British writer

Chapter 3 Arthur Conan Doyle

Nothing to say all night.

The next day, Lu Shi woke up late, because he still had a hangover after drinking yesterday.

He lay on the faucet to rinse his mouth, washed his face again, and then found himself alone in the room,

On Natsume Soseki's bed, the quilt was curled up, and the person had already left, probably to the University of London.

Because there are no windows, the room is pitch black, and I don't know what time it is.

Lu Shi turned on the gas lamp and began to rummage through the luggage in order to find identity information.

Soon, he found some letters, and he was able to deduce his identity as an overseas student, but he was born in poverty, his parents died, and he was raised by his uncles.

If it is placed in modern times, the opportunity to study abroad at public expense will definitely be overwhelming.

However, the people of the Qing Dynasty at that time still insisted that overseas countries were barbaric lands. Foreigners were uncivilized barbarians who would eat human flesh and drink human blood. As a result, most wealthy families were unwilling to let their children study abroad.

Those who are relatively enlightened and have no prejudice against foreigners will only choose the United States to study abroad, which makes the opportunity to go to the UK cheaper for Lu Shi.

But even a poor family like his was very puzzled about studying abroad. The uncles' words in the correspondence were quite fierce, and even the living expenses were cut off.

He muttered to himself: "Tsk, no wonder there is no money."

Because my family didn’t support me, I only had the three melons and two dates provided by the Qing government. What’s even more outrageous is that I didn’t even arrange for a school, and I packed my luggage and put it on the boat.

This is simply sending people over to play beggar simulator.

Lu Shi stretched, put away the letters, turned off the lights,

"Oh, I have to find a way to make money."

Muttering, he left the residence.

The sun is good.

There are a lot of drunks gathered on both sides of Braiya Road, enjoying the sunbath half lying down, patting the wall with their hands from time to time, grunting a few times, and then changing to a more comfortable position, their clothes are dirty from the muddy water splashed by the carriage It doesn't matter.

Lu Shi bypassed these people and walked in the direction of the main street.

After a few steps, someone stopped him from behind: "Lu, wait for me!"

Lu Shi turned his head and found Natsume Soseki walking towards him, followed by two white men with typical English beards,

One of them was about sixty years old, leaning on a cane, looking a little old,

The other, who had seen a recent photo in the Shore Magazine last night, was Arthur Conan Doyle.

Natsume Soseki approached quickly, and introduced him excitedly: "This is my teacher, Mr. Smith. He read my article and appreciates your profound insights into English literature; this is the creator of the Sherlock Holmes series— —Dr. Doyle, he is a good friend of Mr. Smith, and he is also very interested in you."

The two British people shook hands with Lu Shi friendly one by one.

Doyle issued an invitation: "Mr. Lu, I see a coffee shop nearby, and I would like to invite you to take a break."

Being able to sit at the same table with the legendary writer, Lu Shi naturally had no reason to refuse.

The four of them came to the coffee shop, sat by the glass window, and basked in the sunshine.

The interior of the store is antique, and the wonderful combination of the pulsating sunlight and logs makes Lu Shi feel peaceful, and has an inexplicable affinity for the year 1900.

Smith dusted off his cane, asked the clerk to serve four cups of coffee, and then jokingly said: "At this time, you should order a cup of fragrant coffee, and then watch the busy traffic outside in a daze, and spend the whole afternoon comfortably."

doyle smiles,

"I thought you could read, but I didn't expect you to be in a daze."

Smith shook his head,

"Read your novel? Boring."

Lu Shi vaguely felt that the two were singing a double reed, so he shook his head at Natsume Soseki, who was next to him, who didn't know what to do, and then watched the two British guys continue to perform.

Sure enough, Doyle started to get to the point: "Noble Mr. Smith, you think detective novels are boring because you are not good at aesthetics. You see, these two foreign students from Japan really like my works, right?"

His face slightly turned to Lu Shi.

The two looked at each other.

Lu Shi replied: "Dr. Doyle is popular in England, everyone loves it."

It didn't say "Sherlock Holmes is popular in England", but "Dr. Doyle is popular in England", which makes Doyle very useful.

He was extremely disgusted that people only knew Sherlock Holmes but not the current situation of Dr. Hall, and even wrote in a letter to his mother: "I consider killing Holmes...kill him, and it will be over. He occupies too much of my time."

