Literary Master 1983

Chapter 318 The Descendant of the Yin-Shang Dynasty Comes True
There are still several million people!

Yu Qie was moved by the enthusiasm of the Native American readers, and he decided to take the time to learn about Native American history.

This is his fundamental duty as a literary icon.

If you buy my book, you are my brother; if you don't buy my book, you will no longer be my brother.

When an English book is published in the US, the author can usually get "10%-12%" of the selling price. Yu Qie discovered that this was almost the same as the tax rate of medieval religions.

When someone pays this tithe, God should respond to the believer's call.

It is generally believed that Native Americans are among the lowest-income ethnic groups in the United States, but this is only a superficial observation.

Another phenomenon is that the tribe receives substantial transfer payments, with some local governments allocating a fixed amount of money each year to maintain the ethnic diversity of Native Americans.

This money belongs neither to the Native Americans nor to the government; it exists in a Schrödinger's cat-like state—a large sum, roughly three billion US dollars, is real every year, but if you look closely at where the money goes, it seems to not exist at all.

A portion of the money was used to purchase items that reflected Native American identity, including Native American literature.

Momadi rose to prominence precisely because of this. His rise delighted the American literary world, filling a void.

In some ways, he is similar to Alai in his role with Tibetan literature. Alai is a good friend of Yuqie, formerly an editor of a literary journal in Aba, and now a full-time writer.

Alai, a young man from Malkang who graduated from a vocational high school, used to write poetry, but failed in his studies for several years.

He then wrote novels, which seemed to bring him some success, but in reality, he continued to flop.

One day, he had a sudden realization that he could use magical realism combined with Tibetan national epics and myths... This approach was unmatched in China. Those who could write it were not Tibetans and were not qualified to write it. True Tibetans might not be able to write serious literature. He might even be a fifth-generation writer of Rick. Alai also benefited from the momentum of national literature. In addition, his literary skills had reached their peak at this time, so he easily won the Mao Dun Literature Prize.

This is a stable market, a good place that can provide Yu Qie with a steady stream of sales. Moreover, it can guarantee that every book Yu Qie writes in the future will be displayed at the front of the bookstore, because the United States has some compensatory regulations in this regard.

The CCTV crew discovered that Yu Qie had gathered relevant materials, and he had stuck the feather into his pen, transforming himself into a descendant of the Yin-Shang dynasty and writing manuscripts.

His room was frequently visited by writer and historian Momadi, his fifty-year-old good brother who was a descendant of the Shang dynasty.

Yu Qie showed Qian Zhongshu's research findings to Momadi: "Have you noticed that some of your Native American scripts are similar to our oracle bone script? Perhaps thousands of years ago, we were brothers."

"Why did the Indians live on the banks of the Mississippi River? Because their ancestors lived on the Yellow River. It was a call from the depths of their blood."

“Mississippi, Yellow River; sounds unrelated? No, thousands of years ago, the Chinese didn’t call the Yellow River that. We used Classical Chinese, which also had a rolled 'r' sound. And you naturally don’t call it Mississippi either; that’s because white people distorted the name.”

Momadi was taken aback: "I was just trying to ride the wave, I was just talking nonsense, and you're actually serious about it?"

But why do those characters look so similar?

Could it really be like that?

"Yu Qie, did you verify this? You've made an incredible discovery!" The more Momadi looked at it, the more doubtful he became about life.

Are Native Americans really descendants of the Shang Dynasty?

Of course they look alike!

Egyptian hieroglyphs and Sumerian scripts both resemble oracle bone script—ultimately, most of humanity's original writing systems originated from pictures, but the Chinese have stubbornly used this pictographic system to this day.

If a few words are similar, then Chinese people are compatriots, and the whole world can be claimed by Chinese people.

But how could Yu Qie deny it?

It wasn't him who said it; it was Qian Zhongshu who verified it himself. I'll take the royalties, you take the blame.

He said seriously, "This is the result of research by a professor named Qian Zhongshu. He is the vice dean of our academy, but he is not a bureaucrat, but a true scholar! He obtained his Oxford diploma decades ago. He is knowledgeable in both ancient and modern times, and can apply both Chinese and Western knowledge."

Princeton University offered him $120,000 per lecture!

This is easy to verify; it's fake.

