One week ago, after the episode for I Am a Writer, Please Roast Me’s shooting was completed, inside the breakroom for contestant seven, Feng Bujue was naturally eliminated for handing in nothing for the final round. After chatting with the other contestants, he returned to the breakroom happily, drinking the provided canned coffee. Finally, he could go home after the interviews.
Not long after that, Oscar brought two cameramen, an audio guy, and a lighting guy to knock on the room door. Feng Bujue went to answer it. After they entered, they started to set up the equipment. Oscar walked in to shake Feng Bujue’s hand like this was a meeting with a government official. “Thank you, it must have been tiring…”
“No, no, it is more tiring for you…” He paused to ask, “Hmm? Do you need to do seven interviews?”
“No, no, I’m just interviewing you,” Oscar replied. “This is the director’s rules. I’m to interview the eliminated writer, and the remaining six will be interviewed by the editors or sub directors.”
“Oh.” Feng Bujue nodded.
The few had already set up the recording equipment in the room. During the interview, the interviewer and the writer were placed in the corner of the room. There was tape on the ground to specify where the chairs should be placed. The workers busied themselves for a while, and the interview was ready. Oscar carried a set of documents with him. He sat across from Feng Bujue, away from the camera, and said, “Then… shall we start?”
“Sure,” Feng Bujue replied. He was in a hurry to go home, so naturally, the faster the better.
“When you received the invitation to be on the show, were you nervous… or pressured?” Oscar followed the script he had and started the interview.
“No.”
“Then, did you hesitate?” Oscar asked. “After all, you’re a famous writer. When you hear you have to face the other writers on this stage, did it feel weird?”
“I am nothing compared to them, so why should I hesitate?”
“Haha…” Oscar laughed. He picked up the mobile broadcaster he had. With a few clicks, he placed it before Feng Bujue. It was showing part of the episode. “Why did you give this title to the episode?”
“Because I could predict what would happen next,” Feng Bujue answered.
“Now let’s see…” Oscar followed up. He forwarded to another segment. “Why did you write something like that during the first round?”
“Why can’t I?” Feng Bujue replied with a laugh. “Just like I said, the keywords were war, hero, and character. It’s hard to come up with a surprising answer, so I wrote about someone that would surprise everyone.”
Oscar nodded and pushed the video forward. “Then, during the audience voting segment, which place did you predict yourself would be?”
“The last place…” Feng Bujue said, “I told you I have over-corrected.”
“During the second round, I noticed that you didn’t have a single word on your panel at all.”
“Because the frame is all here.” Feng Bujue used his finger to point at his head.
“How long did you need to come up with that story?” Oscar asked.
“Actually… when you asked me for the answer, that was when I started to think about it,” Feng Bujue answered shamelessly.
“It does sound like that.” Oscar laughed. “Haha… But even so, you got second place, so that is a proof of your talent.”
“The effect wouldn’t be as good is this was done a second time,” Feng Bujue said. “This is because the audience hasn’t seen someone that plays the game like me. So, they have a deep impression of me. If any other contestant tries to mimic me, they will end up unlucky.”
Oscar made a signal for the camera crew to stop shooting. The audio put down the boom. “Can I ask you a private question? After the second round, Director Pei wanted to talk to you. What was that about?”
Feng Bujue was obviously not going to bring up the vote manipulation. He answered openly, “Oh, that… he said that if I continued doing what I did, I would be eliminated, so he told me in advanced about the return episode, then we chatted about Fighting Club, syphilis, and so on.”
Oscar’s lips twitched and signaled for the crew to continue. He dragged on the loading bar. “During the third round, did you really finish the whole book?”
Feng Bujue smiled brightly. “When you walked in, I noticed that you hid the envelope that I got inside your inner pocket, right? Since you came prepared, you can try me.”
Oscar chuckled shyly and took out the envelope. He took out the A4 sheets of paper that were stapled together and flipped to a random page. He read, “He said in a haughty tone, my foolish servant, your father is…”
Before the man finished, Feng Bujue continued. “Your father is a hunchback, your mother is a hooker, your sister is a retard, and you have the honor of being the servant of a noble. What else can you ask for?”
Oscar was sincerely shocked. “Mr. Bujue, your memory is godlike.”
In disbelief, he turned the paper over to make sure that nothing could be seen on the other side, and he quickly added, “You could join China’s Got Talent.”
“Haha… not interested.” Feng Bujue smiled, but he seemed to be fixated on the novel before him, and he added, “The book is really not bad, but the plot is too conventional and lacks a hook. Other than that, there is a short part that was lifted directly from Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls with only the era and characters changed and the bridge explosion changed into an assassination. When I read it, I felt the whole thing felt familiar, and when I read the sentence ’no man is an island’, I understood everything. The author did not know how to continue after chapter thirty, so he ’borrowed’ from other books, and then he came up with a few lack luster stories and could not continue anymore.”
Oscar was baffled and thought, So you have not only finished reading it, you even gave it quite a serious read…
“Are you that… unwilling to give this story a final chapter? Even if you just wrote randomly, someone would vote for you,” Oscar said.
“I do not like to touch other people’s work, especially eunuched work,” Feng Bujue replied. “These kinds of novels give me a feeling like… they’re another family’s child, and the child was abandoned before they grew up. And now you want me to come and pretend to be their new parent, to care for them—I can’t do something like that. Since the child’s parents do not care about them, why should I? As you can see, I am not what one would call a good parent.”
“Okay, I think I get it now,” Oscar said. “But I have to ask, what is your feeling about the elimination? Do you feel regret? Especially do you think that you would redo the whole thing if you were given the chance to retry the third round?”
Feng Bujue could not admit that his goal was to get eliminated. He scratched his head and decided to go with some perfunctory words. “Hmm… I feel honored to have been invited, and I am appreciative that the main editors would even notice a small character like myself. Regarding regrets… it’s fine, I don’t feel regret. Since I’ve done it, there is no looking back.”
This interview continued for fifteen minutes. There were many things to shoot like the comments on the other contestants and some necessary questions. When the interview ended, Oscar glanced at the script he was holding, He had run through the questions, and he operated the broadcasting machine. “Before I ask the last question… I have a VCR that is shot when the other writers first came to the show. They are mixed and edited. I hope you can take a look at it.”
…
“A writer is…”
“A writer?”
“Hmm… For me…”
“A writer…”
“Is someone who use words to build a dream.”
“A career and a business.”
“A spreader of thoughts.”
“Is my life.”
“Is ordinary and extraordinary…”
“A path of no return? Haha… please cut this out.”
“They say that this is not good and that is not good, but when they write it themselves, can they even achieve their own set standard?”
“Because I like to write, so I held on.”
“Everyone starts at the same place. We are chasing the same dream. Some strayed from the path or… have given up completely. But I believe those who carried on will eventually meet at the end.”
“I often have to remind myself that I am a writer. This is not just a show. We are writers even outside the show. We need to use our performance to show the public what a writer is and not have them tell us how to write.”
“If everyone can be a writer, why the need for professional writers?”
…
“Following tradition, every writer that comes to our show has to answer this…” Oscar paused. “Mr. Bujue… what is the meaning of the word ’writer’ to you?”
After Feng Bujue watched the not so long VCR, he suddenly felt like this was a difficult question. “Let me think about it.”
A serious expression showed on his face. This had never once appeared during the show. After a long silence, Feng Bujue finally said, “I got it.”
The audio raised the boom, and Oscar waved at the cameraman.
“Give him a close up.” He turned his face to Feng Bujue. “Okay, please go ahead.”
“For me, a writer is… someone who can use words to change the world. Only by believing in that and believing in yourself can a dream become reality.”