Riverbay

NO. 7 RIVERBAY ROAD was a six-bedroom villa covering an area of over three thousand square feet. Situated on the Liujin riverbank, it was south-facing and surrounded by ginkgo and wutong trees. Its neighbor to the east was a café for creatives that doubled as a bar at night, while to its west sat a small private museum.

The owner of this villa was Zhang Yuwen, a single, twenty-seven-year-old film director.

Zhang Yuwen was born into a well-off but dysfunctional family fractured by parental discord. His maternal grandfather was a well-known local doctor, while his maternal grandmother was a pharmacist. They had a beautiful daughter—an only child—but she made bad choices in her love life. Zhang Yuwen had practically never seen his father since he was a small child. His mother finally got tired of endlessly waiting for this man and left her son in the care of his grandparents to embark on a new chapter in her own life.

Despite their disappointment, his grandparents gave everything they had to raise their grandson. Zhang Yuwen grew up with them, and when he was sixteen years old, he decided to take their surname. Deeply moved by his gesture, his grandparents bequeathed him their most valuable asset: No. 7 Riverbay Road.

Zhang Yuwen was a lonely child, and only had books for company —the stories penned by great writers and the lives depicted in them were the best companions he ever had in his childhood. These stories inspired his pursuit of a directing major at the film and television academy, and his eventual choice of career: to put it plainly, he made soap operas for a living.

In the year he finished his college entrance exams, his parents finally got the divorce they wanted and went on to start their own respective families, cutting off all contact with one another. After his graduation from university, his grandparents passed away within a year of each other. Apart from the house, they also left their grandson their life savings—a substantial sum given a surgeon’s income at the time.

By the time Zhang Yuwen was twenty-two, he already had a luxurious villa and enough savings to last a lifetime.

Heaven always seemed to favor those who were at peace with the world. A friend of Zhang Yuwen’s grandfather recommended him for a job after he graduated, and so a short time later, Zhang Yuwen became the diligent assistant to a respected, talented, and experienced director in the industry and began learning filmmaking under his tutelag e.

But life often had more twists and turns than the movies portrayed.

After the release of several films, this veteran director took on a big project, but during filming, he was embroiled in a corporate money laundering case and ended up arrested and sentenced to several years in prison.

Alas, the film was nearing completion. So as not to let the investment go down the drain with the mentor behind bars, there was no other option but to let the inexperienced apprentice take over the helm. It was thus, with great trepidation, that Zhang Yuwen completed shooting the film.

His mentor’s name was struck from the silver screen following his disgrace, and Zhang Yuwen’s name prominently took its place under the director’s credit. The film received both critical acclaim and box office success, landing Zhang Yuwen his first big payday.

His family had never known the struggle of toiling for hard-earned money, and Zhang Yuwen therefore came to view material wealth as so much dirt. Once he made a name for himself, people would often pour their hearts out to the young Director Zhang about their entrepreneurial difficulties, and he would offer them funding and words of comfort. Many of these investments went nowhere, but eventually two young directors stood out, rewarding their generous backer with bountiful returns.

Of these two directors, one flopped at the box office but hit the jackpot with the critics and brought home an international award, while the other unexpectedly produced a smash hit and raked in a fortune at the box office.

In both productions, Zhang Yuwen was the main investor. Not only did he recoup his capital overnight, he also earned the title of an ace investor. By the time Zhang Yuwen turned twenty-six, his savings had reached a truly astronomical amount, enough to live off for several lifetimes.

As Jane Austen said, a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. This was a truth universally acknowledged, yet eligible bachelor Zhang Yuwen had never publicly sought a wife— because he was gay, and that was common knowledge. As everyone knew, finding a spouse was harder for rich gay men than it was for rich straight men.

The absence of his father when he was growing up left him with a sense of insecurity, and the way his parents had interacted made him instinctively keep his distance from heterosexual relationships.

It was in his third year of middle school that he realized he was attracted to his own sex. At that time, there was a lively, vibrant junior one grade below him whom he enjoyed spending time with—so much so that it got to the point where he couldn’t eat or sleep. When he compared this with the many famous books he had read, he soon came to the realization that this was love, thus confirming his sexual orientation.

