Literary Master 1978

Wuyuan Town, Haiyan County, Zhejiang Province.

The town's health center is a two-story building. It looks small, but it is one of the few multi-story buildings in the town.

Yu Hua was half an hour late in the morning. He greeted people he knew along the way. When he entered the building, he happened to meet the director coming downstairs. He called the director and their eyes crossed.

Although the director didn't say anything, the look still made him feel pressured.

When can I live a life without worrying about working hours? Yu Hua sighed hopelessly in his heart.

When he came to the clinic, there were no patients at the moment, or to be more precise, there were not many patients.

Nowadays, ordinary people usually don't need to see a doctor for minor illnesses, but go to a big hospital for major illnesses. Yu Hua is a dentist. People nowadays don't pay much attention to oral hygiene. The most work he does is extracting teeth, and they all come to extract them when the pain is unbearable.

Yu Hua changed into a white coat, waited for a while, and saw that no one came, so he took out a magazine from his bag. This is why he was late today.

Wuyuan Town is a small town. There is no bookstore in the town. If you want to buy books, you have to go to Xinhua Bookstore in the county. It is better to buy newspapers and magazines, which are sold in the town post office.

However, the types of newspapers and magazines sold here are also very limited. In addition to the newspapers and magazines in ZJ Province, they are basically the national newspapers and well-known magazines, and the quantity of each newspaper and magazine is not large.

There are more newspapers, but magazines are only ten or eight. Once they are sold out, they are gone. If you want to buy more, you can only go to the county.

Yu Hua deliberately got up early today and waited at the door before the post office opened. He was the first to buy the freshly baked magazine-"Huacheng".

His eyes fell on the cover of the magazine. There was nothing surprising. The world is inside.

Opening the magazine, the catalog that occupied a whole page in the past was gone. The catalog of this issue only occupied one-third of a page, and there were only three columns.

"Novel", "Xiangjiang Bay Island Literature" and "Huacheng Forum".

Each column only corresponds to the name of a work. This issue of the magazine is not marked as a "special issue", but it is not a special issue, but it is better than a special issue.

Yu Hua did not pay attention to the two columns "Xiangjiang Bay Island Literature" and "Huacheng Forum", but focused his attention on the dazzling title under "Novel" - "Crossing Guandong".

Looking at this name, a floating figure emerged in his mind.

Yu Hua had met Lin Chaoyang twice. Obviously, every time they met, they were very full of life, but for some reason, whenever he recalled Lin Chaoyang's image, this kind of floating and otherworldly temperament always appeared in his mind.

He shook his head, threw away the distracting thoughts, opened the magazine, and immersed himself in the text.

I don't know how long it took before he was called back to his senses. It turned out that someone wanted to extract a tooth.

Extracting teeth is Yu Hua's job, but he doesn't like it. It's too miserable to spend a lifetime looking at people's open mouths.

After sending the patient away, Yu Hua washed his hands and planned to continue reading the novel. There was a teasing sound at the door.

"Hey! A great writer reading a novel?"

The only nurse in the hospital is named Zhang. She is over 40 years old and much more experienced than Yu Hua. She always likes to make fun of him.

"Sister Zhang, stop making fun of me. What great writer!"

"Why not a great writer? You published an article in People's Literature!"

When mentioning People's Literature, Yu Hua couldn't help but smile, but he tried his best to hide it.

In March, his short story "Stars" was published in People's Literature. This was of course a great thing for him and Wuyuan Town.

In this small town with a population of only 20,000, few people would discuss literature, let alone writing.

Yu Hua's peers, after work, have entertainment hobbies including smoking, drinking, playing cards, watching movies, watching TV... When his peers are enjoying the happiness that belongs to this age, he is the only one hiding in the room, silently writing.

God will not let down those who work hard. His novel was published, and it was published in People's Literature.

This news is undoubtedly sensational in a small town like Wuyuan Town. For several months, he has become the focus of hot discussions in the streets and alleys of the town, and has become a "great writer" in people's mouths.

Whenever he heard such ridicule from others, Yu Hua was happy but also a little helpless.

The publication of "Stars" in "People's Literature" was a historic moment in his writing career, but that was all.

After the publication of this short story, it did not have any influence or attention, let alone make him gain any great reputation.

Yu Hua also knew that if he wanted to become famous through a short story, it would undoubtedly require quite high talent and luck, and obviously his talent was not high.

His luck was good, as he met an editor like Teacher Tao who was willing to give young people opportunities.

When revising the manuscript at Yenching, Yu Hua was quite familiar with some editors in the editorial department of "People's Literature", especially Zhu Wei.

According to Zhu Wei, in fact, his "Stars" and "You Go, I Go" were still a little far from the editorial department's recruitment standards.

It was Tao Yushu who believed that since young writers should be cultivated, they should be given opportunities, and he argued with the editor-in-chief Wang Meng.

