My Years as a Copyist in Taiwan

On the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, the old lady not only angrily denounced "Norwegian Wood" in her newspaper column, but also did her best to instigate and incite within literary circles.

Her novel, "Hurry," is a work she has meticulously crafted over many days and nights. She considers it "the one that best reflects my own thoughts on life, death, love, and hate among all my works."

They staked everything on it, only to be nearly driven to despair by the mainstream criticism from the entire island of Taiwan.

"You're encouraging young people to disregard the realities of survival and to ignore family ties!"

"Your content is superficial; you're just a primary school student piling up words! If you have the opportunity, read 'Norwegian Wood'."

"Deliberately adding death scenes in an attempt to evoke tears, conveying a negative and nihilistic mentality!"

The barrage of criticism resulted in the book, "In a Hurry," supposedly adapted from a true story, selling less than 2000 copies in three days. It was completely overshadowed by "Norwegian Wood," and its market share and reputation plummeted overnight. Phoenix couldn't contain its jealousy and resentment.

But by the morning of the 5th, everyone noticed a strange change.

Aunt Phoenix, who is required to write articles criticizing Mr. Snail every day, surprisingly didn't cause any trouble today!

Several old-school writers who usually joined her in criticizing Zhao Wen and belittling "Norwegian Wood" were puzzled and dialed her home phone: "Phoenix, why did you stop today?"

Aunt Phoenix was feeling bitter at that moment. She sat alone at her desk, clutching the newspaper that had just been delivered that morning, her fingernails turning white from gripping it so tightly.

In the photo, late at night at Kaohsiung Airport, Zhao Wen and Wu Deng walk off the plane side by side, their posture intimate like that of siblings.

She felt a chill run down her spine; even with the air conditioning on, her back was sweating.

On the evening of the 2nd, she saw a profile picture of this man in the newspaper and didn't think much of it, assuming he was just a security guard in a black suit. But when the photos of him picking her up at the airport in Kaohsiung were published on the 4th, the clarity was completely different. With their postures, you think they were just on the same flight? Nobody would believe that!

The dog head threat from more than half a year ago not only made her cancel the Lunar New Year release of "Asking the Setting Sun" but also made her run away to the United States for two months. She is still in fear. You know, that was the last warning act of the rumored "forceful production"!

All my resentment was swallowed up by this group photo. They asked if I was still up to something; "Go ahead and cause trouble," they said.

Moreover, I accept that you have good writing skills and a good brain, but you also work so hard. In February, you wrote "Love Letter", and in June, you wrote "Spirited Away". They are said to be children's books, but they have been sold overseas. Are your children's books so popular?

This time, with "Norwegian Wood," they've completely crushed themselves!

Mr. Snail, are you a sow? How can you reproduce so much? Aunt Phoenix, who prides herself on being highly productive and capable, has fallen into deep despair—she can't compete with writing books, and she doesn't dare to use underhanded tactics now. Not to mention using them, if she goes any further, it might not just be a dog's head threat!

Ms. Phoenix has lost all desire to write a book. That damned snail has completely messed up my train of thought...

Editor Gao brought Yi'an to Laomu House for a free meal again.

Zhao Wen knew why he had come; half a month earlier, he had revealed his intention to resign and leave.

The reason was that Jiuge was still not satisfied with the huge benefits they had received, and kept complaining that Editor Gao should not have given half of the distribution rights of "Norwegian Wood" to the United Literature Society.

Zhao Wen found it laughable. "Do you think I, who's just taking a dump, can be controlled by someone who eats shit?" This is a classic case of "a little kindness breeds resentment"!

Yi'an had visited the old wooden house several times, always bringing checks, because a small portion of the royalties from several books needed to be paid to Zhao Wen in cash.

"Mr. Snail, why don't you start a company? My second uncle and I will help you," Yi'an pleaded pitifully. Despite Zhao Wen correcting her many times, she still refused to call him "A-Wen."

"Open, open right away, from now on we'll earn our own money! I've even thought of a name: Snail Arts."

