Rebirth 2004: A lone figure in the literary world

Chapter 77: Humans’ joys and sorrows are not shared?
[A man downstairs is dying, the family next door is playing phonograph, and across the street is playing with children. Two people are laughing wildly upstairs; there are also sounds of playing cards. A woman is crying and looking at her dead mother on a boat in the river. Human sorrows and joys are not shared, I just think they are noisy. ——Lu Xun]

This passage was placed at the beginning of the novel "Dwelling Narrowness" by Zhang Chao, and then read out by a student in the advanced research class named Yuan Yaqin.

Today is the last day before the senior research class goes on holiday. There are no classes, but there will be a reading session for students' works. Since we are participating in the "writer class", we naturally have to produce some decent new works.

However, most of the people submitted poems and essays, and the novels were mainly short stories. After all, the class lasted only a little over a month, and everyone wrote in their spare time, so they were generally not too long.

However, Zhang Chao brought out the beginning of a novel of more than 2 words. Everyone present was an old hand. After looking at the relationships between the characters and the story clues, they knew that this novel would not be short. It would at least be a long novella of tens of thousands of words, and it would most likely be a novel.

Zhang Hongjie laughed and said, "I think you have two heads and four hands, Xiao Zhang. I see you tinkering with scripts every day, and now you are writing a long novel without saying a word."

Zhang Chao smiled and said, "Fortunately it's not three hands."

The classmates all laughed.

Yuan Yaqin asked: "How old are you? How did you think of writing about this kind of subject?"

Zhang Chao said, "Didn't we go to the hutongs together a while ago? There were several families living in the dilapidated courtyards. There was not even a toilet in the courtyards, and we had to go to the public toilet outside. But when we walked outside the hutongs, we saw high-rise buildings. This strong contrast gave me inspiration."

The setting of Zhang Chao's "Dwelling Narrowness" is no longer Shanghai, but Beijing, so the alleys have become hutongs. In fact, the housing conflicts faced by the old Beijing residents and new tenants in the hutongs at the beginning of the century were much more acute than those faced by the residents in the alleys.

The alleys in Shanghai were built between the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, about 100 years ago, and the building materials and techniques used were also modern. However, many of the hutongs and courtyards in Yanjing have a history of 2 to 3 years, and the earliest can even be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty.

No matter what dignitaries lived here, no matter what gold bricks and jade tiles were used in its construction, they could not withstand the erosion of hundreds of years. The foundation has sunk, the ventilation and lighting are poor, there is no sewer... It is no longer compatible with modern life.

Although the great master's words were not written about the alleys in Yenching, they can vividly express the oppressive feeling of living in such an environment.

Therefore, by setting the background in Yanjing, the characters' desire to own a "snail house" of their own will be even stronger.

A classmate sighed: "The young man is really sensitive to the subject matter. Take the housing prices in Yanjing for example. I saw that the price in Dongcheng is more than 1 yuan. Doesn't that mean a small house will cost nearly 100 million yuan? It's scary. Who among the common people can afford it!"

Many people echoed the sentiment and the discussion was buzzing, but Zhang Chao alone remained silent.

However, Pang Yuliang, who shared the same dormitory, could not bear to watch it anymore and quickly brought the topic back on track, saying: "On the surface, Zhang Chao wrote about 'Dwelling Narrowness', but in fact, he was still writing about human hearts and human nature. Several characters in the story are driven by a strong desire for material things. 'House' is just a concrete carrier of this desire..."

After Pang Yuliang finished speaking, someone suddenly asked: "Zhang Chao, are you an 'anti-urbanist'?"

Zhang Chao thought for a while and replied, "Of course not. Just like what Lao Pang said just now, 'house' is just a carrier of material desire. In this novel, I hope to present 'a problem that has been urbanized' rather than 'an urbanized problem'. I come from a small town, and I have lived in a big city like Yanjing for so long. This huge gap has allowed me to grasp some of the core temperaments of the characters..."

As the discussion deepened, everyone's enthusiasm was fully aroused. Originally, the reading of new works was mostly about complimenting each other and just going through the motions. However, Zhang Chao's novel was like a needle that pierced the hearts of many writers.

