Rebirth of Rural Literary Life

Chapter 264 From Flattery After 40 Years

The first time I heard the name He Ping was through the magazine "Contemporary", when he published an article on it called "Spirit and Flesh".

"My view on "scar literature" has always been that it is not literature, it is just a variant of worker, peasant and soldier literature. It is a kind of official literature itself. In the early days of the reform, the literature and art policy underwent a huge adjustment. 'Scar Literature ’ is simply a critique of some of the darker sides of the movement.”

In the era when "scar literature" dominated the literary world, his articles were not outstanding enough to attract me. I just knew that there was such a writer.

Later, he wrote another novel, which was very famous and caused great repercussions in the society at that time.

At that time, "Today" was banned for a short time, and I was working as a sideline for "New Observation" magazine, and I had to accept censorship from time to time in my work unit.Later they planned to transfer me to the "China Report" of the Foreign Languages ​​Bureau as a literary editor.

I was really fed up with this kind of life, so I talked about it with my friend Li Tuo, saying that I wanted to change my environment, but I couldn't find a place to stay in the capital.

Li Tuo promised to help me get in touch. The reason why I told him was because he had a wide network of contacts in the literary circle in Beijing. Many writer friends were willing to ask him for help. I also thought the same way.

I talked to him for a short time, and one day he came to my unit to find me and said that the place had been contacted for me.

I was very happy and asked him the specific situation.He told me that he had a writer friend named He Ping in Northeast China. While he was writing, he also worked with his production brigade to build a chicken farm.

This immediately aroused my interest. At this time, He Ping's novel "Fu Gui" was spreading like a raging fire in China.Anyone who is a lover of literature knows this novel, and its author has become the idol of many literature lovers, but few people knew He Ping's origin and identity at that time.

After Li Tuo told me about it, I bought a train ticket and went to Liao Province.

I took the train for a full day and night, and reversed the train once in Fengcheng in the middle. When I arrived in Pingxian County, I was already sleepy.

He Ping did not come to the train station that day, and it was Han Zhaojun who picked me up.

He explained the reason to me. The sows in the team had dystocia, and He Ping was delivering the sows.

After listening to it, I felt very happy. I met He Ping in magazines and novels. In my impression, he is a writer. Even though Li Tuo told me that he and their production team jointly established a chicken farm, I only treat it as the kind of hands-off shopkeeper.

This sense of contrast makes me full of curiosity and freshness for everything that will happen next along the way.

Han Zhaojun came to pick me up with a tractor, bumped all the way to Hantun, and he led me directly to the pig farm, where I met He Ping for the first time.

The pig farm is jointly run by He Ping and the production team, just like the chicken farm.He was delivering a sow with dystocia that day. When I saw him, his body was covered with pig feces, urine and blood, which made it difficult for me to write a work like "Fugui" with him. Literary workers linked together.

Because of his filth, we didn't shake hands.

After he saw me, he was very enthusiastic, even a little greasy, which made me uncomfortable for a while, but after a long time of contact, I realized that this is his usual style.

After talking at the pig farm for a while, he arranged for me to be in the talent dormitory in Hantun, which is a two-story building for technicians who come to work in Hantun.

This is how He Ping introduced me to the talent dormitory. It is the first time I have heard of this name in my life.

To be honest, I have never lived in such a nice house in the first 32 years of my life.It’s not that the house is so luxuriously built. When I was in the capital, I would often attend parties and salons. Sometimes I would arrange them in higher-end places. The interior decoration was much better than the talent dormitory in Hantun. up.

But the talent dormitory made me feel a feeling of being really concerned, valued and tolerated. He Ping said that this is called humanization. He tried his best to meet the needs of the technicians who live here, so that they can stay here The possibility of working life is just greater.

Han Tun is too small. If he wants to compete with state-owned units and government agencies for talents, he must have the awareness of serving talents. These are his original words, which I will never forget.

In such a reckless age, his vision seemed to penetrate the curtain of the times, with an incredible foresight.

He has a catchphrase, the most expensive thing in the twentieth century-talent.

In his view, there is development with talents, and if you want to develop better, you need high-end talents.

I still feel admiration and touch when I think about it. People who have experienced those ten years may have this feeling. We have experienced too much suffering. Even though everything has changed, we have never felt the country and society. Pay attention, but I feel it here at He Ping.

So, I stayed in Hantun, this small production team.

The year was 1981, I was 32 years old, and He Ping was a few years younger than me. He was not married, but had a girlfriend who was the daughter of the deputy county magistrate. I always teased him as the leader of the family.

When I first arrived in Hantun, I stayed in the talent dormitory. After waiting for several days, He Ping didn't arrange anything for me.

I'm a little anxious, isn't this the same as in the capital?
I found him and hoped he would arrange some work for me.He Ping asked me, what would you do?
I thought for a long time and was speechless.All my past seems to be useless here.I just told him, I will do whatever you arrange for me.

He said, let's do it this way, you first write a copy to promote Hantun eggs.

I asked him what is copywriting.

After He Ping explained it to me, I realized that it was a publicity draft.I thought, I am good at writing manuscripts, this is my strong point.

Easier said than done, I stayed in the dormitory for three days and realized a truth.There are 360 ​​lines in this world, each line is like a mountain.No matter how many works I have written before, I still inevitably fall into a daze when I really touch the field that I have touched at all.

Three days later, I held a crumpled manuscript paper with only 560 seven characters on it, and I counted each character one by one.It's not boring, but I feel that this may be the most shameful thing I have ever encountered in my life. I used to boast that I was very talented in writing.

He Ping read my manuscript, smiled and said nothing, then picked up a pen to revise for a few minutes, and handed the manuscript to me.

The number of words on the manuscript paper has not changed much, but the content has long been changed beyond recognition. Compared with my hundreds of dry and awkward words, what he wrote is like a steamer placed on the side of the street. Taste the urge to be quick.

On that day, He Ping made me realize for the first time that words not only have literary properties, but also have commercial properties.

Excerpted from "40 Years of Stirring——The Biography of He Ping" Chapter 3: The Life Changed by Him: Character Vibration.

(End of this chapter)