Chapter 3: Bored Into Writing a Novel

For the next half month, Kang Jianfei and Hu Juncai wandered around Kowloon. During that time, their aunt Liang Ying accompanied them to the household registration office to get identity cards.

The process was surprisingly smooth. After handing over photos and registering their basic information, they only needed a local guarantor and a bit more money before they could wait for the cards to be issued.

Deals this easy were rare. By next October, the Hong Kong government would order every undocumented resident in the city to apply for an identity card within three days, and once the deadline passed, applications would no longer be accepted.

By the following January, the Hong Kong government would abolish the rule that gave Mainland arrivals in Hong Kong an identity card as soon as they reached the urban area. After that, anyone wanting a Hong Kong ID would have to live in Hong Kong for seven full years, hold a stable legal job, and have at least three Hong Kong residents jointly vouch for them.

More than ten days later, Kang Jianfei and the others finally got their new identity cards.

Hu Juncai was so excited he shook all over, and by that very day he managed to lose his ID.

Everyone spent the whole day helping him look for it, only to discover that he had left it at the registration office counter and forgotten to take it with him...

Half a month after the two of them arrived in Hong Kong, Hu Juncai called his cousin. The other side said his cousin was still out at sea fishing and hadn’t come back yet.

Hu Juncai figured that with his cousin gone, if he, a poor relative, went to seek shelter there on his own, he probably wouldn’t get a warm welcome. So he shamelessly moved in with Kang Jianfei at Wu Chenggang’s house.

Kowloon was only so big, and after wandering around for half a month, they were both tired of it. Kang Jianfei and Hu Juncai simply stayed home all day watching TV.

That day, Aunt Liang Ying went out to buy groceries, while the other aunt, Zhou Mingfang, was in the master bedroom putting the baby to sleep.

In the living room, Hu Juncai had the television on and said quietly to Kang Jianfei, "A Fei, has your uncle forgotten about helping you find a job? We’ve been eating free food here for half a month. Staying cooped up at home all the time isn’t a solution."

Kang Jianfei sat on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, reading an issue of The Industrial and Commercial Daily with great interest. He said, "My uncle hasn’t forgotten. He just has his difficulties."

"What difficulties?" Hu Juncai asked.

Kang Jianfei analyzed it for him. "You’ve been staying here for so many days and you still haven’t figured out what kind of man my uncle is? He’s an honest man through and through, the sort of good guy who’d be taken advantage of to the bone. On top of that, he’s a technical lighting man who spends all day on set, so his social circle is actually very narrow. If he helps me find work, the only jobs he can introduce are ones related to his own field. But he only just transferred from Commercial Television to his new company, and he’s barely got his own footing yet. Of course he can’t spare much thought for us. And someone like him won’t say a word about work unless everything is settled first, so stop imagining things."

"Is that how it is?"

Hu Juncai scratched his head. Seeing Kang Jianfei still lounging there leisurely, reading the paper, he couldn’t help saying, "But you can’t just keep waiting like this! If my cousin were living in Kowloon, I’d have gone out to find work on my own already."

Kang Jianfei said, "I’m not just waiting around either. I read the papers every day."

"Can reading the paper put food on the table?" Hu Juncai teased.

"Not necessarily," Kang Jianfei said, flipping through the paper and pointing to a news item. "Look, the Hong Kong MTR will open in half a month, and they’ve invited a lot of famous people to attend the opening ceremony. The MTR line from Shek Kip Mei to Kwun Tong starts near us. For the city of Hong Kong, that’s a historic piece of news."

Hu Juncai asked, "What’s an MTR?"

Kang Jianfei explained, "Simply put, it means building a railway underground."

Hu Juncai said in surprise, "Why build the railway underground? Wouldn’t it be better to just build it on the surface? They even have to dig tunnels underneath. Capitalist society is just a waste of labor and money!"

Kang Jianfei couldn’t be bothered to explain any further. He said, "If you want to make a decent life for yourself in Hong Kong, you have to read the papers more. At the very least, get used to traditional characters so you don’t mistake words later on."

"That makes sense." Hu Juncai also grabbed an old newspaper from a few days ago and started reading it. Before long, he was so absorbed he couldn’t look away.

Kang Jianfei glanced over at the paper and saw that it was a copy of the Ming Pao Evening News, serializing Wen Ruian’s Heroes of China: The Country as Painting.

Only after finishing that installment did Hu Juncai say excitedly, "This kind of novel is really good. Where’s the next issue of the paper?"

"Come on, you started reading a novel from the middle and still got hooked."

Kang Jianfei helped him rummage through the pile of old newspapers, then slapped his forehead and said, "I remember now. That paper was taken by Auntie to wrap things in."

