Restart life

Chapter 520, page 0508: [Translator of "The Three-Body Problem"]

Previously, Chen Guiliang spent 10 yuan to purchase only the Chinese (including overseas traditional Chinese) film, television, and game rights to "The Three-Body Problem 1," for a period of ten years.

It's like spending a little money to hold onto it, preventing it from being bought by other individuals or organizations.

Why did they permanently acquire all the copyrights this year?

Because it wasn't until the end of last year that Liu Cixin finished writing "The Three-Body Problem 3: Death's End".

If Liu Cixin had spent a huge sum of money to buy out the copyright in advance, his mindset would have been completely different, and who knows how he would have written "Death's End".

Furthermore, the so-called permanent buyout of all copyrights means that all future commercial activities related to "The Three-Body Problem" will be invested in and operated by ByteDance Pictures. Liu Cixin will still be able to receive royalties (based on contractual revenue sharing).

In particular, he has already signed contracts with publishers in mainland China and Taiwan, and these two contracts remain valid until their expiration, unaffected by Chen Guiliang's purchase of the full copyright.

Now that the copyright has been acquired, it's time to get started.

The first step, of course, was to translate it into English, and Liu Yukun was once again asked to do the translation.

Although Liu Cixin immigrated to the United States at a young age, he has never lost contact with China and continues to submit and publish science fiction novels in China.

This person won the Hugo Award earlier than Liu Cixin, and won the Hugo Award (Best Short Story) for two consecutive years.

A young person who is a science fiction writer himself and understands both China and the United States is undoubtedly the best candidate to translate "The Three-Body Problem" into English.

……

United States.

From the small town of Stotton to the big city of Boston, the commuter train journey takes about 45 minutes one way.

Liu Cixin's main creative time is the 90-minute round trip by train each day.

When the train arrived at the station, he packed up his laptop and headed straight for the company—a large law firm.

He is a lawyer specializing in high-tech patent cases.

While at Harvard, he majored in English and American literature and minored in computer science for his undergraduate degree, only choosing law for his master's degree because being a lawyer was more lucrative.

So now his main job is as a lawyer, he works part-time as a programmer, and he also writes novels and poems on the side.

I arrived at the office, opened my email, and checked each email one by one.

One of the emails caught Liu Cixin's attention:
"Dear Mr. Liu Cixin: We are ByteDance Inc. We obtained your email address through *Science Fiction World* magazine and are taking the liberty of contacting you..."

"Our company has just acquired the global rights to The Three-Body Problem series... The Three-Body Problem is an excellent science fiction work and a precious spiritual treasure for all mankind. We hope that readers in Europe and America can also appreciate its magnificent scope..."

"Would you be willing to serve as the English translator of 'The Three-Body Problem'...?"

Liu Cixin immediately started typing: "Thank you for your company's interest. I personally really like 'The Three-Body Problem' and have already read the first two books... However, the first book contains a lot of information about a special era, which I am not familiar with, so I am afraid I will be unable to handle the translation work..."

After replying to the email, Liu Yukun went to handle other matters.

After a day's work, he boards his commuter train home, where he routinely writes science fiction novels.

His novel, "Paper in Hand, Love in My Heart," which he is currently writing, is expected to win both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award next year.

When I got home, my wife was cooking, and my two daughters had already come home from school.

His wife, Lisa Tang, is also a Chinese immigrant to the United States. She enjoys Chinese history and loves reading historical romance and fantasy novels, often browsing platforms like Qidian and Jinjiang.

The couple even plans to co-write a fantasy novel, which is currently in the conceptual stage.

At the dinner table, Liu Cixin said, "I received an email today from a Chinese company inviting me to translate 'The Three-Body Problem'."

"Did you agree?" Lisa Tang asked in surprise, because she was also a fan of "The Three-Body Problem".

Liu Cixin shook his head: "The Three-Body Problem 1 is difficult to translate; I don't know much about that era."

Lisa Tang said, "You can agree to this first, and I'll help you gather the relevant information."

Liu Yukun neither confirmed nor denied, but instead asked, "Have you heard of ByteDance?"

Lisa Tang said, "I don't know, you can look it up online."

After dinner, Liu Yukun played with his two daughters while his wife washed the dishes and then went to help him look up information.

After a while, Lisa Tang ran back: "ByteDance Pictures was founded not long ago and is a subsidiary of ByteDance. ByteDance is very powerful and has been listed in the United States for several years. Moreover, the boss of this company is only in his 20s and started from scratch in the countryside."

The next day, Liu Yukun arrived at the company and opened his email inbox to find another email.

"Hello Mr. Liu, I am Chen Guiliang, the boss of ByteDance. I especially like your science fiction works, which are rational yet poetic, like a programmer writing poetry. Don't you think the name 'ByteDance' is very similar to your writing style?"

"If you're not familiar with that era, I can provide some information. Use it as background information during the translation; the more detailed the explanation for Western readers, the better… Don't worry that too much background information will affect sales…"

Liu Yukun laughed after reading the email; he genuinely felt a connection to "ByteDance".

Because he's a programmer who enjoys writing poetry, they started discussing translation work. They didn't really discuss payment much, just agreed on a price they both found acceptable.