But we did indeed hire Qian Zhongshu.

Momadi was starting to believe it.

Princeton is a research university with more faculty than students. You can't get invited there unless you have exceptional skills.

If someone wins the Nobel Prize and happens to be at Princeton University, the scholars at Princeton will present that person with their pens as a sign of their highest respect.

Furthermore, Princeton University has a very strong program in Chinese literature. This means that Qian Zhongshu's research in this area is recognized.

He asked, "This person is so famous, why have I never heard of him?"

"Because he was a noble person. He rarely appeared in public, rarely argued with others, and was low-key and humble. These were all his extraordinary wisdom, and I was fortunate enough to have met him."

Momadi looked at him with admiration. "Unassuming, down-to-earth, he's a true Native American."

"Cough cough..." Yu Qie choked and said, "You're right."

Then Yu Qie began to tell the story: "Thousands of years ago, a group of people from the East crossed the Bering Strait to the Americas and established their homeland there. At that time, the Central Plains of China was in the Shang Dynasty, and we believe that these people were undoubtedly descendants of the Shang Dynasty..."

Momadi was very impressed after hearing this and accepted his explanation.

“I will lobby for your book. I believe in your novel; it’s the kind of novel we Indians want.”

What Momadi was really thinking? Yu Qie had no idea.

Does he really believe Yu Qie's nonsense? Maybe.

Or could this be used to unite Native Americans?
Because the Native Americans actually consist of many tribes and races, but now they at least have a common spiritual community—the Shang Dynasty thousands of years ago.

This spiritual community is so perfect that it can never be touched, and therefore can never be disproven.

As the "astounding wisdom" of the Native Americans, Momadi, the Native American sage, began to frequently campaign for Yu Che's novels and recommend this set of ideas to every Native American.

"The reason we read '2666' and admire Yu Qie's novel is not only because he wrote about Latin American history, but also because he is one of our own!"

"Look at him! The feathers on his head, the warhorse he rides! His shoulders are broad enough to perch an eagle! With a wave of his hand, he could pierce a cougar's skull!"

"He is a true warrior! He has the genes of a fierce Aztec warrior!"

Momadi used the hunting videos and photos that Yu Qie had taken to persuade him.

The Native Americans were filled with admiration upon seeing his physique: Yes, this is what we Native Americans truly look like. We are not a bunch of gamblers and drug addicts, not rare animals kept in captivity, we are brave warriors.

Every time Momadi came, he brought good news: a group of Native Americans living on a reservation had persuaded the local state government to purchase Yuche's novel "2666".

“Yuche’s novels are a cultural treasure of our Native Americans,” Momadi said.

The state government was surprised that "novels written by Chinese people could become cultural treasures of the Native Americans," but since the Native American literary star had said so, they decided to do it.

The Native Americans are already at the bottom of the valley; no matter which way they go, it's upwards. Are they not allowed to read books?

Yu Qie is skillfully depicting the plight of Native Americans in his novel.

The history of these people is roughly as follows:

Between the 16th and 19th centuries, the first people landed on the American continent. Western explorers encountered indigenous people.

They don't speak the same language, are of different races, and are like people living on different planets or being different creatures.

Then, somehow, some Native Americans accepted Westerners, which led to the creation of Thanksgiving: because the Native Americans provided them with food and water and guided them to settle in the Americas.

Subsequently, more and more white people came to this area, gradually leading to conflicts with the Native Americans, and eventually resulting in a brutal massacre of the Native Americans, which drastically reduced the Native American population throughout the Americas.

This is a fascist act.

It's not about competing for property or resources, but about systematically and industrially eliminating things without any reason, just like getting rid of pests—it's a matter of course.

Do people feel ashamed for eating meat?

Of course not.

The Native Americans were like livestock that were dragged away to be slaughtered.

This is a disgrace to civilized society. Its existence is enough to shatter the self-righteous social morality that humanity has built up since the Industrial Revolution, because it crumbles at the slightest touch.

According to American historians, Native Americans were surrounded and burned in flames by white people. They barely managed to escape the fire, only to be hacked to death with swords. Some Native Americans were even chopped into pieces. The massacre was swift, and very few managed to escape.

