Sheng Wenzhi paused slightly, stopping his tearing of the bread.
"You still remember?" Sheng Wenzhi asked with a strange expression.
Shang Yechu nodded. She leaned slightly closer to Sheng Wenzhi: "I remember you said that in this general store, people need to follow all sorts of rules to escape?"
Sheng Wenzhi put down the bread, looking somewhat uneasy: "Why are you asking about this book?"
Have you finished writing this book?
“No,” Sheng Wenzhi said simply. “If you hadn’t mentioned it, I would have forgotten that this book even existed.”
Shang Yechu realized something was wrong: "You, uh, you've given up on this?"
"You could say that," Sheng Wenzhi said nonchalantly. "That's how novelists are. They write when they feel like it, and if they run out of inspiration, they just drop it and start writing another one."
Shang Yechu was somewhat skeptical: "You have no inspiration?"
“It’s not that I lack inspiration,” Sheng Wenzhi said, tearing off a piece of bread crumb. “It’s just that I don’t think it’s scary enough, so I don’t want to write anymore.”
Not scary enough...
Shang Yechu was a little confused by the logic here: "Are you a writer who writes horror novels full-time?"
“Of course not.” Sheng Wenzhi immediately frowned. “I can write anything. What I mean is, a novel should be pure. Thriller should be pure thriller, and horror should be pure horror. Horror mixed with rules always gives people the feeling that there is a way to solve it. It’s not pure enough.”
Shang Yechu couldn't understand Sheng Wenzhi's theory at all: "Isn't what you're saying wrong? If two protagonists in a novel are in love, does that mean they can't do other things? Do they have to be in love from the first chapter to the last?"
“That’s not what I meant,” Sheng Wenzhi argued. “It’s like this—fear and love are both emotions, and emotions are only meaningful if they are unsolvable. If we compare fear to love, one person falls in love with another, that’s love; but if that love can be replicated or eliminated through some rule or means, is it still love?”
Shang Yechu was speechless for a moment, her mouth opening and closing repeatedly before she finally waved her hand and said, "I can't argue with you. Forget it, let's stop talking nonsense. What's the name of your book?"
Sheng Wenzhi revealed a smug look, and even swallowing bread no longer seemed so painful: "It's called 'The Rules General Store.' Are you interested in it?"
“Yes.” Shang Yechu nodded. “I want to buy the rights to this book and adapt it into a movie.”
Sheng Wenzhi frowned upon hearing this: "I never sell adaptation rights for my novels."
This was the first time Shang Yechu had encountered an author like this, and she found it rather unusual: "Don't you want your novels to be adapted into films or TV series?"
“I don’t want to.” Sheng Wenzhi shook his head firmly. “Words can preserve the most room for imagination. Film and television adaptations would overshadow my original creative intentions.”
Shang Yechu had already learned to filter out the technical terms that Sheng Wenzhi would occasionally blurt out: "The copyright revenue must be quite substantial."
Sheng Wenzhi scoffed, "I don't need that little bit of money."
"..."
Shang Yechu felt the blood surging in his head and then flowing back into his chest.
Seeing that Shang Yechu remained silent, Sheng Wenzhi suddenly remembered something: "Do you know my pen name?"
Shang Yechu paused for a moment, then chose to tell the truth: "I don't know."
It wasn't so much that she didn't know, but rather that she was deliberately avoiding it. After that incident in junior high, Shang Yechu developed a deep aversion to Sheng Wenzhi's works. Ji Juntao had tried to tell Shang Yechu about Sheng Wenzhi's pen name several times, but Shang Yechu always found excuses to avoid it.
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