Moonlight Variations

Perhaps it was because of Zhou Chuan’s red nose, and perfectly curved chin as he said “It’s not worthy to wash my feet” was too charming.

Chu Li didn’t even dare fart, she directly grabbed her little tail and scrammed.

Zhou Chuan stood in front of the door and sent the poor little girl out, he waited until her figure disappeared before retracting his gaze. Taunting the dog that was sprawled out on its ass in the yard he said: “Person’s already gone, what is there to look at? Come in.”

The big dog reluctantly jumped down from the metal gate, and turned around to enter the house with its owner. Once the man passed the porch he kicked the pile of magazine papers as if venting his anger, all the different magazines fell on the floor; after he passed the lounge room he went to the tea table to grab the card that had someone’s phone and QQ details before promptly dropping it into the bin.

Er Gou followed him in, his nose sniffling left and right, the big dog’s head went into the rubbish bin. Came out. And then raised its paws to flip the bin over.

Zhou Chuan: “…”

Zhou Chuan met the big dog’s gaze for three seconds.

The man’s expression quickly changed to become more ferocious as he grasped the dog’s ear: “One bun has bought you out, now you don’t even know where to put your loyalties! Each meal you eat a washbasin of imported dogfood! Laozi can buy a tonne of steamed buns for the amount of money I spend on buying you dog food!”

Er Gou pulled his head from the mans hand. It came out. He shook his head. His paws stepped on the little piece of paper–Zhou Chuan squinted at him, with slight praise he picked up the piece of paper to study it seriously: this wasn’t a normal one, inside it had the phone number and QQ details written by hand.

The sense of being an official business card wasn’t there, unless that little girl was actually a temporary worker of Yuan Yue Publishing?

Wait, Yuan Yue Publishing actually got a temporary worker to just go through the motions with Lao Zi?

—What big guts!

The imagination was too detailed, the mans eyes were so angry that they could burst into flames, he aimed for the bin on top of the computer table before turning away to go wash his hands. After he finished washing his hands, he returned to the computer desk an opened up the document with eyes burning as he started to read–

When he raised his head again it was three o’clock in the afternoon or so.

It was time for Zhou Chuan’s exercise, he casually glanced at the piece of paper that he had offhandedly tossed on the desk for three seconds. Then he made the decision that he would regret for life– he picked up the piece of paper, opened up the computer and opened up QQ’s right tab designated to adding friends.

Long fingers danced on the keyboard.

The mouse moved to search while making crisp ‘kacha’ noises.

After the search results came out, the mans eyes squinted his eyes and felt that the QQ profile picture looked a little familiar, his whole person was puzzled he squinted his tea coloured eyes and took another look…

The search result: [Monkey Invited Water Army].

Zhou Chuan sat in front of the computer with the mouse in his hand, he stared vacantly for thirty seconds.

At the thirty first second the man’s handsome face twitched, before paling to become bloodless. He suddenly moved the mouse towards the Q on the left of the desktop, opened it for a look–the profile looked exactly the same, with the same username, the dialogue box had not closed. At this time due to the other frantic typing it was flashing blue lights.

[Monkey Invited Water Army: Sibal (Fuck in Korean)! Another ugly rejection!!!]

[Monkey Invited Water Army: Let me reiterate, the said person’s dog is even more affectionate than him.]

[Monkey Invited Water Army: Why is this generation of writers so hard to trick? I already took out the biggest show of sincerity that I could show in this lifetime to entreat him to sign the publication contract! I even bought buns for him ah! This is the first time Lao niang has ever bought a man buy breakfast! He didn’t even receive this great blessing with thanks, he fucking said my buns weren’t worth a few ten thousand publishing remuneration!]

[Monkey Invited Water Army: Is this a single bun’s issue? It’s my youthful heart!!]

[Monkey Invited Water Army: My youthful heart is worth nothing!]

[Monkey Invited Water Army: QAQ when I returned to the office I was even hysterically laughed at by the old lady next to me, she asked me if I needed to visit the thatched cottage three times….what do you say, should I go tomorrow? Maybe bring him some expensive looking pickled egg and lean meat porridge ba?]

