1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 564 Asteroid B612

Xu Yang wasn't very interested in children's literature, so he returned to his seat after reading the dedication.

“All adults were once children, but only a few of them remember that.” Li Mingshuo sat alone in his seat, pondering this line from the dedication for a long time, and finally sighed softly:
"As expected of Jiang Xian!"

"What I write is indeed different from what others do."

Even though Jiang Xian wrote a children's literature work this time.

Regardless of the novel's content, this line in the dedication has already added a touch of philosophical brilliance to children's literature.

Moreover, Li Mingshuo believed that even if the novel did not become popular in the end, Jiang Xian's words in the dedication would still be widely circulated and become a famous quote that would be quoted countless times.

Because that's such a great statement!

Simple and unpretentious.

Yet it possesses a profound artistic conception.

This is similar to the statement "Children are the fathers of adults" in the famous educational book "The Secret of Childhood" that Li Mingshuo read.

Of course, in Li Mingshuo's opinion, Jiang Xian's sentence is easier to understand than the one in "The Secret of Childhood".

Children, innocent and carefree, I speak my heart.

Adults are easily trapped in their own world of pretense.

So when did I start to change?

Li Mingshuo began to reflect that he seemed to have changed after being swept up by his inner desires, his self-righteousness, and his endless, meaningless busyness. He had become an adult.

So, as an adult, who should I look up to?

No need.

Jiang Xian has already given the best answer:

Adults only need to look to themselves, to their childhood selves.

Because the person I used to be was genuine and innocent, with ideals and aspirations, and willing to give my heart to someone I liked.

In Li Mingshuo's view, Jiang Xian's dedication, seemingly written for his daughter Jiang Niannian, is actually dedicated to every reader of this novel.

The reason he emphasized that it was his own daughter was twofold: firstly, because it truly reflected his love as a father, and secondly, to avoid appearing as someone who "likes to teach others."

Imagine if someone came up to you and pointed their finger at you, saying you have no childlike heart and you're a good pretender—no one would feel comfortable.

Moreover, Jiang Xian's novels have never presented readers with the image of a spiritual mentor; he has always presented himself as a friend who can sit down and have heart-to-heart talks with readers.

Of course, this quote was originally intended for Leon Werth.

Leon Werth was a Jewish descendant, a staunch Trotskyist, and a believer in communism.

Although they held different views, the two men shared the same starting point and both had a strong rebellious spirit at their core.

Leon was active in the French left-wing literary and artistic movement for a long time, but he held his own opinions and never blindly followed others. His severe attacks on Stalinism also made the left-wing elements look at him differently.

In addition, Léon Werth, who was twenty-four years older than Saint-Exupéry, was a friend who held a special place in Saint-Exupéry's life.

Not only because he understood everything about Saint-Exupéry, including those seemingly simple yet wise children's books.

More importantly, he was like a lighthouse in the dark night, illuminating Saint-Exupéry's days of hunger and cold in France, giving him the encouragement and warmth he needed most.

It was also he who persuaded Saint-Exupéry, who had retired from the skies, to leave France, where a defeatist atmosphere permeated, and to seek new hope in America.

And Leon and Saint-Exupéry share a common characteristic:
"An adult who has never forgotten that he was once a child."

Saint-Exupéry once said, "This adult is my best friend in the world. He understands the books written for children. He is freezing and hungry in France and needs someone to comfort him."

It can be said that Leon Werth was the prototype for the pilot in "The Little Prince".

In the novel, many of the things the Little Prince says to the pilot are actually the author's way of speaking to his old friend in France, expressing his tender feelings of care and concern for his friend amidst his melancholy mood.

However, heartwarming stories are always underpinned by sadness. During World War II, Leon was imprisoned in a concentration camp and eventually died there.

The dedication to him in "The Little Prince" has been repeatedly read and studied.

Li Mingshuo reads the main text—

The article begins with a small incident that happened when "I" was 6 years old.

