the three of them will squeeze together.If he doesn't go back this year, he won't go back next year.When his younger brother was 14 years old, he talked about a daughter-in-law, who will be married next year, and his father will have to find another place by then.

"This kid looks clean and quite polite. It's not easy for him to be alone in a foreign land. As a teacher, you should take care of him more. Call him to play at home these two days."

Yu Dong was surprised, "Dad, have you met Ruan Xiaohu?"

Cheng Liye nodded, "He went to Jinling University a few days ago, and I happened to meet him. But he probably didn't know about my relationship with you, so he didn't even talk to him at that time."

"Who is Ruan Xiaohu? Yu Dong's student? Has he got too many students?" Chen Yuqing asked curiously.

About Ruan Xiaohu, Cheng Yanqiu had mentioned it to Cheng Liye before, but Chen Yuqing didn't know about it.The main thing is that Chen Yuqing usually doesn't pay attention to the affairs of the literary circle, and told her that she doesn't know who Ruan Xiaohu is.

Yu Dong explained with a smile: "It is indeed my student. Unlike other students, this student has a special fate. At that time, I went to Rongcheng..."

Then Yu Dongyan succinctly told about the encounter between himself and Ruan Xiaohu and Ruan Xiaohu and Hu Yueming. After listening, Cheng Liye sighed, "Before I only heard that Luoluo said that the new writer-in-residence signed by your school is your student, but I didn’t expect this kind of fate to exist.”

"I didn't expect it myself, especially when my teacher met him later."

Chen Yuqing smiled and said, "Human life is very strange. It is also the child's luck to meet you and Hu Yueming. Let him come home tomorrow night, and I will make a delicious meal."

Yu Dong nodded and smiled, "Okay, I'll call him tomorrow."

……

When Ruan Xiaohu heard Yu Dong say that he was going to take him to his father-in-law's house, he was a little excited and a little embarrassed.The teacher's father-in-law, logically speaking, is also his master, just like Hu Yueming.

"Teacher, master, what do they like? I will definitely not go empty-handed."

"It's not empty-handed, let's buy some fruit. Your master likes to play mahjong, so you can play mahjong with him."

"But I'm not very good at playing mahjong."

"It would be better not to."

Ruan Xiaohu followed Yu Dong anxiously with the fruit in his hands. When he went to Cheng's house and saw Cheng Liye, his eyes almost popped out.

Dean Cheng is the teacher's father-in-law?
Speaking of which, the teacher's wife's surname is indeed Cheng, but there are so many people with the surname Cheng in the world, how could Ruan Xiaohu think of such a relationship.

Seeing Ruan Xiaohu's surprised face, Cheng Liye smiled and said, "Come in, it's not the first time we meet, so I won't introduce myself."

Ruan Xiaohu entered the room with a fruit bag, and was not sure where to put the things, so Yu Dong pointed to the kitchen and said, "Put it on the chopping board in the kitchen, and then come over for tea."

Then Yu Dong asked his father-in-law, "Where's Luoluo?"

Cheng Liye pointed to the room, "I've been talking on the phone for 10 minutes. It's different after getting married. I don't feel bad about the phone bill at home."

Just as he was talking, Cheng Yanqiu opened the door and came out, "I'm used to the phone at home... Xiaohu is here."

"Hello, mistress."

Cheng Yanqiu waved his hand, "You're welcome, just treat this place as your own home and sit down."

Ruan Xiaohu sat down straight, when Yu Dong poured him a cup of tea, he quickly stood up to take it, then stared blankly at the coffee table holding the cup.

Cheng Liye saw that he was a little restrained, so he took the initiative to ask, "Xiaohu, what are you reading recently?"

"Recently I'm reading Kafka's The Castle and The Trial."

"What do you think?"

"Kafka's books are a bit special to read. I don't read many books by German writers. I don't know if many German writers have this style. Anyway, it's a bit difficult to read."

Cheng Liye said with a smile: "It's not your fault. In fact, the translated version is better, but the original version is more obscure. Kafka is the pioneer of expressionist literature. His works are very jumpy, and the language symbolism is very strong..."

It might be a professional habit, as soon as we talked about literature, Cheng Liye started to attend class.He usually doesn't talk about these things when he chats with Yu Dong, because Yu Dong is also a top student in the Chinese Department, and Yu Dong has learned this knowledge in school.

But Ruan Xiaohu is different. His writing style is somewhat similar to that of Mo Yan and Yu Hua. He relies on talent and reading, and he doesn't know much about these professional things.

