Chapter 28: Will Word-of-Mouth Crush It?

For several days in a row, Cao Sheng kept asking himself: Is the quality of my book "Days of Cohabiting with a Flight Attendant" acceptable?

Compared with Pi Zi Cai's "First Intimate Contact," will it be completely outshone?

He felt a little uncertain.

After all, before his rebirth, although he had been writing for many years and had achieved a little success, and felt his writing was passable, he had only written power-fantasy stories and had no experience writing literary, pure-love stories.

And Pi Zi Cai's "First Intimate Contact" was a standout among pure-love works, having conquered countless literary youths.

These past few days, he had been repeatedly reviewing the plot of his own "Days of Cohabiting with a Flight Attendant" in his mind, trying to judge the quality of his book from the plot.

When constructing the outline of this book, he had put his heart into it.

For example: when setting up the main plot of the book, he considered the several stages of a romance. Although he had no experience writing pure-love stories, having lived for forty years, his romantic experience was still rich.

He knew that most romances basically go through several stages.

The first stage should be the passionate period.

During this period, couples basically only see each other's good points in their eyes — for example: pretty, handsome, good figure, bright and positive, witty and humorous, generous, and so on.

Couples in this period are inseparable, wishing they could stick together every day.

The second stage, he believed, was the rational stage.

In this stage, the passionate period has already ended. One party in the couple may have noticed certain flaws in the other, or may be under pressure from the outside world — for example, opposition or cold water poured by parents, relatives, friends, and so on.

In short, one party in the romance gradually regains rationality and begins to use reason to reflect on the relationship.

Of course, it could also be that one person in this period realizes that career is more important and that they cannot completely indulge in romance.

In any case, one party in this stage is no longer as passionate as during the infatuation period. Many people break up at this stage; a small number can hold on until the next stage.

The third stage, Cao Sheng felt, should be the independent stage.

If the second stage is one party in the couple gradually regaining rationality,

then the third stage is both parties in the couple having regained rationality.

Both can clearly examine the relationship.

Both have already dealt with the impact of this relationship on their own lives. When it's time to work, they work; in their spare time, the two sides don't necessarily stick together all the time. Each has a certain amount of personal space. The relationship at this stage has lost the fiery passion of the infatuation period, and also lost the bumps and mutual hurt of the second stage. When getting along, it is relatively harmonious.

The fourth stage, he felt, was the stage of mutual influence and mutual support.

Couples who can hold on to this stage have already converged in their living habits, and even the way they speak and think about things has begun to resemble the other's a little.

Each has already grown accustomed to the other's existence.

Each has also truly entered the other's heart.

Couples at this stage, in life and in career, begin consciously or unconsciously to support and influence each other.

……

This was Cao Sheng's many years of romantic experience.

He didn't dare say that all romances are like this, but he felt that most romances are.

No one can stay in the passionate period forever.

Having no experience writing pure-love stories, he integrated his own experience of romance into the plot development of this book.

For example: at the beginning of the book, the protagonist Ding Yang and Ran Jing meet and get to know each other in a bar. Ding Yang is attracted by Ran Jing's looks, figure, and temperament.

Ran Jing, who had just lost her lover, is amused by Ding Yang's deliberately mature yet clumsy pickup attempt.

From this meeting, both remembered each other.

Afterwards, Ran Jing saw a roommate-wanted ad, found Ding Yang's place, and the two met for the second time. They became roommates in name, and cohabitants in fact.

For a long stretch of plot that followed, Cao Sheng wrote all kinds of trivial matters from the cohabitation of these two.

He did his best to write it in an interesting direction.

For example: in the process of trying hard to show off his good points to Ran Jing, Ding Yang caused one blunder after another.

For example: Ran Jing, who had lost her lover, was heartbroken to death, yet kept her inner kindness and tolerance. During her cohabitation with Ding Yang, when washing her own clothes, she would conveniently toss Ding Yang's dirty clothes into the wash too; every time she came back from a business trip, when carefully cleaning the place, she would sometimes also conveniently tidy up Ding Yang's messy dog-kennel of a room; when she cooked, she would also make an extra portion for Ding Yang.

