My Years as a Copyist in Taiwan

Despite widespread acclaim after its premiere, "My Fair Princess" has yet to receive any comment from Phoenix TV.

At Golden Crown Publishing House, Phoenix and the president looked at the newspaper with sorrow. The president gently stroked his lover's back: "Darling, we need to relax. Look, he's even started making TV dramas. I think this is a sign that he's lost his creative spark!"

Phoenix doesn't even want to talk to the editor anymore. Are you even speaking human language? You've run out of ideas, writing four volumes in a year? And you even wrote a drama that could blow up Chu Liuxiang? — I only wrote three volumes when I was most eager to make money!

However, Phoenix looked at the scripts of the first and second episodes of "Princess Pearl" that she had dug up with confusion, feeling that something was wrong. Why did this plot seem so familiar?

It's so melodramatic, even more so than my own!

It's all about routines; this old lady has been chasing these kinds of routines her whole life!

Mr. Snail, are you trying to take my path and leave me with nowhere to go? Screw you! My movie's been a year and still no release date. What more do you want?

Yes, following historical precedent, Aunt Phoenix was originally planning to release "Asking the Setting Sun" this month, but after much deliberation, she didn't dare to. As for writing negative reviews of "Princess Pearl," well, let's just leave it at that. We're all cultured people; we have to follow some rules, right...?

Monday, October 4, 1982, Taipei Songshan Airport Weather Station forecast: intermittent drizzle and light fog throughout the day, no typhoon impact, temperature 23-28 degrees Celsius.

Logically, Sunday should be the best time to hold a book signing event, but the schedule has to be scheduled until the end of the month. Besides, Monday can filter out a batch of minors... So Zhao Wen decided to hold it on Monday, which would at least save him thousands of books from signing!

At the book signing event in Tokyo, someone fainted, presumably due to poor ventilation. As a result, the United Daily News and Sanmin Bookstore suggested to Zhao Wen that the venue be changed from Sanmin Bookstore to Zhongshan Square in Taipei.

Furthermore, considering Mr. Snail's physical limits, a reasonable process was devised—1500 signature number plates were distributed on-site to control the total number of signatures, and readers who requested standard signatures and those who requested inscriptions of blessings were separated and their flow was limited to avoid disrupting the overall rhythm due to requests for signatures of blessings.

After all the number plates have been issued, those who haven't received one will have their information registered and leave the books they purchased that day. Mr. Snail will then sign for the books and mail them to them or have them picked up in his spare time.

At 7 a.m., a long queue had already formed on the west side of Zhongshan Square.

At 8:00 AM sharp, all staff members were in place, including Gao Yi'an, the operations manager of "Snail's Home".

Dozens of group leaders from "Snail House" in Tainan, leading more than 300 members of "Snail House", under the leadership of Miss Yi-An, victoriously joined forces with more than 100 group leaders and more than 700 members from Taipei at 7:00 a.m. on October 4, 1982!

However, Yi'an seriously suspects that these hundred-plus group leaders are not the result of nepotism. I even saw two group leaders who addressed each other as mother and daughter!

The backdrop for the signing table was a clean, off-white color, printed only with black Song typeface.

[Mr. Snail's Book Signing Event - United Literature Society * Sanmin Bookstore]

On the long table covered with a navy blue tablecloth, there were fountain pens, ink pads, water and towels. Two rows of security guards stood to the side, led by experienced senior employees of Sanmin Bookstore and assisted by members of "Snail House" to maintain order on site.

At 9:00 sharp, Zhao Wen arrived on time.

Based on all the bizarre incidents that had occurred at previous book signings, Editor Gao repeatedly instructed Chen Erfeng to stay close to Zhao Wen at all times during the event.

Auntie Silly was straightforward, but she was very clever. She silently observed everyone. In this weather, if you have bulging pockets or a bulging waist, and you don't take them out for me to check, then you're up to no good!

Zhao Wen developed a unique skill in Tokyo: his hands operate independently using muscle memory, signing autographs with fluid grace, while his brain remains completely offline, wandering off into the distance. He calls this dual-thread operation mode the "automatic autograph machine mode".

He planned to start by starting the autograph session from the front and slack off, but as soon as he sat up straight, with a smile on his face and his eyes scanning the front of the line, he paused slightly.

The team ranked first in the entire field is Konoe Kazuma.

Xiao Ni's delicate, fair face is highly recognizable. She stands there quietly, exuding a powerful presence.

Behind Konoe and the real person was a dashing young Japanese man, handsome and noble, whose good looks were almost on par with Mr. Snail's!

The third one is the simple-minded Saionji Sōmei.

A group of Japanese girls came to buy books.

These weren't just a small group of three, but a large group of thirty. However, those men in black suits who stayed up all night queuing up have now retired successfully.

"Konoe Kazuma, how have you been?" Zhao Wen greeted him in his increasingly fluent Japanese.

Hey, hey, don't cry. Damn it, I can't stand you little Japanese people crying all the time.

"Sign here, okay, all done, have a safe trip..."

"Hey, let me guess, you're Fujiwara Kiyohiko, right? The starting pitcher for the Giants, the dream of every girl in Japan? You three, the Tokyo Three Musketeers?!" Zhao Wen was quite grateful to this guy; the word-of-mouth had at least helped him sell an extra one or two hundred thousand books in Japan.

"Hahaha, Mr. Snail, I never expected that you would know my humble name, even though we've never met before. It's an honor! An honor!" The baseball pitcher suddenly started to talk nonsense, almost disrupting Zhao Wen's train of thought.

In fact, in Tokyo's upper-class circles, the three of them were known as the "Tokyo Three Scoundrels," a fact that Mr. Tengyi gossiped about to Zhao Wen on the night of their book signing in Tokyo.

As mentioned earlier, being remembered by one's idol is one of the happiest things in life, and this was exactly what Fujiwara felt at that moment. Fortunately, he didn't have Konoe's asthma, or it would have been another accident.

Using a queue space of ten people to get a photo with Mr. Snail and the Three Musketeers is such a great deal! The volunteers maintaining order also used a megaphone to explain to the thousands of book fans that otherwise it would be troublesome if everyone wanted to take photos.

After taking the photos, the Tokyo Three Stooges weren't going to leave. They had just spotted the "Snail House" banner, and this was unacceptable.

President and Vice President of the Tokyo branch of "Snail House"? Aren't we, the Three Musketeers of Tokyo, qualified?

After realizing that the pretty young lady with the ponytail was the boss, the three scoundrels busied themselves with running errands. One of them, a man in a black suit who spoke a little Mandarin, kept asking Yi-an to set up a branch of "Snail House" in Tokyo!

After Zhao Wen entered the automatic book signing machine, a dedicated person flipped through and handed out the books, so the signing speed was a stable average of ten seconds per book.

My mind went completely free; I surfed the internet, searching for all sorts of memorable moments related to autograph sessions—

In 2013, Li Chengpeng from Zhongguancun was punched in the ear by two large nose rings, causing it to bleed, and then slashed with a kitchen knife...

Yu Hua, my brother Hua is so tired. He signed three words for that girl, and two of them were typos...

The King of Mystery, Keigo Higashino, wasn't tired at all, because on the day of his book signing, there were zero readers...

Huh, what's the King of Deduction doing right now? ...On the assembly line at the parts factory, checking the pass rate...

Then I'll have to copy "The Devotion of Suspect X"!

"Miracles of the Namiya General Store" is still quite good at making money, let's copy it!