Literary Master 1978.

Chapter 320: "The Boat"

The older you get, the weaker the feeling of the New Year becomes. This is not only felt by people in later generations, but also by people today.

Ultimately, it’s not that the Chinese New Year itself has changed, but that the state of mind has changed.

The Spring Festival of 83 passed by in a flash, and it was already the fourth day of the New Year.

Lin Chaoyang and his wife took their child back to their parents' home the day before yesterday, and when they came back, there was a tail following them.

According to Tao Yumo, she missed Xiao Dongzi very much during the days since she returned to Langrun Lake Apartment. She even dreamed of his cute little face.

Unfortunately, she only held Xiao Dongzi for two days before asking Tao Yushu for leave, saying that her classmates had invited her to the temple fair.

Today Tao Yushu took care of the child by herself, and Lin Chaoyang made lunch.

After lunch, Lin Chaoyang received the manuscript fee slip from Huacheng. The standard remuneration this time was 20 yuan per thousand words. The full text contained 25 words, and the total manuscript fee was 2 yuan.

When he came back from outside, Tao Yushu had just coaxed the child to sleep. She said to Lin Chaoyang: "I have been on maternity leave for almost two months."

Lin Chaoyang naturally knew what she meant by this. After staying at home for more than a month, Tao Yushu's state could be described with a Northeastern dialect: idle as hell.

Compared to taking care of the child, she prefers work. She has been whispering in Lin Chaoyang's ear since the child was one month old.

Lin Chaoyang said in embarrassment: "It's okay to go to work, but what about Dongdong?"

"Don't we have Yumo?"

"Yumo will go to school in a while."

"Let mom help take care of the baby during the day, and I'll take care of it at night."

Of course she was not happy to let Zhang Guiqin come to help take care of the children. After all, the old couple wanted to stay in Yanjing just to have grandchildren!
Tao Yushu had already prepared his plan and seemed determined to return to his unit.

"You have to work during the day and take care of the kids at night. I feel so exhausted for you."

"What's so tiring about this? Grasping career on one hand and family on the other hand is what a new-age woman should be like."

Seeing that Lin Chaoyang had no intention of objecting, Tao Yushu said happily.

"New-age woman, aren't you afraid that your son will become alienated from you in the future?" Lin Chaoyang threatened.

"Whether we are close or not doesn't affect our mother-son relationship." Tao Yushu looked calm, but there was still some reluctance in her eyes. "He will grow up eventually. We can't be with him forever."

Lin Chaoyang joked: "If you live long enough, maybe."

The melancholy in Tao Yushu's heart disappeared instantly after hearing this sentence. She glared at Lin Chaoyang unhappily, "You keep talking nonsense all day long!"

Tao Yushu had to go to work, and Lin Chaoyang certainly couldn't stop her. Anyway, he wasn't working recently and had his mother to take care of him, so he could definitely take care of her.

Two days after the couple discussed it, Tao Yushu appeared in the editorial department of Yenching Literature.

During the 90-day maternity leave, Tao Yushu worked until she gave birth. Now, less than two months after giving birth, she is back to work. Who can't help but say that she is dedicated to her job?
Colleagues who had been relaxing for more than a month immediately felt an invisible pressure after Tao Yushu started working, even though she didn't say anything or do anything, she just sat there.

This is probably the pressure from the King of Rolls!
The eighth day of the first lunar month is February 2, which is also the day when the first issue of Huacheng magazine in 20 was published.

The editing, proofreading and printing of this issue of the magazine coincided with the end of the year, and the editorial department was very busy during this period.

Compared with previous years, the first issue of this year's magazine is particularly different.

Before New Year's Day, editor-in-chief Li Shifei took the opportunity of the Mao Dun Literature Prize Award Ceremony to go north to collect manuscripts. In the end, he only brought back two manuscripts, one medium-length and one short. This harvest seems really pitiful.

But after returning, Li Shifei declared with full confidence that he had obtained Lin Chaoyang's manuscript, which was a very excellent work of magical realism.