But the heartbroken-to-death her did not respond to Ding Yang's pursuit.

Until her body had problems and she fell suddenly ill. Ding Yang nervously rushed her to the hospital, and for more than half a month running, he busied himself looking after her, little by little prying open her tightly closed heart.

In these plots, Cao Sheng strove to present the process of the male and female protagonists falling in love, writing it in great detail, doing his best to bring out Ran Jing's beauty, gentleness, virtue, and the sorrow in her heart.

He also strove to present Ding Yang's laugh-a-minute pursuit process.

As well as Ding Yang's attentive care during Ran Jing's hospital stay.

Cao Sheng felt that a pure-love story should, at the very least, first make readers believe that real love truly exists between the male and female protagonists.

Otherwise, what kind of pure-love story would that be?

After this stretch of plot, Cao Sheng used some narrative space to describe the warm life after Ding Yang and Ran Jing began dating.

The feelings between the two entered the sweet stage.

Ran Jing little by little walked out of the heartbreak of having lost her lover, and little by little truly fell in love with Ding Yang.

But……

As a pure-love story, it cannot be written as a power-fantasy, and even less as smut.

Therefore, the plot of the next stage must have a turning point.

The turning-point plot Cao Sheng arranged was: by chance, the protagonist Ding Yang discovered Ran Jing's past — she had once had a very beloved lover. Although that person had died, Ran Jing, as a flight attendant with a decent income, had previously come here to share a rental because she had spent all her savings on treating her former lover's illness. Because she had spent all her savings on that man, she could no longer afford her original place and had to go out looking for a shared rental.

This discovery finally let Ding Yang know why Ran Jing's eyes had always, inadvertently, carried a hint of sorrow. He began to doubt whether Ran Jing truly loved him, Ding Yang. Was the person she loved most in her heart that man who had already died?

In this stretch of plot, the scenes Cao Sheng arranged all tried to highlight the doubt and inner turmoil in Ding Yang's heart.

Ding Yang loved Ran Jing.

But he doubted that the person Ran Jing loved most was not him, Ding Yang.

This kind of doubt is heart-wrenching.

Ding Yang began, consciously or unconsciously, to test Ran Jing again and again. Sometimes he could not control the irritation in his heart and would inexplicably lose his temper at Ran Jing.

But after calming down, the love Ding Yang felt for Ran Jing would once again gain the upper hand, and he would start trying every possible way to beg Ran Jing for forgiveness.

Ran Jing during this period was pitiful.

She was worn out, body and soul, by Ding Yang's various neurotic antics.

She also tried hard to make Ding Yang believe she had truly fallen in love with him.

But this kind of self-proof was the hardest of all — sometimes it backfired and produced the opposite effect.

After this stretch of plot, the main storyline of this book also reached its conclusion.

In the plot that followed, Cao Sheng arranged yet another twist.

— Ran Jing fell gravely ill, a terminal illness.

Upon learning she had a terminal illness, Ding Yang finally stopped his antics; the love and reluctance he felt for Ran Jing completely occupied his entire mind, and he began trying every means to scrape together money, working hard to find the best doctors to treat her. He even sold at a low price a labor-of-love work whose authorship rights he had always been reluctant to part with — all just to raise money to cure Ran Jing.

At the story's end, Ran Jing died.

Ding Yang went alone to the bar where he and Ran Jing had first met, sat by himself in the very seat Ran Jing had once occupied, and drank alone with sorrow in his eyes, exactly the way Ran Jing had looked when he first saw her.

Just then, a young Miss came over with a wine glass to chat him up, just as Ding Yang had once approached Ran Jing.

And Ding Yang, just as Ran Jing had once rejected him, opened his mouth and refused the woman who had come to chat him up.

……

Over the past few days, Cao Sheng had repeatedly recalled the plot he had written, asking himself again and again: Is the story I wrote any good? Will its reputation be completely crushed by "First Intimate Contact"?