Chapter 28

Li Ye settled things with Jin Peng, thus securing a traveling companion for the provincial capital trip.

At this moment, Hao Jian raised a new issue: “If the two of us go to the provincial capital, we’ll need at least two bicycles—one for carrying goods, not people.”

Qingshui County is forty kilometers from the provincial capital; cycling takes two or three hours, and taking a vehicle is even faster.

But if you carry a hundred or two hundred jin of candy on a vehicle, you’ll run into all kinds of trouble these days—not just exhausting yourself, but there are checkpoints all along the way!

Still, Li Ye had already prepared: Jin Peng owned his own bicycle, and Li Ye could swap bikes with Li Dayong—enough to get them started.

Hearing Li Ye’s confident reply, Hao Jian finally felt at ease.

But a smart man thinks thoroughly, so he asked about Jin Peng’s character, subtly probing whether he was a brawling brute.

Li Ye said: “You don’t need to worry—Jin Peng is sharp. He knows when to be firm and when to be flexible, and he’s got a whole repertoire of bluffing tricks.”

“Besides, he knows the county town inside out—you can ask him for sourcing raw materials. With him along, many tasks become much easier.”

Jin Peng’s sharpness was the verdict of Li Ye’s grandfather, an old man who had seen countless people and knew how to judge them.

Hao Jian nodded, then asked: “Bluffing—how exactly does he do it?”

Li Ye casually reached up, plucked a brick from the wall, held it in one hand, and smashed it with the other.

“Crack.”

The sturdy blue brick split cleanly in two.

“Bluff like this—sometimes he even smashes bricks against his own head...”

Hao Jian fully understood: the man was a street performer, a man of the jianghu. Whether he could fool others didn’t matter—Li Ye’s move had definitely fooled him.

Hao Jian and Jin Peng were both highly capable; within two days, they produced the first batch of candy—about one hundred and eighty jin.

The load limit of a 28-inch bicycle was never fixed—Black Uncle from Feizhou often carried four hundred jin, though it was a life-risking job, it indirectly revealed the design strength of these bikes.

Li Ye asked Li Dayong to swap bikes; Li Dayong happily agreed.

Though his bear-like frame looked awkward atop the 26-inch Phoenix, how could his rusty, clanking National Defense bike compare to Li Ye’s brand-new Phoenix?

After swapping, Li Dayong rode around the county’s main streets twice, so delighted even in the bitter winter cold.

Li Ye went to deliver the bicycle to Jin Peng; Jin Peng and Hao Jian had agreed to leave at dawn tomorrow, and Hao Jian needed to go to Chen Zhuang Township tonight to supervise the weighing and loading.

But at Jin Peng’s courtyard gate, a small complication arose.

“Brother, take me too! I don’t want money... just give me candy... not much... one liang a day...”

A broad-shouldered, sturdy boy with a simple, earnest gaze clung to Li Ye’s sleeve, pleading earnestly to be taken along.

Li Ye sighed, unsure what to say.

The boy was Wang Qiang, a childhood friend of Li Ye’s, but his mind was too “simple”—not cut out for business.

He’d been hired by the factory several times, only to be sent back each time; his parents and brothers looked down on him, even complained he wasted food, and his life was truly hard.

Now he was begging Li Ye—refusing him would seem heartless.

Li Ye asked: “Qiangzi, I don’t oppose you going with Pengge to the provincial capital—but do your family agree?”

Qiangzi nodded vigorously: “They don’t care about me. I’ve been eating at Pengge’s these past two days—they haven’t even looked for me...”

Jin Peng quickly added: “Little Ye, don’t worry—I’ll take Qiangzi along. Meals are on me. Two fen per jin, the two of us can eat fine.”

“What kind of talk is that?”

Li Ye frowned, pulled out five yuan, and shoved it into Jin Peng’s hand: “Take good care of Qiangzi on the road. Don’t be reckless—we’re out for profit, not to prove a point...”

“Little Ye, what are you doing? I haven’t even worked yet, why are you giving me money...”

“This five yuan is Qiangzi’s food money. You keep your two fen per jin—separate accounts, clear and simple.”

After much back-and-forth, Jin Peng finally accepted the money, sighing and praising Li Ye for his righteousness.

After arranging Hao Jian and the others’ trip to the provincial capital, Li Ye returned to school to focus on his novel.

The candy business was a “quick-return” venture—once launched, it yielded visible, fast profits.

But Li Ye only indirectly controlled it; Hao Jian was obedient now, but when wholesale candy profits rose high enough, who knew what might happen?

Money tests character more than anything.

So for safety’s sake, Li Ye planned to walk two paths—earn his first pot of gold as quickly as possible.

