Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 239: New Sports

This weekend, Lin Chaoyang and Tao Yushu did not go to the Tao family, but all the Tao family members came to the Overseas Chinese Apartment.

Her sister's family bought a color TV, so Tao Yumo wanted to promote it after returning home, so Tao Yucheng persuaded his parents to come to his sister's house for dinner on the weekend.

Thanks to the remittance vouchers he received for his writings some time ago, Lin Chaoyang's family is now extremely well-stocked. In the evening, he prepared a table full of dishes for his father-in-law's family.

The family enjoyed themselves happily while eating delicious food and watching TV.

In later generations, it is hard for people to imagine that happiness is so simple.

It’s around seven o’clock when CCTV-1 broadcasts the “News Broadcast”, which plays sports event news.

"On the 10th of this month, the annual National Go League was held in ZJ Province, ZJ City. By the end of the competition yesterday, the men's champion was won by chess player Nie Weiping, and the women's champion was won by Yang Hui. Ma Xiaochun and Cheng Xiaoliu won the second and third place in the men's group; He Xiaoren and Rui Naiwei won the second and third place in the women's group."

The person broadcasting the news on the TV screen is the young Zhao Zhongxiang, who had just appeared on the "News Broadcast" with Xing Zhibin in July this year.

He is wearing an old-fashioned black suit, with a beige pleated curtain as the background, his eyes are bright and his face is solemn, which is very representative of the times.

"Nie Weiping won the championship again!" Tao's father exclaimed.

"It's not uncommon for him to win championships. He has won so many in recent years." Tao Yucheng said, and he looked at Lin Chaoyang again, "Chaoyang, I heard from mom that Nie Weiping came to our house that day, and he praised you for your good Go playing!"

Lin Chaoyang said quickly: "I'm not praising my move, I'm just saying the layout is good."

"That's quite impressive, to be praised by the national champion," Tao Yucheng praised.

"Nie Weiping is not the national champion. He even beat the Japanese. He is almost the Asian champion." Tao Yumo said for her brother-in-law.

As they were talking, the "News Broadcast" ended and Tao Yumo went to the broadcast station.

Nowadays, color TVs don’t have remote controls, and channels have to be changed by turning knobs or buttons. The Peony TV in Lin Chaoyang’s home uses buttons to change channels.

Unfortunately, the color TV at home can only receive signals from three TV stations, namely CCTV-1, CCTV-2 and Yanjing TV.

It was broadcast on CCTV-2 and the TV was playing "A Brief Talk on Masks", a program on drama common sense explained by Li Binsheng.

"Look at this!" Tao's mother said.

Tao Yumo complained, "Mom, I want to watch a feature film."

There are very few TV dramas produced and imported into China now. Recently, Yanjing Television Station was broadcasting the North Korean series of feature films "Unsung Heroes", which Tao Yumo watched with great interest.

Tao's mother was so absorbed in the show on TV that she didn't hear what her daughter said at all.

Tao Yumo sat down somewhat depressed, and then watched as the "Brief Introduction to Masks" finished and the Peking Opera "The Reconciliation of the General and the Prime Minister" was broadcast.

She couldn't help but sigh, it seemed that she wouldn't be able to watch TV tonight.

After the Peking Opera was over, Tao's mother was still not satisfied.

"This color TV is great. It's very clear."

Tao Yucheng joked, "That's right. It's much clearer than black and white. We don't have to worry about seeing people naked anymore."

Listening to his words, everyone immediately thought of the ballet costume blunder at the New Year's Eve Gala in 78, and couldn't help but smile.

It was past nine o'clock and already late, so after chatting for a few minutes, the Tao family prepared to leave.

The brothers Tao Xiwen and Tao Xiwu watched TV and didn't want to leave. They shouted the slogan "I want to watch color TV". Then they were punished by their mother Zhao Li's iron fist of dictatorship and left the house obediently.

A few days later, Lin Chaoyang came home from get off work and saw someone else at home as soon as he entered the house.

"Brother-in-law!"

When Du Feng saw Lin Chaoyang coming back, he immediately stood up and greeted him. Lin Chaoyang responded with a smile.

"Why are you free today?"

"My discharge procedures have been approved."

"So fast?"

It’s only been about a month since Du Feng mentioned that he wanted to retire from the army.

