Inside the small office, Zhang Yuan spoke steadily.

"I have only one thought about the book The Untold Story."

"The Count of Monte Cristo!"

Speaking of which, there are actually two sources of inspiration for the book "The Untold Story".

The first one was an old farmhand from Jin’s family named Hesheng.

This man's family originally ran a tofu shop. Although they were not wealthy, they had enough food and clothing.

But just when he had decided on the betrothal gift and was about to get married.

A rich man in the city invited him to his house, framed him for stealing and colluding with the government, and put him in jail.

Hesheng was released after being imprisoned for two years.

But at this time, his parents had been angered to death, and his fiancée had married the rich man's son as a concubine.

The man is innocent but guilty of possessing a treasure. It turns out that the rich man was just eyeing his fiancée.

Afterwards, Hesheng stabbed the rich young master in the street for revenge, but the other party was only seriously injured, while he became a death row prisoner.

Fortunately, Mr. Jin's grandfather came here to serve as an official. After checking the files, he found something strange, so he spared Hesheng's life and took him away with him after he resigned. He then became a long-term worker in their family.

Just because of the lust of the rich, he can frame others at will, causing their families to be broken up, without any guilt at all.

Moreover, Hesheng's revenge was not successful, and the rich young master survived.

This is the source of the creative idea for this book by Jin Laoxie.

As Keigo Higashino said, there are only two things in this world that cannot be looked at directly, one is the sun, and the other is the human heart.

What "The Untold Story" describes is the human heart that is difficult to look directly at.

The protagonist Di Yun, like Na Hesheng, failed to complete his revenge in the end.

That bunch of villains all died because of the treasure of Liancheng Jue. Mr. Jin gave such an ideal ending.

In the early part of the story, the hero Di Yun and his junior sister Qi Fang came to the Wan family as guests. As a result, Qi Fang was favored by Wan Gui, the young master of the Wan family, who designed to frame Di Yun. This plot came from the story of He Sheng.

As for the specific writing style of this paragraph, Mr. Jin referred to the scene in "Water Margin" where "Wu Song's blood splattered on the Yuanyang Tower".

After Di Yun was arrested and thrown into prison, the plot in prison was obviously borrowed from the prison scene in "The Count of Monte Cristo".

This is not surprising. After all, Mr. Jin is a loyal fan of Alexandre Dumas, so it is not a bad thing for him to pay tribute to his idol.

Even the later "The Shawshank Redemption" actually paid tribute to the content of "The Count of Monte Cristo".

It can even be said that all the prison break scenes in TV dramas and movies in later generations were inspired by "The Count of Monte Cristo".

After all, "The Count of Monte Cristo" is known as the "ancestor of cool novels"!

Golden fingers, old grandfather, smurfs, psychological tactics...all the elements that appear in later cool novels can be traced back to this work written nearly two hundred years ago.

Its author Alexandre Dumas is known as the king of popular novels, without a doubt.

Last year, in 02, the French government dug up Alexandre Dumas's grave. Of course, they did not do it for tomb robbing.

Instead, the coffin was taken out and transferred to the Pantheon in France for burial.

Before this, the writers in the Pantheon included Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Zola... Dumas seemed out of place among this group of people.

It's like Lu Xun, Ba Jin, Lao She, Mao Dun, Cao Yu, Shen Congwen and others are sitting in a row, and suddenly someone named "Eagle Eats Chicken" appears...

He is the only one whose popular novel has been inducted into the Pantheon.

If it were in China, it would be equivalent to writing a cool article and writing yourself into the "Ten Philosophers of the Temple of Confucius".

But after hearing Zhang Yuan's answer, Wang Xinming showed a look of disdain.

"It seems that he doesn't have much ability..."

The fact that "The Untold Story" "plagiarized" "The Count of Monte Cristo" is no longer new in the literary world.

It seems that this guy is just a half-baked person, and he dares to speak so arrogantly just because he has read a few novels!

When Wang Xinming heard this, he felt that he was trying to attract attention and speaking in an amateurish way.

"Is Director Feng blind? Why would he choose him as a consultant?"

Literary men look down on each other, and artists despise each other. Director Wang's first reaction was not that Zhang Yuan had any outstanding qualities, but that he thought Director Feng was not good enough.

As colleagues, this is the case.

"Uh... Zhang Yuan, if you have read "The Count of Monte Cristo", you should understand that the core of "The Untold Story" is different from that of this book." Wang Xinming still gave Shu Chang face and spoke in a gentle voice.

"I know. So what I mean is, since Mr. Jin has already borrowed some plots from "The Count of Monte Cristo", why not just borrow more!" Zhang Yuan leaned over and explained in detail.

"The TV station thinks your script is bad because they are afraid that the audience won't like it, right?"

Wang Xinming nodded.

"But you think that if we change too much, the charm and core of the story of The Untold Story will be lost."

“So the key is to find an anchor point that balances innovation and originality.”

