The reason for this dislike was that I was teased as a child by being called Yang Kuei-fei

(the Precious Consort Yang); and then when I was older and learned about the last tragic days of her life, I disliked this name even more.

However, I never had a specific idea as to what pen name to use, so once, not thinking much about it, I wrote my name as Yang Ta

'Successful' and sent it to him with my manuscript.
Thanks to Dr. Lai, the first half of my short story, The Newsboy, was published in the Shinminpo. I have a feeling this was the first time my name appeared as K'uei

'Thoroughfare,' but now I cannot remember: it may have been a different work or one that was not even published. So my signature was such a mess that one simply could not tell if the character was Ta or K'uei. Of course, I had written offhand what I thought was Ta but Dr. Lai crossed out the ambiguous character and clearly wrote in K'uei in his beautiful hand.

     What could he have been thinking at that time? This question has now become unanswerable.  Perhaps he thought that I had intended to write K'uei but got it wrong..  Or else he might have thought that if he couldn't tell which character was meant anyway, K'uei was a better choice than Ta.

     This I don't know.

But it was Dr. Lai who became my godfather, giving me my name.

     Of course, like the phrase "Torn, mend it again," I was reminded of Li K'uei in the vernacular novel, All Men are Brothers, and thinking of his axe, I happily accepted this pen name.
     This short story, was published in its entirety in Bungaku hyôron (Literary Review) two or three years later.  By that time I had returned to Chang-hua and once again was looked after by Dr. Lai.
     With no prior notice, the magazine was delivered to me, and so I brought it to Dr. Lai in person.
He was in front of his clinic.

     It was just when no patients were around.

     "So it was published."

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