Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 397 is very well written, don’t write it again!

【…Xiao Yang heard a strange laugh rolling out of his throat. He had never heard this laugh before, and he was also shocked; at the same time, he saw the strange woman kneeling on the ground tremble all over, stop kowtowing, and slightly raise her head to look at him. Xiao Yang's fingers had already grasped the hem of his T-shirt. The hot summer heat in Shenzhen was wrapped in the smell of sweat and spread from the collar. He looked down at the white roots of the woman's hair on the top of her head, and suddenly remembered the year when he watched pornographic movies together at his classmate's house. All he could hear were the unbearable breathing of the teenagers, and each of them almost put their faces to the screen, hoping to see every detail of the woman's body clearly. Only he stared at the pearl necklace on the heroine's chest, wondering if he could tear it off and sell it for money, would it be enough for him to play "King of Fighters 97" all night in the game hall. He suddenly tasted a bloody taste in his mouth, and only then did he realize that his lip had been bitten accidentally. He thought of the broken and messy pictures when he was 4 years old - that is, 2009, the year when the strange woman said in the letter that she left him. After piecing them together bit by bit, they finally formed the image of a woman with a plump face and fair skin. …】

【“Mom, look.” Xiao Yang’s action of lifting his clothes was like tearing off plastic wrap, and the sweaty synthetic fabric stuck to his skin, making a slight “hissing” sound. He didn’t expect that he would still call this strange woman “Mom”. But this “Mom” was as light as the wind from the ceiling fan above his head. Below his ribs, on the exposed skin, a dark red centipede slowly crawled with his breathing, from his waist all the way to his back, as if to cut him in half, “The kidney you want, I lost it two years ago.” The woman’s pupils shrank into a shriveled plastic bag, as if an invisible needle had pierced her eyeball. When she crawled over on her knees, she almost pulled Xiao Yang’s pants off, her face pressed against the “centipede”, “Impossible... This is impossible..." The cold fingertips touched the bulge of the scar, and the woman retracted her hand as if she had been electrocuted, “Two years ago... you were only seventeen years old! Why?”

Xiao Yang pulled out the unknown brand phone from his pocket and shook it: "I sold it. I used the money to buy an Apple phone, the most expensive one. But I sold it last year. When I used that phone, I was so impressive. Everyone called me 'Brother Yang' and I could treat everyone to a meal... I only have one kidney, so I can't give it to my brother. A person can live with one kidney, but I only have one."

"How is this possible?" Su Tong put down the magazine, unable to hide the shock on his face. Even though he had seen all kinds of bizarre imaginations in literary works, and there was always a kind of perverted and deformed desire in his own works, Zhang Chao's plot setting still made him incredible.

Especially this happened after the mother asked her son for a kidney.

"Selling a kidney to buy a cell phone? Is this possible?" He took out a cell phone from his pocket. It was a Nokia color screen phone he bought two years ago. He didn't know the model, but he just used it to make calls and send and receive text messages. He was sometimes annoyed by this little gadget because it could always let people find him anytime, anywhere.

But you really can't leave this thing behind. In an age where "you can find yourself anywhere, anytime", suddenly being unable to be found anywhere, anytime, is enough to cause panic among relatives and friends.

So the most he does is turn it off when he needs to write peacefully.

"How is it impossible?" Yu Hua said, "Have you forgotten Zhang Chao's talk with us on the overpass? And in his previous novel, The Last Lesson, the mobile phone is so closely connected with people's daily lives that it can be called 'another organ' in the human body.

Just think about it, a human organ that grows outside and is bought with money, how many tricks can you do with it?"

Su Tong thought for a moment and said, "If you look at it from this angle, it is indeed possible. If the mobile phone becomes a 'human organ' and can be seen by people at any time, it will become a symbol of showing off one's status.

But I am curious, how can a mobile phone be so expensive that it requires a kidney to be exchanged for it? I still find this a little hard to accept.”

Yu Hua shook his head and said, "I can't figure it out either. Maybe it's because that Apple phone is so expensive? That's not possible. Last time we touched it, Zhang Chao said that the scalper price in China is only 7,000 or 8,000 yuan per phone.