Most writers today focus on urban life, but except for a few who can write bestsellers and those who were able to get housing as welfare in the early days of their work, most of them are also anxious about housing issues. This group often has a strong idealistic temperament, so this collision with reality is even more painful for them. The new work reading meeting eventually turned into a discussion on Zhang Chao's "Dwelling Narrowness".

Many students were editors of literary magazines, and they asked on the spot if they could serialize their works in their own publications, and they would receive a higher fee. However, Zhang Chao refused all of them. He planned to find a publisher to publish this novel after he finished writing it.

The discussion lasted until almost six in the afternoon, when the teacher from Lu Academy had to stop everyone - if they didn't go to get their meals, the chefs in the cafeteria would be off work.

After dinner, everyone went back to the dormitory to pack up. Tomorrow is the holiday, and those who have families will definitely go back to visit their families. Many people went shopping together to buy some Yanjing specialties to bring back home.

Zhang Chao also packed with several roommates, but the difference was that the others simply packed a few pieces of clothing, after all, they would have to come back later. Zhang Chao packed almost everything, leaving only a quilt, after all, he would have to sleep here at night.

Seeing the puzzled looks of the three elder brothers, Zhang Chao did not hide the truth and told them that he would not live in the Luyuan dormitory after the holiday, but would live in Yanda. However, he did not mention buying a house.

Pang Yuliang and others also expressed their understanding. After all, Zhang Chao would soon start his university life at Yanda.

The next day, Zhang Chao waited until most of his classmates had left before packing up his bedding. Then he went to the office of Luyuan to complete the check-out procedures. Then he took a taxi and came to the East Courtyard Community on Beida Street.

Going upstairs and opening the door, it was a newly renovated house. He had no time to come during this period, so he basically asked Li Wandong to help him deal with it. After looking inside and out, he found that Li Wandong was quite reliable. Although it was just simple cleaning, whitewashing and waxing, the housekeeping company and decoration company he hired did a good job, and also cleared out the old furniture that he didn't want to keep.

In the afternoon, Zhang Chao went to IKEA in Yanjing to buy all the furniture, and then bought a Dell desktop computer, which was delivered to his door and installed. Zhang Chao officially moved into this new home.

In the evening, Zhang Chao invited Li Wandong to dinner. During the meal, he handed him an envelope and apologized, "Teacher Li, I'm really sorry that this little thing of mine has caused you a lot of trouble. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be able to live in this house today. Thank you so much! This is just a small token of my appreciation, please accept it."

Li Wandong did not refuse. He took the envelope, felt its thickness, and said with emotion: "It's just a matter of running two trips. The workers did the work. You have already paid for it. You don't need to give me so much..."

He then laughed at himself, "I can earn more by helping you a few times than I can earn in a month."

Zhang Chao asked curiously: "Aren't you a computer major? The Internet is very popular now. Look at Teacher Dongfang Xing..."

Li Wandong waved his hands and said, "I am a good person with good skills and work skills, but if you ask me to negotiate business with others, I will lose everything. I have this self-awareness. I can't bear to leave Yanda, and I can't adapt to the overtime work in IT companies. This is called 'character determines destiny'."

Zhang Chao didn't know how to comfort him, so he just clinked his Orange Juice with Li Wandong's beer.

After a glass of wine, Li Wandong opened up and started to talk about his various unsatisfactory things, especially the house. He said that he had a girlfriend, but he was in his thirties and still couldn't get married because he didn't have a house in Yenching. The school did have policy housing, but in a century-old prestigious school like Yenching University, the old faculty ahead of him could line up all the way to the fifth ring road. After lining up for a few years, he checked again and found that his ranking was even lower, because the returned overseas students and professors he introduced were all cutting in line...

As Zhang Chao listened, he suddenly remembered his previous life and felt quite emotional. If he had no memory of his previous life and was lucky in this life, he might think that Li Wandong was being pretentious - what's so difficult about buying a house? It's just about writing a book! If you didn't buy it, it must be because you didn't work hard enough! But now, he only deeply resonated with him.

So who says that human joys and sorrows are not shared? As long as you can truly live two lives...

(End of this chapter)