Literary Master 1983

Chapter 307 Mutual Help Among Friends

Yuqie's position was achieved precisely in these places.

He either defeats his opponent head-on and wins the literary war of words!

Either do what ordinary people cannot!

Are there really that many people in the world who truly understand literature?
How is the status of a writer established?
Forty years later, literature professors in mainland China compiled a "List of 100 Chinese Writers," in which Zhang Ailing, Lu Xun, and Shen Congwen ranked in the top three (in no particular order, all with a perfect score). The judges considered many factors, including the quality and quantity of their works and their literary style, and believed that their selection was quite fair.

The release of the list caused a huge uproar.

Apart from Lu Xun, the public doesn't acknowledge any of them.

The judges panicked and began analyzing the selection process from various angles, including creative techniques and literary innovation, to prove that they hadn't made a random choice. However, all their arguments were refuted by a single sentence from the public:
If they were literary giants, then what did they do for our nation?
Yes, you can also ask the reverse: if Zhang Ailing and Shen Congwen didn't exist, what impact would it have on this nation?
Why don't you ask Lu Xun this question? You'll have the answer.

What makes them comparable to Lu Xun?

This situation occurred again after Guan Moye won the Nobel Prize. People were astonished that China's first Nobel Prize was awarded to Guan Moye. Some people bluntly said, "If Mr. Guan can win the Nobel Prize, and he is of this level, then since the founding of the People's Republic of China, at least ten people can be named who are no worse than him."

It is evident that once a writer reaches a certain level, literary techniques are no longer the key to making them stand out.

Yu Qie said, "Márquez has received a lot of praise today for 'One Hundred Years of Solitude,' but you and I both know that it is far from enough."

"The scenario where someone locks themselves in a room, throws out good works, and waits to reap all the rewards doesn't exist in reality."

Carmen understood. Yuche hadn't suddenly gone mad and wanted to challenge the Chilean warlord government; rather, things had come to this point with no turning back, and he had a longer-term ambition in mind.

But Carmen was worried about Yu Che's current situation: "You should keep a low profile for a while. How about you come with me to Barcelona tomorrow? Or Paris?"

"I cannot leave here until everything is clear."

Carmen was furious, jumping up and down: "You're so stubborn! You don't want to listen to Auntie, even though she's doing it for your own good!"

"Big Mama" is Carmen's nickname. These Latin American writers certainly wouldn't call Carmen "Pope" in private, but rather "Big Mama," meaning that she was like a family member, the helmsman of this large family, sheltering everyone from the storms of life.

She was a very emotional person. Márquez wrote a short story called "The Funeral of Big Mom" ​​about Carmen and even called her "the tearful one" because she couldn't help but cry when she read her favorite works.

This reminded Márquez, Vargas Llosa, and others of their mothers when they were children.

At that time, they knew nothing about literature. Their mother read famous works by renowned writers as her bedtime reading, which inspired their literary journey.

Now, whether it's the "Pope" or "Big Mom," no matter their identities, they can't do anything to Yu Qie, and Carmen couldn't help but cry.

She said, “You have a captivating quality. You believe you are the chosen one, and everyone else in the world will be captivated by your charm. When I stand in front of you, I sometimes have that thought too… But when I leave you, I know clearly that you are made of flesh and blood, and it only takes one bullet to end your young heart.”

“The bullets wouldn’t have hit me!” Yu Qie said. “I died once in Vietnam when a bullet hit the bamboo curtain on my back. That bamboo curtain is now in a military museum. Actually, when the bullet pierced the bamboo curtain, a fragment grazed my ear. I suspect I bled, but I was too excited to notice at the time.”

"Yu Qie, you almost died, what's with all the excitement?"

"Because I am the only one in the whole world who knows what I have changed."

Because of Yuqie, that hill was captured by our army ahead of schedule, and Ning Ke and other soldiers who were originally likely to sacrifice themselves now have a new future.

How could he not feel excited?
Seeing that she could not persuade Yu Qie, Carmen had no choice but to let him continue writing.

She privately arranged for several more bodyguards to live outside the Márquez house, forming a second line of defense with the original security.

