Chapter 4: Boss Ding

After Wu Ruiqing pushed his mother, Liang Ying, out the door, he immediately locked the bedroom door and carefully checked his notebook.

He had secretly loved a girl in his class for a long time, but he never dared to confess. He could only write love letters to her in his notebook.

That notebook alone held eight love letters Wu Ruiqing had written to that girl, though not a single one had ever been delivered.

"That cousin from the mainland is too hateful!" Wu Ruiqing flipped through his notebook, feeling as if his fragile, awkward teenage heart had been dealt a huge blow. Hurt and aggrieved, he started wiping away tears.

As he turned the pages, Wu Ruiqing suddenly noticed that the last few dozen pages of the notebook had writing on them. Curious, he flipped to the very last page and looked.

Kang Jianfei's handwriting was ugly, ugly to the point that it was embarrassing to show anyone.

Kang Jianfei's prose was terrible too; at best, it was only barely coherent.

But those ugly characters, that atrocious writing, and the many snippets of a novel written in simplified script were enough to make Wu Ruiqing unable to look away at first glance.

Wu Ruiqing was fifteen this year, reserved, shy, poor at school, and almost good for nothing.

But because he had loved reading wuxia novels since childhood, he wrote very well himself and had an exceptionally sharp eye for martial-arts fiction.

Wu Ruiqing considered himself well read in all kinds of wuxia novels. Revenge stories, adventures, struggles for supremacy, he had already grown tired of them all, and yet he had never seen a plot this fresh.

A modern man, beaten up, and then suddenly thrown through time to the Warring States period, landing by sheer accident in the bed of a stunning beauty.

The protagonist Xiang Shaolong was just an ordinary nobody, yet because of his time travel he became unbelievably strong, won the affection of a beauty, and earned the admiration of heroes everywhere. It was enough to make anyone yearn for it.

The more he read, the more Wu Ruiqing unknowingly put himself in Xiang Shaolong's place, imagining his own weak self standing in the Warring States period, command over all the heroes, countless beauties throwing themselves into his arms...

Wu Ruiqing was so absorbed that he even mentally filled in and ignored many simplified characters scattered through the text, and only when he turned the page and found it blank did he say with disappointment, "Sigh, what a pity there isn't any more after this..."

As if a cat had scratched at his heart, Wu Ruiqing was desperately eager to know what happened next.

He had completely forgotten the unpleasantness between himself and Kang Jianfei earlier, and rushed into the living room to ask, "Cousin, where can I buy this novel?"

In the half month since he had arrived, this was the first time Wu Ruiqing had ever called him cousin; Hu Juncai, who knew nothing, would have thought the kid had taken the wrong medicine.

Kang Jianfei laughed and said, "I just wrote this thing. Where do you think you could buy it?"

"You created this novel yourself?" Wu Ruiqing asked in utter shock. He had assumed Kang Jianfei had copied it after reading it somewhere - which, in fact, was rather close to the truth.

Kang Jianfei asked back, "Is that not allowed?"

"Of course it is, of course it is," Wu Ruiqing said, staring at Kang Jianfei pleadingly. "Cousin, what happens to Xiang Shaolong later? Hurry up and tell me."

Kang Jianfei pretended to think for a moment and said, "Oh? Seems like someone just called me a mainland bumpkin idiot a moment ago..."

Wu Ruiqing abandoned all principle and begged for mercy. "Cousin, I was wrong. Please, don't hold a little thing like that against me. Just tell me what happens next."

Wu Ruiqing's behavior was so bizarre that not only did Hu Juncai look completely baffled, even the little girl Wu Ruixue, who was watching cartoons, curiously turned to look at her brother.

...

Under Wu Ruiqing's watchful eyes, Kang Jianfei wrote another three thousand-plus words of The Legend of Qin, and then he received a call from his maternal uncle, made from outside, telling him to take a taxi over to a tea restaurant on Broadcast Drive at once. He said he had found a lead on a job for him.

Kang Jianfei arrived at the tea restaurant unhurriedly. As soon as he walked in, he saw his uncle Wu Chenggang waving at him. Sitting at the same table and drinking tea with Wu Chenggang was a bald man in his forties.

"Ah-Fai, quickly call him Boss Ding," Wu Chenggang said as soon as Kang Jianfei came over, then he introduced him to the bald man. "Ah-Ding, this is my cousin's son, Kang Jianfei, who just arrived from the mainland."

