Losing Money to Be a Tycoon c1-883

by Inebriation-seeking Blue Shirt, 青衫取醉

  Boss Pei had personally planned and grasped the general direction no matter whether it was Tengda’s games or movies. These had already been verified and were very successful works.

  Boss Pei’s position in creative writing was much higher than online authors like them. Since Boss Pei said that there was no problem with Cui Geng, there might really be no problem.

  “Could it be that I have some potential that I don’t even know about?”

  Cui Geng decided to follow Boss Pei’s instructions and try out Hurricane Comics’ superhero IP.

  The ‘inspiration class’ had naturally prepared a large number of Hurricane Comics Company’s comics as an important part of Tengda Corporation’s IP.

  Cui Geng picked a few of the more popular ones and returned to his seat. He switched on his reading lamp and earphones to play light music. Then, he sat on his one-person sofa and flipped through them seriously.

  …

  In the afternoon…

  Cui Geng placed the last comic aside and rubbed his temples with a headache.

  He had been reading it from morning until afternoon, he had even been thinking about the plot of these superheroes during lunch. However, the more he read, the more hopeless he felt.

  The more he understood, the more he could feel how difficult this mission was!

  There was little written information since they were all comics, so he managed to flip through them very quickly. Cui Geng read through a few of the more popular comics and understood the general plot outline. His mind became even more confused.

  “This Hurricane Comics Company only occupies 5% of the market share in the United States. It is indeed not without reason that the top two comic companies are rubbing it against the ground.”

  “Be it the character profile of a superhero or the story plot, there is a huge gap between the standards of the top two comic companies and the rest.”

  “I can tell with one look that these stories are not good enough!”

  “What’s more, these characters and plots are not very suitable for local readers. It can be said that they had not learnt the merits of the top two comic companies but the flaws have been retained.”

  “Isn’t writing about such an IP character suicidal…”

  Cui Geng fell into deep melancholy.

  Multifaceted Men, Purgatory Duke, Mutants, Robocop, and so on were the most famous IPs of Hurricane Comics Company. While these IPs left a certain impression, they were already outdated.

  What’s more, from Cui Geng’s point of view, these IPs were difficult to write a short story either because it could not be expanded or because the settings did not meet the current standards of aesthetics.

  It would not be a problem for these IPs to be taken into GOG as a game’s image. However, it would be extremely difficult to write an attractive story with them as protagonists.

  Needless to say, the other IPs were all useless.

  There were even many inspired superheroes from the top two comic companies. For example, a hero named ‘Captain World’ where one could see signs of piracy at a glance. This was even more useless.

  He would probably be laughed at if he really wrote about it.

  That caused Cui Geng to have a headache.

  “How should I deal with it?”

  “Should I write fanfiction on an IP like the Multifaceted Man or the Robocop?”

  “This type of IP might be very old and outdated, but at least the local readers still have some impression of it. Making do with it shouldn’t be considered cheating for royalties, right?”

  Cui Geng subconsciously wanted to choose an easy way after thinking hard for a few hours without any results.

  However, Boss Pei’s face suddenly appeared in his mind, and he immediately dismissed that thought.

  “No, absolutely not!”

  “How can I have such thoughts?”

  “Boss Pei is taking special care of me. Obviously, he values the content that I am going to write and has high expectations of me!”

  “How can I think of such fooling things? Boss Pei would be so sad!”

  “Boss Pei has already said that there is no need for word count. Wouldn’t I be letting Boss Pei down if I were to give up so quickly and start writing hastily?”

  “No, I have to think about it seriously!”

  “I have to take out the motivation to analyze the Tengda spirit together with Wu Bin. I have to figure out the deeper meaning behind Boss Pei and find the only correct answer!”

  “I should follow Tengda’s internal interpretation and interpret Boss Pei’s true intentions properly!”

  The Tengda spirit encouraged him once again just as Cui Geng was about to give up.

  Cui Geng had gained a deeper understanding of “Boss Pei’s intention to answer the standard train of thought” when he was analyzing the Tengda spirit and compiling the Tengda spirit manual with Wu Bin.

  This was a set of methodology that Bao Xu, Huang Sibo, Lin Wan, and the other senior executives of the company had been perfecting to figure out Boss Pei’s true intentions.

  He could deduce Boss Pei’s true intentions through the content of the mission that Boss Pei had assigned. This move was effective in the games department, the film department, and the physical department. It created many miracles.

  Now, Cui Geng decided to adapt and use it on his own creation!

  “What was the first step? Oh, right, find the most unreasonable point in Boss Pei’s words and start analyzing…”

  Cui Geng tried hard to recall the conversation he had with Boss Pei in the morning.