Although same-sex marriage was now legal, there was still a lot of social stigma attached to homosexuals. Adhering to the principle that it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble, Zhang Yuwen never publicly disclosed his sexual orientation.

Of course, he hardly had any friends, either.

It wasn’t until he was in university that Zhang Yuwen thought about finding the love of his life on campus, someone he could trust to build a life and raise a pet with. However, the open—and even promiscuous— lifestyles of the handsome guys in the academy, straight and gay alike, shocked him.

Top or bottom, it was common for them to switch boyfriends every three months. Occasionally, there were even gatherings where the scenes unfolding resembled the set of a gay adult film. Four years in the academy put Zhang Yuwen through so much shock he almost gave up on the idea of dating, but while honest people might be a rare breed, they luckily weren’t extinct. At twenty-two, after graduating and entering the workforce, Zhang Yuwen successfully put aside his misgivings and fell in love.

He wasn’t a particularly emotional person, and he adopted a calm and rational attitude in most aspects of life. He was the kind of Pisces who, even faced with rejection for a confession of love, would calmly analyze what he had done wrong. As fate would have it, a junior from the performing arts department passionately wooed Zhang Yuwen and professed his love for him, and he accepted, thinking it was worth a try.

After they became a couple, he rented a two-bedroom apartment outside of school and started living with his junior. In this relationship, he instinctively took on the role of the top and assumed more social responsibility, while his junior was the bottom who relied on him for living expenses and even tuition.

Zhang Yuwen found this perfectly natural. The only downside was that he was already employed, working hard. It was inevitable that someone would be busy when their career was taking off like his was. He had the finances but not the time, and he could only make up for the lack of companionship with money.

After the junior completed his four years of university with his tuition fee paid in full, he dumped Zhang Yuwen and found an unattractive middle-aged man who looked richer than him—after all, while water tended to flow down, people sought to rise to the top, and social climbing was a normal way of life. This was perfectly reasonable.

Too bad this ex-boyfriend didn’t realize the guy he’d so heartlessly dumped was the greatest financial backer ever. Zhang Yuwen was actually much richer than he appeared; he was just too busy to spend money. By dumping him, the junior was, in effect, ditching a watermelon for a sesame seed.

None of that mattered anymore, though. After several years of single life on the rebound, Zhang Yuwen felt a little empty, though he still held out hope that love would come knocking.

Yeah, he had hope for his future, but not much.

He didn’t want to keep toiling as part of a film crew, even though a director was already at the top of the food chain in the film and television industry. Instead, he wanted to be a writer, like Kafka or Dostoyevsky, and leave behind some breathtaking masterpieces. Otherwise, life would be meaningless.

Free from any financial worries, he spent a year writing a masterpiece depicting the many facets of life, and personally sent the manuscript to a publishing house introduced to him by an acquaintance.

But he was dealt a huge blow in return. This publishing house unanimously decided to nominate the deputy editor—the second boss himself—to give a scathing critique of Zhang Yuwen’s work.

“How should I put it?” The deputy editor mulled over the right words to say. From the attitude of the man who’d introduced them, the deputy editor could tell that this guy in front of him was no ordinary person. He had done his best to hold himself back from shouting abuse at him or throwing the manuscript in his face and scolding him for wasting everyone’s time.

Zhang Yuwen, seated across from him, felt his smile freeze.

“It’s too fake.” The deputy editor racked his brain. “Right, contrived is the word. People like this don’t exist in real life.”

Zhang Yuwen wanted to say “but,” but the word died in his mouth.

He just nodded blankly.

Writers and directors both made a living from storytelling, but they worked in two completely different fields. This deputy editor had a lot of prestige in the publishing industry, so Zhang Yuwen trusted his judgment:

His own work must indeed be shitty.

“What’s your main occupation?” the deputy editor asked, digressing. “You’re pretty rich, right?”

“All I can say is that I don’t have to worry about my three meals a day,” Zhang Yuwen answered cautiously.

