Chapter 27: Beginning to Write

In that era, "Wind and Cloud" could truly be called a masterpiece, especially the first two installments, which were exceptionally brilliant. On Zheng Fei's bookshelf, he still keeps the complete collection of comics from the first two parts of "Wind and Cloud." As for why he doesn't own the third part, let's just say that not collecting it is the greatest sign of respect one can show the series.

In terms of age, the original creator, Ma Wing-shing, seems to be about the same age as him—both in their prime, full of vigor and ambition. What frustrates Zheng Fei is that this world seems a bit too lenient toward people with the surname "Ma," as they all turn out to be so formidable. Since your Ma clan is already so powerful, I suppose you won't mind if I siphon off a bit of your good fortune, right?

Just as Zheng Fei began working on his own version of "Wind and Cloud," at this very moment, a top-tier "beast of burden" in Hong Kong, currently working on "Chinese Hero," suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head. It felt as if a brilliant creative idea had vanished from his mind. He sat there in a daze for a long time, completely unable to recall what it was.

In an era where nationalistic heroes and anti-Japanese illustrated storybooks were the norm, the sudden emergence of such an unconventional martial arts comic would surely be thrilling. Zheng Fei truly looked forward to the day when his comic would begin serialization, and he would receive letters from countless fans urging him to update faster.

But for now, everything was just talk on paper. If "Wind and Cloud" were to be published, it first had to pass the editorial review. Zheng Fei planned to approach the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House first; if they lacked the vision, he would just try another. He refused to believe that in such a vast country, there wasn't a single person willing to take a bold step forward.

...

In this day and age, large publishing houses like the People's Fine Arts Publishing House could handle the entire production process of a picture-story book in-house. Within the publishing house, there was a department called the Picture-Story Text Editorial Office, which was responsible for the scripts. There was also a Picture-Story Creation Studio, which housed numerous creative teams composed of artists dedicated to the illustrations.

In short, from project initiation and review to final publication, the People's Fine Arts Publishing House could do it all alone without ever needing to commission outside artists. Of course, smaller publishing houses didn't have these resources and still needed to commission work from the outside. Under normal circumstances, when commissioning an artist, they would provide a package containing the illustration templates and a complete story script. To put it bluntly, the artist was merely one cog in the production chain; the subject matter and the textual scripts were handled entirely by the publisher.

This model had many drawbacks, the biggest being that the artists had no hand in creating the script. Would you truly pour your heart into raising a child that wasn't your own? Unless, of course, they paid you a fortune. In this regard, Zheng Fei quite admired Mi Er, the creator of "Under One Person"—creating and raising one's own work, nurturing it through hardship, usually leads to a superior result.

Ironically, this operational model, despite its glaring flaws, was favored not only by these picture-story publishers but also by commercial comic companies in later generations. Fresh out of school, Zheng Fei had once been a "beast of burden" at just such a company.

The workload was explosive. From the moment he opened his eyes until he closed them, he was constantly drawing. For them, drawing was purely a job, completely unrelated to art. The bosses only cared about speed and aesthetics. Sometimes, they were forced to work with scripts that were absolute garbage, but even knowing it was trash, they had no choice but to swallow it and keep drawing.

But there were times he encountered good scripts. Back then, he was nearly promoted to lead artist when he stumbled upon a script of exceptional quality. It had some truly brilliant plot points, and he wanted to communicate with the original author to polish the work and make it even better. But to his dismay, the platform editor in charge of the project wouldn't allow them to communicate at all, fearing that the studio and the author might team up and cut them out of the loop. Everything had to be relayed through the editor, and as a result, a fantastic script was ruined. It could only be said that the domestic comic industry had barely learned to walk before it was already shackled by commercial capital, missing its golden age of development.

...

Zheng Fei drew the characters while simultaneously jotting down their descriptions.

Bu Jingyun: As a child, he followed his mother into the Huo family, became the foster son of Master Huo, changed his name to Huo Jingjue, and learned the Huo family sword style. Later, after the Huo family was wiped out by Xiongba, he reverted to his original name, Bu Jingyun, and became Xiongba's disciple to seek revenge, learning the Cloud-Dispelling Palm...