He saw a greedy snake swallow its prey whole without chewing, and as a result, it was unable to move and needed six months to digest it.

He was very curious at the time: what did the snake swallow?
So he drew a picture of "a python digesting an elephant" for the adults to see.

As a result, impatient adults were very perfunctory with him, which instead made him focus his attention on geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.

Thus, my dream of becoming a painter ended when I was six years old.

Looking at the main text and the illustrations interspersed between it, Li Mingshuo had never seen Jiang Xian write in such a style before. The writing had lost its former sophistication and was replaced by a "cuteness" that matched the style of the illustrations.

Li Mingshuo smiled knowingly after reading the first story.

Because he felt such strong empathy for the story.

Thinking back to my childhood, I also experienced similar things that made me feel "disappointed" with adults.

Besides painting, Li Mingshuo had many other hobbies, but due to his family's poor economic situation, lack of guidance, and lack of support from his parents, he could only give up halfway and let them fend for themselves.

In those days, parents were busy working outside all day to support their families, so how could they have time to discipline their children?

Li Mingshuo grew up in the countryside. Most of his childhood memories are of going barefoot or wearing flip-flops in the freezing cold, wearing what is probably a dark cotton-padded jacket passed down from some generation.

Needless to say, the clothes he wears every day are absolutely patched on top of patched.

The one he remembered most vividly was when he had to steal his sister's pants to wear during a school arts performance. These were women's clothes with a belt tied around the waist.

Hunger was a constant companion to him.

I rarely have breakfast before going to school, and when I come home from school, I often find the kitchen deserted and empty.

When my parents work overtime and don't come home for dinner, I have to reheat the leftovers that have already gone bad and eat them. I can only eat an egg on my birthday.

Well, throughout adolescence, what dairy products like milk were available to eat?
Even now, he gets diarrhea from drinking milk. This kind of life continued until he went to work as an educated youth in the forest farm. Most of his meals at the forest farm consisted of fermented bean curd and vegetables. If he ever saw a few pieces of meat, it was probably because the forest farm had lost some geese or pigs.

Moreover, in the past, especially when he was young, children's innocence was not valued.

Children at that time were to be raised as "successors" and were required to have a clear ideological affiliation.

Another incident occurred at that time.

The creative concept proposed by children's literature writer Chen Bochui, which emphasizes "seeing with children's eyes, hearing with their ears, and experiencing with their hearts," was criticized, demonstrating that children's genuine emotional needs were systematically ignored in the context of that time.

This is also the background of the first story Jiang Xian wrote.

Li Mingshuo felt that Jiang Xian's concise sentences and the accompanying illustrations made the novel's content seem "childish."

This is also normal.

Children's literature is meant for children; overemphasizing "literary merit" is counterproductive.

However, to Li Mingshuo's surprise, even as an adult, he couldn't help but savor the information conveyed between the lines of the story composed of Jiang Xian's sentences.

"interesting."

Li Mingshuo changed his posture and continued reading:

Without a confidant who understands me, my life is very lonely.

This situation continued until six years ago.

During a flight crossing the Taklamakan Desert, my plane's engine malfunctioned, forcing me to land in the desert. I was the only passenger on board, so I had no choice but to bite the bullet and start repairing it myself. I only had enough water for seven days, making it a truly difficult test of life and death for me.

On my first night, I slept in the vast desert, where there was no sign of human habitation, and felt even more alone than the shipwrecked people adrift on the boundless sea.

But how surprised I was when, as dawn broke and I, lonely and sorrowful, heard a strange, tiny voice beside my ear! The tiny voice said:
"Excuse me, could you draw me a sheep?"
"Oh?"

"Please draw me a sheep!"

I jumped up as if struck by lightning. I rubbed my eyes hard, and when I looked again, I finally saw a strange little figure staring at me intently. Later, I drew the portrait of him from memory. But compared to him in person, my drawing paled in comparison. This was all the adults' fault; they stifled my dream of becoming an artist when I was six, so I never drew anything other than the whole and cross-section of a python.