Kang Jianfei had no idea who this "Boss Ding" was, but he looked like someone who knew how to get around. He greeted him honestly. "Hello, Boss Ding!"

Boss Ding reached out and pressed a hand against Kang Jianfei's solid chest, nodding in approval. "Not bad. You're sturdy enough. Work hard, and there'll come a day when you'll make a name for yourself."

Wu Chenggang also encouraged him. "Boss Ding is from the mainland too, and he's doing more than a hundred times better than I am. You have to work hard for Boss Ding from now on. Maybe one day your uncle will have to rely on you to look out for him."

Kang Jianfei sat there in utter confusion. He still couldn't remember who this "Boss Ding" was; he only felt that the man looked vaguely familiar.

Boss Ding, with very little concern for his image, ate an egg tart and asked, "Have you ever trained in kung fu?"

Kang Jianfei nodded. "I practiced crane fist for a while."

"Ah-Fai, you've learned martial arts? How come I never knew that?" Wu Chenggang asked in surprise.

Kang Jianfei said, "A few years ago, when the political campaigns were going on, an old gentleman was sent down to the village. That old gentleman was a university professor and knew a great deal. I secretly learned kung fu from him, and he also taught me to read a lot of books. But because he was afraid of being criticized and persecuted, he wouldn't let me tell anyone."

Kang Jianfei's crane fist had actually been learned before his time travel, from the pickpocket master who taught him. He was saying this now mainly because he didn't want people getting suspicious later if he showed too much ability; he needed an excuse ready in advance.

"Oh." Wu Chenggang believed him completely and never imagined Kang Jianfei would lie to him.

"Crane fist?" Boss Ding asked. "Is it Southern Crane, Singing Crane, Feeding Crane, or Flying Crane?"

Kang Jianfei said, "I practice Flying Crane Fist."

Boss Ding nodded in satisfaction. "Good, very good. Among crane styles, Feeding Crane has the most killing power, but when it comes to attractive movement, it has to be Flying Crane. That's perfect for making films."

Then Boss Ding said to Wu Chenggang, "Bring him directly to the set tomorrow. I've got something else to do, so I'll be going first."

Wu Chenggang hurriedly stood up to see him off.

After his uncle had finished seeing Boss Ding off, Kang Jianfei asked, "Uncle, who exactly was that Boss Ding?"

"That Boss Ding is Li Jiading. He was originally the son of a wealthy family in Guangzhou. When the land reform movement hit at the age of eight, all the family property was confiscated, and he fled to Hong Kong with his relatives. He dropped out of school and worked from a young age. At eighteen he began apprenticing in martial arts, and from twenty onward he worked as a stuntman. In his twenties he also started learning horsemanship. In international competitions like the IBG International Business Equestrian Competition and the FEI International Equestrian Show Jumping Competition, he won so many championship trophies that he could barely carry them all."

Wu Chenggang said, "These days, many of Shaw Brothers' and TVB's films and TV dramas have him working as their martial arts director and horse specialist. Even top stars like Wang Mingquan have to politely call him Brother Ding when they see him. From now on, you need to work diligently under him. If he can take you on as a disciple, you'll be on the verge of making it."

Kang Jianfei suddenly understood. So that was Boss Ding!

Li Jiading had played many supporting roles in his life, but the reason Kang Jianfei remembered him was because he had been the equestrian coach to many Hong Kong stars and tycoons.

At the same time, Kang Jianfei also realized that his uncle had spent the past half month carefully trying to contact Li Jiading.

If he only needed to find Kang Jianfei a temporary acting job, Wu Chenggang could have handled that directly with a few kind words to a producer.

Dragging it out this long and inviting Li Jiading out for tea was actually an attempt to get Li Jiading to take Kang Jianfei as a disciple.

Unfortunately, Kang Jianfei had no interest in that. He had no desire to become a stuntman, working himself to death for very little money.

...

Back home, they happened to arrive in time for dinner. When Kang Jianfei sat down at the table, he realized Hu Juncai was gone, and asked, "Where's Ah-Tai?"

His aunt, Zhou Mingfang, said, "Ah-Tai's cousin picked him up just now."

Wu Chenggang complained, "That cousin of Ah-Tai's really is something else. Ah-Tai stayed here for so many days, and he didn't even wait for us to get back and say goodbye before leaving."

