Literary Master 1983

Chapter 212: White and Sugar Pills of the Go Team

He took a train for two days and one night, carrying all his belongings, and went to the editorial office of October again.

The editorial department arranged a guesthouse for Yu Hua, and Yu Hua began to write the novel here. The guesthouse was still the same place as before, and there was still an extremely huge locust tree in front of the window of the guesthouse.

This locust tree is so huge that from day to night, one can judge the time by the shadow it casts on the ground.

The locust tree also became Yu Hua's psychological sustenance. No matter what he wrote, good or bad, the locust tree was always there.

It was as if Yu Qie was right there, he stood there quietly.

Why do so many writers not say "I love literature", but instead find some other reasons, as if they just happened to embark on the path of writing.

Because in front of Yu Qie and other true geniuses, talking about one's love for literature, but ending up being far inferior to them - isn't this a self-humiliating thing? It's simply heart-breaking!

Yu Hua wrote about the shadow of the locust tree alternating back and forth seven or eight times. A week later, he finally wrote the novel "Going Far Away at the Age of Eighteen" and gave the novel to Zhang Shouren of "October".

Zhang Shouren commented: "You wrote some absurd plots. This 18-year-old boy has been facing all kinds of injustice and setbacks, but he finally found himself in his inner struggle and understood the true meaning of life... Yu Hua, you must be a very kind and warm-hearted person."

Yu Hua admitted it shamelessly.

Kind, warm-hearted...I should be this kind of person!
Zhang Shouren liked it very much after reading it, and asked him: "Is your writing of this novel related to Yu Qie?"

Yu Hua said: "This trip to Hangzhou was indeed my first time traveling far away. I met with writers from all over the country and learned about their experiences and theories. I felt that I was quite ignorant before!"

Afterwards, Yu Hua mentioned Lu Xun's advanced training class and asked Zhang Shouren if he could recommend him.

Zhang Shouren laughed and said, "Why do you need my recommendation? Yu Qie has already recommended you, and the Writers Association quickly agreed. Now that things have come to this, how could someone he recommended be rejected?"

"Where is the remaining money? I still have fifteen dollars left. I'll treat him to a meal of mutton soup."

"Don't go looking for him!" Zhang Shouren said, "Yu Qie is also working on his creation, and he doesn't like to be disturbed. There are so many letters sent to Yu Qie from all over the country. We even announced that we would refuse to accept letters, but readers still keep sending them."

"Sometimes, the children from the primary school attached to Yan University in the nearby capital city would send me letters of different ages, and the first words they would say would be 'My dear friend Yu Qie'... Oh, these children are so hard to deal with!"

Now that he had written the novel, Yu Hua could no longer eat and drink for free in the guesthouse in the name of writing novels. Zhang Shouren advanced his royalties in advance, and Yu Hua looked for cheaper accommodation in Yenching until the advanced training class started, when he could stay in the guesthouse again.

The rent at that time was about two yuan a month, and Yu Hua soon found a satisfactory place to live. He also bought a copy of "Beijing Evening News" at the bookstall. The news on it was that Yu Qie visited a large site in Shanghai - writers such as Ba Lao, Zang Kejia, and some local writers' association leaders were also there.

Judging from the date in the newspaper, this happened two days ago.

Zhang Shouren also said that Yu Qie was writing a novel. Doesn't this mean that Yu Qie started writing non-stop as soon as he came back? This guy is really a monster, with terrifying energy.

Yu Qie plays table tennis and bridge to paralyze others... Yu Qie must be a king of rolls.

The bookstall owner also mentioned that he used to engage in speculation and profiteering. He took out Yu Qie's novel "Da Saba" and sold it at a higher price. He made a lot of money in a few days, but was reported by his neighbors. When Uncle Hat came to arrest him, he found that he was reselling novels, so he gave up.

"Yu Qie is my lucky star! I will always support him!"

After Yu Hua said farewell to the boss, he finally did something very literary: he bought a bottle of wine and poured it on the big locust tree at the entrance of the guesthouse, to thank the locust tree for its tolerance and sheltering him from the wind and rain.

The locust tree always stays there quietly, just like Yu Hua's friend, silently accompanying him.

After a bottle of wine was poured, Yu Hua suddenly felt relieved. He asked someone who knew the locust tree, "How old is this locust tree?"

