Literary Master 1983

Chapter 218 Operation Spring Rain
Xu Chi found out that most of Yu Qie's current royalties come from abroad. In the first half of last year, Yu Qie only had a few tens of thousands of yuan in savings.

Then in the second half of the year, he created a series of novels in Japan and Southeast Asia. Through the huge foreign exchange differences, Yu Qie earned unimaginable royalties.

The country is very happy. How can one person earn so much foreign exchange? He is a great hero!
But even so, Yu Qie's life was still a little extravagant.

How can it be so extravagant?
Xu Chi asked Yu Qie: "Yu Qie, do we really need a bicycle worth a few thousand yuan and a house worth tens of thousands of yuan? The young writer we report to the people of the whole country, the role model of a generation! Is it someone who eats steak, drinks red wine, rides a Yamaha heavy motorcycle, and listens to Teresa Teng's tapes?"

Yu Qie laughed and said, "This was not possible before 1984, but it is just possible now. Just write it."

Xu Chi added: "I am worried that this will cause society to have some negative associations with the profession of writer."

Yu Qie shook his head: "You are wrong. The real bad association is that making missiles is not as good as selling tea eggs. The more money a writer makes, the more popular this profession is - if he makes a lot of money, it means he is liked by readers."

"We are not exploitative. As long as we don't write nonsense and are not overly negative, any social opinion will tolerate us!"

Xu Chi stopped trying to persuade Yu Qie.

Yu Qie himself doesn't care, why should I worry about it?
Even after Chen Jingrun became famous, didn't he receive countless love letters? Yu Qie must have known this. Besides, apart from his slightly extravagant lifestyle and his preference for foreign electrical appliances, he could hardly find any fault with Yu Qie.

Yu Qie loved to entertain guests, and the more he ate, the more money he had. He never spent as much as he earned.

Many writers in Beijing had eaten Yu Qie's meals, and when they commented on Yu Qie's articles, they always took Yu Qie's feelings into consideration. It was a well-known fact that Yu Qie had money, so people did not feel any psychological burden when asking for money.

If there is still someone who has never been invited to dinner by Yu Che or has never been contacted by him, this person will be implicitly excluded, which forces some more introverted writers to find opportunities to meet Yu Che.

After you eat my steak, you can no longer talk nonsense about me!
Xu Chi also started eating steak. He was defeated by Yu Qie's barbecue offensive.

The steak is so good and the steak is so fragrant.

Yu Qie was right: "Most of the money I earn is from foreigners. What can't I use to eat? Even the chief said that raising seven chickens is nothing. Raising seventy chickens is fine! My novels are the chickens I raise to lay eggs."

On the fifth day of the first lunar month, some units started to go back to work. UNICEF set up a donation project related to "polio vaccine", referred to as "Spring Rain Operation", to accept donations from the public.

This is the first donation project in China that is targeted at a specific disease and initiated by an individual. Gu Fangzhou, the president of Peking Union Medical College, was worried because his previous speeches to solicit sponsorship had all failed.

The leaders who denied him all said something similar: "Can the public really understand the disease you are talking about? We are using precious funds to do this, what if we are criticized by our superiors?"

"The people you want to vaccinate don't even know they have this potential disease. This is not only a funding issue, but also a publicity issue. Many people have never seen a polio patient in their lives and can't read a few words, but you ask them to climb several mountains to get a shot, or to eat a few candies. It's very difficult. In other words, it's not just difficult for us, but also for the people we help. They have to realize that they need to be vaccinated."

"It's different with diseases like smallpox. They've been publicized for half a century since the Republic of China, and now everyone knows about it!"

Many people at UNICEF were also curious. This is a charity organization under the name of the Women's Federation. At that time, there were many rural women who needed help with gynecological diseases. For example, after giving birth, some rural women immediately went to work without rest, and some suffered from "uterine prolapse" - the uterus was out of the body.

In some remote areas, women were laughed at after working in the fields, so they went back and cut their hair with scissors. Some of them died of heavy bleeding. If there is a little popular science or a formula, this kind of thing can be avoided.

In short, at the time there were all kinds of minor but very bizarre diseases that did cause tragedies to a few people, but they were not worth a large-scale mobilization as the cost was too huge.