“From now on, you should go out as little as possible and not reveal your whereabouts to others. After all, Chile is a country’s government. It’s impossible for them to send people to break into Márquez’s house in broad daylight and kill you. That would cause a huge public outcry.”

"But if you go out, things might change. They really might take action."

Although Yu Qie was bold, he wasn't stupid, and on this point he agreed with Carmen.

Yu Qie's actions also attracted attention domestically. Wang Meng called Yu Qie and asked, "Is this Mr. Márquez?"

“It’s me, Yu Qie.”

Wang Meng was not only the editor-in-chief of *People's Literature*, but also the head of the cultural department. It was he who arranged Yu Qie's trips to Columbia and the United States.

“You, Yu Qie!” Wang Meng said with a wry smile, “You can just write novels, but you’ve become a detective. What if you cause some international trouble? Although Chile is a warlord government, their relationship with us is still okay.”

Yu Qie asked, "Have you read Neruda's poems?"

"I've read it. He's a great lover; the versions currently popular in China are all translated by you. Speaking of which, *People's Literature* still pays you five yuan per thousand words. Come back and collect your payment..."

Wang Meng knew what Yu Qie was going to say.

In Yu Qie's translation of Neruda's poetry collection, apart from a few love poems, most of them are his verses on revolution and social construction.

As expected, Yu Qie said, "Editor-in-Chief Wang, Neruda took a huge risk and visited us many times from faraway Chile in the early days of our establishment to promote us. Colombia, where I am now, is one of the countries farthest from Beijing in the world. In fact, Chile is even farther away."

"Editor-in-Chief Wang, if the People's Literature magazine office in Beijing could shoot a beam of light down to the ground, and if it could penetrate the Earth's core to the other side, that would be Argentina, and the coast of Argentina would be Chile. Neruda traveled all this way to see us! And he came three times."

Wang Meng was speechless and could only say, "Brother Yu, even if you disagree, you don't need to call me Editor-in-Chief Wang. Although my surname is indeed Wang... I am your friend."

Yu Qie couldn't help but burst into laughter: "If you've been framed, as long as I'm alive, I'll speak up for you. Even if I die, my bones will speak for my friend!"

These words quickly moved Wang Meng.

Because of a difficult early life, Wang Meng experienced the harsh realities of human relationships. Now in his fifties, how many people know that Wang Meng was once a young writer ahead of his time?
His most famous work, "Song of Youth," was written in the 1950s when he was nineteen years old, and was only published after being shelved for decades.

At crucial moments in Wang Meng's life, he was always rescued from dire straits, ensuring his literary passion never died out. When he was penniless, he won his wife's heart by writing love poems; their wedding was simple, consisting only of a bowl of noodles with soybean paste. During his 22 years of exile, sixteen of those years were in the frontier regions, where friends distanced themselves from him, while his wife gave up her high school teaching position in Beijing to join him in the frontier labor. This period even stretched on until Wang Meng became a Uyghur language expert, and just when he thought he would inevitably spend his life in the frontier, someone took notice of his novels and promoted him to Beijing. Upon learning of his promotion, dozens of people gathered at the train station to see him off, but Wang Meng only thanked his most sincere friends.

Then Wang Meng rose rapidly through the ranks and began to take all the honors he had missed in the past.

At this point, Wang Meng couldn't hold back any longer: "My friend! I should have supported you!"

After hanging up the phone, Wang Meng, as the editor-in-chief of People's Literature, convened a meeting, at which she requested that some of Neruda's poems be selected and introduced to the readers.

The editor asked him, "Neruda is a great writer! Which poems should we choose? Which versions?"

"Let's choose the one translated by Yu Qie," Wang Meng said.

These poems were quickly reprinted in the country.

The translator was Yu Qie, and the original work was by a Nobel laureate, so it was naturally very popular. However, people discovered that in addition to love poems such as "I like you when you are silent, as if you have disappeared," Yu Qie's translated poetry collections also included a large number of poems of protest.

"Ink, drop by drop, guards the traces of my reason and irrationality."

"When the beautiful leaves have all fallen, the veins of life become clearly visible."

……

It turns out Neruda was actually a combat poet!
"Professor Guan!" Yu Hua, who had come to Beijing to submit his manuscript again, ran into Guan Moye at the October magazine and was immediately overjoyed.

