Translator: Ink Hub

Editor: Yoog

Waking up, Lin Ji felt his head groggy and heavy, regretting that he hadn’t set his phone to silent.

He didn’t remember when it started, probably around 4 or 5 AM, just as the sky was getting light. His phone suddenly began vibrating frequently. At first, Lin Ji thought it was the alarm. After pressing it off, it actually continued to ring. In a fit of anger, he directly turned it off.

Lin Ji had “waking-up temper” (morning grumpiness), especially the day after staying up late writing. If he didn’t sleep well, he would explode at the slightest touch.

Unfortunately, after all this tossing and turning, Lin Ji couldn’t fall back asleep. After rolling around in bed a couple of times, he retrieved the phone he had thrown far away.

The crew was resting the next day, so Lin Ji also gave himself a day off.

In his previous life, Lin Ji rarely had such leisure. As a notable screenwriter in the industry, he had many official events to attend. During the filming of TV dramas, he spent almost all his time with the crew. Once the series aired, he had to take stock of gains and losses while monitoring ratings. His schedule was far more crowded than the average person’s.

Now that Lin Ji was being criticized all day, he had fewer events and, conversely, much more free time at his disposal.

Lin Ji quite liked his current state. Every day, he just needed to focus intently on polishing the script. He had always felt that screenwriters shouldn’t get too involved in matters outside the script.

After all, a person’s energy is limited. If part of it was allocated to other things, the time concentrated on creation would be less.

Of course, some screenwriters stopped writing after just one famous work. Some truly ran out of talent, while others possessed an endless supply of cheap labor—earning money just by lending their name was enough for them.

“Eh… what’s the situation?”

The moment he opened Weibo, Lin Ji blinked. He exited, then re-entered. The number of reposts and comments in the message bar was still the figures he saw. By this point, most of Lin Ji’s drowsiness had disappeared.

He remembered clearly that before going to sleep, his comment section had a few dozen messages, and likes were slightly more, probably a few hundred. These were very ordinary figures; after all, he only had so many fans, most of whom had only joined after God of War Returns Home aired.

But now, the comments on this long Weibo post were 5,000+, and likes had easily broken 10,000. His Weibo fan count had shot up to 200,000 in one go. Lin Ji couldn’t help guessing: was this the God of War Returns Home crew or the Secretly in Love with You crew buying fans?

But it was still early. The new episode of God of War Returns Home hadn’t gone online yet. The trending search list was full of news about the National Film Academy anniversary.

Lin Ji silently clicked open his Weibo comment section.

“A divine article that all screenwriters should read.”

“Top 1 article of this year’s National Film Academy anniversary.”

“Current National Film Academy student here for a photo + commemoration.”

“Ahhhhhhh Senior Brother Lin is the god in my heart! Who dares to say my Senior Brother Lin is the disgrace of the National Film Academy? Hearing this article at the anniversary celebration, I was truly, truly moved. It spoke my heart’s voice.”

“+1+1+1. This is an article worthy of being in screenwriting textbooks. Professional, rigorous, sharp wording. No wonder the big shot selected it.”

“Am I the only one who thinks so? Compared to this article by Senior Brother Lin, the articles in Screenwriter Song’s column are too suspended from reality. Although he criticizes this and that every day, what he says is actually all obsolete stuff, useless.”

“After all, he hasn’t written a play in 20 years. Everyone knows that moving your mouth is the easiest thing in the world.”

Only then did Lin Ji notice that on the trending search list, the tag “Screenwriter Lin Ji” had unknowingly climbed into the top ten, and the heat was still rising. Besides this tag, the tag “National Film Academy Anniversary Speech Draft” was ranked number one on the trending list, and this one also carried his name.

Lin Ji hadn’t expected his article to be publicly shared at the anniversary celebration.

If this article had simply been posted on Weibo, whether as a summary of Lin Ji’s screenwriting career across two lifetimes or his response to the senior screenwriter’s criticism, the heat generated would inevitably be very limited. Before long, it would probably be forgotten.

But being publicly supported by a big shot was different.

To some extent, that person’s thoughts could indeed influence the future development of the screenwriting circle.

When Lin Ji posted this article, people mocked him for overestimating his abilities and going against an old senior, but now, what the two wrote wouldn’t even be mentioned in the same breath.

Lin Ji had received an official endorsement.

“Really knows how to write too well. Respect the value of words, guard the original intention of words. Seeing these words, someone must be sweating buckets, right?”

“Hahaha, the big shot even specifically pointed it out. Some people hire screenwriters to write an episode for five thousand yuan.”

“Is the upstairs talking about our National Film Academy’s famous alumnus, a certain Xiao? Incredible. I feel like if the big shot wasn’t still on stage at the time, the principal would probably have gone down and kicked him out.”

“Hahahaha, true. Principal Huang’s face turned green. On such a joyous day, the one dragging them down was actually an honored guest. Simply dying of laughter.”

This article exploded overnight. Lin Ji no longer needed to prove its value. In a short time, notable screenwriters in the circle reposted his Weibo one after another. In the confrontation between Lin Ji and that senior screenwriter, these screenwriters hadn’t stepped into the ring, so at this moment, they could calmly leave comments like “Collect, learn.”

But those screenwriters who had stepped in to take sides were very awkward.