How shady is this kidney selling agent? He can actually eat up the money to the point where you can only buy a mobile phone! A kidney must cost at least hundreds of thousands, right? "

Su Tong said: "Zhang Chao may have done it for satire, satirizing the pursuit of material desires and vanity. In novels, exaggeration is originally part of the fictional technique. Is this... uh, 'black humor'?"

Many ordinary readers were shocked and confused and even more angry. How could he be so cruel to the characters he wrote?
In 2008, borrowing for consumption was nothing new. From time to time, there were news reports about people who couldn't pay back their credit card debts or loan sharks. But selling organs was something that no one had expected.

And selling organs for mobile phones? Almost everyone, like Su Tong, instinctively took out their mobile phones to check.

However, some bloggers who pay more attention to digital products still thought of one thing - in 2004, Motorola launched a flip phone code-named "Ray" and model "V3", which swept the entire digital circle with its record-breaking thinness.

Motorola, which was still able to compete with Nokia at the time, invited the popular football star Beckham to be its spokesperson and released a classic poster: Beckham had a cool smile on his face and put the mobile phone next to his face, as if he had just answered a call; and there was a wound on his cheek, as if he had been cut by this overly thin mobile phone.

The combination of the ultra-thin V3 phone and the super popular Beckham made this phone a hot seller quickly, and it was hard to get one in the market, so scalpers started to hype up the price.

When it was at its most expensive, a V4000, which was priced at 3 yuan, was sold for tens of thousands of yuan. At that time, if you took out a V3 when making a phone call, it was a very prestigious thing.

Therefore, it is not uncommon to see people using credit cards or borrowing money to buy V3, but no one has gone to the extent of selling their kidneys.

Apple's current mobile phones are not available in China, but its "water phones" have long been rampant. The newly launched 3GS basically requires an additional to yuan to buy.

So although Zhang Chao's idea is exaggerated, it is not impossible if you think about it carefully.

How could a kid like "Xiao Yang" who hadn't even graduated from junior high school get a credit card? How could anyone be willing to lend him money? He was too young to do a proper job.

If you don't steal or rob, it seems that the only way to afford such a mobile phone is to sell something you have on you.

"There's only one paragraph left, hurry up and finish reading it," Yu Hua urged.

Su Tong sighed, not knowing whether it was for Zhang Chao or for the protagonist "Xiao Yang" in the novel.

[The wind from the subway station lifted up Xiao Yang's sweaty collar, and the flesh-red centipede had already fallen asleep on his belly. Xiao Yang suddenly realized that the money in his phone was not enough for him to take the bus back to Longhua. So how did he stand here? He couldn't remember. He suddenly realized that it was not just a kidney that disappeared on the operating table two years ago. Because he remembered that the agent who helped him sell the kidney said the same thing as the strange woman: "As long as a person has one kidney, he will not die."

Xiao Yang touched his pocket and found that the chocolate he bought for his "sister" had melted at some point, turning into a sticky black ointment. He licked his fingers and found that it was sweet. So something that he thought had come alive, in the empty and cold waiting room of the subway, let out its last sob.

Next comes the last paragraph of the novel. Unlike "The Last Lesson", this paragraph explains the origin of the code name "Xiao Yang" -

【Xiao Yang's surname is Yang. He likes to be called Xiao Yang, even after knowing that this is the surname of the Taiwanese, he still likes to be called Xiao Yang. Because when he first came to Shenzhen, a labor agency named Sister Wang called him that. He used to be called "苕娃儿", "傻頭", and of course "毛毛"; later he was called "扑街", "索仔", "叼", and of course some people called him "帅哥", "兄弟", "老板", "大佬"... Compared with them, the two words "小杨" sounded as nice as a coin rolling crisply on the asphalt road in the early morning, with the unique coldness and echo of metal. It was his third morning living in Baishizhou Urban Village. Sister Wang's plastic slippers clattered over the stagnant water, like the bald Da Vinci in Stephen Chow's movie. Sister Wang glanced at his ID card, and white mist came out of her mouth with a toothpick in her mouth: "Xiao Yang, right? Do you want to do logistics packaging? 80 yuan a day, paid once a week." He was stunned for two seconds before he realized that this string of syllables was his new name.

