Chu Ge couldn't wrap his head around a story that existed only in internet jokes — some flop writer goes home and inherits a fortune of millions, you hear it, you laugh, and that's the end of it. And this one actually turned out to be real?
He didn't even know whether he ought to go have a chat with Zhang Qiren, to satisfy a writer's curiosity and a friend's concern. The guy's whole production now screamed rich man. Would going over to him seem weird? Would the people around him think Chu Ge was after something?
Chu Ge sighed to himself.
Friendship — once money and power get mixed into it, the taste does go strange. For both sides.
The class reunion he'd been so reluctant about, ironically, was the more genuine thing.
Take Lin Wuyang right in front of him, laughing as he punched him on the shoulder. "Wouldn't have guessed! I figured you'd have turned into a fat shut-in, holed up at home writing. Turns out you're looking pretty sharp. Last time I saw you, you weren't this sharp. You been eating Viagra lately?"
He was a cop, and a minor official at that, but among old classmates nobody thought much about it. So Chu Ge laughed too. "It was the middle of the day and hot as hell — where was I supposed to get the energy? You think everyone's you cops, all trained up?"
Lin Wuyang roared with laughter. "Fancy that — I'm actually in the bunch that never trained much."
Chu Ge asked, as if offhandedly, "That guy just now..."
"That guy? You know him better than I do." Lin Wuyang smiled slightly. "He rented a place outside for half a year. I took one look at the roommate's name — well, well, if it isn't our great author, Big Chu."
Chu Ge: "..."
Lin Wuyang didn't say much more; he pulled him down into a seat. "Nothing to do with you. Don't tie yourself in knots over it."
Why does Zhang Qiren sound more wrong the more I hear?
He was just about to fish around a little more when classmates began arriving one after another. In that noisy bustle there was no place for talking; Chu Ge could only put the matter aside and greet the newcomers, all smiles, and see them to their seats.
Overall, the mood of the reunion was very good.
Showing off, keeping score, flexing, face-slapping — that sort of thing wasn't absent, but it was comparatively rare, and even when it did happen, nobody did it openly.
After years of getting knocked around by the real world, not many people wear their thoughts on their sleeves. Even someone itching to flex will slip in one quiet line — like Old Hong: "Went to Switzerland last year. Someone took me to look at watches. Couldn't make sense of any of them, so I just bought one at random."
People offered a couple of admiring remarks about the watch he'd let show, and that was that.
If he wanted to preen, let him. Anyone jealous wouldn't show it, and anyone doing better than him wasn't about to slap him down.
Pointless business.
And toward classmates who hadn't done well for themselves, no one would show the slightest scorn. That wouldn't cost the other person face; it would cost you yours.
On the contrary, they'd sling an arm over your shoulder and reminisce about the old days, to show they valued friendship and weren't snobs.
Toward obviously "useful" professions like Lin Wuyang's, people were rather more respectful, and he became the table's "lead" — though no one went so far as fawning or flattery. It wasn't that bad. Lin Wuyang himself wasn't one to strut, and with Chu Ge still carrying something on his mind after running into Zhang Qiren, he didn't say much; he just smiled and returned a few toasts, and his lead-actor aura faded.
After a few more rounds, what everyone did most was dig up each other's embarrassing moments from back then, and amid the gales of laughter the table was warm as could be.
The key thing was that there must be no teacher at the table.
Otherwise it turned into some off-brand, years-belated thank-the-teacher banquet, and the easy, rowdy atmosphere among classmates was gone.
The only exception was Chu Ge's sort. It wasn't that anyone looked down on him — they genuinely didn't know or understand his line of work. So once Lin Wuyang's lead-actor aura faded, Chu Ge became the lead: five out of every ten sentences at the table were questions aimed at him.
"Hey, where can you buy your books? Do they carry them at Xinhua Bookstore?"
"Emmm... no."
"Then how do you make money off this? By page views?"
"Hmm... in recent years there is a model where ad revenue is calculated from page views, but mine is more traditional — paid reading. However many people pay, that's how much income there is."
"Page views are a recent thing? That can't be right — I heard about so-and-so many clicks ages ago."
"...Back then that was just a way to show popularity and a selling point. Only now, in the age of traffic, can it be cashed in. But I'm not optimistic about that model — mainly... uh, which is why I chose... ah, what am I even talking about. Drink, drink."
Chu Ge felt he wouldn't even know where to begin explaining; it was a long story and not an important one. Better to drink.
But the others' curiosity wouldn't be put off. "Sometimes I click an ad on WeChat, read a few chapters, and right when I'm itching for more it tells me I have to pay to keep reading. I always figured that was a scam."