Zhou Mingfang explained, "They were heading to Lantau Island, and it was too late to cross the water properly."

When Wu Chenggang heard that, he didn't say anything more. The Lantau Link connecting Lantau Island and Kowloon would not be opened for more than a decade yet, so if you wanted to go to Lantau Island at this time, you had to honestly take a boat.

That little Wu Ruiqing wolfed his food down in a few bites, then sat on the sofa watching TVB's Chu Liuxiang. His eyes, however, kept darting toward Kang Jianfei from time to time.

As soon as Kang Jianfei finished eating, he immediately came out with his notebook and said, "Cousin, write a little more tonight, okay?"

"Get lost. Wait until your cousin finishes watching TV first," Kang Jianfei said, slapping the back of his cousin's head while keeping his eyes fixed on Su Rongrong, played by Zhao Yazhi, on the television.

Wu Chenggang happened to hear their conversation and asked curiously, "What are you talking about writing?"

Wu Ruiqing puffed up his chest on his cousin's behalf and said, "Dad, look, this is the novel Cousin wrote. It's better than Jin Yong's novels."

Wu Chenggang took the notebook in confusion and opened it. The moment he saw Kang Jianfei's hideous handwriting, with all sorts of simplified characters mixed in, he immediately lost all desire to look at it a second time and tossed it aside.

Kang Jianfei asked, "Uncle, how are newspaper royalties calculated here in Hong Kong now?"

Wu Chenggang scoffed and asked back, "What, you want to sell your novel for money? Do you think you're Ni Kuang?"

Kang Jianfei did not bother explaining and only smiled. "I'm just asking."

Wu Chenggang thought about it and said, "That depends on what kind of article it is. Generally speaking, column pieces pay much better, around HK$700 per 1,000 characters. But for a wuxia novel like yours, if it were published in Ming Pao, it would top out at around HK$60 per 1,000 characters; if it were serialized in Oriental Daily, it should be about HK$90 per 1,000 characters."

Kang Jianfei asked in surprise, "Why is Ming Pao's rate even lower?"

Wu Chenggang chuckled. "Jin Yong's stinginess is on a par with Mr. Shaw's. He even squeezes the wages of the old staff who helped him found Ming Pao, let alone the authors' fees. Mr. Cha even has a little story attached to his stinginess. When Lin Yanni once asked for a raise in her manuscript fee, Jin Yong said, 'You love spending money so much. If I raise it, you'll just spend it anyway. No raise.' Yi Shu also asked him to raise her fee, and he said, 'You don't spend money anyway. What's the point of raising your fee?'"

Kang Jianfei asked, "Then who's the highest-paid writer in Hong Kong now?"

Wu Chenggang said, "Of course the highest-paid one is Jin Yong. Nobody can afford to hire him. After that, it has to be Ni Kuang. Earlier this year, Wong Yuk-long asked Ni Kuang to write a novel and offered HK$500 per 1,000 characters. The whole of Hong Kong was shaken by it."

Only then did Kang Jianfei gain a rough understanding of manuscript fees in Hong Kong. Although Ming Pao paid the lowest rate, he still wanted to submit his manuscript there.

What Kang Jianfei wanted was fame, not just the few thousand yuan in fees. With Jin Yong's position in the film and television world, if The Legend of Qin were serialized in Ming Pao, it would definitely attract even more attention from the big players in the entertainment industry.

Once The Legend of Qin became well known, if Kang Jianfei wanted to make movies himself, it would be much easier to raise investment.

Kang Jianfei had never planned to make money purely from novels. Even if he finished writing The Legend of Qin's 1.5 million-plus characters, at HK$100 per 1,000 characters he would only make about HK$150,000.

HK$150,000 was nowhere near enough to make even the tiniest low-budget film in Hong Kong.

Besides, that manuscript fee wouldn't arrive all at once. It would take at least a year for The Legend of Qin to finish serializing.

If Kang Jianfei wanted to build up startup capital by writing novels, he would at least need to serialize four books at the same time, and even then he would still have to wait a year to earn HK$600,000.

He had no patience to spend a whole year writing novels to make HK$600,000, and then use that money to shoot a small-budget film.

The fastest method was to first make a name for himself, then use that reputation to write a good script, and finally find rich people to invest in the film.