Generally speaking, locust trees are only around fifty years old, and some can live to be over seventy years old, which is exactly the same as a human's lifetime.

People who know the locust tree said, "This locust tree has been here since my grandfather's time. I heard it is hundreds of years old."

“How can a locust tree live so long?”

"Some locust trees have mutated. They live longer and grow taller. Are you surprised? Do you think this has only appeared in the past few decades? No, it has been there for several generations."

Yu Hua smiled and said, "I'll give this locust tree a name, let's call it 'Yu Qie', it looks a lot like Yu Qie."

------

After Yu Qie returned to Beijing, he was always invited to various activities, as if he had become a social activist.

One of the most distinctive activities in the 1980s was giving reports, and Yu Qie was invited to give reports. The Writers Association held a seminar and asked Yu Qie to talk about the history of suffering of the Chinese in Southeast Asia, and Yu Qie gave a small report; Yanda asked Yu Qie to talk about the Chinese economy in Southeast Asia, and Yu Qie gave a medium-sized report; the national Go team in Beijing went out, and asked Yu Qie to cheer them up, so that both literature and sports could flourish - this was a big report.

Next year, the Go team will continue the competition with Japan. Since Go contains some "intelligence" factors, it is particularly valued in China.

This is a big report, involving not only the Go team, but also reporters, TV stations, and newspapers.

The China-Japan Go Challenge Tournament started in October this year and will continue until next year. Both sides will send players to compete in a round-robin match. Previously, the Chinese Go team had been losing in a row, but not long ago, the unknown player Jiang Zhujiu suddenly defeated the Japanese player Yoda Noriki in Yanjing. Then, he defeated Kobayashi Akira and will soon go to Japan to compete.

The hope of winning made Go another major entertainment event that attracted national attention at the end of the year. Together with the news that Yu Qie might win the Japanese Literature Award, it appeared in the conversations of many people after dinner.

The leaders of the central government also paid attention to this matter and said jokingly, "We have some geniuses in both Go and literature!"

The Go team actually also sought advice from Yu Qie?
Yu Qie was arranged to play against Nie Weiping, who had the highest chess ability, to present an exhibition match to the fans of the book and chess friends. However, he knew nothing about Go, so he started by playing at the center of the board.

In this era, this kind of move is disrespectful to the opponent and often occurs in games where the opponent is bullied. But the problem is that Yuqi is the "weak" one.

Nie Weiping burst into laughter. The reporter asked Nie Weiping how Yu Qie's subordinates were doing.
Nie Weiping tried his best to make up for Yu Che: "Yu Che has a kind of momentum. Although he lost, he actually won. He won because of his will to attack."

The reporter also said: "Japanese chess players are particularly good at defense. This time we want to break their tortoise shell and iron bucket formation! Of course, friendship comes first."

Having said that, Yu Qie was quickly defeated and had to surrender.

Then it was Yu Qie's turn to train the players of the Go team. Because his novel was nominated in Japan, Yu Qie was considered a semi-expert on Japanese issues and understood some of the Japanese national characteristics.

When playing Go to a certain level, it becomes a battle between mentality and physical strength. This time, the competition adopts a round-robin format, and we need some experts who understand the Japanese national character to tell us some tactics that can torture Japanese players.

In the classroom, chess players led by Nie Weiping and Jiang Zhujiu stared at Yu Qie blankly, but Yu Qie said something that benefited them greatly a few months later.

"That reporter said that the Japanese like to defend, which is wrong. So do the Japanese like to attack? Not really. They simply like to go to extremes and have path dependence. In Happy Hunting, I wrote about a desperate society with clear class divisions. These characteristics have begun to appear in many developed capitalist countries, but they are particularly obvious in Japan."

"Why? I think it's because of extremes. For example, the Japanese have already reached the top of the developed countries in terms of per capita income, but they are still making money like crazy and taking on debt like crazy. No one feels happy."

"They know it's not right, but they cover their heads and pretend tomorrow will be better."

"So, we must not be frightened when playing Go. As long as we keep our composure, they will collapse on their own over time."

Nie Weiping remembered this sentence because it was similar to his own feelings. Nie Weiping was an offensive maniac, and later he was nicknamed "invincible in the first fifty moves". He found that Japanese players often chose to attack him fiercely or defend the whole game without any changes in tactics.

Once they can't withstand his attack, they fall down like a dam collapsing. This is different from many domestic chess players who cling to the enemy and reflect the distinctive character of Japanese Go players.