“And I think this anchor point is two words.”

"revenge!"

Director Wang frowned and let him continue.

"Look, in The Legend of the Condor Heroes, Yang Kang was eventually wounded by Huang Rong's soft armor and died at the hands of the two protagonists, and Guo Jing and Wang Rong lived happily ever after."

"In The Return of the Condor Heroes, Gongsun Zhi was defeated by Xiaolongnu, and King Jinlun was defeated by Yang Guo with the Desolate Palm. Yang Guo and Xiaolongnu lived together for many years."

"In The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, Zhang Wuji destroyed the martial arts of the two Xuanming Elders, Cheng Kun was blinded, his martial arts were destroyed, and he was imprisoned for life. Zhang Wuji and Zhao Min lived happily ever after."

"All of these popular adaptations end with the protagonist getting his revenge and spending the rest of his life with his loved one."

“Of course the audience loves to watch it.”

“But in the story of The Untold Story, the ending is that Di Yun sees through the world and returns to Snow Valley with his junior sister’s daughter Kong Xincai. Although Shui Sheng is waiting for him, he doesn’t kill any of his hated enemies. They are all poisoned to death by the treasure of The Untold Story.”

"The audience was already depressed when they saw Di Yun suffer repeatedly, and in the end, he failed to complete his revenge. Wouldn't they be vomiting blood?"

"After watching it, I will definitely have one reaction: it's not satisfying!"

"I watched TV after dinner, and the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I was so angry that I couldn't even sleep. I must have cursed in the streets."

"As for the remaining dramas such as The Return of the Condor Heroes, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, and Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, people fall asleep peacefully after watching them, so they are naturally popular."

Wang Xinming lowered his head and thought.

Seeing that Zhang Yuan analyzed the shortcomings of the script based on the audience's feelings, he, who had originally adhered to the original work, felt a little relieved.

“But if we let Di Yun kill his enemies with his own hands, then the bottom line of the story, that the treasure of Tianning Temple poisoned everyone, and the story ended up being about human greed, we can’t do that.” Wang Xinming said calmly.

Zhang Yuan had already thought of a way to deal with it: "So, we need to change it, but not all of it."

"There are tens of thousands of people who have harmed the hero Di Yun. We can pick out a few of the most hateful ones and have Di Yun kill them, and leave the rest to the finale where they will kill each other for the treasure."

Zhang Yuanxie smiled and picked up the white paper on the table: "Director Wang, how about this."

"You and I will each write down the enemy in the story that Di Yun should kill the most, and see if our ideas match."

"Hey" Wang Xinming suddenly found it interesting, so he picked up a pen and paper with a smile.

The two of them wrote quickly and hid them in front of them after writing them down.

"How about we spread it out together?" Zhang Yuan suggested.

They each opened their palms and looked at each other's notes.

There are five big characters on each side.

Wang Xinming was pleasantly surprised to find that what Zhang Yuan wrote was exactly the same as what he wrote. After looking up at each other, they both laughed out loud.

At this time, Director Wang felt that he was Zhuge Liang and Zhang Yuan was Zhou Yu!
Zhang Yuan deliberately organized such a "little show" not to liven up the atmosphere.

He has met many directors, but Wang Xinming is different from other directors.

Li Dawei was young and had a good temper. Yang Tao had had dinner with him several times. With Li Dawei acting as a middleman and giving them advice, it was a natural and risk-free thing to do.

But he was not familiar with Wang Xinming and they had never had dinner or drank together. Today was the first time they met.

Then their relationship is purely that of director and actor.

The director's status is naturally higher than that of an actor.

As an actor, even if what you say is right, if others are arrogant, they may not accept it, and it may even make them feel embarrassed and unhappy.

In this world, not everything is reasonable just because you say or do the right thing.

It depends on how you say it and how you do it.

The two of them spread out their palms together, and the same characters appeared. At this moment, Director Wang had different ideas.

This became his idea, and Zhang Yuan just agreed with him!

Zhang Yuan instantly aligned the granularity with Director Wang...

"Then tell me, why is it Hua Tiegan and Wan Gui?" Wang Xinming changed his previous listless attitude and immediately became interested.

"Wan Gui coveted the beauty of the protagonist's junior sister Qi Fang, so he framed and murdered Di Yun. All the suffering Di Yun endured in the early days was caused by him."

"He is the prototype of Mr. Jin's story, the rich young master who framed He Sheng and stole someone else's fiancée."

"Okay!" Director Wang nodded in agreement: "What about Hua Tiegan?"

"Hua Tiegan is a martial arts master in the book The Untold Story and one of the Four Wonders of the South, 'Falling Flowers and Flowing Water'."

"Logically speaking, they should be the equivalent of the Southern Emperor, Northern Beggar, Eastern Evil and Western Poison in The Legend of the Condor Heroes."