(T/N: Visiting the thatched cottage three times is an idiom that is a show of sincerity… Here is the link for more info: https://www.omgchinese.com/dictionary/chinese/%E4%B8%89%E9%A1%BE%E8%8C%85%E5%BA%90)

Zhou Chuan typed a few “……..” and slapped send.

The interface showed a row of words:

[Disappearing L Jun: ………………………………………]

Zhou Chuan: “……”

Due to feeling overly frightened Zhou Chuan immediately turned off his computer.

……

On the same day, she realised that at three o’clock or so in the afternoon, she saw the “…….” that L Jun sent her before disappearing.

In fact the only thing that she didn’t know was at this time in G City’s centre in a high class community, there was a someone who was at the top of the writer’s pyramid. He was so shocked by her that he was hugging the dog on the sofa while being stunned for a whole day, his brain was empty, there is no code for a word, it seems that a million yuan in manuscript fees were missed.

Once he thought about the last few days of accompanying that small time employee from the publishing house as well as his sarcastic remarks and he thought of the gloating remarks of “hahahahaha the writer’s circle has so many crazy people” or “Weibo is a place for you to act you only just realised” as well as “that writer that should get struck by lightning” and other phrases of that type….

The style on Weibo is different from in private, unless that little girl was scolding herself?

Then he released a breath very happily, how to refute this ridicule though?

“……..”

The corner of the writer’s lips twitched, he patted Er Gou’s expressive ears and suppressed his throbbing heart.

In the middle of the night at 12am, when Chu Li yawned she remembered she had to buy breakfast for the Sakura of the literary world, that special writer finally had the courage to open his laptop again.

He opened the computer.

Casually ignoring that he still had his trumpet, the man directly went to his main account, had a look at the list of people online and with satisfaction he found that the fellow called “Jiang Yu Cheng” was online– this fellow was also at the top of the golden literati pyramid and was a godly writer. He mainly wrote suspense horror, and could be said to be Zhou Chuan’s brother and friend. Recently suspense horror hasn’t been doing very well in the sales, therefore his main genre was getting hard to sell so his popularity declined. Zhou Chuan’s shaking function shook twice, before the other party sent a brief and concise question mark.

[Zhou Chuan: I’ve made a mistake.]

The other person was quiet for a moment.

[Jiang Yu Cheng: What? Your readers finally found out about your personality.]

[Zhou Chuan: No, realised what, my acting skills are still good; gentle and warm as jade young master Chuan.]

[Zhou Chuan: The Oscars owe me an award.]

[Zhou Chuan: ….Talk about the important thing, remember when I spoke to you about that game X. At that time in order to make content I mixed into their fandom in order to make big news? At that time I was in that circle pretending to e a small time writer that wrote things for artists to go with their art. I even conveniently got to know a sill little forum moderator.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Remember, remember very clearly the Zhou Chuan who was like a crazy person when he told me “I only casually wrote a few thousand words and all these people were so shocked.” “The little forum moderator gave me likes hahahaha” “this little forum moderator is so cute hahahah” “They are so surprised they even really thought that those characters (AB) were a couple hahaha stupid idiotsso long as I provide the materials even a dog and a man can become a pair ah” …. This little incident that you call little forum moderator is which moderator?]

[Zhou Chuan: It’s her.]

[Jiang Yu Chen” What? What is the situation? You guys started dating online?]

[Zhou Chuan: What dating, this is a young lady it’s not like I’m some sort of sicko. Good luck, due to a whole bunch of coincidences that little forum moderator has become my editor, she came to my house in the morning and she even brought two buns for me. She told me that drinking coffee on an empty stomach was bad for the body. She even tried to coerce me into signing a 45 thousand initial print contract with 90% publishing contract.]

[Zhou Chuan: My body’s health means a fart to her.]

[Zhou Chuan: But this isn’t the main point.]

[Zhou Chuan: The main issue is that contract.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: What a coincidence? One of the fans that have supported me for ten years also went into Yuan Yue Publishing hahaha who knows they might be colleagues!]

[Zhou Chuan: Eh, what is that fan’s name?]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: You definitely won’t know them, even if I ask they probably wont tell me. What did you say just now, you and your small forum moderator’s online romance has appeared?! She even tried to use her beauty to make you sign that 45 thousand initial copies with 90% split rubbish contract? Which book? Are you ready to not sign anything less than 100 thousand initial copies for [The book of the God Luohe]??! My god ah!!]

