Chapter 4: Devoting oneself to creative work

  In the United States, you can not know who the President of the United States is, you can not know who killed Kennedy, and you can not know whether Martin Luther King was black or white, but you must know who Stephen King is!

  Stephen King is a legendary figure, America's Jin Yong-style grandmaster, a bestselling author known as the "King of Horror".

  Through writing horror, he not only established his own "horror kingdom", but also ventured into the entertainment circle, adapting his works into TV dramas and films, almost all of which were extremely popular. It is said that in terms of the proportion of original works being adapted into screenplays, Stephen King can be ranked second, with Shakespeare being first. Indeed, many people who have not read his books have been infatuated with his movies, among which the most famous are "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Shining".

  But what really interests Yi Feiyang is that this guy actually made hundreds of millions of dollars in manuscript fees by writing horror stories!

  His aunt's, it's even more ruthless than robbery!

  Then a bold idea floated up, since Stephen King can make hundreds of millions by writing horror stories, why can't I?

  He casually picked up Stephen King's short horror collection from the supermarket shelf and shouted, "Fatty, pay the bill!" before striding away.

  The fat guy in the back shouted, "How is it me again?! I don't have any money...... No way, Ayang, what time is it? You still want to watch? Boss, let's make a deal, how about 60% off? 80% off is fine too!" The fat guy took off his shoes and pulled out several crumpled US dollars from the insoles...

  "Poor me, my private money, this damned Ayang!"

  ……

  As stowaways, the doghouse where Yi Feiyang and Pangzi lived was absolutely not a high-end apartment, nor was it a warm little house, but a dilapidated old apartment.

  This old apartment building, said to have a history of over 100 years, was already standing here when there were still many black slaves in the United States. After repeated repairs and renovations, it can still be inhabited by its owners, truly a miracle.

  Every time Yi Feiyang slept in his nest, he suspected that he would be buried by the suddenly collapsing house.

  A great hero would rather die in a beauty's arms than die so quietly and unnoticed.

  Yi Feiyang and they lived on the third floor of this small apartment, when walking in the corridor from the second floor to the third floor, the fat man was still nagging, saying that Yi Feiyang was not doing his job properly, at this time, he still bought something broken, for his own private house money called grievances. Yi Feiyang turned back and gave a gesture to the fat man, indicating him to shut up.

  The fatty understood what was meant and could only shut his mouth, sticking out his tongue.

  As the "landlord" Mrs. Lawrence is a good person, never urging rent in person, but for freaks like Yifei Yang, if you're a bad egg, he's worse than you, if you're a good person, then... he'll be very embarrassed to owe you money. So Yifei Yang and the fat man tread lightly, trying not to disturb Mrs. Lawrence who lives on the second floor.

  One step, two steps, three steps.

  Suddenly, plop!

  A short, gentle fart like a little nocturne.

  Fat boy covered his buttocks, "Sorry, I ate a big plate of yellow bean pancake in the restaurant earlier..."

  He waved his fist and danced around like he was acting in a silent film.

  The fat boy sticks out his tongue and pretends to be innocent.

  Fortunately, there was no noise in the second-floor room.

  The two continued advancing quietly.

  One step, two steps, three steps...

  Just as we were about to arrive at our destination, meow!

  A cat's cry broke the silence carefully crafted by the two of them.

  "Oh, damn it!" Yi Feiyang cursed loudly, and the familiar Italian purebred cat in front of him quickly darted into the room next door.

  Then, as expected...

  "Is it you, dear?" Mrs. Lawrence's gentle voice came from within the room.

  Yi Feiyang could only scratch his scalp and laugh dryly, "Yes, it's us. Sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Laurence, we came back a bit late, did we wake you up?"

  "Oh no, it's all right." Mrs. Lawrence pushed the wheelchair out of the room, with the little flower cat on her knee mischievously grabbing at Yifei Yang's beard.

  "Cough cough, that... we owe you rent..." Yi Feiyang decided to be honest, "Maybe it'll be a bit late when we give it to you..."

  "Oh, it's all right, Easy," Mrs. Lawrence said with a smile. "Although you haven't been here for long, I have a good understanding of your character... For example, this old floor, if you hadn't helped to repair it from time to time, it would have broken down long ago."

  Yi Feiyang shrugged, remembering the hardships he had endured to repair these broken floorboards. "By the way, Mrs. Lawrence, it's so late, why aren't you sleeping?"

  "Oh me, I'm so excited, I can hardly sleep! My granddaughter Annie is coming to visit me soon! Hehe!" exclaimed Mrs. Lawrence.