Du Feng smiled and said, "My case is simple, I am not even a platoon-level military rank. The army took care of me and said they would recommend me to the Public Security Bureau, but I didn't do it. I know they did it for my father's sake."

Lin Chaoyang joked: "You are really going all out!"

"Oh! I don't want to earn that little salary."

Du Feng came to my house for dinner and brought two bottles of wine, saying that they were bought by a friend from the Friendship Store.

"Brother-in-law, I plan to go to Shenzhen the day after tomorrow. Let's have a good drink tonight."

The ruby ​​red wine looks a bit rustic in the teacup, but it does not affect the drinker's mood.

The taste of wine is fruity and sour. It doesn't taste as good as it smells, but it is much easier to accept than ordinary liquor.

Du Feng had never drunk this wine before, but he thought it tasted pretty good. After a few glasses of wine, his face turned red and he looked a little drunk.

"Brother-in-law, do you know why I want to do business?"

Seeing that he was drunk and seemed to want to say something from his heart, Lin Chaoyang followed his words and asked, "Why?"

"I just don't want to stay in the army anymore. I feel depressed."

"Why are you so upset?"

“Everyone knows that my father is a leader in the army. On the surface, they are respectful to me, but I know exactly what they say about me behind my back.

I'm telling you, brother-in-law. I feel wronged. I'm not ambitious, but I didn't take advantage of my father's status to do anything wrong!

Let alone doing anything wrong, I can say responsibly that I have never done anything out of line, because I was afraid of bringing shame to my father.

The man who grew up with me is now in the army. He uses spare parts from his father's factory to buy a high-quality jeep and drives around the streets. When he sees a pretty female soldier, he slows down and chats with her. He changes girlfriends every few months.

I'm not jealous of them, I just can't stand it.

It's not just those powerful people like them. Even those powerless people, take the female soldiers in our art troupe for example, who doesn't dream of becoming the leader's daughter-in-law?
Feng Juan... Feng Juan is with me, I can guess that..." Seeing that Du Feng's words were a little off, Lin Chaoyang said, "Let's not talk about this anymore."

Du Feng burped, "Don't worry, brother-in-law. I know there is no such thing as a perfect person in this world."

"I just feel that this army is becoming less and less pure and boring. I didn't have this feeling before. I was so happy just hanging out in the regiment all day.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Sometimes when I write letters or make phone calls to my comrades-in-arms in the south, I feel sad when I hear that someone’s family is having a hard time.

I just can’t understand why it turned out like this…”

At this point, Du Feng's eyes were red and filled with tears. He took a deep breath, opened his eyes wide, and let the tears that were about to flow back.

"I thought, instead of just hanging around in the army, I might as well go out and try my luck. It would be great if I could make some money and enjoy life openly.

If I have the energy to spare, I will help my poor comrades. After all, they have been on the battlefield, so don’t let them become too miserable. "

After saying these words, Du Feng smiled at Lin Chaoyang a little embarrassedly, "I just said some big words."

Lin Chaoyang said sincerely: "It's a good thing to have this idea. As for whether it's just bragging, it depends on your future."

Du Feng nodded, "Yes."

After talking about his inner thoughts, Du Feng felt much better. He drank a few more glasses with Lin Chaoyang and became even drunker. Lin Chaoyang had to help him to the bedroom.

"He used to be able to drink a lot, how come he got drunk so quickly today?" Tao Yushu wondered.

"He feels pressured! He says he doesn't care, but now he's going to have to rely on himself for everything since he no longer has a stable job." Lin Chaoyang said calmly.

"I admire him a lot. I thought he was spoiled since he was a kid, but I didn't expect he still has such courage now."

"After going to the battlefield, you will always become more mature."

As the couple finished talking, they cleaned up the dishes, washed and rinsed, took care of Du Feng for a while, and then went into the house to sleep.

In a blink of an eye, it was National Day. Taking advantage of the good weather, Lin Chaoyang took Tao Yushu out to play for a day, and also took her to the filming site of "The Shepherd" to watch the excitement.

After a month of filming, the scenes of "The Shepherd" in Yanjing are nearing completion, and will move to Shanghai in a few days.

According to the current progress, it will take several months for the movie to be released.

After the National Day holiday, Zhang Dening came to the house again, not for the manuscript, but to tell Lin Chaoyang a piece of news.