From then on, he liked people calling him Xiao Yang. 】

"So that's why Zhang Chao never mentions his specific name in his novels?" Su Tong closed "Contemporary" and let out a long sigh.

In his opinion, in addition to focusing on "material worship", "alienation of family affection" and "marginal groups", "A Letter from an Unknown Woman" explores a very complex issue - that is, "the granting and deprivation of identity". Throughout the novel, "Xiao Yang" is always in a state of identity deprivation:
When he was 4 years old, his "mother" abandoned him, and his identity as a "son" was deprived.

At the age of 17, one of his kidneys was sold, and his identity as a healthy person was deprived.

When he was 19, his grandmother died and his uncle didn't care about him anymore, so his family identity was completely taken away.

He then sold his ID card, symbolizing that he would be completely driven out of normal society and it would be almost impossible for him to return.

He placed his only chance on "finding his mother" and "integrating into a new family", but he did not realize that this was a gamble - the end result was that he lost the bet.

So his last line of defense in his fantasy - being a "son" and "brother" and having a complete family - was completely shattered.

The tragedy of "Xiao Yang" is that every time he was stripped of his identity, it was done in a state of confusion. The only time he had a clear goal, decisive actions, and inner joy was when he sold his ID card.

He couldn't even wait to work daily for a day or two to save up the meager hundred yuan.

He was overwhelmed by the sudden arrival of family affection, just like a woman who is infatuated with love. He was unwilling to wait even a day longer. He was like a moth to a flame and was eventually burned to ashes.

Yu Hua said: "Yes, I don't mention his name because in his world, his name is no longer important. No one cares what his name is, there are only codes that represent contempt and perfunctory.

Even to his mother, he is just a baby... a baby at the mercy of others."

Su Tong sighed and said, "Zhang Chao is not very old, and his life is going smoothly. How could he think of so many dark things?"

Yu Hua also said: "Yes. It is not only in special times that extreme alienation of human nature will occur. In a seemingly peaceful or even prosperous society, extreme alienation of human nature will also breed."

Su Tong was quick to sense something, glanced at Yu Hua, and asked, "Do you have any ideas?"

Yu Hua nodded and answered directly without hiding anything: "Yes. I told Zhang Chao that I would go to Shenzhen as soon as I finished my work at school. He said he had reserved a house for me in Shenzhen, and I would live there when I got there."

Su Tong laughed and said, "Do you mind having an extra roommate?"

……

“No wonder it’s called “Letter from an Unknown Woman”. Xiao Yang is essentially the same as the woman in Zweig’s original novel. They are both willing to risk their lives for a certain kind of emotion.”

"So I have a terrible guess..."

"What guess?"

“Although it’s not written in the novel, I think if Xiao Yang hadn’t sold one of his kidneys at the time, he would have agreed to donate one of his kidneys to that so-called younger brother in exchange for being accepted by his new family.

Yes, he will do that!"

"…Fuck, you're even more ruthless than Zhang Chao! Where's my knife?"

"So Zhang Chao actually went easy on Xiao Yang. Think about it, if he donated a kidney to his brother, can he really integrate into the new family? He might be polite to him at first, but what about in the long run?

Xiao Yang has no education or skills, and even his health has deteriorated after donating his kidney. Didn’t you see how that man behaved? His whole family is full of snobs.”

"...Stop talking, stop talking, I don't want to hear it..."

"So Zhang Chao actually showed mercy to Xiao Yang."

The day after the novel was published, everyone finally recovered from Zhang Chaofa's criticism and began to carefully examine the novel from different angles.

Different from the relatively simple theme of "The Last Lesson", "Letter from an Unknown Woman" presents a very diverse theme expression, which makes almost all readers want to explore.

From the highly materialistic future society, to the rationality of the "daily wage" working method, to the dialectic between family affections - that "mother", after all, was also trying to save her own son - although the one she wanted to sacrifice was another son.

However, within two months, the readers who were stabbed twice by Zhang Chao wanted to give Zhang Chao a message:

Very well written, don't write it again!

Zhang Chao accepted this "blessing" with a smile and soon gave the readers a "big gift".

(End of this chapter)