  Yi Feiyang didn't know how to comfort the lonely old lady. Mrs. Lawrence often said things like that, saying her granddaughter was coming to visit her, and from time to time she would tell Yi Feiyang and others about her granddaughter's mischievous childhood stories.

  But this granddaughter had never appeared, and Yifeng even suspected that Mrs. Lawrence was too old and suffered from delusional disorder, fabricating a clever and charming granddaughter.

  "Look, Yi, my granddaughter is only a little younger than you, and she's a beauty, just look at her lovely name, Annie-Hathaway... haha, she dances very well too... would you like me to introduce you?" Mrs. Lawrence was quite fond of this young Chinese man, who seemed charming in both his words and actions.

  Yi Feiyang knew that the old lady was joking, so he said: "Okay, if she's as charming as you, I guarantee that I'll definitely pursue her and make her my girlfriend!"

  Fatty reminded him on the side: "We haven't even gotten to that... why chase a girlfriend?"

  Yi Feiyang kicked him, and the fat man finally came to his senses, saying: "You're handsome, you should chase after girlfriends... Mrs. Lawrence, do you have any granddaughters? Introduce one to me too!"

  Lawrence chuckled and said, "I only have one granddaughter, but I also have some fruit salad here. Would you like to try some?"

  "Alright." The fat man was overjoyed and was about to squeeze in, but Yifei Yang grabbed his collar and pulled him back. "No, Mrs. Lawrence, it's getting late, you should get some rest, we still have work tomorrow!"

  "Then, goodbye, goodnight."

  "Good night."

  Fatso is unhappy, muttering under his breath: "Already been fired long ago, still pretending to work!"

  When they left, the little flower cat on Mrs. Lawrence's knee meowed again. Yi Feiyang turned back and glared at it, the little flower cat quickly hid into Mrs. Lawrence's arms, then poked out its head as if provoking... Back in his own doghouse, Yi Feiyang couldn't wait to flip through Stephen King's book. Pangzi was relieved and fell asleep with his head buried.

  Yi Feiyang wants to take a look at Stephen King's works mainly because he wants to see the pattern of American horror.

  However, Yiyang soon discovered that there is a big difference between the US and China, specifically, the US places great emphasis on psychological descriptions.

  Yi Feiyang understood, letting himself make up stories was okay, but as for writing skills...

  But can't be bothered with all that!

  Someone who decided to plagiarize first investigated Stephen King's creative information in this world and found that many of his excellent works had not been created yet.

  Information about Stephen King flashed quickly through Yi Fei's mind.

  It's 1998, and next year his new work "Green Mile" will be adapted into a classic Hollywood movie; in addition to this, there are also "Misery", "The Langoliers" and "1408" that have not been created yet.

  If Stephen King's future movie stories were turned into short stories and sold, what would be the outcome?

  It can be said that "Dream Demon", "Ride the Wind and Fly", and "1408 Phantom Killer" performed well at the box office and received good reviews in their previous lives, especially "1408 Phantom Killer" which Yi Feiyang loved so much that he watched it more than five times.

  What to do? I love all three plays, which one should I rewrite?! Yì Fēi Yáng hesitated for a moment, then said, let God decide.

  "Point to the soldier, point to the thief, whoever is pointed at is who!" Yi Feiyang pointed back and forth in three plays, and finally chose the target - "1408 Phantom Killer".

  The story of this play tells the horror house writer Mike likes to bring scientific equipment to explore haunted places to collect writing materials. This time he chose the Dolphin Hotel, ignoring the hotel manager's strong dissuasion, and moved into room 1408 where many guests had committed suicide, and then the really terrifying things began...

  Talk is cheap.

  But soon Yi Feiyang was unfortunately discovered that there were pens at home, but no paper!

  "Oh my god, you're killing me! You won't let me have a glimmer of hope and then hit me with this deep blow? But I won't give up, I'll show you that Yi Feiyang will rise above! Yi Feiyang furiously clenched his fists at the sky and began searching for paper everywhere."

  Soon, he found a large pile of... overdue bills!!!!!

  All sorts of bills and invoices, electricity bills, water bills, gas bills, telephone bills, a whole bunch! These bills were all left behind by the previous owner who was also a jinx; of course, some of them belonged to Yifei Yang and Pangzi, although they didn't have ID cards or green cards, it didn't stop people from asking them for payment!

  Yi Feiyang sighed, looking at himself and wondering what kind of life he was living. He casually flipped over a payment slip and was surprised to find that the back side was completely blank.

  "Not bad, at least it can still be written on!" Yi Feiyang decided that this would be his own manuscript paper!!!!!

  A great work is not about what kind of paper it was born on, but how attractive its story is.

  Yi Feiyang comforted himself.

  One day, these collection notes filled with my stories will be collected by many museums!!!