When Yu Hua thought of this, he was full of gratitude to Tao Yushu, the mentor.

The last time he went to Beijing, he revised two manuscripts in total, and the other one, "You Go, I Go Too", will also be published in "People's Literature" this month.

After the experience of "Stars", Yu Hua calmed down and stopped dreaming of becoming famous with one work. Unfortunately, the ridicule and jokes of people around him always lingered in his ears.

These people may be kind or malicious, Yu Hua does not have the ability to distinguish, he only hopes that their ridicule can come true.

"Don't read it yet, go eat." Sister Zhang said.

Yu Hua realized that it was already noon.

After a quick meal, he returned to the clinic to continue reading the novel. He was not shocked until he was disturbed by the noise in the corridor.

Yu Hua looked at the time. There were more than ten minutes before get off work was over. No wonder there was a movement outside. At this time, someone in the unit had found an excuse to leave early.

He was still immersed in the atmosphere and story created by the novel, and it was difficult to extricate himself.

This issue of "Huacheng" published only half of the content of "Chuang Guandong". Yu Hua spent a whole day and only read one-third of this half of the content.

But even so, he could still see the excellence of this novel.

Looking at "Crossing Guandong", he thought of Kawabata Yasunari, Kafka, Lu Xun...

Yu Hua didn't know how far "Crossing Guandong" was from the works of these famous writers, but he clearly realized at this moment that this novel would definitely leave a strong mark in the history of contemporary Chinese literature.

Such an idea may be a bit idealistic, but he believes that he has stood at a relatively rational perspective.

The health center faces the street, and standing at the window on the second floor, he can see the street outside.

In the evening, the streets of the town are not prosperous, but there is also a bit of liveliness, people going off work, buying vegetables, and going home from school... The atmosphere is full of fireworks, but Yu Hua's heart inexplicably surged with sadness when looking at such a scene.

From the reader's perspective, "Crossing Guandong" is a very brilliant novel, but when he looks at "Crossing Guandong" from the perspective of the creator, the blow Yu Hua suffered when reading this novel is unprecedented, and he feels a sense of despair.

He may never be able to write such a novel in his lifetime!

This was different from when he read the works of those writers. Those people were like stars in the sky, but Lin Chaoyang was right beside him, and they even had dinner together.

In his impression, that figure who was always gentle and calm became taller and taller, making him look up and unable to reach him.

At this moment, he stood in front of the window and recalled the joy of the publication of the novel a month ago, which was far from offsetting the deep sense of gap and frustration in his heart now.

He then thought of his work, maybe he was destined to look at this street outside for the rest of his life.

Alas!

Before the long sigh ended, a shout suddenly came from the corridor.

"Yu Hua, phone call!"

Full of melancholy and sadness, Yu Hua was frightened back by the shout. He sorted out his emotions and walked down to the communication room, thinking in his heart, could it be a call from which editorial department?

His submissions have always been cast a wide net, from top magazines to local magazines.

It's just that recently, because his work was published in "People's Literature", he has reduced this kind of lucky submission. Now the call is probably because the previous submission was selected by some editorial department.

Thinking this in his heart, Yu Hua answered the phone.

The call turned out to be from the county cultural center. Yu Hua vaguely thought of the leisurely scene when he used to stand on the street and envy the cultural center employees, and then walk into the cultural center to work at nine or ten o'clock in the morning.

Compared with his job as a dentist, the work of the cultural center employees is simply too happy.

Yu Hua has also imagined countless times when he could write well and be transferred to the cultural center to work. He didn't expect that this day would really come.

"...I heard that you have another work that will be published in People's Literature soon, right?"

The voice on the other end of the phone interrupted Yu Hua's recollection, and he nodded hurriedly:

"Yes, yes. There is another novel called "You Go, I Go", which will be published in the next two days."

"Okay, our cultural center is in need of talents like you now. We are processing the procedures here, and it should be completed within half a month. You just wait for the transfer letter."

The future leader on the other end of the phone was happy that his unit was about to recruit a young and promising writer, and Yu Hua was also excited that he was about to realize his dream.

He couldn't help but recall the hundreds of nights he spent writing hard, and the mutton hotpot he had eaten at Lin Chaoyang's house.

The wind, snow, waves and clouds, the romance unique to literati, all of this seemed to be within reach.

Yu Hua put down the phone, walked out of the health center, and stood on that street.

Although the street market was small and narrow, it was very lively, just like any other day.

Just now when he was standing upstairs and looking at this place, he suddenly felt that he had no future. In addition to the confusion of young people about the future, he was more shocked by novels like "Crossing Guandong".

After receiving this call, Yu Hua found that his future seemed to be bright all of a sudden, and the street in front of him became brighter and more lovely.

He knew in his heart that it was the two articles published in "People's Literature" that changed his fate.

He suddenly felt a little uneasy in his heart, and he didn't know whether he could publish articles in the future.

Teacher Tao bless me!