Cheng Liye told him that Kafka's works are very jumpy and symbolic in language, and he can still understand them, but he was confused when Cheng Liye said modernism and expressionism.

Yu Dong never told Ruan Xiaohu about these things, but he didn't object to having such an opportunity for him to listen.

The father-in-law was teaching Ruan Xiaohu a small class, while Cheng Yanqiu pulled Yudong aside, and whispered to him, "I called Kan Tingting just now, and she seemed to be in a bad condition, but she didn't tell her when I asked her. Received a call from her home, no one spoke, and hung up after a while."

"It should be from his husband."

"I think so too. Kan Tingting's husband seems to be very strict with her."

Yu Dong looked at his wife, "What are you going to do?"

"I want to help her, but she doesn't say anything, and I don't know what's going on between them."

Yu Dong nodded, "You can't help this kind of thing casually when you don't figure it out, or you will be a bad person in the end. If something really happens, the person who can help her the most is actually herself."

"Well, I know, it's just sometimes uncomfortable to see her like this."

Yu Dong understood Cheng Yanqiu's feelings, not to mention that they used to be classmates, just seeing that another woman might encounter some bad things, both women should feel worried.

But as outsiders, it's really not easy for them to intervene in this kind of thing. Yu Dong has seen too many meddling between other people's couples.And Kan Tingting herself is unwilling to say anything, so what can they do to help?

Cheng Liye taught Ruan Xiaohu for a while, and realized that his occupational disease was not good, so he didn't say anything more, but suggested playing mahjong.

Ruan Xiaohu was afraid that his performance would not be good for a while, so he took a vaccination first, "I'm not very good at it, master.",

"It doesn't matter, you can learn." Cheng Liye laughed and said, "Your teacher is not very good, and after studying for so long, he is still half-baked. He plays cards, even if Confucius moves, he will lose."

A table of mahjong was quickly set up. Considering that Ruan Xiaohu was not very good at it, he played the simplest kind of mahjong without firing cannons.

But after a few rounds, Yu Dong and the others felt that something was wrong, because Ruan Xiaohu's playing style was really good, after four or five rounds, except for Cheng Yanqiu's mess, the others were all Ruan Xiaohu's.

Ruan Xiaohu is really not very good at playing, sometimes he can read the wrong cards.

There was a card that he had already played, but he didn't understand it, so he played a three-drum first, and it was his turn to draw the cards in the next round, and he drew another three-drum, but he still played a three-drum.

It's simply not okay to be silly.

From the time they started playing poker to when Chen Yuqing came back from get off work, less than two hours passed, and Ruan Xiaohu won all the money alone.After all, he won more than 20 by himself.

Because they have to take care of Ruan Xiaohu who can't play, their lottery is very small, [-] cents for the beard, [-] cents for the concealed kong, and [-] cents for a normal win. If they are lucky, they will not exceed [-] yuan.

Moreover, Ruan Xiaohu was not familiar with the game, and he often played the wrong cards, otherwise he would definitely win more than 20 points.

As soon as Chen Yuqing came back, Cheng Liye breathed a sigh of relief, "Let's stop playing and cook."

It doesn't matter if you lose a little money, the problem is that the whole audience watched Ruan Xiaohu playing cards alone, it was really depressing, and he didn't feel any sense of participation.

After listening to their report on the battle situation, Chen Yuqing said with a smile, "Novices are like this, the cards are very good."

……

Jimmy rushed to the United States to spend Christmas, and then started busy work again.

Now he has a lot of things in his hands, the publication of "Fatal Identity", the licensing negotiation of the "Resident Evil" game, the joint promotion of the "Resident Evil" movie, and the sci-fi unit drama plan he made before, one thing after another pile.

In addition, because the "Second World" movie was very popular in the UK, several big bookstores in the UK were inviting Yu Dong to hold a book signing event.

Seeing more and more things piled up in front of him, Jimmy knew that he should find some helpers.

It’s not that Deep Space America is not recruiting people. The company now has more than 30 people, but these people can only do some work that he told him to do, and they can’t do it alone.

It is impossible to cultivate slowly like Deep Space China. He needs to find some experienced and well-connected experts to help him.

The first thing that came to his mind was Dante, who had just become the vice president of Bantam Books. From all aspects, Dante was a very suitable candidate.

Dante is very experienced in book distribution, sales, and marketing. He has been in the book industry for so long and has a wide network of contacts.

