Chapter 157: The Legend of the Condor Heroes Visits as a Guest

Ideals are full, but reality is skeletal.

The yellow-haired horse used its ruthless side to make Zhang Tan understand that his talent in horseback riding was actually not much better than that of the actress who played Huazheng.

The actress could at least make the horse move, even if it was completely out of control.

As for Zhang Tan, he had no way to make the horse move at all. That yellow-haired horse seemed to have decided that Zhang Tan was easy to bully; no matter how he pulled the reins, it ignored him and just kept its head down to eat grass.

In the end, the equestrian instructor couldn't bear to watch any longer, so he took the yellow-haired horse for a couple of laps around, which somewhat fulfilled Zhang Tan's wish of "galloping on horseback."

"When I get back, I will definitely take the time to master horseback riding!"

After casting two resentful glares at the yellow-haired horse, which responded with a snort, Zhang Tan secretly made up his mind.

Returning to the hotel in Horqin Banner that evening,

Ma Weiwei told Zhang Tan that the *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies: Wuxia Edition* editorial department had already mailed over some of the contest entries. The Tan-Zhang Cup Wuxia Fiction Grand Prix, established back in September, had already received nearly a hundred novella and short story submissions. After a preliminary review by the editors, ten outstanding works had been selected to enter the semifinals.

The manuscripts that made it to the semifinals had already been transmitted over, and Zhang Tan would participate in the final semifinal judging panel. Of course, for the sake of fairness, Zhang Tan was not the only judge; there was also Wang Conglun, the editor-in-chief of *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies: Wuxia Edition*, Han Yunbo, a professor at the School of Literature of Southwest Normal University, Li Qiru, a literature professor at Renmin University of China, Chen Hong, a professor at Nankai University, and Ye Hongsheng, the famous Taiwanese wuxia fiction critic.

With six people—representing authors, editors-in-chief, professors, and critics alike—it could be considered a luxury lineup.

Since they were all novellas and short stories, the review process went very quickly.

As an avid reader with decades of reading experience under his belt, Zhang Tan had long since trained himself in the ability to scan ten lines at a glance while still grasping the full content.

He finished reading all the manuscripts in a single evening.

"For this first Tan-Zhang Cup, my lineup is truly luxurious! Cangyue, Yang Pan, Bu Feiyan, Shen Yingying—aren't these all authors who serialize their novels in *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies*? Even Liu Jianliang, the veteran author from *Story Feast*, has submitted a piece... The quality of the manuscripts by the two female authors, Cangyue and Bu Feiyan, is truly exceptional."

Basically, the authors who advanced to the semifinals had all previously published works in *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies: Wuxia Edition*.

After finishing the manuscripts, Zhang Tan scored each submission according to his personal grading criteria. The highest score was given to Cangyue, who received an eight out of a possible ten.

At the same time, he wrote down his own critical commentary.

Zhang Tan asked Ma Weiwei to transmit his commentary to the editorial department of *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies*.

The submission deadline for the contest had not yet passed. The reason for writing the commentary now was that these semifinal manuscripts would be published one by one in *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies: Wuxia Edition* to first undergo the test of the readers. A single issue of the magazine only had so many pages, so publishing all the semifinal works was no easy task.

Just as the commentary was sent off, Wang Conglun's phone call came in: "Zhang Tan, the next issue of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* will officially conclude its serialization in our *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies*. We aren't asking for *The Return of the Condor Heroes* to continue serialization just yet, but we would like to do a creative interview with you about *Condor Heroes*. Can you spare some time?"

"I can." Zhang Tan agreed casually; this bit of face still had to be given.

"Alright, I'll arrange for Feng Ge to conduct the interview with you right away."

"Feng Ge?"

"Yes. He's a talented young man who just joined our editorial department this year, and he's currently a key screenwriter being cultivated by the department."

"Very well, have him contact me."

"There is one more thing," Wang Conglun said again. "At the end of this year, our *Legends of Swordsmen and Fairies: Wuxia Edition* plans to hold a Mount Hua Swords Discussion, which is essentially an annual writer's conference. We are inviting domestic wuxia authors to gather together and discuss the creative environment of wuxia culture and innovative writing techniques. The results of the Tan-Zhang Cup will also be announced at the end of the year, and we'll invite the winning authors over then as well. What do you think?"

"That's definitely doable, just notify me when the time comes."

...

The shooting time on the grassland and desert was not particularly long.

After completing the grassland shoots, the crew left the Horqin Grassland with heavy hearts. The reason for their sorrow was that a herdsman's family from Inner Mongolia had brought their daughter to visit the filming set, and unfortunately, the daughter had accidentally fallen from a horse. Although Li Ji-xiong, who happened to be on a filming break, immediately drove the little girl to the hospital upon discovering the accident,

it was deeply regrettable that the little girl ultimately passed away at four o'clock that afternoon due to the severity of her injuries.

Because of this, the bonfire party that the crew had originally planned to host after wrapping up the Inner Mongolia shoot was canceled, as no one was in the mood. After visiting the little girl's family, the crew immediately rushed off to their next filming location: Taohua Town, Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province.

During the intervals between travel to Taohua Town, there was still some promotional work to be completed.

First was Li Ji-xiong, who needed to appear as a guest on CCTV's *Arts and Life*, primarily to promote the television series.

Another event involved Director Zhang Da-hu-zi leading Yu Min and Zhang Tan to visit Sina.com for a candid chat about the television adaptation journey of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*.

Sina.com was the online media partner for *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*.

This promotional appearance was entirely expected.

As the screenwriter and original author, Zhang Tan naturally could not be left out. At the end of October, the trio of them traveled to Sina's studio in Beijing.

