Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 270 New Work "Shutter Island"

"There is a Beautiful Place" tells the story of "I" who was impacted by family reasons and came to a small Dai village in Xishuangbanna to work in the countryside and live in my grandfather's house.

In such an almost primitive village, the warm care of my uncle and grandmother and Bilang's kind jokes comforted my wounded heart.

But I was unwilling to stay here forever, so I met Ren Jia, a young man from a neighboring village, and fell in love with him. At this time, my eldest brother from my father's family came home from the mountain to make a cellar, and he, who was brave, strong and masculine, also fell in love with me.

After a bitter love story, Ren Jia sacrificed his life to rescue the elderly and children from the flood, his eldest brother joined the army, and "I" returned to my hometown.

Judging from the story alone, "There is a Beautiful Place" is a bit tacky. To put it simply, it is a romantic love fantasy of a female educated city youth.

However, Zhang Manling's writing style is delicate, mournful and sad, and does reflect to a certain extent the unforgettable life of that particular period.

The novel is permeated with deep love for the land and the people, and is very touching to read. This is why the novel quickly attracted a lot of attention after its publication.

The reason why Li Tuo was interested in Zhang Manling was because his wife Zhang Nuanxin thought her novel was suitable for adaptation into a movie after reading it.

He didn't expect to meet Zhang Manling, the novelist, when he came to Lin Chaoyang's house today. After listening to Zhang Manling's story about the cause and effect of the publication of "There is a Beautiful Place", he exclaimed: "This is all fate!"

After dinner, Li Tuo invited Zhang Manling, "When are you free? I'll call my wife, and we'll make an appointment to talk about the adaptation."

"Anytime, I'm always available."

The novel had just been published, and there was an opportunity to be adapted into a movie. Zhang Manling didn't care about being reserved and accepted it impatiently.

"Then come to our house tomorrow. I'll ask Nuanxin to cook something for you and we can talk in detail."

"it is good."

After the meal, Li Tuo and Zhang Chengzhi didn't even mention the treat. Not only did they get a free meal, they also got Zhang Nuanxin a work that could potentially be adapted.

"Your meal is not in vain!" Lin Chaoyang said to Li Tuo meaningfully.

"Manling bought some vegetables today. Next time, I'll ask Chengzhi to buy more vegetables. There will be plenty of chicken, duck, fish and meat."

Zhang Chengzhi raised his head, a chicken claw in his mouth, "Hmm?"

"What are you looking at? Didn't you say you would treat us today? If I can't treat you today, you can make it up to me next time, right?"

Zhang Chengzhi thought about it and felt that what Li Tuo said made some sense, but he always felt that something was wrong.

After dinner, Li Tuo and Zhang Chengzhi left first.

Zhang Manling recalled the conversation with Li Tuo just now. She felt dazed and unreal. Her novel was going to be adapted into a movie? It was only published a month ago!
"Chaoyang, thank you so much!" Zhang Manling suddenly said solemnly to Lin Chaoyang.

"It just happened to be the right opportunity. There's nothing to thank me for." Lin Chaoyang smiled and did not take credit for it.

When Zhang Manling and the other two came out of the Overseas Chinese Apartment, Dai Jinhua exclaimed, "Manling, Lin Chaoyang is your benefactor!"

Zhang Manling is a person with overwhelming self-confidence, sometimes to the point of being aloof and narcissistic. She will never allow others to say who helped her achieve what.

But Dai Jinhua's words at this time made her fall into silence. Her novel had been written for more than a year. Her teacher and editor had read it, but it had not been published. Did she deny Lin Chaoyang's help?

Obviously she can't.

Li Tuo and his wife Zhang Nuanxin wanted to adapt "There is a Beautiful Place", but the prerequisite was that the novel was published and seen by the couple. What was even more coincidental was that Li Tuo met the author Zhang Manling at Lin Chaoyang's house.

Can all this be summed up simply by the word "fate"?

