[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981":3,"chapter-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-28":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","That Year, the Flowers Bloomed in 1981",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2294446,4489,"Chapter 28","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-28",28,"\u003Cp>Li Ye settled things with Jin Peng, thus securing a traveling companion for the provincial capital trip.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qingshui County is forty kilometers from the provincial capital; cycling takes two or three hours, and taking a vehicle is even faster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hearing Li Ye’s confident reply, Hao Jian finally felt at ease.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But a smart man thinks thoroughly, so he asked about Jin Peng’s character, subtly probing whether he was a brawling brute.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Besides, he knows the county town inside out—you can ask him for sourcing raw materials. With him along, many tasks become much easier.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hao Jian nodded, then asked: “Bluffing—how exactly does he do it?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye casually reached up, plucked a brick from the wall, held it in one hand, and smashed it with the other.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Crack.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sturdy blue brick split cleanly in two.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bluff like this—sometimes he even smashes bricks against his own head...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye asked Li Dayong to swap bikes; Li Dayong happily agreed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After swapping, Li Dayong rode around the county’s main streets twice, so delighted even in the bitter winter cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But at Jin Peng’s courtyard gate, a small complication arose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother, take me too! I don’t want money... just give me candy... not much... one liang a day...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>A broad-shouldered, sturdy boy with a simple, earnest gaze clung to Li Ye’s sleeve, pleading earnestly to be taken along.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye sighed, unsure what to say.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The boy was Wang Qiang, a childhood friend of Li Ye’s, but his mind was too “simple”—not cut out for business.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now he was begging Li Ye—refusing him would seem heartless.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye asked: “Qiangzi, I don’t oppose you going with Pengge to the provincial capital—but do your family agree?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“What kind of talk is that?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Little Ye, what are you doing? I haven’t even worked yet, why are you giving me money...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This five yuan is Qiangzi’s food money. You keep your two fen per jin—separate accounts, clear and simple.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After much back-and-forth, Jin Peng finally accepted the money, sighing and praising Li Ye for his righteousness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After arranging Hao Jian and the others’ trip to the provincial capital, Li Ye returned to school to focus on his novel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The candy business was a “quick-return” venture—once launched, it yielded visible, fast profits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Money tests character more than anything.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So for safety’s sake, Li Ye planned to walk two paths—earn his first pot of gold as quickly as possible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he got into university in Beijing next year, wouldn’t he need a small place to settle in?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though Li Ye had no intention of getting rich overnight through property speculation, he saw no reason to ignore such obvious opportunity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【How much did a 1982 sihe courtyard cost?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye activated his mental hard drive, retrieving relevant data.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In 1982, Beijing property had legal transactions; a modest but well-located sihe courtyard could be bought for one or two thousand yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What did one or two thousand yuan mean in this era?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Possible?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Wake up—it’s time to get off the train.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By 1986, one courtyard had risen to ten thousand yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ten thousand! Would a “ten-thousand-yuan household” spend all their wealth on a shabby house?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ordinary people would never dare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But to Li Ye, that price might not even cover the royalties of a single novel.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Must water the text—and water it well.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The TV version of “In the Shadows” added far more plot than the novel version.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Moreover, the TV characters felt three-dimensional to Li Ye—he could clearly grasp their personalities, making writing easier and more precise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Character design is an unavoidable hurdle in any novel—it’s the soul of the book.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Li Ye wrote “In the Shadows,” when depicting Yu Zecheng, his mind was filled entirely with Sun Honglei’s image.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps Sun’s performance didn’t strictly follow the novel’s character—but undeniably, he succeeded. Li Ye only needed to “peel” him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But if Li Ye had to create Yu Zecheng from scratch, on a blank page?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d have to constantly ponder, painstakingly fleshing out the protagonist, revising endlessly if anything went wrong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One was ready-to-use; the other, entirely new. The difficulty difference wasn’t just a few times greater—it was astronomical.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is one reason why derivative web novels are easier to start but harder to break through.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, the sudden explosion of sihe courtyard stories, drawing countless writers into the trend, was a classic case.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just a few hundred words in a sihe courtyard story could match or surpass the impact of other web novels’ hundred-thousand-character openings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【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.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【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,】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【yet the courtyard elders push them together, urging Sha Zhu not to miss this bargain.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After reading this, readers, recalling the TV scenes, instantly understood the kind of manipulative woman the author described.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But what if there were no TV series?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The author would need far more time, ink, and effort to build Qin Huaiju’s image word by word in the reader’s mind.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye felt he was brilliant—saving effort so thoroughly no one could tell.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He spread out a stack of letter paper, focused completely, and began writing Chapter One of “In the Shadows.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Yu Zecheng was monitoring conversations, deeply agreeing with the progressive figures’ remarks...】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As Li Ye wrote, he subtly noticed his desk-mate, Xiao Tewu, had instinctively stretched his neck to peek at his writing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【He’s really writing a novel?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>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.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But soon, Wen Leyu grew surprised, then frowned tightly, clearly displeased.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【He... how did he write a dog spy?】\u003C\u002Fp>",1671,"2026-06-20T05:04:59.129Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","fd8e87f49868bd15c88a4ed4377826c693949aad3accd4b491ac150bf8fb396b","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-29","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-27",884,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthat-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-cover.jpg"]