My Years as a Copyist in Taiwan

"How could there be so little?" The aunt clutched the report, her eyes reddening again. "So many people came to the book signing, and our books were all on display in the bookstore. How could this be?"

Distribution manager Shi Yituo lowered his head, his voice bitter: "The bookstores... have moved our books to the back of the shelves. They say readers will only flip through a couple of pages and then put them down, saying it's the same old thing, all that crying and wailing, and they'll just go buy 'Love Letters' instead."

"Love Letters?" The aunt looked up abruptly. "That brat's new book? Didn't they say it wouldn't be released until June?"

"It's ahead of schedule." Shi Yituo's voice was even lower. "On the same day that we went public, Jiuge and United Literature Press jointly released it. It was distributed all over the island, with an initial print run of 100,000 copies, which sold out on the same day."

Actually, the United Literary Society did not jointly publish this with Jiuge, but Editor Lou wanted to improve his image in front of Mr. Snail, so he used his connections and channels to help Zhao Wen, which created the illusion of a joint publication between the two literary societies.

The aunt swayed and slumped into a chair. She had clearly found out that "Love Letter" was scheduled for release in June, which was why she moved "The Lamp of Last Night" forward!

I just wanted to take advantage of the time difference and grab a share of the market! Damn Mr. Snail, are you trying to wipe us out completely?

She picked up the reader's letter, and the comments inside stung her eyes—"The female lead is always acting like she's going to die, it's so fake." "Auntie, why do I feel so awkward reading your novels now?" "Auntie, have you run out of new ideas? You're just using the same old tropes over and over again."

Having dominated the literary scene for nearly twenty years, when had she ever suffered such humiliation? With a surge of anger rising in her chest, the aunt grabbed her pen and quickly wrote a short article, which was published in the supplement of the Ocean Daily.

Without naming names, the text subtly alludes to Mr. Snail's work as "superficial and vulgar, seeking sensationalism to grab attention, completely lacking the depth and substance that literature should have, and an intolerable form of street clamor"...

The day after Auntie published her defamatory article about Mr. Snail in the newspaper, Editor Gao burst into Zhao Wen's old wooden house, laughing heartily, still holding the newspaper in his hand.

"Look at this! Aunt Phoenix is ​​furious!" He ruffled Zhao Wenwen's hair before handing the newspaper to Zhao Wen. "She's publishing a piece criticizing us! Saying our work has no literary value."

Zhao Wen was polishing the words of "The Alchemist" when he smiled, picked up the newspaper, and without even looking at it carefully, casually put it aside and got up to get some fruit for Editor Gao.

"As expected. All she can do is stand on her literary high ground and hurl a few words of criticism."

Editor Gao picked up a piece of apple. "Once her article was published, many people who hadn't read your book became curious—what book could possibly make Auntie so angry?"

"Yesterday alone, another 50,000 copies of 'You Are the Apple of My Eye' were printed, bringing the total sales to over 1.2 million! Orders for a reprint of 'Love Letters' have also doubled. Let me tell you, she's now our free promoter; every time she criticizes us, we sell tens of thousands more copies!"

Zhao Wen couldn't help but laugh as he accepted the royalty check for another issue from Editor Gao—150 million yuan. This sales figure was a counter-trend increase.

He pulled out a sample copy of "Love Letters" next to him—the cover featured a distant mountain covered in snow, clean and simple, a stark contrast to the flamboyant style of the Golden Crown magazine.

Whether a work is good or not, readers will vote with their feet. When the word-of-mouth for "Love Letter" reaches its peak, all of Auntie's criticisms will become a joke.

After laughing for a while, Editor Gao sat up straight and got down to business: "By the way, Editor Lou sent word that the Chinese Literature Department at National Taiwan University is holding a special seminar on 'Love Letters' next week, and several university literary societies are also organizing book clubs. They've invited you. Shall we go?"

"No, I'm not going." Zhao Wen shook his head. "Let the readers discuss it themselves; that's more effective than anything we say. You keep an eye on the printing plant; we just need to make sure it doesn't sell out."

"Don't worry, I'm keeping an eye on it. Xiao Lin came back yesterday and said he'd be over today to install that thing for you, okay?"

"Haha, Uncle Gao, that's called Hi-End..."

Zhao Wen was very poor in his previous life. He was a cloud audio enthusiast who could only look up at those high-end audio equipment online. In reality, he couldn't even afford a high-fidelity HiFi set that cost around ten thousand yuan.