Obviously not.

Without Lin Chaoyang's help, everything she enjoys now would not exist.

"Yes, thanks to him." Zhang Manling said softly.

Wednesday, September 3th.

As graduation approaches, the 78 Chinese Literature Department has fewer courses than in previous semesters, and many people have already started preparing their graduation theses.

Early that morning, after finishing her breakfast, Zhang Manling hid in the classroom of the Literature and History Building to study her thesis. When she was concentrating on it, someone suddenly patted her on the shoulder.

She turned around and saw three people from her class, Dai Jinhua, Ma Xiangwu and Gao Xianjun, standing there. It was Dai Jinhua who had patted her shoulder just now.

"Good morning!" Zhang Manling greeted the three people.

Gao Xianjun teased, "You're not as early as me. Manling, you're really hardworking."

"Early bird gets the worm."

"I just heard Jinhua say that you guys went to Lin Chaoyang's house for dinner over the weekend?"

"Yes. He helped me publish my novel, and I wanted to treat him to a meal, but he asked us to go to his house instead."

Gao Xianjun had a bit of envy on his face, "If I had known earlier, you should have called me!"

"I wanted to call you that day, but you went out to watch Shaolin Temple with them!"

Listening to Zhang Manling's words, Gao Xianjun regretted his decision, "Oh!"

"Actually, there's nothing wrong with going to Lin Chaoyang's house for dinner. Look at Zhenyun, he's been there several times. The food is just a little better." Dai Jinhua said.

Gao Xianjun said sadly: "You have eaten it, so of course you can say that. Graduation is coming soon, and I really want to go to their house for a meal!"

Dai Jinhua asked Gao Xianjun in confusion, "What's so great about a meal? If you really want to eat, go to the library and tell him to have a meal. I don't think he will refuse." Zhang Manling explained, "Jinhua, you don't understand. Being invited and having a meal are two different things. Xianjun regards Chaoyang as an idol. It is an honor to be invited to dinner by his idol."

Gao Xianjun showed no sign of embarrassment when being teased by Zhang Manling.

His admiration for Lin Chaoyang can be traced back to the emergence of "The World's No. 79 Restaurant" at the end of .

At that time, a group of amateur drama lovers from the Chinese Department of Yenching Normal University dominated all the major universities in Yenching with this drama written by Lin Chaoyang.

Drama has become popular in recent years, and college students are the main audience.

The excellence of "The World's Number One Restaurant" is in no way inferior to the classics of the National Theatre of China. Not only has the work won the love of countless students, but it has also made the screenwriter Lin Chaoyang an idol of many students, including Gao Xianjun.

"No wonder they were so eager to grab the magazine just now!" said Dai Jinhua.

"What magazine are you grabbing?" Zhang Manling asked.

Gao Xianjun rushed to answer, "October. This month's October has Lin Chaoyang's new novel."

His eyes lit up when he said this, and he couldn't wait to read the novel. He found a seat, took out the magazine he had just bought, lowered his head, and was immersed in it in just a moment.

Zhang Manling waited until he sat down before she realized what was going on. "Ah! If you hadn't told me, I would have forgotten. Did you buy the magazine? Lend it to me!"

"Want to see if you don't buy it yourself?"

Dai Jinhua rejected her with practical actions, and then Zhang Manling looked at Ma Xiangwu again.

Ma Xiangwu silently took out the literature book and said, "I didn't buy it. I'll read it after they finish reading it."

"You guys are so mean!"

Zhang Manling muttered something. She wanted to calm down and continue working on her thesis, but from time to time she would see Gao Xianjun and Dai Jinhua reading novels seriously. She felt like she was growing weeds in her heart and couldn't calm down at all.

After hesitating for a few minutes, she packed up her things, left the classroom and headed towards the library.

When I arrived at the newspaper room, I searched for two minutes but couldn't find this issue of "October". After asking, I found out that it had been borrowed out.