[Zhou Chuan: Let me address this online romance thing. We are not dating online, we have an innocent relationship that is like a master and his pet. At this time she doesn’t know that I’m L Jun but she wanted me to sign over the rights for [Book of the God Luohe]. In the end she saw the Lady Cocoon exclusive fan art book at the front of my house. At the time it was really popular and we worked together to get it. I was afraid that she would be too slow….ai lets not talk about it, fuck I shouldn’t have been so softhearted, see now karma has come ba?]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: This number of initial copies really should just get lost, no problem—on the other hand she doesn’t know that you are L Jun, so why are you so worried?]

[Zhou Chuan: There is no concealing the truth, I am afraid that when she finds out and thinks back to today and the way that I told her go scram she would go into a murderous rage. I can only write [818 All these years that I have like Cocoon Lady’s Warm and Gentle Young Master Chuan] and then top the best seller book lists.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahah!!!]

[Zhou Chuan:….are you done laughing? Am I here to let you laugh at me?]

{Jiang Yu Cheng: I wanted to go to sleep, laughing has given me some more vitality.}

[Zhou Chuan: I’m asking you what should I do?!]

{Jiang Yu Cheng: What ‘what shall I do?’ hahahahahahahahha sign it ba!!}

[Zhou Chuan: But it’s only 45 thousand!! 45!! If it were you would you sign it??? Is that what a person says??]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: No matter how many copies don’t they still sell, as long as it sells it can’t be less than your writer’s remuneration? And aren’t you still negotiating the Manhua (Chinese comic) and the game copyright. Those have a royalty of nearly 70%, why do you still want to be picky with an initial printing volume worth a few hundred thousand or so?]

[Zhou Chuan: Why are you saying the same thing that she said? Did you both arrange it? I’m not being picky over the publishing company’s tiny amount of publishing remuneration, that small amount isn’t enough to pay for Er Gou’s living expenses. You know what I want.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Haiz, you don’t want to sit on that golden throne anymore and want to keep on climbing up huh? Hehe.]

[Zhou Chuan: When it comes to Laozi who is in the prime of his life, getting my feet stepped on by an old man like you makes me so angry.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Hahahaha in the prime of you life huh. The give up on this book, in the next book work hard and surpass me, I won’t move!]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Don’t you just want me to convince you to sign the contract? At least the little pet that you have raised for the last three years is worth it right? If the little pet gets angry and becomes Godzilla what will you do? There is no problem, just sign.]

[Jiang Yu Cheng: Besides, Yuan Yue Publishing is quite stylish, by signing the ultimate purpose of upgrading the style with no harm done.]

[Zhou Chuan: Sign a fart (swearing), go away go away.]

After chasing away the unreliable Jiang Yu Cheng, Zhou Chuan turned off his computer feeling more upset and distracted.

He stood up and went to have a shower. After he was done he lay on the bed, he crossed his legs while staring at the handwritten card that had been wiped clean…this trance-like state lasted two or so hours all the way until the middle of the night at about two. All he could think about was what Jiang Yu Cheng said [ Hahahaha in the prime of you life huh. The give up on this book, in the next book work hard]…..

Zhou Chuan: “…..”

Jiang Yu Cheng was also right?

No, what he siad was wrong, why should Laozi? Just based on the fact that she gave me likes back then?

But I actually still have many other books to work hard on, it’s not such a big deal to do her this little favour…

Zhou Chuan was torn for most of the night before finally getting out his phone in a ghostly manner. He entered the string of numbers according to the phone number above and then typed:

[Tomorrow eleven thirty, bring your contract over.]

He thought about what else he wanted to say and thought it wasn’t sour enough.

So he added another phrase: [Won’t wait.]

He selected the send button and the message was sent. When he heard the message was successfully sent tone the man’s shaking legs stopped–realising that it would be hard to stop this time, he suddenly grabbed his phone from the bed and turned around and bounced up. He cruelly smothered his head with the pillow!

Made a loud sigh.

Great.

The dog in his little house was sleeping sweetly but was scared awake and looked up to its owner with sleepy eyes.

He looked towards the owner who had fallen into madness: “….woof?”