Literary Master 1983

Chapter 295 The Chinese are Creating Their Own Land
"Hundreds of billions of yuan were invested, involving millions of square kilometers of land and hundreds of millions of people... It happened in a grand and sweeping way, so that satellites could be launched from inside mountains, railways could be built inside karst caves, and the molten iron on the surface of the earth was hotter than the earth's core! And all of this happened only a few hundred meters away from a mountain village middle school."

"Satellites, steam turbines, and elementary geometric formulas on ballpoint pens exist in the same space. An inland student, on a mountain near his home, can see all the industries that have developed throughout human history. While thinking about what to eat today, where the food will grow, and how to cut pig feed, he sees shipyards and oil and gas fields, and the loudspeaker on the way to school shouts 'We will resolutely thwart the wolfish ambitions of imperialism,' 'We are absolutely not afraid of nuclear blackmail'... The teacher tells him that what he is learning today is for the liberation of all mankind, and that in other parts of the distant earth, there are revolutionary brothers who depend on him for salvation. He writes formulas and symbols with a pen covered in frostbite, thinking to himself, 'You are the successor.'"

"At that moment, he felt both lonely and immense, which created an unparalleled sense of beauty."

People were gradually struck by Yu Qie's descriptions.

The Third Front construction was something that even many people in mainland China were unaware of.

For example, Lin Bingnan, a researcher who studied siltation in Nanjing, had a group of people in his research group who were curious about "why there are so few large dams in the middle and upper reaches of this place".
Are we really that poor?
When any country begins economic development, the first thing it does is infrastructure construction.

For more than a decade, no new large or medium-sized reservoirs were built in this area, and some industries needed to be relocated to the mountains to establish new settlements inside the rocky outcrops. People assumed that an unprecedented war would destroy productivity to the point where only basic industries remained.

Is this similar to many opening chapters of "nuclear literature"?

The protagonist often wakes up in an air-raid shelter, clutching rations, only to learn that the surface world is riddled with nuclear radiation. He endures countless hardships to reach the surface, only to find it ravaged by war. Someone warns him via an old radio:

Comrade, leave immediately! This is a no-man's land. Please be aware of your radiation levels; they are about to exceed safe limits...

So your situation is so bad, you start with just a few cookies and a can of water, and you even found the gun with only a few bullets. What is your main mission?

The radio then said: Your mission is to save the human world!

what?
Decades later, when many mainland Chinese gamers are still enthusiastically discussing post-apocalyptic games and their cultural settings, they don't know why they were interested in them in the first place. In reality, what evokes human emotion often stems from one's own lived experience.

You think those are elements of the Big Brother, but they are actually closer to your own elements.

Yu Qie realized this and, in Boston in 1986, revealed the origin of this setting in its entirety, shocking everyone present.

It turns out that what we were doing before was just playing house. If we're talking about something truly hardcore, the real deal is on the other side of the Pacific.

Marquez was stunned. "I never imagined such a thing could happen. I'm so proud of my Chinese brothers!"

Yu Qie, a little boy from the mountains, now stands before the people of Boston, recounting the earth-shaking changes that have taken place in his hometown, though it was once unknown.

How much hardship and displacement did they endure?
When no one knew who Yu Qie was, his hometown nurtured him. Now that many people know who Yu Qie is, he wants to give his hometown everything.

Márquez was even moved to tears, which reminded him of Neruda, the Chilean poet.

The initial closeness between Márquez, Vargas Llosa, and others to Youche had historical roots. Neruda was a mutual friend of both, a man of extreme sincerity and passionate emotion. His friends said that "everything he touched became poetry."

In 1950, China published "The Collected Poems of Neruda." Upon hearing this, Neruda immediately wrote in his poem: "Long live Mao! Long live the People's China!"

The following year, Neruda visited China and wrote the long poem "The Song of the New China," which contained lines that Yu Qie had recently translated. This is why Yu Qie so despises Gu Hua and will not let him off the hook at this moment.

The poem reads:
"Now, people all over the world clearly see that..."

Your vast territory has been unified and united.

You are as swift and powerful as the wind.

Your sharp axe strikes the traitor.

The light of victory pierces the enemy!

In the 57 years that followed, Neruda visited China for the third time. This time he said, "This nation simply cannot create anything ugly. Even the most primitive straw sandals look like flowers made of straw!"