They had just criticized Lin Ji severely, saying his works held no social value and were a pile of visual garbage. The next moment, his article appeared at the National Film Academy anniversary.

Although the article had nothing to do with the quality of Lin Ji’s works, if God of War Returns Home was truly irredeemable trash, the officials definitely wouldn’t have chosen Lin Ji’s article.

That group of screenwriters watched helplessly as more than eighty percent of their peers in the circle reposted Lin Ji’s article, including several whose seniority and fame were not inferior to Screenwriter Song.

If they followed and reposted at this time, it would be slapping their own faces.

But if they didn’t repost, they would appear out of place with the entire screenwriting circle. Face was important, yes, but keeping up with the circle’s pace was also important.

The most aggrieved were the two screenwriters of Silken Tresses and A Lifetime of Peace. No matter how Lin Ji @ them on Weibo, they didn’t respond. Now, however, they had to actively repost Lin Ji’s Weibo. It was simply a magnificent humiliation.

Being humiliated once was one thing, but their comment sections were full of messages like “Blogger finally online,” “Did you just come back from abroad?” and similar comments.

Qin Leilei and Xia Mo were so angry that they took out their computers overnight, wanting to write a powerful article like Lin Ji’s. Unfortunately, after squeezing out a few hundred words, let alone writing with Lin Ji’s logic, their understanding of screenwriting works across various genres wasn’t even as profound as Lin Ji, a “newcomer.”

Of course, among the screenwriters who had recently stepped on Lin Ji openly or secretly, the one having the hardest time was Xiao Cheng.

He really didn’t understand what kind of good luck Lin Ji had run into recently. It was one thing for the short drama God of War Returns Home to explode, but the guy just casually posted an article—how did it just happen to be favored by a big shot?

Hiring rookie screenwriters at low prices was definitely not something only Xiao Cheng did in the circle. However, the article at the National Film Academy anniversary happened to be written by Lin Ji. Given the relationship between Lin Ji and Xiao Cheng, who he was pointing at was self-evident.

Sitting in the audience at the time, Xiao Cheng had already sensed something was wrong, but the impact came faster than he imagined—a project he was currently negotiating, which only needed a final kick to close, suddenly notified him that they would no longer cooperate.

Before the anniversary event was even over, he had already received bad news from several studios.

As for the famous people he got to know through the platform of the anniversary, one second they were chatting and laughing with him, praising him as a rising star in the screenwriting world; the next second, they acted as if they didn’t know him at all.

Rather than anger, Xiao Cheng felt panic.

Ever since he pushed the responsibility for the failure of Snow in Early May onto Lin Ji, the development of every event seemed to have spiraled out of his control. Whether it was Lin Ji turning over with God of War Returns Home or the personality Lin Ji displayed, being completely different from before.

Before, he still had confidence in winning back a round, but now, Xiao Cheng felt powerless.

After the anniversary, this feeling became stronger and stronger.

Although unwilling, Xiao Cheng still followed the other screenwriters and reposted Lin Ji’s Weibo. Watching those big-name screenwriters in the circle interact with Lin Ji, and thinking of the coldness of that group when he tried to stick to them, Xiao Cheng became increasingly dissatisfied.

But he knew his route was different from these people. These people were rigid, old-fashioned screenwriters who relied on skills to eat and disliked converting personal traffic.

Xiao Cheng marketed the persona of “Most Handsome Screenwriter.” After taking this route, his fans inevitably critiqued the looks of his peers.

But if he didn’t take the “Most Handsome Screenwriter” route, with his strength, in the situation where only Love in Summer Night was his representative work, it would have been impossible to reach his current status.

Xiao Cheng could only blame Lin Ji for climbing too fast.

After reposting Lin Ji’s Weibo, watching the mocking remarks popping up in the comment section from time to time and his fans’ explanation that “five thousand yuan a month is a rumor,” Xiao Cheng pondered in his heart how to survive this crisis.

In any case, these messages online were all rumors. As long as he controlled the gossip and lay low for a while, there would inevitably be a turning point later.

As a result, before his calculation even started, his Weibo suddenly received several new @s. For some reason, Xiao Cheng’s heart suddenly gave a violent thump.

His premonition was not wrong.

These @s all came from screenwriters he had contacted before—or, more accurately, screenwriters he had hired at low prices. Just now, several people coincidentally posted long Weibo posts, complete with pictures, accusing Xiao Cheng of his past deeds.

“…I thought what Little Lin revealed was already outrageous enough. I didn’t expect the even more outrageous stuff was still behind.”

“Plagiarism, giving no credit, threatening junior screenwriters to disappear from the industry, locking people up for half a month without letting them go out… Are they indentured servants of the new era?”

“Even acceptance speeches have to be written by others. Heavens, he used someone else’s script to win an award. No wonder he’s always ‘years are quiet and good’ (peaceful and serendipitous) every day. The work is done by others, the fame and profit are his. If he isn’t peaceful and serendipitous, who is?”

NOTES

“Years are quiet and good”: A poetic phrase meaning “time passes peacefully and beautifully.” Often used online to mock people who act pretentious or enjoy a privileged life while others suffer for them (i.e., “Your years are quiet and good because someone else is carrying the weight for you”).

Indentured servants: Refers to a famous literary reportage about indentured laborers in old Shanghai. Used here to describe extreme exploitation.

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