Li Qingquan was transferred to serve as deputy editor-in-chief of People's Literature, and Yenching Literature got a new editor-in-chief, Yang Mo.

The personnel changes at Yenching Literature had nothing to do with Lin Chaoyang, but the publication of The Horse Herder was at least decided by Li Qingquan. He had heard Zhang Dening talk about the relationship between Li Qingquan and People's Literature, so he couldn't help but sigh when he heard the news.

"I wish Lao Li a bright future there." Lin Chaoyang said.

After talking about Li Qingquan's transfer, Zhang Dening talked about the situation of "The Chess Master".

It has been three months since the novel was published. The July issue of Yenching Literature, which published the novel, has sold a total of 150 million copies, setting a record since the establishment of Yenching Literature.

The influence of the work brought about by such huge sales is naturally extremely powerful. During this period of time, the discussion about the novel in the literary world and among readers has remained high.

If you count carefully, there are at least thirty or forty commentary articles of various kinds.

This number is even higher than that of "The Death of Van Gogh", which took more than half a year to publish. After its publication, "The Death of Van Gogh" received a lot of positive reviews, but also some negative comments, which mainly focused on the criticism of pan-politicization.

However, such criticisms are relatively restrained and have not had any influence.

In comparison, the criticism of "The Chess Master" is much louder.

There are two kinds of criticisms. One is that the plot of the novel is too imaginary and out of touch with reality.

One group claims to be righteous, believing that Lin Chaoyang was overly sentimental in his novel and was suspected of inciting patriotic sentiment. Some even went further, labeling the content of promoting patriotism as narrow nationalism and populism.

Among these criticisms, there are of course voices of praise, and the power of these voices is greater than the previous two.

However, literary criticism is not a zero-sum game after all. It is not the case that if I have a voice, you will disappear. Those critical voices will always pop up from time to time.

Listening to Zhang Dening discussing those reviews from the outside world, Lin Chaoyang said nonchalantly: "These voices will become less and less in the future. Who would discuss a novel that has been published for such a long time for nothing?"

Zhang Dening said, "Okay, okay, okay. I am the one who is worrying about nothing. The emperor is not anxious, but the eunuch is. Is that ok?"

Tao Yushu tried to smooth things over by saying, "That's just his personality."

"I know." Zhang Dening glanced at Lin Chaoyang, "This time I can see that your great writer is really popular. Not to mention the people in our writers' club, there are writers from all over the country who speak up for him, such as Du Pengcheng, Feng Jicai, Lu Wenfu... He is not afraid of criticism at all."

In recent months, there has been a heated discussion about "The Chess Master" in the literary community. Some writers who previously knew Lin Chaoyang have also taken the initiative to publish articles, and the content is generally praiseworthy.

"It makes it seem like Chaoyang is forming cliques," Tao Yushu said unhappily.

"It's not about forming cliques, it's about giving these people special treatment and filling their stomachs with plenty of fat and water."

Hearing Zhang Dening's words, Tao Yushu laughed out loud, "You're just a bad mouth! It's not forming a clique, it's bribery, right?"

Zhang Dening sat in Lin Chaoyang's house for less than an hour before saying goodbye and leaving.

The next day at noon, Lin Chaoyang ran into Liang Zuo on his way back to the library from the cafeteria.

"Master, did you read the New Sports magazine that came out yesterday?"

New Sports magazine was founded in 1950. It was the first sports magazine in New China. Before its launch, it sold more than copies per issue and was widely popular among readers.

After the reform and opening up, domestic athletes have gradually emerged in the international arena, achieving one result after another that makes countless people proud.

Today, when Internet media does not exist and television media is not yet developed enough, "New Sports", which represents the print media, has naturally become one of the best channels for many people to learn about various sports events and results.

Therefore, the sales of "New Sports" have skyrocketed in recent years, from hundreds of thousands of copies before the resumption of publication to hundreds of thousands of copies per issue now, and it has gradually formed a huge influence in the domestic sports community and among the public.

Liang Zuo's question left Lin Chaoyang a little confused. He never had the habit of reading sports magazines. If Liang Zuo asked about literary magazines, maybe he would have read them.

Lin Chaoyang shook his head, "No."

(End of this chapter)