Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 1540 - 740: Literati

Chapter 1540: Chapter 740: Literati

The evening river breeze was brushing through the bamboo grove, where Professor He put down his bowl and enthusiastically waved Yan Fei over: "Xiao Fei, come here, today I’ll show you what true calligraphy looks like."

Picking up the Yellow Stone Inkstone, Professor He looked full of confidence: "Hurry over and grind some ink!"

He had been fondling this inkstone all afternoon, studying the carvings on it for hours, trying to guess the age of the inkstone according to the style of the carving. Unfortunately, his knowledge of antiques was quite far from his professional expertise, and despite fiddling with it all afternoon, he had figured nothing out.

Professor Qi teased him from the side: "You think you can write well with just that stone?"

Professor He glared: "I may not compare to you, but am I worse than him?"

"Hehe!" Professor Qi neither agreed nor disagreed.

"What’s with that expression?" Professor He was riled up. "Come on, I refuse to believe my calligraphy isn’t better than his!"

"That’s hard to say." Professor Qi, having been around for a while, had seen Yan Fei’s calligraphy, which, despite not being practiced for long, had a unique flavor due to his strong and vigorous stroke.

Yan Fei happily watched the two old men banter and came over, staring blankly at the inkstone: "Where’s the ink?"

Professor He was taken aback: "Why don’t you pour some ink in and grind it haphazardly?"

This makeshift method made everyone burst into laughter.

"Forget it, forget it, after school starts I’ll visit the antique market and look for some good ink to write with." After being teased repeatedly, Professor He decided not to mention calligraphy anymore. "Right, I’ll give you the twenty thousand when we get back!"

"Then give it to me now!" Yan Fei stretched out his hand and said.

"What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?" Professor He was miffed. "Who carries twenty thousand with them at all times?"

"I always carry it with me! You don’t even carry twenty thousand and you’re talking about giving me money?" Yan Fei chuckled. "You said it was a gift and now you bring up money, what’s the point?"

"Let’s drop it!" In a short time, Professor He said ’forget it’ twice, but his temper was always like that of a petulant kid, and he wouldn’t mind these things. "Come on, Old Qi, let’s play another two games of chess tonight, and I’ll show you how to spell ’defeat’."

Yan Chao immediately got excited: "Grandpa He, I want to play too!"

Professor He brightened up right away: "Sure, today you’re on my team, and together we’ll sweep Old Qi off his feet; come sit here..."

Yan Fei watched the two old men and the child start their game, then stood up and quietly strolled away with his wife.

Leisurely times always pass quickly, and after a few days, Yan Fei received a call from Will: "Yan, your novel officially went on sale today. The first run was twenty thousand copies, and the sales are fantastic; the publisher is currently doing another print run..."

Under Will’s guidance, Yan Fei retained the rights to his novel, simply commissioning a publisher to print and publish his book, sharing in the sales revenue. If Sancha River locals were to comment, they would call Will a ’traitor’ for how hard he worked on Yan Fei’s novel.

Since this method wouldn’t let Yan Fei see any money in the short term, Will took the time to explain it to him. But Yan Fei didn’t care, as long as the book was published and sold well, everything else was secondary — he even hoped for pirated copies to get more, the more the better, so more people could read his novel.

Will, however, believed that hoping for piracy to increase exposure wouldn’t work for foreign language editions. In countries like America, copyright is taken seriously, and the risks of piracy far outweigh the benefits.

Unlike here, where if your work gets pirated it’s just pirated. In fact, the more the piracy, the hotter the author is considered; if a book isn’t pirated at all, then it’s likely that not many are reading the authentic copy either.

Yan Fei trusted others easily; having entrusted Will to handle this matter, he let him weigh the best course of action.

After hanging up the phone, he immediately took out his original manuscript to discuss publication strategies with Xu Xiaoyan. While discussing with Xu Xiaoyan, Professor He, who was preparing to return to the Provincial City, heard them and scoffed: "There’s someone here who can help, why in the world are you brainstorming on your own?"

Yan Fei’s eyes lit up, and he immediately said with a smile: "Teacher He, do you have connections?"

Professor He looked at him askance: "What do you think?"

"Then I’m counting on you!" Yan Fei didn’t mind the petulant attitude at all. "However you want to publish, I’ll follow your lead."

"This guy who always carries tens of thousands in his pocket is asking me for help!" Professor He scoffed at him before continuing. "Leave it to me. The rights are yours; just find a publishing house with the right connections to sell it. Wait for me to make a call..."

With his whimsical character, Professor He always had many more contacts with students than Professor Qi did, even with those who had graduated long ago, he could find a few phone numbers at any time.

After the call, Professor He cheerfully took the manuscript: "Alright, tell me how many copies you want to print?"

Yan Fei boldly suggested: "How about a hundred thousand copies at first?"

"A hundred thousand copies?" Professor He couldn’t even bother to scorn him. "Do you think you’re some famous author? A first run of a hundred thousand copies? What if they don’t sell, are you going to cook them into soup?"

"Don’t worry, I’ll pay for the publishing. If they don’t sell, I’ll keep them around, give them out to my clients, and offer them as a giveaway to anyone who dines in their restaurants." Yan Fei really didn’t care about the cost, as long as the book was published.