"Where is it? Where’s that paper?" Hu Juncai asked anxiously.

Kang Jianfei said, "It was probably used up and thrown away. If you want to read wuxia novels, just go buy a few Jin Yong books from a bookstore. Following a serialized installment is exhausting."

"I only have a few dollars left on me," Hu Juncai muttered, keeping his head down as he continued searching the pile of old newspapers for something to read. He didn’t care whether the story was continuous or not; as long as it was a wuxia novel, that was enough.

Kang Jianfei had been free for half a month, and he was honestly bored out of his mind. Seeing Hu Juncai so engrossed in wuxia novels, he suddenly slapped his forehead and thought: Fine, I might as well write a wuxia novel myself.

Kang Jianfei ran into his younger cousin Wu Ruiqing’s room and rummaged through drawers and cabinets for a long while before finally finding a notebook and a ballpoint pen. He flopped down on the sofa and started writing.

At first Kang Jianfei had wanted to write Records of Searching for the Gods or Kunlun, but once he actually put pen to paper, he realized his writing was simply too terrible.

A perfectly good plot completely changed flavor in his hands, losing all the essence of the original work.

Kang Jianfei had spent several years as an extra in the past, then a few more as a cameraman. He had even thought about becoming a director himself, but before he could raise the investment, he had transmigrated.

Writing a novel and shooting a TV drama were completely different things. The former used words to build a world, while the latter used camera images to tell a story.

If Kang Jianfei were making a TV drama, the result would definitely be excellent, but that didn’t mean he was any good at writing novels.

Even if he remembered the entire plot clearly, that only saved him the time needed to think it up. Once he actually started writing, he still found himself stretched thin.

This was a matter of writing ability. Someone with a natural gift for language could take ordinary material and make it brilliant; by contrast, even a very fresh plot would come out flat and lifeless in the hands of someone who didn’t know how to work with words.

After thinking it over for a long time, Kang Jianfei finally made up his mind. "Fine, I’ll just write The Legend of Qin. The prose in that book doesn’t have to be especially refined anyway; it’s basically a transmigration power fantasy from the start."

To make it more satisfying and immersive for readers, Kang Jianfei set the protagonist, Xiang Shaolong, up as a grassroots Hong Kong man. He didn’t mention any time machine or anything like that. In any case, after being humiliated by a rich man, he would transmigrate for no apparent reason, and after transmigrating he would also become absurdly strong.

One of them wrote a novel while the other read one, each doing his own thing, and before long the day was over.

By evening, the siblings Wu Ruiqing and Wu Ruixue came home from school. As soon as Wu Ruixue got back, she turned on the TV to watch cartoons, while the shut-in Wu Ruiqing headed straight into his bedroom.

Not long after, Wu Ruiqing suddenly shouted in anger, "Where’s my diary? Which bastard stole my diary..."

Seeing Wu Ruiqing storm out of the bedroom and into the living room, Kang Jianfei finally stopped writing and lifted the notebook in his hand. "You mean this?"

"You... you actually peeked at my diary, you stupid Mainland idiot!"

Wu Ruiqing’s face and neck went red with fury. In that diary, he had written down a lot of private thoughts from his youth, like having a crush on some girl and so on.

If someone had stolen and read it, he would have wanted to die.

Even after being called an idiot by his cousin, Kang Jianfei was still smiling as usual. He wasn’t going to lose his temper with some adolescent kid. Besides, using someone else’s diary as a notebook for a novel did seem a little excessive...

Wu Ruiqing snatched the notebook back and launched into a string of curses at Kang Jianfei. The two aunts heard the shouting and hurried out to stop them.

Zhou Mingfang forced a smile and said to Kang Jianfei, "The kid doesn’t know any better. Don’t take it to heart."

Liang Ying didn’t try to smooth things over. Instead, she grabbed her son Wu Ruiqing by the ear and dragged him back to the bedroom, all the while scolding him, "Idiotic, idiotic. I think you’re the real idiot. You never meet the passing grade on any exam, and the moment you get home you start reading novels. You never even think about reviewing your lessons..."

"Mom... ah, it hurts! Go easier on me..." Wu Ruiqing screamed miserably.

The farce quickly died down and the place returned to calm. Hu Juncai stood to the side, feeling a little awkward, since Wu Ruiqing had insulted him too.

Hu Juncai thought, Sigh, maybe I should go to Lantau Island tomorrow. Staying here is just asking for people to look down on me.

Kang Jianfei didn’t care. Before transmigrating, he had spent most of his time depending on other people anyway, so this little episode didn’t amount to much to him.