Therefore, Lu Shi's flattery is very appropriate,

The atmosphere suddenly rose.

Doyle fiddled with his beard happily, and said: "Mr. Lu's level is very high. You must know that only a very few people can understand the title of "Scarlet Study" as thoroughly as you. In my impression, it seems that only Mr Wilde."

Natsume Soseki was surprised,

"That Mr. Wilde? Oscar Wilde?"

Doyle nodded,

"That's right. Mr. Stoddart, the editor of Lippincott's Monthly, hosted me and Oscar for a dinner and asked us to write. That dinner eventually gave birth to two books, one of which was my The Sign of Four, the other The second is Oscar's "The Picture of Dorian Gray."

Pride was written all over his face.

Natsume Soseki was a little confused, not understanding what this had to do with the previous topic.

Smith on the side shook his head and explained: "During that meeting, Oscar once commented that "Study for Scarlet" is an 'artistic title', which coincides with Mr. Lu."

Being robbed of the conversation, Doyle was slightly upset and drank coffee to cover it up.

Smith complained: "Okay, you have said that one hundred and seventy-five times, and I can memorize the entire recipe for the dinner."

After speaking, when he turned to Lu,

"To be honest, if Mr. Oscar is not in Paris, he would really like to meet you."

Lu Shi didn't make a sound,

He knew that Wilde had died in Paris of meningitis in November 1900, so there was not much time left.

Doyle coughed lightly, and cut into the topic: "However, Mr. Lu seems to have a lot of puzzles about my works."

His gaze suddenly sharpened, like two sharp swords, tightly piercing Lu Shi's body.

Natsume Soseki twitched uneasily,

This incident happened because of him, no wonder he was embarrassed.

Lu Shi replied indifferently: "It's not Dr. Doyle's fault."

This statement is quite exaggerated, and the implication is that there is indeed a problem with the Sherlock Holmes series.

Doyle frowned,

"Can you tell me in detail?"

Lu Shi continued: "Take "The Speckled Belt Case" as an example. The murderer used a poisonous snake as a murder weapon, but it is actually very unreasonable. First, a poisonous snake will suffocate to death in a safe; second, a poisonous snake is a reptile, so it is impossible to Feeds on milk; again, it doesn't make sense to whistle to summon a snake, which has no external ears and can't hear the whistle at all..."

Doyle's face was black as ink,

You know, "The Spotted Band" is the quirkiest, most dramatic short story in the entire series, and certainly one of the most popular,

Unexpectedly, the Oriental man in front of him could point out three loopholes casually.

Doyle couldn't help but argue: "How do you know that snakes don't drink milk?"

Lu Shi felt that this question was a bit silly,

He said: "Human infants can drink milk because their mothers can secrete milk, so only mammals can drink milk. This is the simplest reason."

Doyle's face darkened.

Natsume Soseki swallowed "Goo—" and smoothed things over: "Dr. Doyle's writing style is scientific and professional. The 'science' here doesn't mean...er...'science' means...ah, yes Yes, deduction! Dr. Doyle is good at using rigorous causal reasoning to unfold the story."

After saying this, Doyle's face didn't look good.

He said, "But, Mr. Xia Mu, your article says that Holmes' reasoning is very subjective. Why?"

Natsume Soseki's face turned bitter.

Lu Shi looked over, cast a questioning look, and mouthed: "That's not what I said."

Natsume Soseki lowered his voice, "I said so."

Lu Shi was confused,

"What? You said?"

Natsume Soseki nodded, and replied: "In "The Reigate Mystery", Sherlock Holmes himself said, 'The most important thing in the art of detectives is to be able to see which are the key issues and which are secondary issues from a large number of facts. Questions.' But it is clear that Holmes will hardly lay out all the clues for the reader to discern which are the 'crucial questions'."

This cannot be blamed on the author, mainly because the style of detective literature is immature, and there is no concept of "original style", so it is normal to have some small problems in the creation.

But Doyle doesn't care about that,

When he looked at Lu, he clenched his fists tightly, and the veins on his forehead twitched.

This blame is obviously going to be borne by Lu Shi.

Literati are light on each other,

There is no difference between ancient and modern China and foreign countries.