As one of the country's top three web portals, Sina.com was developing with tremendous momentum. It was no longer satisfied with simply maintaining the status of a portal website, and was beginning to lean toward entertainment media while actively participating in various entertainment events. Inviting Zhang Weishen, Yu Min, and Zhang Tan as guests this time was precisely one of Sina.com's maneuvers into the entertainment media sector.

A red leather sofa, a gray coffee table, and upon it sat two of Sina.com's mascots—the big-eyed, yellow-bodied Xiaolang doll.

The cameras in the live broadcast room were already set up.

The host was a pretty young woman named Xu Xiaojia. Once everyone was seated and the floor director signaled that they could begin, Xu Xiaojia flashed a smile toward the camera.

"First, welcome everyone to watch this installment of Sina.com's special program, *Condor Heroes Guests Arrive*. Our guests today are three of the behind-the-scenes creators of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*. Let's first welcome our producer, Zhang Weishen. Director Zhang, hello."

Zhang Da-hu-zi waved at the camera: "Hello, host. Hello, audience members."

"Next is the director of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*, Yu Min. Director Yu, hello."

"Hello, netizens of Sina.com."

"And this final guest is a very young and handsome guy—he is the original novelist of *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* and also the screenwriter for the television series, Tan Zhang!" Xu Xiaojia introduced Zhang Tan very enthusiastically.

Zhang Tan had already decided that whenever he appeared in media and entertainment settings in the future, he would use his pen name, Tan Zhang. Seeing the camera focus on him, he also gave a wave and offered a calm greeting: "Hello everyone."

"Today, the three directors and screenwriters have come to provide all the audience members who are eagerly awaiting *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* with a detailed breakdown of how the novel *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* was created into a script, and subsequently filmed as a television series. Before we start chatting with the three of you, I'd like to share the results of a survey."

Xu Xiaojia took out a piece of paper she had prepared in advance and said: "Earlier, Sina.com launched an online survey asking which star viewers most希望 (hope) would play in *The Legend of the Condor Heroes*. After this survey was published, it instantly sparked an astonishing craze online. Have the three of you seen this survey?"

Zhang Jizhong nodded and said: "We have indeed seen it, and based on the choices of the netizens, we tried our best to arrange for the actors everyone loves to play each role in the drama."

Xu Xiaojia nodded and read the data from the paper: "According to the survey on Sina.com, 480,000 people participated in the poll for Guo Jing, 370,000 people participated for Yang Kang, and even for a supporting character like Ouyangike, over 14,000 people took part. Given these results, would it be fair to say that *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* became a hit even before it was filmed?"

Zhang Da-hu-zi laughed and said: "It's because the novel *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* is an exceptionally outstanding work. Domestically and overseas combined, it has sold nearly ten million copies. This reader base is extraordinarily huge. A work like this possesses elements that touch people's hearts and can elicit such strong support from readers."

Xu Xiaojia nodded again, glanced down at the slip of paper in her hand which listed various questions, and turned to ask Zhang Tan: "I'd like to ask Tan Zhang, many of the plots in the novel—especially the Jianghu grievances and the romantic entanglements—are very mature social plots. At your age, how did you conceive of creating such plots, and how did you manage to handle them so well?"

Faced with this question, Zhang Tan could only weave a narrative: "This requires relying on imagination. In daily life, I also tend to observe more. Many people might feel that without life experience, one cannot write the details of life, or cannot perceive the many facets of human nature. But in wuxia, when writing about history or fantastical elements, many aspects can be fictionalized, while emotion is nothing more than mixing various sentiments together. For me, handling it isn't particularly difficult."

"Oh, so that's how it is." Xu Xiaojia nodded once more, glanced briefly at the slip of paper in her hand, and shifted her questioning to Zhang Da-hu-zi instead.

It was evident that this Xu Xiaojia was a rather inexperienced host; she lacked any natural interaction with the guests, relying strictly on asking a question, waiting for the answer, and then moving on to the next question.

It felt just like a reporter's interview.

Which was fine by Zhang Tan; he and the others only needed to focus on answering the questions without having to strain themselves mentally. Some sharp-tongued hosts liked to set traps for their guests, pulling them in before they even realized it.

The topics discussed were mostly harmless and trivial.

However, there were also a few sharper questions sprinkled in.

For instance, one question was directed at Zhang Tan: "Earlier, many people questioned your screenwriting abilities, including quite a few veteran screenwriters within the industry. Did these doubts bring any pressure to you?"

"Uh," Zhang Tan shifted his posture and replied, "There was no real pressure, because I am a very confident person. I don't care whether people question my capability; what I care about is whether people are smearing my character. Turning white into black is something I cannot accept. But questioning my capability is completely normal—after all, look at how young I am. Time will prove everything, right? If they doubt me, then I will accomplish this task. Once I succeed, their doubts will naturally have no impact on me whatsoever, and will only prove that their own vision is blind."

"We know that you eventually took on the role of screenwriter yourself. What were your considerations, and why didn't you serve as the screenwriter from the very beginning?"

Zhang Tan explained: "How should I put it? Being a screenwriter didn't hold much novelty for me, and the production team had already invited professional screenwriters. All I needed to do was keep an eye on them so they didn't stray too far from the novel. I prefer creating entirely new stories. However, during that period, I was subjected to some unwarranted misunderstandings. I am someone who cherishes my reputation, and I don't like people splashing dirty water on me. Therefore, I wrote a script myself, and the ultimate decision rested with the production team—it was they who chose to adopt my script."

Zhang Da-hu-zi added: "That is indeed how it happened. We had previously invited others to write the screenplay, producing a total of three versions. In the end, the director's team unanimously agreed that the script written by Tan Zhang was the most suitable one." (To be continued.)