"Yu Qie has a lot of new works recently! His translation of Neruda makes me feel like I'm seeing a completely different person! He's very influential in Colombia, even sitting with Gallo and Márquez. Don't you admire Gallo? You said he's a handsome man among writers! Then you should admire Yu Qie even more!"

Guan Moye said, “My feelings for Yu Qie are too complicated. He is my friend and my teacher, but sometimes I feel like I am in the palm of his hand. I can fly 108,000 miles in one go, but I only see the Five Finger Mountain.”

“I once dreamed that I became the first person of magical realism, and that dream was wonderful! But when I woke up, everyone was talking about Latin American realism, which is Yu Che’s terminology.”

Yu Hua felt the same way. However, he didn't think there was anything wrong with it.

"If the sky falls, someone will hold it up. Isn't this a ban from Chile? It's all in the news. Their ambassador came to protest here. Yuche must be feeling terrible."

Among Chinese writers, some have also discussed this matter.

Yu Qie and Chile have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but now they've inexplicably come together.

Li Ao recently started dating a new girlfriend, while his ex-wife Hu Yinmeng became a sensation on the island after starring in the TV series "This Is How We All Grow Up," which made Li Ao very unhappy.

Everyone thought Li Ao was a scumbag who abandoned Hu Yinmeng, but few people knew that the reason Li Ao divorced Hu Yinmeng was because Hu Yinmeng had falsely accused him. Li Ao was so angry that he held a press conference on the spot to announce the divorce.

Li Ao wrote an article supporting Yu Qie, which was published in the China Times: "People say that the most righteous are often from humble backgrounds, while the most ungrateful are often scholars. I think scholars still have a sense of righteousness, and Yu Qie is very righteous! But beautiful women are very good at deceiving people, and the prettier they are, the more they can deceive people. Here I want to mention my ex-wife Hu Yinmeng..."

He also took a sarcastic jab at his ex-wife.

Yu Guangzhong didn't write an article about this, because he was busy preparing for his trip to mainland China to participate in the "Top Ten Modern Poets" event held by the poetry magazine *Stars* in Chengdu. Because of his "Ice-Melting Journey," Yu Guangzhong, who doesn't write much poetry, was voted into the list by readers.

However, he also expressed his thoughts in the interview: "Let academics be academics. How exactly did Neruda die? Technology is already very advanced. We can open the coffin and extract some tissue to find out what toxins he was contaminated with."

On the other side of Colombia, Yuche now hardly ever goes out.

Once he goes out, several people dressed similarly to him will come out with him. Yu Qie is tall and has a similar build to the bodyguards sent by the government.

In order to gather material, he visited the slums several times, and on one of those occasions, he met his guide Carlos again.

Carlos was very excited: "Mr. Yu, I didn't know you were such a great person. It is my honor to serve you, a person like you, right in front of me!"

Yu Qie patted Carlos on the shoulder in a friendly manner.

The young man from the slum took Yu Qie to a deeper part of the slum. It rained heavily that day, and there Yu Qie smelled a familiar rotten egg smell.

Where have I smelled it before?

It appears to be at Bogotá Airport in Colombia. The location is about 15 kilometers outside of Bogotá city center and was originally a military airport.

President Betancur is seeking funding to expand the airport. Due to Bogotá's high-altitude, sloping terrain, this airport, located outside the city, is situated on the slope below the slope.

During heavy rains, the airport is easily flooded, giving off a musty, rusty smell.

According to Carlos, local gangs would bury people in the ground or throw them into the river after killing them, so that the bodies could decompose quickly.

Does that mean there might be a large number of corpses at the airport?

The smell was absolutely overwhelming.

Yu Qie asked about a rumor circulating in the community: "Would they pour people into cement? Wouldn't that be convenient?"

"Impossible. Cement hardens slower than the body decomposes. As the body decomposes, it will continuously seep water and release air. Cement has many tiny pores that are invisible to the naked eye, and the odor will come out from these pores, making it smell terrible."

"What if we absolutely have to pour in cement?"

"That would require several layers of plastic bags to form a sealed container."

Carlos was an old hand, and Yu Qie didn't ask him how he knew.

(End of this chapter)