Jimmy's idea is that the company divides books and film and television dramas into two parts, and then forms two teams to help him take care of them.If Dante can be dug over, at least he won't have to worry about the books.

But now there are two problems.

One, Dante holds a high position in the Bantam Company, with good salary and status, and the possibility of poaching him is zero.

Second, after Dante is recruited, the cooperation between their company and Bantam may be affected.

So after thinking for a long time, Jimmy focused on Dante's assistant Campote.

Campote has been with Dante for seven or eight years, and there will be no problems in business. The network may be worse than that of Dante, but it will not be too bad.In addition, if Campote is recruited, at least the future cooperation with Bantam will be given to him.

But you must tell Dante first about this matter to see his opinion. If Dante resists, Jimmy will not forcefully dig.

So Jimmy called Dante.

Dante on the other end of the phone seemed to have just woken up, and complained as soon as the phone was connected, "Jimmy, is it a bit late to give me New Year's greetings now? I'm on vacation. If you don't have anything particularly important, you must Invite me to dinner."

Jimmy laughed: "Eat as much as you want, I won't talk nonsense with you, I called you to ask you to borrow someone."

"Borrow who?"

"Campote."

"I thought who were you going to borrow? If you need to do something with Campote, just tell him, and you are very familiar with each other." Dante said with a smile.

"It may be a little long for me to borrow."

"How much..." Dante suddenly realized, "You want to poach someone from me?"

"That's right, poaching people."

"You think too much. Campote has been with me for so many years, and soon I will put him under to manage a department. Even if I am willing to let him go, do you think he is willing to go?"

"You don't care if he wants it or not, I'll ask you if you agree."

Dante was silent for a while, and asked, "Jimmy, tell me the truth, have you already told Campote about this?"

"No, you know what I do. I always follow the rules. If you don't nod, I won't talk to him about it. If you don't agree, just pretend it never happened." Jimmy said.

"I believe you." Dante thought for a while and continued, "But, Jimmy, I'm telling you the truth, I don't want to let Campote go, he is a good helper, even if he is not by my side, he is still with me Help in the company."

"You have more than one assistant, and you can train many people."

"But Campote works best."

Jimmy knew that this negotiation would not be easy, so he thought about it and said, "Remember the last time I brought the manuscript of "Fatal Identity" to you?"

"Remember, of course I remember, I was not very optimistic about YU's transformation at the time, and after reading the manuscript, I knew I was wrong. You won't ask me to release Campote to you as compensation for this, will you?"

"Of course not." Jimmy smiled. "What I want to tell you is that I actually had two manuscripts in my bag at the time, namely "Resident Evil 2" and "Deep Space."

As soon as Jimmy said this, Dante knew what he meant.

"What is "Deep Space"?"

"A full-length science fiction novel."

Jimmy didn't say much, but it was enough. With YU's current fame, as long as he published science fiction novels, it was impossible for them to sell badly.

After a while, Dante spoke again, "Tomorrow I will end my vacation early, so you can come to the company. Over there, you can talk to him yourself. If he doesn't want to leave, don't blame me."

Jimmy knew it was over, and said with a smile, "Don't worry."

After hanging up the phone, Dante shook his head. He didn't know what Jimmy meant by "rest assured" at the end. Did he mean that he would not blame him, or that he would definitely poach Campote?
However, if Campote can really develop well in Deep Space Corporation, Dante will also be very happy. Personally, they are good friends for many years, and of course he is happy that the friend can get a good development.Yu Gong and Campote are in Deep Space Corporation, and the cooperation between the two companies will be closer in the future.

……

Jimmy finally dug Campote over. He was such a big fool, and the deep space company was developing rapidly during this period, it was really difficult for ordinary people to stand up.

As soon as Campote came, he took over the negotiation of the two novels "Deep Space" and "Resident Evil 2".

Jimmy suddenly felt a lot more relaxed, and gradually began to focus on film and television dramas and peripheral development.

In the end, "Second World" only got a North American box office of 100 million U.S. dollars, which was 2000 million short of "Jurassic Park".It's meaningless to push harder, after all, "Jurassic Park" is also produced by their family.

At the end of the rush, even if you can rush over, it will not affect the result. Anyway, the first and second are theirs.

However, although it did not win the box office championship in North American film history, it is very likely to win the global box office championship. At present, the box office performance of the following places is good, and most of them have surpassed "Jurassic" Park.