Then, at the rally, he recited his own poem to the audience and declared: "The Chinese are creating their own land!"

Yes, we are creating our own land.

When Yu Qie wrote Neruda's words, he had already pronounced Gu Hua's doom in his heart.

Neruda was certainly not a perfect man, but the passionate man not only loved China, but also his own homeland, Chile. He wanted to do more than just write poetry; like many Latin American writers, he wanted to truly participate in social development. However, this became his death knell. In the end, Neruda was poisoned in his own home, and all his possessions were taken away.

Writers in communist countries often receive higher pay and better treatment than those in other professions, not to make them traitors.

Imagine the rage in Yu Qie's heart as he translated the Chilean poet's poems while hearing that Gu Hua had defected for money.

However, Yu Qie did not mention Nie Hualing and others much on this occasion.

Because these people don't deserve it.

Marquez grasped Yu Qie's hand: "My previous understanding of Chinese people all came from you. You are the only Chinese person I have ever met. Now I know what kind of place nurtured someone like you! I have the utmost respect for you!"

"I will definitely come to China once in my lifetime."

Afterwards, Vargas Llosa also reached out his hand to Yuche and apologized once again for misunderstanding Yuche earlier.

A Chinese reporter from the World Journal talked about something that Yu Qie was unaware of.

“Mr. Yu, as a Chinese newspaper, we used to serialize Lu Xun’s ‘Diary on Horseback,’ in which he wrote about his daily life, and readers loved reading it. We haven’t done this for decades, but I think now is the time.”

Yu Qie looked embarrassed: "I don't have the habit of writing a diary for others to see. What I write down will definitely be a rosy version of myself."

"Then I will write a diary for you, selecting some important things you have said and talked about, and serialize them in the newspaper."

"I'm afraid I don't have much time."

"It starts now, and it ends when you leave the United States."

Yu Qie finally agreed. So now there's a mixed-race Chinese reporter at the Omni Parker Hotel.

He was, after all, an American, so unlike Yu Qie and others on the floor, he was not allowed to be present during Yu Qie's private conversations with the group members in order to maintain secrecy. But the Chinese reporter still worked very hard.

Because Yu Qie corresponded with Márquez and others periodically, and his agent Carmen would also come to Boston to see him. Carmen was so famous in the Western publishing world that she was even worthy of a book and a biography, and there were even biographies of her. The Chinese reporter said, "Mr. Yu, this information alone is enough for me to write a book, and it will definitely sell well!"

Yu Qie quickly realized that the World Journal, where the reporter Hua worked, had become an excellent propaganda weapon for him to attack Nie Hualing and others.

Historically, Lu Xun wrote a lot of rambling entries in his "Diary on Horseback," and then suddenly changed the subject, saying, "I think..." thus expressing his own viewpoint.

That's interesting. Otherwise, why would Lu Xun be so good at verbal sparring? He's the kind of person who's thinking about vegetable prices one second and then thinking, "Why isn't that damn guy dead yet?"
Yu Qie began to learn this set of techniques.

“I learned about Ms. Nie and her white husband through a friend. Although their relationship has lasted for many years and they have become a de facto marriage, neither of them has gone through divorce proceedings. I don’t think it could be that they both cheated on each other. This scared me a bit. Maybe it’s fake news.”

“At today’s meeting, someone in the group said that Gu Hua must be writing some kind of novel that slanders the motherland and compatriots. I sternly rebuked that person! I have never wanted to think so badly of our comrades!”

"Gu Hua's peaches have already caused a great deal of impact, so his domestic films have been suspended. Actor Jiang Wen called me and said that he hopes Gu Hua will die soon. He asked me what I thought, and I told him. After that, he said I was too extreme."

"Am I a really bad person? I don't think I'm extreme."

……

The news was published one by one through the World Journal, and the sheer volume of messages quickly overwhelmed those of Nie Hualing and others.

Nie Hualing's report on Yu Qie's "guns" was also easily resolved.

After seeing Nie Hualing's message, Yu Qie immediately filmed a hunting video. In the video, Yu Qie wore a cowboy hat, showing off his large chest muscles and strong arms. He shot down a wild boar with one shot, then carried half of the wild boar and posted the photo on Chinese media.

In his holiday diary in the World Journal, Yu Che also stated that he is a person who enjoys hunting.