"But after his three brothers fought with all their might and died together with the Blood Blade Ancestor, he didn't dare to move forward even a single step. He was completely frightened."

"Not only did he kneel down and beg for mercy, he also roasted the bodies of his three sworn brothers and ate their meat."

"He also wanted to take the credit for killing the Blood Knife Patriarch and slandered Di Yun and Shui Sheng for committing adultery."

"Such a wicked person has always been wearing the skin of a hero. Isn't he more hateful than the real villain?"

Pa pa pa pa… Wang Xinming clapped his hands in approval: “Yes, Hua Tiegan is also what I hate the most.”

In the book "The Untold Story", the apparent villain is the fourth generation leader of the Blood Knife Sect, the Blood Knife Patriarch, who is a raper and plunderer, and does all kinds of evil.

But after reading the whole book, all readers will think that the Blood Knife Patriarch is bad, but his badness is pure.

Compared with the three brothers Wan Zhenshan, Yan Daping, and Qi Changfa, the prefect Ling Tuisi, and Zhongping Invincible Hua Tiegan, he can even make people feel a little favorable towards him.

At least he really did go there when something happened. After mistaking Di Yun for a member of the Blood Knife Sect, he not only healed his injuries, but also took the initiative to cover the rear when they were being chased.

The world of martial arts is all about brotherhood, but in the entire book “The Untold Story”, half of the brotherhood is on the head of the number one villain.

It really fits what Teacher Fan Wei said: "There are bad people among the masses!"

Even the greatest evil is written on one's face, and yet one can still hide it.

But the cold stabbings from those seemingly righteous guys are the most difficult to guard against.

"Since they have been chosen, how should we adapt it?" Wang Xinming asked. He was now completely alert.

“So I said, the key to the adaptation is The Count of Monte Cristo.”

“In this book, the protagonist Edmund’s revenge methods are extremely brilliant.”

"If you are greedy for money, you will be penniless."

"If you are greedy for fame, then I will let you die in public."

"If you are greedy for power, then you will lose the foundation of your power."

"Killing someone and destroying their heart is the most satisfying thing!"

“The audience loves to watch this.”

Wang Xinming lowered his head, thinking about something.

"So this is what he meant by The Count of Monte Cristo. I misunderstood."

It is indeed as Zhang Yuan said, only by picking out a few enemies to kill and destroy their hearts can the audience enjoy the show.

The original version of "The Untold Story" is too realistic and full of regrets, which makes people feel empty after reading it.

"Then tell me, how should we arrange the death of Hua Tiegan and Wan Gui?"

"Wan Gui is narrow-minded. He admires his father the most and looks down on Di Yun who came from the countryside."

"So Di Yun, the country boy whom he looked down upon, should be killed in front of his father Wan Zhenshan."

"Not only did his father not dare to fight back to save him, he turned around and ran away, abandoning him."

"In this way, Wan Gui will experience despair more painful than death before he dies."

"Great!" Wang Xinming took out a piece of paper and wrote down the contents in detail.

"What about Hua Tiegan?"

"Director Wang, what do you think Hua Tiegan is most greedy for?" Zhang Yuan asked back.

"name!"

"name!"

Then, the two answered in unison, aligning the granularity again.

Wang Xinming called him an expert and said, "This guy is great and his thinking is highly in sync with mine."

"Then we have to start with the name, and further demonstrate the hypocrisy and evil of Hua Tiegan."

"In Master Jin's book, there is very little description of what happened after Hua Tiegan and his nephew Shui Sheng left. Only in the final chapter does it say that Hua Tiegan was poisoned to death and Shui Sheng was waiting for Di Yun in the Snow Valley."

"There is a long blank period from Snow Valley to the end, and we can do something here."

"Why do you need to bring the Shui Sheng?" Director Wang asked in confusion.

Because Shu Chang helped me, I wanted to give her some drama... Zhang Yuan couldn't say that, of course, so he just said, "Because besides Di Yun, only Shui Sheng knew that Hua Tiegan surrendered to the enemy in the Snow Valley and ate his three sworn brothers."

"So according to Hua Tiegan's character, after leaving the valley, he will probably want to silence Shui Sheng to protect his 'innocence'."

Wang Xinming thought it made sense, but he also raised doubts.

"If that's the case, Hua Tiegan wants to kill Shui Sheng, and Di Yun comes to her rescue. This way, the plot is indeed good, but it feels a little less dramatic."

"If you want to be dramatic..." Zhang Yuan suddenly gave a wicked smile.

"Do you think it would be dramatic if we just killed the heroine?"

Wang Xinming's eyes widened with anger.

How dramatic is this?
It's clearly a random change!

Zhang Yuan saw through his thoughts and thought to himself, what do you not know? Later, a director changed "The Twins" beyond recognition, killing off only the two male protagonists in the whole show.

I've just gotten to where I am now.

"Director Wang, don't worry. Just listen to me and let me tell you..." (End of this chapter)