Zigong, a small city in the South of Sichuan province, is famous for 4 reasons--two historical, two modern. Apart from producing the largest group of dinosaur fossils ever found in China and possessing the country's oldest salt well--Zigong is home to a famous Lantern Festival and a genius playwright. Today the List welcomes Wei Minglun, the man who put the spice in Sichuan drama.

Sichuan Opera bears a clever and uncanny touch, and is said to resemble those that created it--the people of Sichuan, with their love of teahouses and spicy food, and their unique dialect. One Sichuan man cultivated these traits to the extreme, and he is playwright Wei Minglun. Wei, a man with only 4 years of elementary schooling, earned the name "the devilish genius of drama" after creating a mass of themes for Sichuan Opera, Peking Opera and the silver screen.

Wei first took the country's entertainment world by surprise in 1986, with his Sichuan Operatic fantasia, "Pan Jinlian"－－a modern take on the story of a dissolute woman from one of China's greatest classics, "Outlaws of the Marsh". Wei transformed Pan Jinlian the vamp into a brave young woman who fights for true love. This unorthodox interpretation triggered a wave of nationwide discussion, study and imitation, radiating beyond the shores of the Chinese mainland to Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

Neijiang is a place that's given birth to such notables as world famous artist Zhang Daqian. Wei Minglun was born there in 1941 and later moved to Zigong, both cities in Sichuan provinces. He began his life as a Sichuan opera singer at the tender age of 7. A child from a poor family, Wei had to quit school when he was only 9 years old, taking on a full-time job to help his family make ends meet.

At a time and age when entertainers were looked down upon as a low-class bunch, they had to seek refuge with gangsters called "Paoge" wherever they went. But these bad guys would often give a hard time to the very people they were supposed to protect. This experience later served as material for a few of Wei's works.

"The Story of Yi Danda"－a man of bold heart － was Wei's first work to win him an award in 1980 at the age of 39. As the writer puts it, this piece was his baby. He'd carried it for 30 years.

Wei Minglun lost his voice when he was 13, because he overworked himself in a highly popular play at the time. He was forced to leave the stage. But he never left Sichuan Opera. In a book he wrote later, Wei expressed his incomparable love for Sichuan Opera. He said, "Her incredible beauty and richness has already entered my blood. How can I live without her？" But many say that losing his voice was actually a blessing in disguise, otherwise, there would have been but one more mediocre or maybe above-average actor on the Sichuan Opera stage.

Wei Said, "I got my inspiration from reading all sorts of books and faces, and my works may be fun to watch, but they are all full of life's ups and downs."

In 1995, 45 years after he first stepped onto the Sichuan Opera stage, Wei Minglun produced his second script for the silver screen--"Changing Faces"--another depiction of the life of a group of roaming entertainers from Sichuan-a theme that he says is in his blood.

But there's one object of pride that isn't. Wei Minglun's Sichuan and Peking Opera version of "Chinese Princess Turandot", which he started working on back in 1994, recently made quite a splash in the country's entertainment world. Making light of the feud between East and West, the show focuses on the legendary aspect of the story and the aesthetic facet of the drama, bringing home for Mr. Wei 13 awards at the 4th Chengdu National Drama Festival.

"I'm no prolific writer, but my works are infused with all my energy and painstaking efforts, so that they are like babies that I adore. As for myself, my name says it all-a person who puts himself in the hands of the devil." Wei said.