And there is an extra box office like China. Although the box office is not much, it still has more than 1000 million US dollars.

If this momentum continues, "Second World" is likely to surpass "Jurassic Park" and become the world's first movie with a box office of more than one billion US dollars.

Since the "Second World" movie came out, more and more people came to Jimmy to ask about the copyright, but Jimmy put it on hold because he was not in a hurry to throw away these copyrights.

In addition, he is still collecting copyright.

Before that, he asked the people in the company to collect the new comics published in the past few years, hoping to pan for gold from them and complete the industrial chain.

The staff also worked hard, collecting information on comics from the past five years, both well-known and unknown.

Jimmy was going to filter out some that were not good at all, and then filter out some that couldn't be bought, and finally show the rest of the works to Yu Dong.

Unknowingly, Jimmy has been somewhat dependent on Dong in the selection of works. It seems that as long as the works Yu Dong thinks are good, they can always sell well.People who Yu Dong thinks can always give him some surprises.

Those writers who signed before have proved this time and time again.

So even if Yu Dong doesn't draw cartoons, Jimmy still wants to show Yu Dong these cartoons, so that he can have a bottom line in his heart.

……

Jimmy arrived in Shanghai the day before New Year's Eve. The reason why he came at this time was to celebrate the Chinese New Year. He has always liked the atmosphere of the Chinese New Year.

When he arrived in Shanghai, Jimmy quickly contacted Yu Dong.

Yu Dongye had just returned to Shanghai with Cheng Yanqiu, and received a call from Jimmy before putting down his luggage.

If Jimmy hadn't said that he had arrived in Shanghai, it would be impossible for Yu Dong to see him. It's almost Chinese New Year, so you talk to me about work?
But Jimmy didn't stay long, and threw a laptop to him, "The comics are all in there, you can take some time to read them."

Throwing down the computer, Jimmy was about to leave, and Yu Dong wanted to keep him for dinner, but he said with a smile, "It's boring for you to go to Shanghai for the New Year. I'm going to find a lively place to have fun. I'm leaving today. I'm in a hurry."

After Jimmy left, Yu Dong put the computer aside. He planned to spend the New Year with his family in these two days, and waited to talk about other things later.

And this year is the first year after he got married, so it must be different.

It was the first time for the new daughter-in-law to celebrate the New Year at home, but Yu Dong's parents were so excited.After so many years, the family has finally added another person.

The new house has been furnished long ago, and there are all kinds of red inside.

Red bed, red quilt, red curtains, even the slippers are red.

There is also a 29-inch large color TV. When Yu Dong saw this color TV, he laughed: "The old couple really paid a lot of money."

Cheng Yanqiu also laughed, "It's a pity that the two of us don't stay here often, and it's a waste to put the TV here. Go back and tell your parents, move the TV to the living room below, and use it normally."

"Okay, tell them later."

It was not just a TV that was costly, but also an air conditioner was installed in the room. These two electrical appliances alone cost more than 1 yuan.

The original concrete floor was also replaced with a wooden floor, which was polished.There is also an exquisite dressing table beside the bed, which looks expensive.

Yu Dong knew that these were the wife's books saved by his parents. He probably felt that they would not be able to spend their money in the future, so he made all the money in advance.

……

The next morning, Qin Fang stuffed a stack of red envelopes into the hands of her daughter-in-law.

Cheng Yanqiu looked at the pile of red envelopes in his hand, not knowing why, "Mom, what does this mean?"

"You keep it, it will be needed tonight." Qin Fang smiled, "There must be a lot of children coming to visit at night, and you will give a red envelope for one of them. There are about thirty of them here."

"Will there be so many children?" Cheng Yanqiu asked in surprise.

"Thirty is not necessarily enough, you will know at night."

Not long after the New Year's Eve dinner in the evening, people began to come to the house. There were adults and children. Cheng Yanqiu remembered what her mother-in-law told her in the morning, and quickly took out all the red envelopes, and gave one to each child.

Gradually, more and more people came, and seeing that there were not enough red envelopes, Qin Fang was already prepared, and gave out dozens more to Cheng Yanqiu.

It wasn't until eleven o'clock that the people who visited gradually dispersed.

Cheng Yanqiu roughly counted and sent out more than 40 red envelopes.

More than 40 red envelopes represent more than 40 children, plus there are hundreds of adults.

When no one came again, Cheng Yanqiu asked, "Does our family have so many people every year?"