This is the best portrait I painted of him later.

Thinking that I was in a remote, uninhabited place, I stared even more astonished at the mysterious little guy. He didn't seem hungry or tired, not at all like a panicked and exhausted little boy lost in the desert. When I finally came to my senses, I said:
What are you doing here?

He didn't answer my question, but looked at me seriously and repeated himself:
"Please draw me a sheep."

When a person is awestruck by some mysterious force, he absolutely dares not disobey. I unconsciously pulled out paper and pen—it seems absurd now, in that desolate desert, at that critical moment of life and death, I actually did something so absurd. But then I realized that I couldn't draw, so I awkwardly told the little guy that I only knew some geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar.

"It's alright," he said. "Just draw me a sheep!"

But I have only painted two paintings in my life. So I repainted my first painting when I was six years old, the python that the adults used as a hat, and handed it to him.

"No, no!" the little guy cried. "I don't like pythons. They're too dangerous, especially since one swallowed an elephant." I was shocked. In my astonishment, I heard him continue, "Pythons are too dangerous, and elephants take up too much space. My place is small enough that a little sheep will suffice."

I had no choice but to draw a sheep as he suggested.

He looked at it carefully for a while, then put the paper down and said:
"This sheep is too sick, draw me another one!"

So I drew another one.

The little boy smiled shyly: "Look, what you drew isn't a lamb; it has horns. It's a ram."

The next lamb I drew met the same fate.

The picky little guy said, "This sheep is too old. I want one that can live a long time."

But I still had to fix my aircraft's malfunction, so I got impatient and quickly drew this box for him, handing it to him and saying:

"This is the sheep you wanted."

To my dismay, this demanding little critic smiled contentedly. "That's it!" he said. "This is exactly what I wanted. Don't you think it'll eat a lot of grass? My place is just too small."

I comforted him, saying, "It's enough to feed it. The sheep I drew for you was originally a very small one."

He looked at the painting carefully again.

"Hmm, it's not that small! It's asleep..."

That's how I met the Little Prince.
The story was very simple, even rudimentary, to Li Mingshuo. "I" am a pilot who, due to a plane malfunction, encounters "The Little Prince," an alien from another planet, in the desert.

The planet where the Little Prince lived was not much bigger than a house.

Astronomers assign codes to the planets they discover; the Little Prince's planet is asteroid B612.

Asteroid B612 was discovered by a Turkish astronomer in 1909 through a telescope. He had only seen it once, but when he revealed and presented his discovery at an international astronomy conference, people did not believe him because of his attire.

“Because that’s how adults are; they always judge people by their appearance.” Jiang Xian’s sharp and witty remarks made Li Mingshuo laugh with admiration as he read this.

Thanks to a Turkish ruler at the time who, in order to uphold the honor of discovering asteroid B612, issued a decree mandating a change of clothing, in 1920, when the Turkish astronomer, after changing his attire, reaffirmed his discovery, people agreed with his assessment.

"That's utter nonsense in a serious tone," Li Mingshuo muttered, but couldn't help but grin.

He read the novel with a sense of disdain.

Because as an adult, he finds it difficult to be interested in children's literature.

He had to admit that Jiang Xian's "The Little Prince," with its childlike and adorable language, had deeply captivated him.

The novel's main plot revolves around the Little Prince's various adventures as he travels from his own planet to Earth.

This interstellar journey, however, is not science fiction at all; instead, it carries a sense of "absurdity."

Li Mingshuo became more and more engrossed in reading, eventually immersing himself completely in this fantastical and cartoonish world.

It was noon soon.

After lunch, Xu Yang returned to his office and found Li Mingshuo sitting alone in the empty office, staring intently at the manuscript on the table.

"Is it so beautiful?"

Xu Yang was taken aback. "You don't even have time to eat?"

(End of this chapter)