Chapter 428: The Director Selection for

Britain seemed intent on expanding the narrative of saving Mandela—saving the entire South African people sounded too grand, but clearly targeting one individual was far simpler and more direct.

In this process, Mandela was deified, and District Nine was imbued with special historical significance.

More than one person in the photo held District Nine, and the article strongly linked the novel to the mayor’s protest march.

And it wasn’t just Xinhua’s overseas reporters doing this—even British domestic media mentioned District Nine’s influence on the events.

Two days later, Melinda excitedly sent Wei Ming another telegram, telling him: the company was accelerating global English-market distribution and would print additional copies domestically!

A relatively niche science fiction novel was showing superstar bestseller potential in Britain; now, even in old London, people no longer chatted about the weather—they talked about District Nine, especially the youth and cultural activists.

Haven’t read District Nine? Come on, you’re out of touch!

The president in charge of domestic publishing was astonished to learn the novel was written directly in English by Wei Ming—what a talent!

He even hoped Wei Ming would acquire British citizenship; such a talent wasted in China was a tragedy—he’d arrange for Wei Ming to get a London household registration and even find him a British wife, no problem at all.

Centered in London, this phenomenon continued to explode, its influence radiating globally; Mandela and District Nine rose together as global top-tier figures in politics and culture.

It wasn’t that the big shrimp was riding ET’s coattails anymore—it was two aliens mutually riding each other’s coattails.

At an event in Los Angeles, when asked if he’d heard of District Nine, Spielberg said he loved the novel and hoped for a chance to collaborate.

Recently, another event emerged: mayors from multiple countries signed a petition demanding Mandela’s release; they quickly gathered a thousand signatures across more than forty nations.

This campaign even reached China through foreign students.

But Beijing couldn’t easily step forward—even though it hadn’t yet established diplomatic relations with South Africa, Beijing was still the capital, so they had Wang, the mayor of Shanghai, sign instead.

Of course, as a British-led initiative, Hong Kong was the most enthusiastic; the newly appointed Governor, Edward Youde, was among the first to voice support.

Not only did he support it, Hong Kong’s news outlets frequently covered the story; as the world’s first publisher of District Nine, Jin Yong was overjoyed.

Soon, his Minghe Publishing House released 100,000 copies of the traditional Chinese edition of District Nine, and Wei Ming received royalty income.

Of course, Wei Jiefang and Xu Shufen were even more delighted—never had they imagined their son’s novel could influence global politics; this must be the ultimate aspiration of any writer!

Old Wei happily told this story to Gangdan Bas, and even to the killer whales, sea lions, and seals at Ocean Park.

The absolute happiest was definitely Zhou Hui Min—she smiled at everyone during that period, as joyful as Pigsy after eating a ginseng fruit.

So when Lin Ni invited her to Taipei for the weekend, she readily agreed.

Even Taipei was responding to the mayors’ petition campaign; Taiwanese people were no strangers to it.

Hong Kong’s Tomorrow Will Be Better album sold best in Taiwan among its overseas markets.

Of course, it didn’t enter through official channels—after all, the concert’s backdrop was fundraising for mainland disaster relief—but because the songs were so iconic, they were impossible to block.

However, his translated editions like The Lion King could be sold directly in bookstores; District Nine was also directly reprinted from Ming Pao, with the author’s name listed as such.

Even when Taiwanese film producers learned that Cheng Long’s new film A Project had a script written by Wei Ming, they didn’t reject the film—only the screenwriter credit had to use Wei Ming’s pseudonym, “Wei Kuangren.”

“Wei Ming” was still somewhat sensitive in Taiwan, but “Wei Kuangren” was fine.

This time, Zhou Hui Min and her group came to Taipei together—four of them.

Wei Lingling wanted to return to Taipei to visit her uncle and aunt before promoting Transformers in the U.S.; Lin Ni also wanted to go home, and since she had a good relationship with both Zhou Hui Min and her daughter, she invited them to stay.

In fact, Zhou Hui Min wasn’t entirely without connections in Taiwan—she knew Chen Peter, and they were comrades-in-arms.

After participating in the relief concert, Chen Peter was sidelined for a while upon returning to Taiwan, but then nothing happened—he was protected by powerful figures.

But now he rarely performed on stage; he primarily worked behind the scenes as a music producer, realizing he was better suited to this role—he was currently producing songs for a guy named Fei Yuching.

Back in Taipei, Wei Lingling told her uncle about the progress of the mainland factory and the upcoming marketing plans for Transformers.

Although she’d handed the toy company to two young people, her uncle still wanted to see how far they could take the factory; the better they did, the more it benefited him, since his plastic factory in Taiwan was an upstream supplier.

Meanwhile, Lin Ni chatted for a long while with her sister Lin Xi; seeing her radiant younger sister, the third wife of Wei Muchun sighed deeply: “Women truly need the nourishment of a man—look at you now, far more beautiful than when you were in Taipei; you should’ve gone to Hong Kong to find him long ago.”

Lin Ni blushed for a while, but she’d truly been happy lately—she even entertained the idea of having a second child; though Old Ghost was already sixty, men at sixty still had plenty of vigor.

But it was pitiful for her sister—her husband was nearly eighty, nearly thirty years older than her; back then, her eldest sister had made enormous sacrifices for their impoverished family.

After leaving the Wei mansion, Wei Lingling drove back to the hotel to pick up Zhou Hui Min and her daughter, then took them around Taipei.