Nie Weiping thought again: In the Japanese Go community, there is a long-standing saying of "God's Move", which prompts them to always go all in when encountering a strong enemy, and to trust emotions rather than reason.

Yu Qie then talked about the first time the Chinese women's volleyball team defeated the Japanese women's volleyball team: in the deciding game, the Japanese team was leading 4:0 and the situation was very good. However, the Chinese women's volleyball team chose to play steadily and slowly chase points, making every point for the Japanese women's volleyball team extremely difficult to get. When the scores of the two teams were tied, the Japanese women's volleyball team suddenly collapsed, quickly lost two points, and eventually gave up the Asian Cup championship.

Many national Go players listened with great interest to Yu Qi's talk on "The Way of Go" and found it very insightful.

Does writer Yu really understand Go?

Was he putting on a show in front of the reporters? Did he lose to us on purpose?

Nie Weiping invited Yu Qie and another general Jiang Zhujiu to play chess, and Yu Qie once again played at the "Tianyuan" position. Nie Weiping finally laughed out loud: Yu Qie really can't play chess!

Nie Weiping often played chess with his superiors, so he had the habit of giving away pieces and playing chess out of favor. Jiang Zhujiu, however, was not like that. When Yu Qi dared to play chess like that, he was immediately attacked from all directions by Jiang Zhujiu, and he lost the game in just a few moves.

Nie Weiping commented on Yu Qie's layman's play: "Although the chess master Wu Qingyuan has played the Tianyuan opening in his chess records, this play is definitely a risky move and can only be used as a flying knife. Yu Qie, I don't know where you learned this from!"

Jiang Zhujiu also nodded in agreement.

Shit!

That’s not what the artificial intelligence AlphaGo says!

The first step in playing chess for the latest version of AlphaGo artificial intelligence before Yu Qie traveled through time was Tianyuan.

This report was not made in vain. After the players went to Japan, they obtained consent from their home country and took out a bag of "sugar pills" before the competition: a sugar pill was exactly the same size as a Go piece, and especially exactly the same as the white piece.

In front of the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo, Chinese and Japanese reporters surrounded the chess players. Nie Weiping suddenly said, "This is a magic sugar pill. Only three pills are needed to save a Chinese child who is at risk of paralysis in the future!"

This statement immediately prompted some Japanese journalists and Go players to donate money.

Coincidentally, in the subsequent guessing game, Jiang Zhujiu got the white piece, and soon won again. Japanese chess player Awaji Shuzo announced his defeat. When a Japanese reporter asked Jiang Zhujiu why he could win consecutive games, Jiang Zhujiu made a pun, picking up the white piece and said: "Because I got the white piece, I don't want to lose any."

Panasonic Group then approached us, hoping to sponsor the tournament and add three charity matches, which were not counted as the main tournament. For every match won by a Chinese chess player, Panasonic, the earliest Japanese company to enter mainland China, would donate RMB 100,000 to the corresponding foundation.

So in the charity match that afternoon, the Japanese chess players all let go, allowing the Chinese players to win easily.

It was already the end of the month, and the tournament had been a great success in both China and Japan. The Xinhua News Agency used a long article to record this Go journey, calling it a classic cooperation between the "arts and sports world". Citizens also saw this newspaper, and many people knew for the first time that the scientific name of "poliomyelitis" was "poliomyelitis", and that it was such a rare but desperate disease.

There are 800 million farmers among the 1 billion people in my country. Frankly speaking, in the past, it was almost impossible for the rural areas where these 800 million people live to get this vaccine. Not to mention the "trivalent sugar pills" wrapped in milk and syrup, even milk candy itself is not easy to eat in these areas.

Today, it is possible for remote areas to get sugar pills, but it will take at least five to ten years - unless a considerable amount of funds are raised and greater social attention is attracted.

Many people in the literary world are paying attention to this "sugar pill" incident. It was born out of a meeting in Hangzhou and started by chance, but in the end it may reflect the appeal of the writer himself - those who are capable have posted articles in support, hoping to really accomplish this great cause.

Ba Lao wrote two essays, both published in Wenhui Daily. One was about his granddaughter Duanduan, and the other recalled how Yu Qie wrote the novel Happy Hunting in a short time at his home.

If Ba Lao remembered correctly, Yu Qie only took two or three days.

(End of this chapter)