Qin Fang smiled and said, "There were not so many in previous years, but this year is a little different. One is that Yu Dong is now famous, and the other is that you are here."

There wasn't much money stuffed into the red envelopes, they were all worth one yuan, which meant something.The children came over and received a red envelope from the new daughter-in-law.Regardless of whether they have met before or not, they will be considered acquaintances next year.

Cheng Yanqiu looked at the red envelope in his hand and laughed. For some reason, he suddenly had a feeling of living.Only now did she have a deep understanding that marriage was not just a matter between her and Yu Dong, but also a fusion of family and family.

……

It wasn't until the seventh day of the first lunar month, when his relatives were almost gone, that Yu Dong finally had time to turn on the computer that Jimmy had left for him.

There is nothing else in this laptop, only Jimmy and his collection of comics.

Jimmy thoughtfully made the directory, both in Chinese and English, and each comic also has a brief introduction.

Yu Dong flipped to the bottom of the list and couldn't help curling his lips, good guy, 340 eight comics, if you read them one by one, you'll have to see the year of the monkey.

But Yu Dong didn't read carefully one by one at all. He just looked at the names of the comics to see if there were any familiar ones.

I read the Chinese directory first, but I didn’t have any clues. The main reason is that the Chinese translation is too paradoxical, and there are all kinds of messes.

Then he looked at the English list again, and he found a familiar one after he saw few of them.

"Men in Black", translated into Chinese is "Men in Black".

Yu Dong frowned, why didn't he see it in the Chinese directory just now?He turned to the Chinese directory to look again, and found the corresponding entry, only to see "Alien Special Police" written on it.

Seeing this translation, he almost swears, this kind of name is just a literal translation, what kind of tricks are you playing?What kind of alien special police, it smells like a low-budget sci-fi movie.

However, the introduction of the manga was pretty good. Yu Dong looked for it, first read the outline of the storyline, made sure that it was indeed the "Men in Black" he had in mind, and then looked at the current situation of the manga.

The comics were created in 90, but the response has not been very good. It was first published by Aircel Comics, and later the company was acquired by Marbury Comics.

After arriving at the new owner, the manga was only serialized for one season and then stopped publishing.

Marbury Comics was acquired by Marvel last year.

Marvel has been selling copyrights frantically to raise money for the past few years, but not all of their copyrights can be sold.So when they couldn't sell it, they came up with an idea to buy other comics at a low price, and then sell them.

"Men in Black" is one of them, and now Marvel has clearly marked the price of this "comic" and is selling it.

Seeing this, the first thought that came to Yu Dong's mind was that he must buy it.

Then came a second thought, Marvel has been selling copyrights for the past few years...

It seems that he has to ask Jimmy how much money the company has now. If possible, he wants to take the rights to adapt these characters into his own hands.After this wave, in a few years, when Marvel is reorganized, he will go to rob another wave.

Immediately he called Jimmy.

After the call was connected, Yu Dong said first, "First, take down "Men in Black."

"The man in black?" Jimmy was a little puzzled.

"It's just a comic in the catalog."

"Oh, there are so many comics, how can I remember the name. The man in black, right? I'll write it down now, and I'll arrange it later."

"Then, as far as possible, get the rights to adapt the characters that Marvel has sold and will soon sell." Yu Dong said again.

"Marvel?"

"It's Marvel Comics."

Jimmy on the phone was stunned, "Dong, don't you know Marvel Comics?"

"well enough."

"Dong, Marvel Comics is indeed selling copyrights, but the rights to adapt characters they sell are not cheap. If you want to buy one or two, our company can still do it now. If we buy them all...then we Don’t do anything—even if you don’t do anything, you won’t be able to buy it.”

"How much money can our company provide now?" Yu Dong asked.

"More than 2000 million US dollars, but I can't use it all to buy copyrights, because I plan to invest in the "Resident Evil" game project. In addition, if "Resident Evil 2" is going to be a movie, we have to invest, and we can't just get some every time. Copyright fee."

Yu Dong thought for a while and asked, "What if I give you another three years?"

"Three years." Jimmy thought for a while, "If the development goes well, there will be no problem."

Yu Dong smiled and said, "It will go well."

Suddenly, Yu Dong became interested in making money again.He thought it would be better to keep these entertainment shells in his hands.

When Jimmy heard Yu Dong's words "it will go well", his blood was also boiling. Yu Dong finally got a little bit more energy.As long as Yu Dong is motivated, everything can be done easily.

(End of this chapter)