Upon seeing the news, Gu Hua trembled with excitement: "Yu Qie has gone mad! He actually posted violent and bloody photos on his own initiative! The Americans should arrest him and put him in jail!"

Nie Hualing's expression, however, was quite unpleasant.

Because right after this message was sent out, her current husband, Paul, advised her to sacrifice a pawn to save the king.

“We shouldn’t be going against Mr. Yu… Today I saw a newspaper at school with huge fonts, rewritten in ink, with slogans against the writing project, and people were shouting to punish the traitors! I think it’s time to stop, this is none of our business.”

"Paul, what did you call him?"

"Mr. Yu."

"How can you call him Mr. Yu? You're a professor at the University of Iowa!"

"That's what Márquez is called too; he was on the entrance exam. The University of Virginia had an entrance exam question: 'Please talk about a book that changed your worldview.' If you don't know it, even if you're studying polymer materials... you'll still lose your chance to get in because of your ignorance. If you answer Kafka, Chekhov, or someone like that, the examiner will pass you. If you answer Márquez's novels, you'll get a perfect score."

Nie Hualing then fell silent.

Paul then relayed the school's thoughts to her: the University of Iowa believed this matter could backfire, and therefore refused to offer Gu Hua any temporary position.

This means that Gu Hua cannot support himself.

“We can’t keep supporting him like this. Remember that abandoned child? We adopted that child! According to federal law, the Child Welfare Agency is required to give us $1000 a month, but this middle-aged man doesn’t do that. He only spends our money. Why should we bear this expense for nothing?”

Nie Hualing asked, "What do the teachers in your office think of Yu Qie?"

"He's like Hemingway."

"Hemingway?"

"Yes, not only are their writing styles similar, but they are also both true tough guys!"

Hemingway is considered the greatest American writer of this century. He served in the military, worked as a war correspondent, drank hard liquor, and chased women... Although he made the mistake of being a communist, he is still the contemporary Qiao Feng in the hearts of Americans, a writer's version of Captain America.

Paul was clearly starting to talk about Yuche's "gun" incident. In his view, owning a gun wasn't a big deal.

In terms of numbers, Iowa has seven times more pigs than humans!
It's not just domesticated pigs; wild boars are rampant. In areas where wild boar herds roam, annual grain yields can be reduced by half, or even result in total crop failure. The state government encourages hunters to kill wild boars and provides subsidies.

Paul pointed to Yu Che in the photo and said, "Hemingway's favorite things were hunting and fishing. He went to Africa specifically to look for lions and fight them. We like tough guys. He even killed Vietnamese people. You know, Yu Che also killed Vietnamese people in the ditch."

“You’re an American professor, how can you praise your enemy like that? It’s shameful,” Nie Hualing said.

"Hemingway was a KGB spy. He also said that the red would surely win."

"Who did he say that to? Hemingway is such a traitor! I've never heard of him."

“President Roosevelt,” Paul said.

Nie Hualing was truly at a loss.

As a nation that needs to attract the world's elites, the United States has its naiveté in order to demonstrate its magnanimity. Like spending a fortune to buy a horse's bones, they can grit their teeth and endure Márquez's ridicule of the government and bestow honors upon him. This has prompted the United States to attract new immigrants to make a pilgrimage, all of whom believe themselves to be the kind of superheroes who can make their country bow down... This moment also makes Nie Hualing feel helpless.

She suddenly realized that Yu Qie understood Americans better than Americans themselves, and that the carefully crafted situation was easily broken.

Perhaps I am not a good fighter, otherwise how could I have been divorced for so many years and still not been able to resolve the lawsuit? A scholar who starts an army will not succeed even after ten years.

The support from Márquez and Vargas Llosa had a significant impact on her, and she quickly realized that Yu Qie was not someone to be trifled with—these kinds of people are the most annoying. Why didn't you announce your connections to the world from the beginning?

Marquez has a lot of die-hard fans in the US these days. That's just how Americans are; they're not afraid of you being their enemy, they're only afraid you're not cool enough, only afraid you're a coward. Their binary thinking doesn't allow them to think too much.

Nie Hualing had to tell Gu Hua, "We can't support you forever; you may need to find another way out."

Gu Hua could have foreseen this day, but he didn't expect it to happen so quickly.

(End of this chapter)