Needless to say, Lin Chaoyang's reputation among the younger generation of writers is great, not to mention that he has just won the Mao Dun Literature Prize. His colleagues in the editorial department were delighted to hear the news.

According to rumors in the literary world, Lin Chaoyang's works are notoriously difficult to order.

One piece of evidence is that his works were almost all given to several top literary magazines in the country and never appeared in local literary magazines.

Li Shifei praised the work Lin Chaoyang was writing to the highest level, so his colleagues were naturally full of expectations.

Just as the twelfth lunar month began, half a month after Li Shifei returned to Guangzhou, Lin Chaoyang's works were sent to the editorial department.

Li Shifei happened to be out on that day and the editors were fighting for the chance to be the first to see the manuscript. In the end, they had to divide the manuscript into several parts and form a "series" review system. When Li Shifei returned to the editorial office, he did not know whether to laugh or cry when he saw this situation.

Under normal circumstances, a manuscript has to go through three reviews, namely preliminary review, re-review and final review. However, when Lin Chaoyang's manuscript reached the editorial department, it became a "public review".

Seeing everyone's enthusiasm, Li Shifei didn't want to spoil the fun, so he just reminded them to just read it and not to delay the subsequent proofreading and typesetting.

Four days later, Li Shifei took some time to read the ending of the story that he had not seen in Yanjing, and called together several editors in the editorial department who had already read the manuscript.

He asked everyone if they had any doubts about the quality of the manuscript and what they thought of the novel.

Everyone praised it in unison.

Seeing everyone's reaction, Li Shifei was happy and asked if there were any comrades who disagreed with the statement. Everyone shook their heads.

If manuscripts like this cannot meet the publication standards, no one will know what kind of work is worthy of "Huacheng".

Once the publication is confirmed, we have to make room for the work.

Huacheng is a comprehensive literary journal that mainly publishes novellas, but also publishes outstanding works of other genres.

The magazine is priced at 1 yuan, with a 32-mo format, and the total number of words in each issue is over 30.

The full text of Lin Chaoyang's novel is 25 words. It is a real long work. If it is published in one issue, it is not a problem, but it will inevitably affect other works that have been published.

Li Shifei wanted to publish the whole issue in one go, which would be good for the readers' overall reading experience and would also be a courtesy to the author Lin Chaoyang. After he expressed his idea, he immediately won the approval of his colleagues.

Everyone's approval was not only due to Li Shifei's prestige in the editorial department, but also recognition of the novel.

Lin Xianzhi in the editorial department was originally a barefoot doctor in the countryside of Yangjiang. Li Shifei found that he wrote good articles, so he transferred him to the editorial department.

He said emotionally: "A good work like this deserves such courtesy. I believe it will cause quite a stir among readers after it is published."

Li Shifei nodded slightly. "It's certain that the response will be great. Lin Chaoyang's works have always been popular."

Someone asked again, "Old Li, have you heard of that rumor?"

Li Shifei looked puzzled, "What rumor?"

"Some people say that whenever a magazine publishes Lin Chaoyang's novels, its sales will never be less than 100 million copies."

After that person said this, it immediately attracted discussion from others.

"I've heard that, too. But don't take it seriously. I remember that Lin Chaoyang published a novel under a pseudonym in Shanghai Literature, but I've never heard of the sales of Shanghai Literature exceeding one million copies!"

“But most of them still exceed one million copies, right?”

“This… is true.”

Li Shifei listened to the discussion and waved his hand, saying: "Whether it breaks one million copies or not is not only related to the works, but also has a lot to do with the influence of the magazine itself.

Don’t be superstitious about this kind of thing. For our magazine, discovering and presenting excellent literary works to readers is the most important thing.”

After listening to Li Shifei's words, everyone stopped talking and then discussed and decided on the next issue of the magazine.

Just a few days after the New Year, the air in NJ city is still filled with a hint of gunpowder.

Jinling Vocational University was established only two years ago with the aim of alleviating the increasingly tight higher education resources in the country.

