Chapter 39: The 300 Million Hong Kong Dollar Box Office Celebration Banquet

July 2, 2001. As Li Wenyu walked down the stairs of the dormitory building and passed the duty office, he heard a familiar voice from within: "Little Li, your letter has arrived! You’ve asked me five times in the last ten days or so, but I finally have some good news for you."

Li Wenyu was overjoyed. He turned to see the fifty-something dormitory manager handing an envelope out the window. Taking it, he replied politely, "Thanks, Uncle Liu."

After exchanging a few more polite words, he noticed the return address was Hong Kong, which bolstered his confidence. He returned to his dormitory on the upper floor. The four-person room was empty. He tore open the envelope and, after a few minutes of reading, joyfully hammered his bed twice.

The letter was from Leslie Cheung in Hong Kong. Whether it was written by the man himself or a staff member acting on his behalf, the content was clear: the script Li Wenyu had sent, titled *Tsuen Wan by the Sea*, was excellent, and the recipient was willing to purchase it for 150,000 Hong Kong dollars.

If Li Wenyu had any other thoughts—such as wanting to work as an intern on the film set or observe the shooting process—he could contact them via the phone number provided in the letter.

Li Wenyu set the letter down, poured a glass of warm water, and gulped it down before clapping his hands lightly once more. "After over a month since my rebirth, I’ve finally secured my first pot of gold. 150,000 Hong Kong dollars in 2001? That’s no small sum. It’s highly likely that Leslie Cheung himself really loved this script, or he wouldn't have offered such a high price."

"As a novice screenwriter in the industry... even for a great script, you’d be lucky to get 10,000 yuan—if they didn't just steal your name or have some established writer claim it as their own."

He sighed again. In the original timeline, Leslie Cheung would commit suicide in 2003. While the internet might have deified him a bit too much after his passing, the reputation of "Brother Gor" was truly impeccable.

If he had sent this script to any other film group in Hong Kong or mainland China, setting aside identity theft or plagiarism, or the practice of letting bootleg versions hit the market before the official release, how much would they really pay a rookie from the Beijing Film Academy’s Class of '99 Literature Department?

As someone who had been reborn, Li Wenyu knew that *Tsuen Wan by the Sea* was essentially *Manchester by the Sea*, which would be filmed in 2015 and released in 2016. With a production budget of 8 million dollars, it would gross 47 million dollars in the U.S. and rack up a mountain of Oscar nominations—Best Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay.

Ultimately, it would take home the trophies for Best Screenplay and Best Actor.

They say winning awards requires connections, campaigning, and money? Leslie Cheung and a group of famous Hong Kong directors had strong ties to the "Big Three" European film festivals. If the quality of the script was high enough, it would come down to the influence of people like Leslie or Wong Kar-wai.

The story was melancholic from beginning to end, deeply depressing yet not cathartic. The protagonist is a numb, zombie-like handyman who repairs pipes and toilets, living in a daze, occasionally switching between silence and bursts of fury.

He is a marginal urban figure with no sense of presence until his brother dies, leaving behind a teenage nephew for whom he must become the guardian. Only then does the reason for his despondency start to unfold.

He was once a happy, normal man—cherished by his parents, brother, wife, and children, and surrounded by friends. But due to a moment of negligence at a party, he caused a house fire that killed his children. He began to freeze himself off, refusing to engage with the world, effectively waiting for death.

In the film, once the protagonist returns to "Tsuen Wan" to care for his nephew, he enters a cycle of love and redemption. But unlike most films that show someone stepping out of the shadows to embrace the world again, this story is about the sadness of returning to the starting point.

It emphasizes realism; some regrets in life, once they occur, can never be undone, repaired, or replaced.

This was the summer of 2001. If the forty-five-year-old Leslie Cheung were willing to turn this script into a film, he would lack neither capital nor connections, and his acting skills would be beyond reproach.

Li Wenyu, a "rebirth" veteran with other advantages, had many ways to make his first pot of gold. But as a bit-part player from the BFA Literature Department across two lifetimes, he decided to try sending scripts to someone who wouldn't cheat him.

At least on this day, July 2nd, he had received a positive response: 150,000 Hong Kong dollars!

150,000? He could open an internet cafe—they were like money-printing machines—or buy a house. With property prices in Beijing at a few thousand yuan per square meter, they wouldn't start climbing until the massive infrastructure projects for the Olympics, leaving him years to choose.

Even after the Olympics, there would be opportunities during the real estate winter.

However, Li Wenyu remembered that a more convenient strategy would be to buy stocks. The world was currently in the grip of the dot-com bubble. Ding Lei of NetEase had seen his company's stock drop from 15.5 dollars to 0.5 dollars, which nearly made him spit blood.

Three years later, in 2004, a single share of NetEase would exceed 70 dollars—a 140-fold increase. If he invested his 150,000 in NetEase now, it would be worth 21 million Hong Kong dollars by 2004.

And in 2004, Tencent would go public in Hong Kong at 3.7 HKD per share...

Li Wenyu lit a "Hongmei" cigarette and happily ran to make a phone call. In the letter, Leslie Cheung asked if he wanted to work as an intern on the set and observe the filming? He absolutely did.

The BFA Class of '99 didn't have a directing major, so for students like them entering their junior year, the most famous future figures would be cinematographer Ning Hao, followed by a handful of people from the Literature Department.

He had a roommate named Old Wang. Although he would remain a "nobody" in the future, he was still doing better than Li Wenyu, running around film sets to make a living.

Li Wenyu went back downstairs and gave three packs of Hongmei cigarettes to Uncle Liu, the dorm manager, as a gesture of thanks. After some small talk, he walked out of the building. A young man with a slightly round face walked over, smiling. "Old Li, when are you heading home for summer break? Or are you sticking around Beijing to hunt for opportunities?"

Speaking of the devil, here was Old Wang—one of those future "average" screenwriters who could at least land work on film sets and eat, belonging to the middle tier of the industry.

Li Wenyu laughed, "I'm going to make a call first. We'll talk later."

Old Wang nodded, "Alright, let me know. If you're going back, we can go together."

After chatting for a bit, he went to make his call. Many students stayed in the dorms during the summer, and many were out running between film sets.

...

It was past ten in the morning.

Walking across the Beijing Film Academy campus, Li Wenyu marveled again—Leslie Cheung truly lived up to his ironclad reputation. The phone number in the letter was his personal line. Regarding the internship and observation, Leslie would cover his airfare, accommodation, and meals.

Everything was taken care of.

There was no talk of paying twenty or thirty percent of the 150,000 total first, or the risk of having to endlessly rewrite while on set, or the common problem of never receiving the final payment after filming wrapped and the movie was released. It was simply: "What is your account number? I'll transfer the money to you."

"Do you want Hong Kong dollars or Renminbi?"

Leslie Cheung had also asked if this was a film specifically intended for awards. He felt that a script with over 90% completion was a masterpiece, and if shot well, it would have a strong chance at the European festivals—Cannes, Berlin, or Venice. Leslie himself had been a jury member at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1998.

Last year, Gong Li had been the jury president at Berlin!

Whether they could win an award would depend on how they campaigned for it.

Li Wenyu didn't deny it. He planned to fly to Hong Kong during the summer break for his first time learning on a professional set. Once the project *Tsuen Wan by the Sea* launched, box office aside, if it managed to win a Best Screenplay award at the Hong Kong Film Awards or one of the European "Big Three" festivals, the chances of his future scripts being stolen, plagiarized, or bootlegged before official release would drop significantly.