If the sugar pill donation led by Yu Qie is successful, then donations for other projects can be done in the same way.

Save as many as you can, help as many as you can.

That’s what Yu Qie said.

Xu Chi was deeply moved by this sentence, which prompted him to write a better report. Once, Yu Qie received a call from home, asking him why he didn't go home for the New Year?

Yu Qie could only tell his family what he was doing, and then after hanging up the phone, he felt a little sad. This scene was seen by Xu Chi.

Xu Chi felt that this was an opportunity to communicate with Yu Qie, so he and Yu Qie had their first relatively in-depth conversation.

At this point, he had been in contact with Yu Qie for half a month, and it was time to enter into a deep conversation.

Yu Qi invited Xu Chi into the house, poured him some wine, turned on the tape recorder to play Debussy's piano piece "Moonlight", and placed fresh fruits on the table.

He lay on the sofa, asking Xu Chi to sit up straight, and chatted with him. Xu Chi gradually relaxed, and he first talked about his own affairs: "My wife passed away before the Spring Festival. I just handled her funeral, and then rushed to Yanjing. The organization gave me such a task, saying that only I can do it well!"

"When I came to the capital, my wife was still in my mind every day, and she was also in my dreams. She asked me why I was so heartless. I could only tell her that I was writing a report for a great writer!"

Xu Chi raised his head and said to Yu Qie: "So I actually came here with some emotions at the beginning. I don't know what kind of person deserves the organization to be so unkind! You must let me come! But I am very sorry to you personally, Yu Qie!"

Yu Qie asked him: "Do you think it's worth coming now?"

Xu Chi was silent for a moment, then said: "After seeing some of your things, I realized that the living are more precious. And the best report I wrote before was "Goldbach's Conjecture". If I can reach a new peak, I think my wife will be happy for me." Yu Qie wished him: "You will definitely succeed."

That night, Xu Chi suddenly thought of the academic paper "Latin American Realism" that Yu Qie submitted to "Foreign Literature Studies" two years ago. This paper directly revealed the essence of magical realism.

The editor-in-chief of Foreign Literature Research is Xu Chi himself. He was amazed when he saw the article and never thought that someone in China could know so much about Latin American literature.

He found a way to get this issue of the publication, and when he read it again, he was filled with mixed emotions. On the one hand, he was amazed that a writer could become successful so quickly. On the other hand, he discovered that Yu Qie did not become concerned about the suffering in the world until he became famous.

When he was still a high school student, he had actually been thinking about the much more distant Latin American continent. Of course, most of the time, this kind of thinking seems to be a whining in most people, but Yu Qie turned these thoughts into the foresight of giants and wise men!

Xu Chi wrote his thoughts in the report. This was the first character setting he established for Yu Qie: although young, he has a global vision.

Xu Chi began to write the report, his pen rustling on the paper.

"Foxes, machines, atomic bombs and nuclear wastelands, and industrial civilization."

"The above is a passage from the novel "Happy Hunting" which was nominated for the Japanese Akutagawa Prize. This novel is very novel. Not many people in China can understand it. It is full of literary intentions and historical allusions. If you are not a person who specializes in these knowledge, it is probably difficult to understand the artistic value of the novel. However, this novel has been welcomed in Japan. Before I came here, I specially read a Japanese newspaper "Asahi Shimbun". It said that if Yu Qie did not win the award, it would be a pity for the literary award. This is what the Japanese said!"

"So the author of the novel was recognized by the neighboring country, but he did not become famous today, because his author's surname is Yu, and his given name is Qie. He is a student at Yan University, a recipient of the Thai King's Medal, a second-class merit, and an idol of many young intellectuals."

"Yu Qie is from Sichuan Province, born in 1963. When he was born into this real world, his family and social life did not present him with the bright colors of a rose. His father was a middle school teacher, so he named him Yu Qie, a trigonometric function. He also has a sister named Yu Xian, who is said to be a good student. Yu Qie's family has been poor peasants for three generations, but many of them joined the army. If someone joined the Kuomintang at that time, they could have risen to prominence early, but his elders refused to join. They were really ignorant of the times. His mother is a kind and overworked woman, and currently works as a female worker in a textile factory."