“That’s it,” the deputy editor said. “I’d guess you have too little contact with other people, and you’ve never really observed them. You’ve no need to eke out a living, so you’ve no need to take your cue from someone else or guess what other people are really thinking. The motivations and goals of the characters you penned aren’t realistic—in other words, it’s out of touch with reality. It’s like a lot of actors you see performing on a glitzy stage. They look vibrant at first glance, but it doesn’t resonate with the audience.”

“Oh… Okay.” Dejected, Zhang Yuwen accepted the criticism.

“If you want to create good literature,” the deputy editor advised, “you’ll have to interact with people more and not keep to yourself. You live alone?”

“Yup.” Zhang Yuwen had spent the entire year cooped up at home, working daily on this manuscript. The characters in his story were all products of his imagination. He was adept at finding character archetypes from literary masterpieces and reinterpreting them—as a director, he reworked the characters the screenwriters created, making their actions exaggerated and their personalities distinct. Every one of them had their own unique label, like characters straight out of comic books, vividly brought to life with the actors’ own reinterpretation. But strip away the glamor of the filming sets and the veneer of the performing arts, leaving just the text behind, and Zhang Yuwen’s creative shortcomings were completely exposed.

Indeed, all writers needed to observe other people and have unique life experiences to produce good works.

With that blow to his confidence, Zhang Yuwen went home, taking his manuscript with him. He reflected on his career path since his graduation. Everything had been smooth sailing; money and credentials seemed to simply fall into his lap, and he’d forgotten a crucial lesson his mentor had taught him in his professional creative writing class: The most important aspect of character creation was to connect with people and observe them.

Rather than resent the deputy editor, Zhang Yuwen was grateful to him for his insights. He hadn’t given up; he still wanted to be a writer and leave his mark on history. However, those who strove to make history rarely succeeded and were far more likely to achieve infamy. Only those with passion and lifelong dedication to their crafts could be remembered through the ages.

The next day, Zhang Yuwen picked himself up and took the subway to observe the weary faces of the corporate slaves. Then he went to the shared houses in Jiangnan and watched the people coming and going.

Separated by the Liujin River, Jiangnan and Jiangbei were two completely different worlds. He understood that to pay attention to reality, he first had to step into it, get close to it. Tall and handsome, he carried himself with poise and class, so while he was observing the street food stalls outside the filthy buildings in Jiangnan, many others were also watching him in curiosity, thinking he looked out of place here.

Zhang Yuwen had indeed lived in the Jiangnan District for a period in his childhood. It had been a long, long time since he last returned; so long he almost didn’t feel like he belonged here anymore.

He plucked up the courage to strike up casual conversations with the people, but it felt so awkward that he eventually left in a hurry.

Then, he came up with a bold idea— I can rent out the house! There are six rooms in total. I’ll take one for myself and rent four out to observe the tenants’ lives.

This brain wave motivated Zhang Yuwen. The next day, he tweaked this idea to “rent out the house to men with the same sexual orientation as himself.” After all, for the sake of their personal safety, most girls wouldn’t want to be roommates with unfamiliar men. And if he was going to rent to men only, then it wasn’t much of a step to limit his tenants to gay men. Being gay was just one aspect of their identities, after all.

A man of action, Zhang Yuwen put his listing up on a local rental website the next afternoon. To keep people from finding out just how wealthy he was, he posed as a sub-landlord, claiming to be looking after the house for a friend who was abroad. He also limited the tenants to male homosexuals, which proved quite effective. After all, most straight men were homophobic and avoided gay guys like the plague. Letting them live among gay men would really trigger their persecution complex.

He wouldn’t need to worry about girls, either. Even if the tenants were all gay, they were still guys, which posed a lot of inconvenience— even if a girl were to come knocking, he could simply dissuade them and send them away.

He set the rent at a rather low price. After all, the goal was simply to find a few samples for him to observe and gather material.

That same night, he received one hundred and twenty-seven messages.

He decided to simply screen them based on his intuition and select suitable roommates who would also double as observational subjects, turning No. 7 Riverbay Road into his own material-gathering site. He could collect ideas for his novel without leaving his house—so why not?