Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 390 There is fireworks here

Zhang Chao was not in a hurry.

Judging from the "good news" that Liu Pengtao of "Harvest" magazine kept sending him, 50 copies had been sold in less than half a month, which was nearly 10 times the usual sales volume.

If the magazine had not been prepared in advance, the same dilemma that occurred with Huacheng being out of stock within a short period of time would have occurred again.

However, due to the increasing development of the Internet and the relatively short number of words in "The Last Lesson", various "hand-typed versions" and "scanned versions" can be quickly found on the Internet, and they are openly posted in the "Zhang Chao Bar" of "Baidu Tieba".

No matter the publisher or the reader, they don’t think there is anything wrong with this. The core of the “Internet spirit” these days is “sharing”.

Therefore, in terms of total sales, it is estimated that it will be difficult to break the record of the issue of "Huacheng" that published "Young Babylon" four years ago.

All signs indicate that "The Last Lesson" will have great staying power, so just wait and see.

The most important thing at the moment is to complete the collection of materials for "Letter from an Unknown Woman".

A while ago, he started hanging out in the "Tianfeng Industrial Park" in Longhua District, where there are dozens of processing companies of various types, including "Qianli Shoes", "Xin'an Electronics Factory", "Hengxing Microelectronics", etc.

This is the so-called "screw-driving" assembly line enterprise.

If you want to know where the density of women is the highest in China, it must be similar industrial parks. Assembly lines that do not require high physical strength are relatively more likely to recruit female workers, who are patient, meticulous, willing to endure hardships, and most importantly, rarely cause trouble.

Unlike male workers, young ones are generally restless; older ones are either experienced or can no longer work.

So when it’s shift change time, such as in the evening, the industrial park and surrounding blocks are crowded with women.

Just out of the factory gate, most of them were still wearing simple work clothes, either white, gray or blue, with their hair tightly tied up, and their faces were all gray from standing for ten or twelve hours.

When they filed into their respective dormitories and rental houses, washed up, changed into their own clothes, and appeared again on the streets with lights just coming on with their wet hair loose, it was a completely different scene.

No matter where they come from, the city of Shenzhen is subtly changing their concepts - both in terms of life and aesthetics.

At this time, the hot summer heat has gradually dissipated as the sun sets. A cool breeze blowing from Tanglang Mountain lifts many people's long hair, and carries the fragrance hidden in their hair and necks to every street and alley.

The industrial park has shed its cold, restless stiffness during the day and put on a veil of tenderness and ambiguity.

Streets, small parks, small squares, under overpasses... everywhere is bustling. Whether it is a variety of small shops or various street stalls, they all use bright lights to attract the surging flow of people.

It is no exaggeration to say that more than 70% of the people on the street are women, and young men like Zhang Chao are rarer than pandas.

His clothes and image were good, which attracted a lot of attention from the opposite sex. After a while, a girl in a fluorescent green suspender skirt suddenly came in front of Zhang Chao and said directly: "Hey, Brother Man! Your T-shirt is so white, the second button is about to fall off."

Zhang Chao was confused when he heard this. He looked down at his chest. Aren't the buttons in good condition? How could they fall off?

This "cute" action made the girl and her good friends laugh. Then she took out her cell phone and said, "Help me try out the camera function of my new cell phone? It's Nokia N73! 300 million pixels!"

Zhang Chao then realized that the other party was trying to flirt with him, but he did not walk away. Instead, he smiled and said, "I am not good-looking, and taking a photo would only waste the memory space of your phone."

When the suspender girl heard Zhang Chao talking, her eyes lit up and her expression suddenly became like water. She said, "Take a picture. Go stand over there and strike a pose."

At this time, her sisters also started to make a noise:
"Wang Yanhong, you are being naughty again! The boy speaks Mandarin, I'm afraid he won't like you!"

"I'm telling you, ignore her! She's a witch from Fenghuang in western Hunan. Last month, she tricked a guy from Dongguan into taking hundreds of photos. His waist was broken..."

After a few words of criticism, the girl in suspenders named "Wang Yanhong" became "angry" and turned around to chase and beat her bad friend:

"Hey, stop gossiping! I'll tear your mouths apart!"

But it was just an act, and she quickly returned to Zhang Chao's side and said in a coquettish tone: "I really need your help... My brother is getting married next week, and my family urged me to post a photo with the 'Shenzhen white-collar worker' to save face.