"Uh, it's not a scam. That's the standard play — hook you until you're itching, then charge you for the read."
"So if I pay, I get to read the dirty stuff? I saw one called something like The Village's Lonely Sister-in-Law..."
"?" Chu Ge pressed a hand to his forehead. "No. The crackdowns are strict these days; you can't do it. Don't be fooled by the title and blurb — the content at most skirts the edge."
"If there's no smut, why does it cost money?"
Chu Ge: "..."
Hold on, what does smut have to do with charging money?
You were just asking how I make money — if I don't charge, am I supposed to starve?
Seeing him stuck for words, everyone understood instead. "So you're one of those?"
"I'm not quite the same as those — mine's on a website. But if you want to understand it as that, fine. It's basically the same thing."
The look in his classmates' eyes shifted a little. Now they had him pegged as a guy who wrote mother-in-law and sister-in-law stuff.
Chu Ge didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and there was no explaining it. Anyway, what he wrote was pretty much that, so whatever. "Drink, you lot! Why the hell are you all crowding around me with questions? I'm just a guy who writes smut to get by. Want me to have Wuyang arrest me?"
Lin Wuyang, who'd been enjoying the show this whole time, said with a smile, "I'm not with the Cyberspace Administration. Relax — I know the prison guards too. If you really go in, I'll put in a word so at least you won't get bullied."
Chu Ge: "...Thanks a lot."
With Chu Ge admitting to writing smut, his classmates' inner curious children were temporarily pacified; the how-do-you-make-money questions stopped. But one of the women sighed: "What a shame. Chu Ge used to write so well."
The way she looked, so disappointed in his wasted potential — who knew, maybe she'd had a crush on him back then. Chu Ge just smiled and said nothing.
That got the others onto a fresh topic. Old Hong's wife, Yu Xiaomei, asked, "Hey, Chu Ge, do you have a girlfriend yet?"
Chu Ge joked, "No. The one I had my eye on back then married Old Hong. I'll just have to grow old alone."
Yu Xiaomei spat a "pfft" at him, and the table howled.
Old Hong pointed at Chu Ge, laughing. "Are we dueling, then?"
Lin Wuyang said, "You love your wife, and Chu Ge loves your wife too. You're on the same side. Why would you duel?"
"Pff—" Even Chu Ge sprayed his drink at that one. The table dissolved into laughter, everyone pointing at Lin Wuyang and jeering, "And they let a guy this dirty-minded be a cop!"
Zhang Manli from Civil Affairs said with a laugh, "Speaking of which, a guy like Chu Ge, cooped up at home writing all day, has way too little social life. A girlfriend really might be hard to find. It's not good to stay single this long at his age. Should we classmates introduce him to someone?"
Old Hong laughed. "What do you know? Writers have female fans. I saw a video on Kuaishou a while back — some author married a fan, and some even hooked up with their editor. Badass. Chu Ge, you know anyone like that?"
Before Chu Ge could answer, someone said, "Those'd have to be famous authors, right? Chu Ge here writes sm— uh."
Realizing he'd misspoken, the man hastily drank a penalty cup in apology, and the table went briefly awkward. Deep down, none of his classmates thought he'd amounted to anything; they kept it off their faces, but it always leaked out somewhere unguarded. It wasn't deliberate, and Chu Ge didn't take it to heart.
In fact, Chu Ge not only didn't mind — he felt a pride no one there could have guessed at.
Hooking up with a fan?
My female lead literally ran out of the book, okay...
Just then a girl in a white shirt, blue jeans, and a high ponytail came thumping over from the side, little fists clenched in a pose of delight. "Are you Chu Ge-dada? I love your books so much — could I get your autograph?"
The whole table was stunned.
So he really does have a female fan — and this pretty? Come on, she's unfairly pretty!
Wait, has Chu Ge been this famous all along? Recognized by a fan just having dinner in the lobby — we really failed to recognize the mountain right in front of us...
Wait, no — you write mother-in-law and sister-in-law stuff. Why would you have female fans?
Little did they know, Chu Ge was far more shocked than any of them. He stared, dumbstruck, at the "female fan" who had burst in out of nowhere, and his brain simply stopped working.
Qiu Wuji, what are you doing? I never said I wanted to show off like this!
Up in the VIP seats on the upper floor, Zhang Qiren suddenly began to laugh. He instructed the subordinate beside him, "Go settle the bill for Chief Lin's two tables. Tell them your boss is a great admirer of Mr. Chu Ge's work — a small token, hardly worthy of his regard — and that I hope he'll produce even finer work in the future."