Now that money is not so hard to come by, of course I want to fulfill a lifelong obsession!

So he asked producer Lin Xinjun to assemble a super sound system, the kind that would become a darling of auctions decades later.

Just as Zhao Wen was about to explain in detail to Editor Gao, he heard a "ding-dong" sound outside the courtyard—the distinctive bell of a human-powered cart.

"Ah Wen!" Lin Xinjun appeared triumphantly, followed by two young men in work clothes and the "driver" of a handcart.

The speakers have arrived.

"Awen, this is absolutely top-of-the-line! A turntable, a flagship cassette deck, McIntosh preamp and power amplifiers—the legendary flagship speaker from England!"

Lin Xinjun gestured with both hands behind her back, indicating that the big spender should inspect the goods.

How could Zhao Wen possibly inspect the goods? He simply smiled at Lin Xinjun and said, "Brother Lin, you've worked hard!"

A pair of British B&W 801 flagship speakers cost over ten thousand dollars, and the whole set totaled 328000 New Taiwan Dollars.

Editor Gao was stunned when he heard the price. He stared blankly at the two workers who were laying cables and installing vibration damping, muttering, "What a disaster!"

This amount of several hundred thousand is something an ordinary person would have to work for several years without eating or drinking to afford. Ah Wen is rich and extravagant!

McIntosh amplifiers feature a signature blue LED display that glows softly, exuding an extremely luxurious feel. Zhao Wen removed the outer film from the vinyl record, gently placed "Autumn Whispers" on the turntable, and slowly lowered the tonearm.

The needle slowly sank, and the next second, a tender and lingering piano melody flowed out.

The gentle piano music of "Autumn Whispers" spreads out, its melodious rise and fall just like the madness of March, tender and healing.

Zhao Wen stood blankly in front of the speaker, letting the long melody envelop him, his heart churning with emotions no one else knew.

It turns out that in this world, if you have money, you really can buy this kind of comforting beauty for your soul!

In March, Tainan already had a touch of early summer heat, with phoenix flowers budding and the wind at the alley entrance carrying a sweet fragrance.

Less than a month after its release, "Love Letters" sparked a wave of secondhand book fever across Taiwan.

The incident started when a female student from the Chinese Literature Department at National Chengchi University was flipping through a 1970s edition of "In Search of Lost Time" in the library and inadvertently pulled out an old library card that was tucked inside the book.

The card was yellowed, and on the back was a string of names of the borrowers written in fountain pen. At the bottom line was the handwriting of the boy she had a crush on for three years in high school, with a few tiny words added next to it in a crooked manner: "Jingya, goodbye."

Jingya is her name.

The boy went to the United States after graduation, and she thought that her feelings would remain buried in her heart for the rest of her life.

Jingya sat in a corner of the library all afternoon, clutching her books. After crying, she wrote about it in her submission to the United Daily News.

At the end, she wrote: "It turns out that many unspoken feelings of affection were secretly hidden on the back of the library cards. Just like Fujii Itsuki in 'Love Letter,' he didn't say it, but every library card was a confession he didn't say."

The day Jingya's submission was published, it was like pouring a spoonful of water into hot oil; the whole of Taiwan was in an uproar!

The students pulled out their old textbooks and library cards from middle school and carefully examined them while hunched over their desks.

The old books in university libraries are all borrowed out, and librarians receive a lot of calls every day asking "Do you have any old books from the 1970s?"

Even secondhand bookstores are booming, with some people squatting in the stalls, flipping through the backs of library cards one by one, just to find a piece of their heart hidden in the past.

Some people found the little portraits their deskmates had secretly drawn, some saw their names written by their seniors, and some even dug out the confessions they had written and then crossed out years ago.

Countless little stories about library cards flooded into the newspaper office, and amidst the overwhelming discussion, the sales of "Love Letters" skyrocketed.

During a seminar on "Love Letters" at the Department of Chinese Literature at National Taiwan University, the elderly professor stood on the podium, adjusted his glasses, and said, "There was a person who wrote about love his whole life, all of it dramatic conflicts, fabricated love and hate. But Mr. Snail's 'Love Letters' is about real regret."

"That unspoken affection of youth, the regret of missing out, the lingering sadness of a lifetime; it's the gentle pang in your heart when you think of someone in the quiet of the night. This is the most touching aspect of love—'Love Letter' defines what true aesthetics of regret really are!"