The other people here are either short and dark, or fat or thin, and none of them are as pleasing to the eye as you. Just do me this favor, and I will repay you well!"

As he spoke, he reached out his hand, ready to grab Zhang Chao's arm.

Zhang Chao naturally couldn't agree to her request. He slightly turned his body to the side and retracted his arm to avoid Wang Yanhong's hand. Then he smiled and said, "Forget about taking pictures. I have something else to do. I'll leave first."

After saying that, regardless of Wang Yanhong's attempts to persuade him to stay, he plunged into the crowd without looking back and quickly disappeared in the vast sea of ​​people.

Just kidding, he came here to collect materials, not to be consumables for others to take.

Wang Yanhong was so angry that she stamped her feet on the spot, and then slapped her best friend who was laughing wildly beside her, saying viciously: "It's all your fault. You ruined my good thing! This guy is not an ordinary person. If you can get him, you may never have to worry about anything in your life!"

My best friend joked: "What do you mean you are not an ordinary person? You just have two eyes, one mouth, two arms and two legs."

"Wang Yanhong, you are ridiculous. Do you still want to marry him?"

Wang Yanhong sighed and said, "You don't know, he has an indescribable temperament! He is probably a college student!" She looked at her hands, feeling a little lost.

She had a hunch that if she had grabbed the arm of that gentle young man at that time, her fate might really have changed.

At this time, another close friend spoke up, interrupting her train of thought: "What's wrong with college students? There are more college students now than frogs in a pond, and they can't find jobs anywhere. They still have to work in factories like us."

"Maybe he's a manager..."

"He's so young, how could a manager let him do this..."

"Maybe he's the boss's son?"

"You should stop reading that blog of 'Mr. Qi', he's just dreaming all day long!"

……

Of course Zhang Chao didn't know what the girls were talking about after he left, but "Wang Yanhong's" bold approach did surprise him.

Although he knew that women in such a place with more yin and less yang were more courageous, he did not expect such directness. The key point was that he paid attention to the fact that the little disturbance just now did not attract the attention of the people around him, as if it was a very common thing.

He could even feel that Wang Yanhong's "chatting" with him was indeed frivolous at first, but later it became a kind of pleading and begging, not just looking for a bedmate. At this time, he saw a bald uncle wearing a short-sleeved shirt and gold-rimmed glasses, hugging a young girl who was probably less than half his age, and walked into a KTV surrounded by a group of people.

Zhang Chao looked at his white sports T-shirt, "Baleno", the brand! He understood what was going on. There happened to be a clothing store next to him, so he went in without thinking.

Ten minutes later, a spirited young man wearing a tacky floral shirt and ripped jeans came out of the clothing store again.

This time I blended into the crowd naturally.

It was already 7 o'clock at this time. Zhang Chao chose the busiest food stall, walked into the crowd, found a small table and sat down, ordered two dishes at random, and then began to "listen" to the sounds around him.

First a handful of Sichuan peppers were stuffed into his ears.

"The bastard supervisor deducted my attendance again!" A girl slammed the stainless steel plate with a clanging sound. The twice-cooked pork had a suspicious greasy sheen under the incandescent light.

"Don't make a fuss. I heard that a genuine Jiugongge restaurant opened in Guanlan." The girl at the same table took out a small notebook and said slowly, "There's a 20% discount for sharing a table. If eight people pay AA, it's less than yuan. Do you want to go next week?"

"Do you know if hot pot soup base can be mailed?" A girl squatting on a stool dipping chili oil suddenly looked up: "My Taobao store received an order from BJ yesterday. The Sichuan white-collar workers there were very aggressive in paying. They asked for 10 bottles at once!"

"Is it okay to send it? It's OK as long as it doesn't get damaged during transportation. I heard that couriers are very brutal in sorting things, and they throw things around."

"Then I'll pack it in two more layers! With two layers of sponge padding, I don't believe it can be damaged!"

……

Then he stuffed in another bowl of snail noodles——

"Ayun, what's wrong with you? You spent half a month's salary to buy this broken phone?" A girl with short hair grabbed another girl's ear, and the breathing light of Nokia N81 flickered in the twilight.

"I... I saw that the sisters online all switched to color-screen phones, but I'm still using a black and white one, which makes me embarrassed." The girl called Ayun protected her phone.

"You'd better give it back to me quickly, otherwise I will tell your father to take you back." The short-haired girl insisted.

"I won't return it. Someone sold it to me second-hand, it's 90% new, and I only want half the price." Ayun was unwilling.