  In fact, Boss Pei did not say much. He only said, “Superheroes can also be written for domestic readers”, “We don’t have to make domestic readers like these superheroes”, “We can write these superheroes to death or half-dead”.

  “It sounds like Boss Pei is hinting to me not to use the traditional Western story structure to write a superhero story. Instead, I should try my best to tell it in a way that domestic readers would accept…”

  Cui Geng began to look up related information online.

  Superhero movies were a part of cultural output and had a huge market in the country. Cui Geng might not have paid special attention to them, but he knew some basic concepts.

  Superheroes might have different abilities, personalities, and identities, but most of them had similar characteristics:

  Possessing extraordinary strength, technical ability, or proficiency in related equipment in a certain area could be considered in this category, they did not include strength, wisdom, special abilities or money.

  They wanted to uphold justice and be responsible. They would choose to stand up for others in times of danger without wanting anything in return.

  To a certain extent, they represented the morals of the Westerners. They did not kill people but handed them over to the police and the law.

  They usually had a secret identity to protect their friends and family. At the same time, they often had another identity apart from superheroes in real life, such as reporters, students, rich second-generation heirs, and so on.

  They usually had an iconic costume or prop.

  Generally speaking, Superheroes’ stories were basically stories where justice finally defeated evil: Supervillains wanted to do bad things and were discovered by Superheroes. After a series of twists and turns, Superheroes defeated Supervillains and maintained world’s peace.

  Of course, with the development of the Superhero theme, there were more variations to the story. There were even some righteous and evil “anti-hero” characters.

  However, very few superheroes’ stories would deviate from the core of ‘justice defeats evil’ because the audience might not be convinced if they deviated from this core.

  In a sense, superheroes’ comics and movies were similar to online literature. They were both mass-produced creative models. There would be many innovations in the details even though basic patterns were constantly repeated. What’s more, readers w
ould fall for it no matter how many times the material was reused.

  That was also why Cui Geng did not know where to start. It was precisely because this was a mass-produced model that was deeply rooted in the culture of the West. As a countryman, there was a natural cultural gap between them. Thus, according to this standard process, it would never surpass the superhero stories written by Westerners.

  This was not belittling himself, but a clear understanding of reality.

  It was just like asking a native Westerner to write a traditional Chinese martial arts story. No matter how much preparation he made, what he wrote would definitely be “tasteless”.

  Cui Geng frowned. “In other words, it would be impossible for me to sell my story to foreigners. I can only sell it to the locals.”

  “Boss Pei did say that.”

  “But how exactly can I sell it to our countrymen?”

  “Boss Pei seems to have done a lot of Western content before. They seem to be very popular among the Chinese. How did Boss Pei do it?”

  Cui Geng could not help but think about the game Struggle.

  In fact, Struggle also had a Western background story. The characters and stories were all based on Western backgrounds, but domestic players liked it very much.

  Cui Geng recalled the details of Struggle and his eyes lit up.

  “I understand now!”

  “The secret of Boss Pei’s creation is to observe the Western story from the perspective of Chinese culture. Then, he would deconstruct it, tear apart the exquisite outerwear of Western art works, and completely expose its inner nature!”

  Chapter 882 - The Background Story Of The Superhero

  Cui Geng suddenly understood Boss Pei’s intentions.

  “For example, Struggle is actually reflecting the deep contradictions of Western society and analyzing this social phenomenon. It tore apart the warm and beautiful cover in Western works, which was why there was such a deep reaction!”

  For a long time, the domestic cultural industry had been relatively weak.

  Be it for games, movies, novels, or even ideologies in certain fields, they were all completely suppressed by the Western world.

  There were many reasons for this. Most importantly, it was because of historical issues. This phenomenon did exist and was very serious even though many people were unwilling to admit it.

  The cultural output of the Western world had always existed and had a very complicated effect.

  Of course, it was undeniable that there were some positive elements in Western culture. Some movies could indeed be encouraging.

  However, many people mistakenly thought that everything in Western culture was good and perfect. They even loved everything in the West because of the beautification of these cultural works. This was a classic example of being brainwashed by the beauty of artistic works.

  For example, many people thought that everyone lived in a huge villa with a swimming pool in the United States. The houses were cheap, the medical services were free, and the dishwashers could live the dream life of the people. That was obviously a misinterpretation.

  As a developed country, the living standards of the people in the United States would definitely be better. However, that only applied to the rich in the United States. Their lives were still very difficult for the middle-class and bottom tier of the society.

  However, the Chinese had long accepted the export of many American cultural works. Many people had the illusion that the Western world was heaven on earth under the packaging and beautification of these cultural works.

  One of the main reasons why Struggle was successful was that it broke the illusion and allowed more people to see the Western world from a more objective perspective. It was equivalent to deconstructing the “ideal country” in Western culture works.