Because the school was established only recently and there is no graduating class yet, even the teachers are mostly young teachers.

Ye Zhaoyan was admitted to the Chinese Department of Nanjing University in 78. After graduation, he was assigned to Jinling Vocational University. As soon as he started working, he was assigned by the school to be the head teacher of two classes. This shows how tight the school's teaching staff is.

It's a holiday now and today happens to be Sunday, so Ye Zhaoyan should be at home at this time.

But now his parents are in Yanjing taking care of his grandfather, and the house is empty. It was deserted during the New Year holidays, so he stayed in the school dormitory. At least there were teachers and security guards on duty with whom he could chat.

The school cafeteria was closed during the holidays, so he had breakfast outside the school in the morning and then strolled to the Xinhua Bookstore, 1 kilometer away from the school.

Ye Zhaoyan has plenty of time during the holidays.

Ye Zhaoyan, who came from a scholarly family, had the habit of reading since he was a child. He studied Chinese in college and published several works. Therefore, reading became his biggest hobby in daily life.

When major literary magazines were released, he would always come to Xinhua Bookstore to buy a copy. Occasionally, if he was short of money, he would buy it a few days later, but he would always buy it and read it.

Today is the day when "Huacheng" magazine is on the market. Taking advantage of the Chinese New Year and having some spare money, Ye Zhaoyan went to Xinhua Bookstore and bought a copy of "Huacheng". He happily paid for it and left the bookstore.

The journey back to school was a bit long, and he flipped through the magazine as he walked.

After just one glance, he immediately discovered what was different about this issue of the magazine. The table of contents was much shorter than before, and at the very front was not the word "novella" as before, but "novel".

——"The Story of the Crossing".

What caught his attention even more was the signature at the back, which read "Xu Lingjun".

Ye Zhaoyan likes to read "Huacheng" mainly because it often reprints works by overseas writers.

Especially in recent months, because Marquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature, "Flower City" has promoted a large number of magical realism works.

He had just finished reading a book called "Collection of Short and Medium Stories by Juan Rulfo" last night.

A few years ago, Juan Rulfo was not well-known in China and his works were hardly introduced. The collection of novels he read was published by the Foreign Literature Publishing House in 1980, when the Foreign Literature Publishing House introduced a number of works by such foreign writers.

But the situation is different now. Juan Rulfo's fellow countryman Marquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature, which made magical realism literature famous all over the world and was enthusiastically sought after by young Chinese literary people in China.

As a representative figure of Latin American magical realism literature, Juan Rulfo naturally became a popular figure.

Including this collection of novels of his that was introduced to China two years ago. It had been quietly lying in the library of Nanjing University with few people interested in it. However, in recent months, the frequency of borrowing it has been surprisingly high. Ye Zhaoyan waited for several days before he was able to borrow it.

Ye Zhaoyan looked at the words in the catalog and couldn't help but feel curious. He didn't expect that "Huacheng" would actually publish Lin Chaoyang's works.

It was placed at the very front of this issue of the magazine, and he didn't even need to turn the pages to find the first page of the novel.

Below the three words "Duzhou Ji", there is an editor's note of three or four hundred words.

The editorial department of Huacheng rarely had the habit of writing "Editor's Notes", so Ye Zhaoyan couldn't help but read it out of curiosity.

The general idea is that after Marquez won the Nobel Prize in Literature, magical realism literature has not only become popular among domestic readers, but has also attracted the attention of many writers.

Lin Chaoyang (Xu Lingjun) was brave enough to try a new literary style and created this new work. The story revolves around the young man Du Sanjiang and his family who were trying to escape the war, and tells the story of his 277-day wandering life at sea with a tiger.

When Ye Zhaoyan saw the name "Crossing Boat", his first feeling was a sense of Zen, which reminded him of the naming methods of some classical Chinese novels.

But looking at the brief summary in the "Editor's Note", this is actually a survival story similar to "Robinson Crusoe".

With curiosity in his heart, Ye Zhaoyan's eyes were deeply immersed in the novel.

(End of this chapter)