"Are you crazy? How dare you buy this kind of phone?" The short-haired girl became even angrier.

At this time, the lady boss behind the cashier said with a smile: "Pretty girl, last month there was a guy selling second-hand mobile phones on the street, and he is still in the police station. Where do you think such cheap mobile phones come from?"

……

Then another spoonful of spicy soup was poured in——

"Is it okay, Cuilan? Your brother needs tuition for repeating his studies again?" A woman in a faded red sweater was stirring noodle soup with chopsticks, chopped green onions sticking to her cracked fingernails. "I'll lend you three hundred this month.

You can't just eat steamed buns and pickles all day, eat meat, eat more meat."

"Sister Hongxia... Thank you." "Cui Lan" lowered her head and said hesitantly: "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't know what to do. The factory manager said that the night shift team will be laid off next month. I want to apply to be a quality inspector at Xin'an Electronics, but they require a high school diploma..."

"Bang!" Sister Hongxia slapped the table hard: "What's the use of a diploma? My uncle works in the Labor Bureau. He can get a fake certificate by giving him two packs of cigarettes!" Suddenly she smiled and said: "I heard that Director Zhou of Xin'an is very generous. As long as..."

Sister Hongxia's voice became softer and softer until it was inaudible; Cuilan's head also drooped lower and lower, almost buried under the table.

……

Just when Zhang Chao was about to finish his meal, another round of noise was heard.

"Sisters, look here!" A woman began to distribute flyers in the crowd, saying as she did so: "The injection molding workshop is hiring female workers, the monthly salary is two hundred higher than that of the Qianli Shoe Factory!"

"Two hundred yuan higher?" A girl sitting at the table in front of Zhang Chao sneered and said to the others, "During the physical examination last year, three people in the injection molding group were diagnosed with leukemia, and the boss only gave each of them 1 yuan and sent them back.

I heard one of them has died, and the remaining two are skinny. Is injection molding something that humans do?"

"It's fate! Which factory doesn't have a wicked heart?" Another woman suddenly lifted her trouser legs, revealing a patch of burn scars on her calves. "I got burned at the Jiangnan Leather Factory in Wenzhou three years ago. I thought it would be better in Shenzhen, but I didn't make much even after standing for 12 hours a day.

I just want to pay off my debts, save enough money, go back to my hometown and open a shop to sell braised food with my husband. He is now making molds in Baoan, and it is very hard, but he doesn’t make much money. It’s so difficult!”

Another middle-aged woman was stirring the lotus root soup in front of her and said to her slowly, "I heard that there is a plumber training class in Longgang. You can pay half of the tuition first and then leave your ID card as a deposit. After you finish the training, you can work in decoration and make more money.

Do you want to let your man try it..."

……

Zhang Chao had already finished all the food in front of him. The smoky environment, the ubiquitous noise, and the spicy and delicious taste made him feel as if he had returned to his previous life.

When the bill came, two dishes, meat and vegetable, were only 26 yuan. No wonder it became the busiest food stall and people were even queuing up at this moment.

Zhang Chao actually already had a preliminary framework for what to write and how to write the novel "Letter from a Stranger". What he needed most now were "details".

If you want your novel to impress readers, these "details" must come from real people!

The reason why "The Last Lesson" does not have a material collection process is because Zhang Chao personally experienced many of the things in it, some of which happened to himself and some to others.

Even the final "fire" scene was inspired by real-life events.

Letter from an Unknown Woman is different. Although he has read a lot of non-fiction written by later generations or documentaries, and knows a lot of stories and even secrets about this group - such as the "temporary couples" phenomenon in electronics factories - this cannot replace the experience of observing and listening among the crowd.

Only in this way can we touch the flesh and blood of this group, and even their inner world.

Sometimes this way of observing with your heart on the outside and your body on the inside is easier to get a glimpse into the real side of their lives than interviewing or filming. After all, most people feel more relaxed and safer when they are having dinner with friends.

When leaving, Zhang Chao saw Wang Yanhong, who had just chatted with him, and her little sisters walking down the street, talking and laughing. There was a young man with dyed golden red hair beside them, who was nodding and bowing around Wang Yanhong, and was very fawning.

Wang Yanhong also saw Zhang Chao. Although she didn't know why he changed into such rustic clothes, she still raised her chin and showed a smug smile, which simply meant "If you don't want me, there are plenty of people who do." She walked past Zhang Chao leisurely and left.

(End of this chapter)