Nie Feng: Known as the "world's most handsome man," he is upright, unyielding, and hates evil with a passion...

But as Zheng Fei prepared to start drawing the first chapter, he realized something crucial. Picture-story books required specific manuscript paper and fixed dimensions; you couldn't just grab any piece of paper and start drawing. If he didn't use the right format, even if the work were accepted, the workload of having to redraw everything if requested would be enough to make his scalp crawl—and that was a distinct possibility.

Zheng Fei suddenly realized how inconvenient this era was; obtaining official drawing paper from a publishing house was no simple task. He wandered around the street where the People's Fine Arts Publishing House was located, but none of the nearby stationery stores sold the professional manuscript paper. And if he just showed up at the gate, he probably wouldn't even get past the old man in the guard booth.

After thinking it over, Zheng Fei decided he had to ask Teacher Meng for help. The art world was a tight-knit circle, and as a teacher, he surely knew plenty of people in publishing. You couldn't ask for a favor empty-handed, and not knowing what Teacher Meng liked, he remembered seeing sunflower seeds and peanuts in his studio. He bought some at a state-run grocery store on his way. In his current situation in Tanziwan, Zheng Fei lived the life of a poor man, not daring to spend lavishly for fear of drawing unwanted attention.

When he arrived at the studio, there were still many students there practicing sketches, though there was no model this time, just a plaster bust of a curly-haired foreigner. Seeing the statue, Zheng Fei felt a mix of unspeakable emotions; almost every art student had been tortured by these plaster casts. And among these statues, eight out of ten had curly hair, or if they were bald, they had a thick, bushy beard. In his student days, what Zheng Fei feared most was when a teacher would suddenly, in a fit of madness, demand they draw the full-body statue of Michelangelo's "Moses"—it was absolutely grueling.

In the studio, Teacher Meng was patiently guiding the students in sketching. This time, Zheng Fei didn't see the Chen siblings, nor did he see Teacher Chen Yifei.

If the timeline followed its normal course, Teacher Chen was likely already setting foot on American soil.

Meng Guang turned around and was quite surprised to see Zheng Fei. "I haven't seen you for months. I was actually hoping to help you sign up for the correspondence course."

"I've been away painting murals in another city, so I accidentally missed the deadline."

"How could you miss such an important thing? How did the mural turn out?"

"It was alright. The client didn't have very high demands, so I earned a bit of labor money—at least I didn't lose anything."

"Hmph, you're being modest again. The more you act like this, the more curious I am about whether it was actually good, and where you painted it."

"Over on Chongming Island."

"That's quite a distance."

Zheng Fei didn't dwell on the subject, instead quickly handing over the peanuts and sunflower seeds. "Teacher Meng, I bought some snacks on the way."

Seeing him act so attentive, Meng Guang couldn't help but frown slightly. "Speak, do you need a favor?"

It was always easy dealing with smart people. Zheng Fei chuckled. "I want to submit a picture-story book to the People's Fine Arts Publishing House. Could you introduce me to someone? I'd like to get some of their internal manuscript paper."

Teacher Meng lowered his head, contemplating for a moment. "That shouldn't be a problem."

But he looked at the young man before him with confusion, finding it hard to understand—or rather, hard to believe. When they first met, he was sketching. The next time, he was planning to paint temple murals. Now, meeting for the third time, he had switched tracks again, intending to delve into picture-story books. If this were his own student, he would have started scolding him for being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, unable to stick to one thing.

Yet, this Zheng Fei gave him a feeling he couldn't quite grasp; he felt that despite his youth, he truly possessed genuine talent. He wondered which master had trained him to be such a versatile individual.

"Fine. I happen to know the director of the Picture-Story Creation Studio at the People's Fine Arts Publishing House. I'll get you some manuscript paper."

"Thank you, Teacher Meng."

Meng Guang knew a thing or two about picture-story books, as the publishing house had previously intended to recruit him into their creative team. However, because his primary job was teaching and he also ran a studio, he had politely declined.

"If you don't have a script, how do you intend to create a picture-story book?"

"I'll write the script myself."

Meng Guang was stunned for a moment, truly at a loss for words.