She had no choice but to go to the bookstore outside the school and ask there, but to her surprise, the copy of "October" was sold out.

There are university teachers and college students around here, so it's normal that literary magazines are popular, but isn't it a bit too much that they were sold out early in the morning on the day of publication?
Zhang Manling didn't believe it and went to another bookstore. This time she finally bought "October".

After paying, she walked out of the bookstore happily. It was almost noon now. She sat casually on the curb, holding the magazine she had just bought, and began to read it.

"Prologue, excerpt from the diary of Dr. Xu Lingjun, January 5, 1982.

I had not seen the island for many years. The last time I saw it was when a friend of mine ventured into the outer harbor on his boat. There it was in the distance, alone beyond the inner sea, shrouded in the summer mist. Against the backdrop of the sky, it looked like a small, carelessly painted smudge of paint.

For more than ten years, I have not set foot on this island again. But Yu Li said she suspected that I might not have left at all. When she said this, her tone sometimes sounded like a joke, and sometimes seemed very serious..."

"Shutter Island" is the name of Lin Chaoyang's new novel.

The novel begins with a "prologue" narrated by Xu Lingjun, a doctor who once worked on Shutter Island.

Just by reading the beginning of the novel, Zhang Manling felt a sense of black humor.

The author's signature at the bottom right of the novel title is "Xu Lingjun". Lin Chaoyang arranged himself as a character in the novel, which makes people smile knowingly when seeing this.

Unfortunately, Zhang Manling only laughed for two minutes before all her attention was completely attracted by the mysterious atmosphere created by Lin Chaoyang, and she couldn't help but immerse herself in the novel.
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His eyes were completely focused on the words in the magazine, and all his mind was controlled by the words. Suddenly, someone next to him made a mischievous shout, and Gao Hongbo was so scared that the magazine in his hand almost fell to the ground.

Gao Hongshi, who was standing next to him, succeeded in his prank and laughed loudly.

Frightened, Gao Hongbo picked up the magazine in his hand, calmed down, and complained, "Sister, can you stop being so jumpy?"

"Look how scared you are. What the hell are you looking at?" Gao Hongshi didn't realize his mistake at all and tried to put a accusation on Gao Hongbo.

Gao Hongbo showed the magazine cover and asked, "Is this called D grass?"

"October? What good works are there in this issue?"

“Lin Chaoyang’s new work.”

After Gao Hongbo finished speaking, he felt his hand lighten and the magazine appeared in Gao Hongshi's hand.

"Oh, I haven't finished reading it yet."

"Let Big Sister take a look, and I'll give it to you when she's done."

Gao Hongbo and Gao Hongshi are colleagues, both are literary editors, but one is an editor of the Literary Gazette and the other is an editor of Shaanxi People's Publishing House.

The editors from Yenching and Shaanxi were able to get together because both of them had outstanding work performance in their units and were recommended by their units to come to the Central Literature Institute to participate in the seventh class of students.

Since its resumption in 1980, the Institute of Literature has trained the fifth and sixth batches of students, many of whom are now famous writers, such as Jiang Zilong, who wrote "The Record of Director Qiao's Taking Office", and Gu Hua, who wrote "Furong Town".

Unlike the fifth and sixth classes which are designed to train writers, the members of the seventh class are mainly editors of major domestic literary journals, so this class is also called the editing class.

Gao Hongbo and Gao Hongshi were both born in 51, with their birthdays less than a month apart. Gao Hongshi was slightly older, so the two of them had always been treated as brother and sister in the class and had a very close relationship.

A few days ago, Gao Hongbo chatted with a friend from Yenching Publishing House and learned that Lin Chaoyang's new novel will be published in this month's "October", so he went out specially to buy a copy of the magazine today.

He had just read two chapters when Gao Hongshi snatched the book away from him. He couldn't help but feel anxious when he thought about the novel he had just read the beginning.

(End of this chapter)