  Cui Geng suddenly realized, could it be that that was Boss Pei’s intention for him to write on a superhero theme?

  He did not want to write a superhero story that was in line with the mainstream values of the West. Instead, he wanted to deconstruct the mainstream values of the West like Struggle. He wanted to write a story that reflected deep problems and broke the illusion of some people.

  Cui Geng realized that he could match many things once he accepted this setting!

  Why did Boss Pei say that it did not matter even if he wrote these superheroes to death or made them suffer?

  That was because this was not a traditional superhero story to begin with. The superheroes in the story did not represent fairness, justice, and beauty, but something else. Thus, their deaths would naturally not make the audience feel extremely disgusted.

  Cui Geng subconsciously thought of a question: If superheroes existed, would they do what they did in movies?

  Of course, there was good and evil in human nature. When humans had the power of superheroes, kind people would become superheroes, and evil people would become super villains.

  However, would a kind superhero be able to persevere as described in most stories?

  If he were to make a bolder assumption, if the superhero’s power was not innate or mutated but obtained through other means, what would the story of the superhero become?

  It was just like how the West had been sparing no effort to export their “freedom” and “democracy”, was this seemingly perfect system really a perfect system?

  There seemed to be a similar effect.

  Cui Geng suddenly found the inspiration he wanted. He rushed to the work area, opened a new document, and wrote down the background story that suddenly appeared in his mind!

  …

  The story happened in the United States, similar to other superheroes.

  However, the story of this superhero was different from the stories of other superheroes because in this story, the superheroes were not born with strength, nor were they relying on mutation or money.

  About two hundred years ago, the first local superhero appeared in the United States.

  His superpower was to obtain strength from people’s support and trust. Once people’s support and trust towards him weakened, his superpower would also decrease. It might even cease to exist.

  However, this superhero had many virtues such as fairness, integrity, courage, and so on. This superhero had played a key role in saving countless lives and was deeply loved by the American people in all the major historical events.

  Thus, he became more powerful. Not only did he become a symbol of the spirit of the United States, but he also shouldered the heavy responsibility of maintaining world peace. The people of the United States affectionately called him the ‘world leader’ because the people of the United States believed that his existence would maintain world peace and save mankind from war.

  However, no matter how powerful a superhero was, he would always age and die.

  Seventy years ago, the Captain World, who was more than a hundred years old, was dying of old age. He still had people’s trust and support. He still had powerful superpowers but his body was no longer able to support him using these powers.

  Politicians, media, tycoons, and all sorts of people from the United States took turns to visit the world leader in the hospital ward. They hoped that the world leader could choose a person from among the many carefully selected successors to inherit the world leader’s superpower and identity.

  The Captain World saw through their thoughts. Obviously, different factions were coveting this superpower that could affect the world. They wanted to use the chess pieces they cultivated to inherit the Captain World’s powers and status. Everything would be disastrous if this superpower fell into the hands of bad people.

  Thus, the Captain World did not give his superpower to any 'successor” carefully selected by politicians, tycoons, or other forces. Instead, he scattered his superpower all over the entire country, giving every citizen of the United States the possibility of becoming a superhero.

  The strength of this power depended on the support and trust of the American citizens.
r />   The world leader firmly believed that only people with integrity, justice, and kindness would be able to obtain the support, trust, and love of most American citizens.

  Even though it could not guarantee that all of his superpowers would be concentrated on one person to play the greatest role, it could at least ensure that most of his superpowers would be controlled by a kind and upright person. At the same time, it would not completely fall into the hands of a bad person.

  Many people, including politicians, businessmen, and the media, tried to dissuade the Captain World, but he was unmoved. Obviously, these people’s flowery words were only to keep the world leader’s power for themselves. They were not trustworthy.

  The world leader believed that the United States as a whole would make the right choice.

  The American people deeply remembered Captain World after he died. They built a huge statue and monument for him to commemorate the first and most respected superhero.

  That was the background story. The real beginning of the story was almost seventy years after the death of the world leader.

  The protagonist of the story was called Phil Simmons. He was a carefree, rich second-generation heir who spent money freely every day.

  Phil Simmons’s father, Ryan Simmons, was a wealthy man ranked in the 150th place in the United States. He had a personal wealth of 4.2 billion US dollars. He started with real estate and owned chain hotels and office buildings in many cities around the world.

  Phil Simmons was just like the other rich second-generation heirs born with a silver spoon in their mouths. He was 31 years old this year and was unmarried. He was 1.92 meters tall, had a standard white face, was handsome, and had a body that was well maintained like a model.

  He was a Harvard graduate with a law doctorate and an MBA degree. His current position was the CEO of Simmons Media Corporation. He was rated as “the most influential business figure under 40 years old” by Fortune magazine.