"Yu Qie himself did not show any outstanding talent at the beginning, but his family placed all their hopes on him to become a successful person. This was because Yu Qie had three uncles in his previous generation. The eldest uncle was a soldier who participated in the Korean War; the second uncle was a researcher who worked in Lop Nur; and the third uncle was a translator. He left many books at home, which may be the source of Yu Qie's initial interest in literature... But these talented people have passed away, so his family had too high expectations for him."

"It took Yu Qie another two years to get into college. At that time, he had achieved absolutely nothing. He was introverted but hardworking, and he never gave up. One day, he collapsed on his desk due to studying too hard..."

"When he woke up, there were only a few months left before the college entrance examination. It seemed like another year of wasted effort. He would not have known that in just two years, he would quickly go the other way and far exceed the family's most ardent hopes for him. From then on, those who had expectations for him were not only the Yu family, but also tens of millions of readers across the country."

As he wrote this, Xu Chi suddenly burst into tears.

He reviewed Yu Qie's first half of his life, and suddenly realized that Yu Qie was a great man. He was gold that grew out of the mud.

Yes, it is not an exaggeration to describe this person as "great". He is just like those legendary figures in history, with a not-so-good start, and then like the child of destiny, when he displayed his talent, it was as if the whole world revolved around him, he quickly achieved success and revealed his true character.

Yu Qie's true nature is kindness, and he is a person who speaks for the masses. Although his life has become more and more extravagant because of the money he has made, he always speaks for the public tirelessly and is not stingy with money, which has never changed for a moment.

Xu Chi put his pen down here, thinking that he had written half a good report.

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After the establishment of "Spring Rain Action", it was first warmly welcomed in Beijing. In Beijing alone, more than 100,000 donations were collected in a few days! Whether in Gulou Street or Tongluoguxiang, people talked about donations and "Little Shoes".

Parents lined up in long queues, bringing their children to the door of the Children's Foundation on Jianguomenwai Street, and donated enthusiastically. The children only had a few cents, while the parents had more, some even donated a few yuan, and sometimes even generously donated a huge sum of ten yuan. The media reported this grand scene one after another, and Xinhua News Agency described it as "a victory for the people, the voice of the people, and solid evidence of unity!"

The Economic Information Daily, the country's first economic newspaper, has seriously discussed whether "donations" will become a common fundraising method, becoming a third hand besides the market and administration to make up for the shortcomings of the social safety net...

Various reports emerged one after another, almost all of which affirmed the value of this action. People in the political world saw the cohesive power of literature on society, while those in the economics world saw a new means of regulation.

The literary world was astonished by Yu Qie's influence:
Raising money for charity through a novel! It's simply a fantasy, but he is about to succeed!

Wang Meng discussed privately with Feng Mu of Literary Gazette: "I'm afraid that the popularity of his novels has not been matched in the past ten years. I thought that a new literary theme was going to be born, and it was indeed born! But Yu Qie wrote the most traditional and simple story, but achieved the greatest effect. I am almost confused. I don't know if other people who write magical realism or neo-realism can achieve the same results as Yu Qie."

Feng Mu turned around and boasted about what Wang Meng had said, letting the whole world know about it.

But Wang Meng doesn't think so. Wang Meng is a big mouth and he doesn't care how others evaluate him.

Yu Qi also donated money himself. When he was interviewed by the Beijing Evening News, he said that he donated all the royalties he received from the novel "Little Shoes" in mainland China to contribute to the vaccine.

In response to Yu Qie's call, many writers also donated part of their royalties to the "Spring Rain Action." Qu Tiening of Huashan magazine donated all his previous review article royalties, while Yu Hua, a student of Lu Xun's advanced study class, donated 60 yuan.

There is no other way, Yu Hua can only have this much money. "Going Far Away at the Age of Eighteen" is a short story, only about 20,000 to 30,000 words.

The advanced training class started on the ninth day of the first lunar month. The first batch of students consisted of more than ninety people, among whom Yu Hua, Su Tong, Qu Tiening, Wang Anyi, Liu Zhenyun, Guan Moye and others became famous writers in later generations.

This group of students had to study for half a year, and Yu Qi was responsible for the concept of novels. In the first class, Teacher Yu criticized scar literature without a doubt, saying that anyone who wrote such novels in the future would be kicked out of the advanced training class.

(End of this chapter)