Bringing Along a Ball and Hiding from Foreign Devils Chapter 4.1

Part 1 After settling An, Ren Zhouyan thought about Fan Wenfeng, intending to talk to him on his work. Fan Wenfeng was a freelance writer anch.o.r.ed in a cultural communication company. They knew each other when they worked on a ma.n.u.script before. At that time, Ren Zhouyuan had just left the archaeology team and was writing an essay on the evolution of Chinese characters. He had an unpleasant experience with the archaeology team, so he stayed at home to finish the paper. An was less than 3 years old back then, and he also didn't have much money left. Just as he and some university cla.s.smates inquired about publis.h.i.+ng houses, a schoolmate recommended him to Fan Wenfeng. Fan Wenfeng also studied ancient Chinese History. The two people hit off and became good friends after many years. He knew that he was alone in parenting a child, but didn't ask about the baby's mother. He often helped him out. In the beginning, Ren Zhouyan was embarra.s.sed, but they gradually became like family in helping each other out. He and Fan Wenfeng were going to meet up in a cafe in the middle of the city, where the other had arrived. As soon as he sat down, Fan Wenfeng said: "I ordered a latte for you. What would you like to eat?" Ren Zhouyan shook his head with a smile. His taste was figured out every time by him. Being cared about by others like this made his heart grow warm. After the drinks were served, Fan Wenfeng took out a few pages of information from his briefcase. "These are some recent ma.n.u.scripts from the company, I made a copy for you to see." He explained. "This is a list of several companies submitted a draft, which has written to vote about what channels and content*. This is a recent invitation to submit journal articles, and you have your two pen names on the list. The price is generally the same, but since it's your area of expertise, it would be easier for you to write."

*pure MTL here

He turned over two more pages, all of which were ordinary ma.n.u.scripts. Until he turned to the last page where a few simple words were listed above, but one could guess what the content was from looking. Fan Wenfeng said: "This is the gun ma.n.u.script. The first column is the university, the second is the master’s, the third column is the doctor, and the last column is the t.i.tle. I’ve screened the subjects. It isn’t particularly hard to write." He glanced at Ren Zhouyan. " These aren’t urgent doc.u.ments so don’t touch them… hey, think it over yourself, okay?" Ren Zhouyan took a few pages of the data and reread them. Seeing the topics of the ma.n.u.scripts, especially the one on the gun, he could see that Fan Wenfeng really put in a lot of thought. He knows that Fan Wenfeng loved talent, and all these years he had never stopped lamenting the fact that he dropped out of school. Although Ren Zhouyan never said anything, Fan Wenfeng had guessed that he gave up continuing his studies for An. Ren Zhouyan was 28 this year and would soon be 29. Fan Wenfeng was five years older than him and had more experience in society. Fan Wenfeng took care of him ever since they met. Now, he was like his manager. Ren Zhouyan had several pen names since he didn't use his real name in the articles he published. He first used those pseudonyms to make special ma.n.u.scripts in order to earn small royalties. After writing for a few years, he earned a bit of fame in the industry. Now he was anch.o.r.ed in Fan Wenfeng's company because of Fan Wenfeng's unified management. Writing the gun ma.n.u.script would bring in money quickly. Ren Zhouyan was really short of money recently, or rather he was always short of money, but not to the last step. He didn’t want to go back to his old job of being others' qiāng shǒu*. In his earlier years, he was a ghostwriter* for quite some time in his life. However he always thought that it was a stain in his life. Although it wasn’t him, and other people could also become these people's ghostwriters, but he took on the job. So the responsibility was on him.

*Someone who produces a piece of work for someone else to pa.s.s it off as their own.
*A ghostwriter is hired to write literary or journalistic works, speeches or other texts that are officially credited to another person as the author.

Making a choice, he felt that the company's draft contract and periodical invitations were very good. Some of the topics even made him feel very interested. He took the first two pages of paper and returned the rest to Fan Wenfeng, casually asking: "How’s my other pen name doing recently?" Fan Wenfeng put down his coffee. "As always, lots of appointment requests, but I blocked them all." "How’s the quality?" Ren Zhouyan nodded and asked. "How should I say this, well, some consider that they want to market ads using your name. The price for this is actually really high, but the advertis.e.m.e.nt trail is too obvious, so I rejected. There are several good quality ones, invitations to high-end academic platforms, but these are a bit similar to fame. Raising your reputation is fine, but your name doesn’t have to do these thankless things any more." He paused. Ren Zhouyan felt that his tone was suddenly a little excited. " But here’s one that I think is good. The topic sent is to study whether foreign cultures should induct cultural elements when entering China. It is suggested to tackle both the pros and the cons. The subject is quite broad, but there will be plenty of angles to write from. Aren’t you missing some steam and struggle*? I think it would be nice to cut into this hot topic."

*MTL: Recently doesn’t have that steam and struggle.

Fan Wenfeng himself was a student of Chinese culture, but he also had a great interest in foreign culture. So when he saw the topic, he wrote it down. Fan Wenfeng said: " Write an article from the pros and cons. I guess that the opposite party just wants to make a public contribution to the one that benefits them. But I checked the ma.n.u.scripts. The opposite party only provided a contact method. Aside from that, there’s no other information. So even though the price isn’t cheap, in the end, I didn’t accept." His expression carried apparent regret. Ren Zhouyan was a little distressed. To be honest, the topic was indeed very challenging. It wasn’t the subject itself that was difficult to write, but if he were to write, he wouldn’t be able to provide the two sides requested by the opposite party, integrating two angles but deriving from only one viewpoint. But interesting was indeed interesting. As Fan Wenfeng said, the people who want the ma.n.u.script were of unknown origin. He wasn’t in the mood to help others make their wedding clothes*.

*做嫁衣 – a verse. Literal meaning is to watch someone else in their wedding clothes, to happily watch someone else's marriage. A deeper meaning is that even though one does not get any benefits, he is happy that he helped. () In this case, however, Ren Zhouyan isn’t in the mood for that.

After marking the remaining two pieces of paper, Ren Zhouyan's phone suddenly rang. He took it out and saw that it was an unsaved number. He gestured to Fan Wenfeng apologetically then answered the call. "h.e.l.lo, is this Mr. Ren Zhouyan? This is the personnel manager of Vichy Science and Technology Education Co., Ltd. My name is Zheng."

TL note: This week’s update is so short ah. (Sigh) Why do all things electronic hate me?

Anyways, this chapter is more technical than fluffy. We get to see the competence of Ren Zhouyan. He’s actually a really talented academic writer! Aside from that, we see his relations.h.i.+p with Fan Wenfeng. At first I thought that the ML was him since he helps RZ a lot, but he’s actually more of the…[minor spoiler alert?] mother-in-law, because you know, our MC is an orphan.

That’s all for now! I might post part 2 (which is RZ answering the phone call from Vichy) if I finish it by Christmas.

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