Chen Guiliang and Liu Yukun got along quite well, and after discussing business, they even started talking about cyberpunk.

Chen Guiliang also sent over his draft for the preliminary round of the New Concept Writing Competition, which was a cyberpunk-style short story.

Liu Yukun was quite interested after reading it, so Chen Guiliang sent him the full-length setting and the first chapter of the novel—at that time, Chen Guiliang was busy studying in his senior year of high school, so he only wrote the setting and the first chapter.

Liu Cixin commented: "Your premise is actually very clichéd, but your thoughts are very profound, especially your reflections on society. It's less of a science fiction novel and more of a modern political metaphor. Did you really write this in high school?"

Chen Guiliang said, "I wrote it in my senior year of high school. Because I was busy preparing for the college entrance examination, I didn't have time to continue writing it, and it has been put aside until now."

Liu Cixin said, "You can finish writing it."

Chen Guiliang said, "I still owe my readers a historical novel that I haven't finished writing. The novel was originally planned to be nine volumes, but I have only written five volumes so far."

Liu Yukun asked in surprise, "So you're a historical novelist?"

Chen Guiliang said, "I guess you could say that. I wrote novels back then to support the company with the royalties."

After chatting for a while, the two parties ended their exchange.

Driven by curiosity, Liu Yukun searched for information about Chen Guiliang on the Chinese internet, looking up keywords and becoming increasingly astonished with each piece of information he found. He even discovered an online serialized version of "Those Things About the Ming Dynasty," which he read with great interest.

……

Chen Guiliang was also very happy, as the matter was basically settled.

It's easy to make "The Three-Body Problem" win the Hugo Award. The quality of the novel itself speaks for itself, and the first book's depiction of a special era is also key.

International art awards, including those for literature, film, and fine arts, favor works that embody humanitarianism.

If *The Three-Body Problem* were to receive a 90 out of 100 from the Hugo Award judges, its depiction of a particular era would account for at least 60 points. That's the kind of thing you need to win an award!

However, at that time, "The Three-Body Problem 2" and "The Three-Body Problem 3" had not yet been translated, so the judges had no idea what tricks the latter two books were up to.

Liu Cixin himself is slated to win the Hugo Award for Best Short Story next year. He has established contact with the judging panel and is qualified to recommend science fiction works. His translation of "The Three-Body Problem" is expected to win the award the year after next.

"Capitalists, it's time to go home."

"Coming."

Chen Guiliang replied to a WeChat message, took the elevator straight to the underground parking lot, and quickly got into Xu Fengyin's car.

The two went to eat first, and then watched a movie.

Zhang Yimou's "The Flowers of War" was just released these past few days, and Xu Fengyin insisted on going to see it.

When we arrived at the cinema, there were quite a few people there.

Chen Guiliang didn't say much throughout the movie. He ate his popcorn and went to sleep. When he woke up, the movie was over.

As Xu Fengyin left the theater, she said, "This movie felt weird, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong with it."

Chen Guiliang laughed and said, "That's the feeling. A lavishly set, bourgeois stage play disguised as a national tragedy precisely caters to the current mainstream movie-going audience. Moreover, in order to compete for the Oscars, fearing that Hollywood judges wouldn't understand, the story framework is built on universal values ​​such as protecting children and self-redemption. It wants box office success, international awards, and also has to stick to the mainstream ideology. Zhang Yimou wants everything, but in the end, he didn't make anything well."

"The Flowers of War" was already considered good; it was "Cliff Walkers" that came out many years later that was truly amazing.

Many people think that "Cliff Walkers" is a patriotic film, but many viewers also feel uncomfortable about it.

The city, under the rule of Manchukuo and the Japanese invaders, had clean and tidy streets, with rows of cars parked along it. The entire film showed no trace of the Japanese invaders, nor any depiction of the suffering of the Chinese people; instead, it inexplicably exuded a modern and fashionable atmosphere. Two children, who had been begging for years, had neither starved nor frozen to death in the Northeast winter; in fact, they were still plump and healthy…

This is hardly an occupied area; it could be considered a model city during the Republic of China era.

Chen Guiliang took Xu Fengyin shopping. While she was shopping for clothes, he sat down and scrolled through Weibo to pass the time.

He soon came across a movie review and couldn't help but give the blogger a thumbs up.

The film review stated that "The Flowers of War" is an abridged version of "Lust, Caution".

This terrible movie has been showing for three days, receiving mixed reviews. Some people are crying their eyes out, while others are cursing it out in anger. It's unclear whether Zhang Yimou will be able to fulfill his betting agreement.

Forget about winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but using the Oscar bid to promote the film and boost box office sales is something they can do.

And it was done on a massive scale.

Using the massacre as a gimmick, the Oscar bid as a selling point, and then attracting attention with beautiful women in cheongsams, the film stirs up controversy over whether prostitutes and students are equal... making a fortune at the box office.

Of course, no matter how bad this film is, it's not as disgusting as Lu Taro's "Jinling, Jinling".

Riku Taro later publicly admitted: "I didn't make this for Chinese people; it was made specifically for Japanese people."

(End of this chapter)