At this time, Taipei was quite developed—far wealthier than Guangzhou, which Zhou Hui Min had visited, but still no match for Hong Kong.

Still, it wasn’t without advantages compared to Hong Kong—at least people here spoke Mandarin well; if she studied hard here, she wouldn’t worry about living on the mainland later.

Also, Taiwan was currently promoting a folk song movement; Zhou Hui Min bought many Mandarin folk albums, one of which she especially loved—titled “Zhi Hu Zhe Ye,” whose songs “Love Song 1980,” “Childhood,” and “Luogang Town” she quickly learned.

The singer’s voice wasn’t exceptional—it was on par with Ah Ming—but all the songs were self-written; this newcomer Luo Dayou was quite talented, on par with Ah Ming.

Taiwan’s street snacks were also incredibly diverse, especially at night markets—she couldn’t possibly try them all, and many were entirely new to Ah Min, who’d never seen them in Hong Kong.

On their first night in Taipei, Wei Lingling and her daughter took Zhou Hui Min and her mother to the famous Yuanhuan Night Market.

Zhou Hui Min was eating a snack called “fen yuan” when Nainai bought her another cup of bubble tea to quench her thirst.

Bubble tea was a Taiwanese specialty: black tea, sugar, and ice cubes were shaken vigorously in a cocktail shaker, producing a fine foam that made the tea light and refreshing.

Zhou Hui Min’s hands were getting slippery, so she simply poured the remaining fen yuan into the tea.

Then, sipping the tea while chewing the fen yuan, she declared this way of eating was quite good.

Wei Lingling tried it skeptically—and immediately brightened: “Hmm, good, actually quite interesting.”

Ah Min quickly urged her mother to taste it too.

Then Zhou’s mother couldn’t stop—she bought her own portion to savor slowly, wondering what would happen if she replaced bubble tea with Hong Kong’s silk-sock milk tea.

In recent years, British-style milk tea had reached Hong Kong, where tea house chefs improved it into silk-sock milk tea: they blended multiple Ceylon black teas in a tea bag, repeatedly strained it through a cloth to extract an intensely concentrated brew, added evaporated milk, and used the “pulling tea” technique to infuse it with airy texture, yielding a rich, smooth, fragrant taste.

Now, Haoli Lai had opened seven stores, with another seven or eight under construction—nearly a dozen stores, nearly covering every district of Hong Kong.

Although still operating at a loss, once the stores opened, per-store costs dropped and profit margins rose, thanks to increased bargaining power with upstream suppliers.

They were currently negotiating with the two giants of the soda industry, both eager to secure Haoli Lai’s exclusive carbonated beverage rights—just like McDonald’s and KFC, they’d have to choose one.

Haoli Lai was merely a regional small company; the two giants couldn’t offer Haoli Lai the same deals they gave McDonald’s, so they ultimately chose Pepsi.

Zhou’s mother had once thought: if only Hong Kong had a distinctive drink like soda.

This time, Ah Min’s accidental combination of fen yuan in tea sparked a sudden inspiration.

She immediately rushed to the fen yuan vendor to ask what it was made of and how it was made.

“What are you saying? I don’t understand!” The fen yuan vendor, baffled by Ah Min’s rapid Cantonese, replied: “You’re so annoying!”

Lin Ni hurried over to translate, and learned that fen yuan was primarily made from cassava flour; as for the exact method? Trade secret.

Lin Ni scoffed: “What trade secret? My mom sold this when she was a kid—nothing hard about it.”

Then she pulled Zhou’s mother away; Zhou’s mother hurriedly asked Lin Ni to take her to meet her mother—she wanted to learn how to make it.

Lin Ni: “Go visit her at the cemetery?”

Zhou’s mother: “...”

But eventually, Zhou’s mother learned how to make fen yuan—because Lin Ni’s sister Lin Xi knew how; Lin Ni took her to visit, and she finally mastered the skill.

When they returned to Hong Kong, Zhou’s mother began developing a new tea drink, planning to launch it at Haoli Lai to compete with soda; she called it “pearl milk tea”!

Because this eating method was accidentally invented by Zhou Hui Min, she was later honored as the “Mother of Pearl Milk Tea,” while Wei Ming was called the “Father of Pearl Milk Tea.”

Upon returning to Hong Kong, Ah Min immediately wrote a letter to Ah Ming detailing her Taipei trip—the Taiwanese music she heard, her mother’s new milk tea research, and visiting Ah Ming’s great-uncle’s home.

Of course, she included her latest beautiful photos—she was growing more radiant and beautiful by the day.

Wei Ming carefully stored them in the secret chamber of the Sihe Academy, and of course wrote her a reply.

Even though he was now immersed in the tender embrace of Xue Jie and Lin Jie, he hadn’t forgotten his little girlfriend far away in Hong Kong.

He hadn’t traveled far recently, so he had no exciting stories—just sent her the latest song “Goodbye”; the Locust Band had actually recorded it.

Wei Ming also told her: “If you find a copy of Zhi Hu Zhe Ye in Hong Kong, buy one and send it to me.”

Due to international news events like the mayors’ petition, District Nine’s influence within China grew steadily, and negative reviews diminished.

After witnessing how a novel could stir such massive waves in international politics, many readers began reflecting: was their inability to understand it due to their narrow perspective? Wasn’t Teacher Wei Ming’s vision truly global and far-sighted?