In fact, Zhao Wen had long wanted to start his own company. He had done several calculations. Taking "Norwegian Wood" as an example, only 200 million copies were sold in Taiwan. The book was priced at NT$220. Even if the royalties from the book were now increased to 12% through Nine Songs, the total revenue would only be NT$5280 million.

By running his own company, he earned a net profit of NT$9337 million after expenses and taxes, an extra NT$4057 million!

The revenue from both the overseas copyright unification and the rattan chair company's cooperation model remains the same as before.

After doing this calculation, Zhao Wen felt terrible. One shouldn't be too indifferent, or the loss would be far more than 100 million!

Editor Gao owns 12% of Jiuge's shares. Now he and his niece are leaving the company, willing to accept only 4% and 2% of the shares respectively, and they have specifically requested that these shares be restricted shares.

Zhao Wen had no objection to the suggestion at all, because Editor Gao said that he could slack off as much as he wanted, and he would take care of all the tasks, big and small!

So for the next few days, Zhao Wen did nothing but register and sign up. Apart from celebrating Zhao Wenwen's birthday on the 5th, he spent the rest of his time finishing up the first Harry Potter book.

The company was located in the neighboring wooden house. Editor Gao bought almost half an alley for the new company, spending more than five million New Taiwan Dollars, and then bought two Ford Rios, exactly the same as his own.

The first thing the new company did was to recruit security personnel, because the old wooden alleyway seemed to have become too lively, with too many college students coming in groups of men and women.

Some went to another old wooden house in the suburbs, but some were lucky enough to actually find the place where Zhao Wen lived and even met the old man at the alley entrance.

The old man at the alley entrance is doing incredibly well these days, but he's very tight-lipped. Whenever someone asks him if he knows Mr. Snail, he just gives a perfunctory answer.

In the past few days, Kodansha has also increased Zhao Wen's royalties to 15% because "Norwegian Wood" is selling so well!

Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's "Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window" has indeed sold nearly six million copies, but that's the cumulative sales over a period of more than a year.

In just ten days, "Norwegian Wood" sold more than 120 million copies, all of which were hardcover editions. Each copy was priced at twice the price of "Totto-chan" because it had twice the number of words.

The fact that so many copies were sold in such a short time deserves at least a small part of the credit, which still belongs to that starting baseball pitcher.

On the 3rd, when the final whistle blew, more than half of the 35,000 seats at Nagoya Stadium were already empty, with just over 10,000 spectators remaining inside. Half of them were away fans of the Yomiuri Giants, and the other half were home fans of the Japanese Dragons, including female fans.

These thousands of Nagoya girls didn't care about the home team's win or loss at all; they bought tickets to watch the game only because of Kiyohiko Fujiwara, so they can't be considered to have defected.

Reporters swarmed around Kiyohiko Fujiwara, who had just removed his protective gear. Throughout the game, he dominated the opponent's entire offensive line and won the victory with a perfect shot. He was the undisputed number one contributor, and countless microphones were thrust in front of him.

"Fujiwara-kun, you pitched nine innings in a row today, how come you don't look tired at all?"

"Fujiwara-kun, what belief enables you to always withstand life-or-death battles?"

"..."

Fujiwara Kiyohiko's lips curled into a wicked smile as he gave a unified answer:

"I truly performed exceptionally well today, a feeling I've never experienced before, it was wonderful! I believe it's all thanks to my idol, Mr. Snail! Every book by Mr. Snail is such a powerful source of nourishment for me!"

He raised his right hand and calmly and slowly turned it around. He felt that this gentle yet solemn gesture was his unique way of paying tribute to Zhao Wen.

As we all know, baseball fans and literary book lovers are two groups that never intersect. Most of the baseball fans here are brutes who have never even heard of the book "Norwegian Wood".

Seeing one's greatest pitcher so highly praising an overseas writer sparked intense curiosity in every roughneck.

The female fans were even more excited, secretly making up their minds that the first thing they would do after leaving the stadium was to head straight to the bookstore and buy all of Snail's works, to see what kind of power was hidden in the words that could make Fujiwara-kun explode.