If he got into university in Beijing next year, wouldn’t he need a small place to settle in?

Though Li Ye had no intention of getting rich overnight through property speculation, he saw no reason to ignore such obvious opportunity.

【How much did a 1982 sihe courtyard cost?】

Li Ye activated his mental hard drive, retrieving relevant data.

In 1982, Beijing property had legal transactions; a modest but well-located sihe courtyard could be bought for one or two thousand yuan.

What did one or two thousand yuan mean in this era?

Li Ye’s grandfather earned a hundred yuan or so monthly; after supporting his entire family, he might save thirty or twenty yuan each month.

That meant, if frugal, he’d need five to eight years to save enough for a courtyard—assuming no major expenses and no price hikes in Beijing’s sihe courtyards.

Possible?

Wake up—it’s time to get off the train.

By 1986, one courtyard had risen to ten thousand yuan.

Ten thousand! Would a “ten-thousand-yuan household” spend all their wealth on a shabby house?

Ordinary people would never dare.

But to Li Ye, that price might not even cover the royalties of a single novel.

【Must water the text—and water it well.】

Li Ye resolved to adapt the short story “In the Shadows” into a medium-length novel—aiming for at least one hundred to two hundred thousand characters.

But after drafting a detailed outline based on the TV series, he realized that stretching it to one or two hundred thousand characters wouldn’t leave much room for fluff.

The TV version of “In the Shadows” added far more plot than the novel version.

Moreover, the TV characters felt three-dimensional to Li Ye—he could clearly grasp their personalities, making writing easier and more precise.

Character design is an unavoidable hurdle in any novel—it’s the soul of the book.

As Li Ye wrote “In the Shadows,” when depicting Yu Zecheng, his mind was filled entirely with Sun Honglei’s image.

Perhaps Sun’s performance didn’t strictly follow the novel’s character—but undeniably, he succeeded. Li Ye only needed to “peel” him.

But if Li Ye had to create Yu Zecheng from scratch, on a blank page?

He’d have to constantly ponder, painstakingly fleshing out the protagonist, revising endlessly if anything went wrong.

One was ready-to-use; the other, entirely new. The difficulty difference wasn’t just a few times greater—it was astronomical.

This is one reason why derivative web novels are easier to start but harder to break through.

For example, the sudden explosion of sihe courtyard stories, drawing countless writers into the trend, was a classic case.

In the era of precise short-video targeting, many readers had seen the TV series’ highlights—the seductive gaze of Qin Huaiju, the clever yet foolish antics of Sha Zhu.

Just a few hundred words in a sihe courtyard story could match or surpass the impact of other web novels’ hundred-thousand-character openings.

【Qin Huaiju—a shrewd young widow, a vampire clinging to Sha Zhu, stealing his soul, making him willingly support her children and her late husband’s mother.】

【Sha Zhu is a first-time husband, earning over sixty yuan monthly as a sixth-grade worker plus side income, living in three rooms... Qin Huaiju is a second-time wife, bringing three children and a mother-in-law, earning only twenty yuan monthly as a second-grade worker,】

【yet the courtyard elders push them together, urging Sha Zhu not to miss this bargain.】

After reading this, readers, recalling the TV scenes, instantly understood the kind of manipulative woman the author described.

But what if there were no TV series?

The author would need far more time, ink, and effort to build Qin Huaiju’s image word by word in the reader’s mind.

And during this process, the author’s Qin Huaiju might not resemble the TV version at all—perhaps she’d be so distorted that the author would finally realize, “What the hell did I write?”

But if a brilliant actor had already portrayed a deeply convincing, widely accepted version of the character, wouldn’t the author be saved immense trouble?

Of course, the challenge of derivative fiction lies in its difficulty to break through—since the original character is already fixed, any alteration becomes excruciatingly hard.

In 1981, there was no TV series “In the Shadows,” but Li Ye’s mind held countless brilliant, successful character portrayals—wasn’t that exactly what he needed?

Li Ye felt he was brilliant—saving effort so thoroughly no one could tell.

He spread out a stack of letter paper, focused completely, and began writing Chapter One of “In the Shadows.”

【Yu Zecheng was monitoring conversations, deeply agreeing with the progressive figures’ remarks...】

As Li Ye wrote, he subtly noticed his desk-mate, Xiao Tewu, had instinctively stretched his neck to peek at his writing.

【He’s really writing a novel?】

Wen Leyu immediately felt immense respect for Li Ye. Though she didn’t yet know how good his writing was, in 1981, daring to write a novel already surpassed countless peers.

But soon, Wen Leyu grew surprised, then frowned tightly, clearly displeased.

【He... how did he write a dog spy?】