Yu Qie felt a sense of déjà vu when he saw these materials. He was writing the "Metro" trilogy and found that some of them could be incorporated into the novel.

Because Native Americans died so quickly, their original culture was disrupted and lost.

Native Americans lost their own writing system, their own language, and gradually lost their chiefs and tribal relationships. Without these, Native Americans could no longer be called Native Americans. Momadi's rise filled this void. He wrote a series of Native American literary works through archaeology, uniting these people together.

However, Momadi could not carry on his legacy alone. He wrote Native American history novels in English, much like those geniuses in the cultivation world who attained enlightenment through "empty proof." Once he died, no one could inherit his work.

At this time, the “Colombian trip” in the Latin American world prompted Momadi to take notice of the writer Yuche. He tried to get along with Yuche and believed that one day these friendships would be rewarded.

The Native Americans were indeed buying Yuche's books.

Under Momadi's guidance, Yu Qie's novels mysteriously appear in casinos run by Native Americans, serving as a symbol of good fortune.

Some gamblers, desperate after losing so much, stop making the sign of the cross and stop performing rituals; instead, they meditate on inspirational stories from Yu Qie's novels.

Carmen flew to an Indian reservation to conduct research and returned saying, "I believe that about one-sixth of the purchases of your book came from Indians. They neither look at nor read it, treating it like a feather on their head or a leather coat on their body. They treat your book as an ornament."

"But you should pay attention to this market! Because it is another Chinese community."

In the 1980s, there were fewer than one million Chinese Americans in the entire United States. Strictly speaking, the descendants of the Yin-Shang dynasty outnumbered the Chinese. Of the thirty million overseas Chinese, the vast majority actually lived in Southeast Asia.

This could actually become my base!

Yu Qie racked his brains trying to figure out how to incorporate the tragic history of the Native Americans into "Metro," since this was the only novel he had yet to publish.

The first draft of the manuscript was completed at this point.

He must solidify his title as the founder of "nuclear literature".

Furthermore, it adds a touch of literary flair to the novel.

Metro was originally a post-apocalyptic novel written by a Russian, but it was later adapted into a nuclear wasteland game, so its literary value is insufficient.

In the Western world, Yu Qie made two major innovations in literature. One is cyberpunk, but unfortunately, the title of the founder has been shared by everyone because cyberpunk is a concept that has been developing in the West for many years and no one can claim it alone. The other is nuclear literature, which Yu Qie completely pioneered. Before him, no one had proposed a complete worldview.

It didn't have a significant impact on anyone because the Chernobyl incident hadn't happened yet, and the public wasn't paying attention.

All of this made Yu Qie who he is.

Moreover, Yu Qie explained each inspiration clearly, explaining why it came about.
The worldview stems from what I saw and heard in Japan and Hong Kong; the theme of fighting against danger comes from the Third Front construction project in my hometown; and some of the more detailed and demanding tasks can be explained by the Latin American stage.

Before the novel was published, the worldview of the novel "Metro" gradually took shape.

In the ending of Metro, there is a scene where the protagonist finally manages to press the button to destroy the world with a nuclear bomb, taking the "creatures on the ground" with him. At that moment, he suddenly discovers that those creatures are also intelligent beings.

Those humanoid creatures were constantly communicating with him.

"We can live together peacefully, believe me!"

That's what they said.

The protagonist is the only one who can communicate with the "ground creatures." Everyone else either goes completely insane or dies quickly once they come into contact with those creatures.

Then the protagonist faces a choice: to perish together with the enemy, or to spare these "new creatures"?
Isn't this similar to the situation that Native Americans faced back then?
The Native Americans discovered that some humanoid Westerners similar to themselves had come to this land. After close contact, they all contracted diseases and died. A small number of them, like the protagonist, were superhumans who could withstand the germs of the Old World.

Historically, these "protagonists" made the wrong choice, accepting "earth creatures" and then being wiped out.

They were subsequently usurped, and the vast lands on the surface no longer belonged to them.

In the novel, the protagonist ultimately chooses to press the nuclear button, perishing together with the enemy.

When readers are shocked by the protagonist's choice at this scene, Yu Qie hopes that intelligent people can realize that this novel is not just a dark post-apocalyptic fantasy novel; its value lies in the fact that it is based on events that actually happened in human history.

The Native Americans made the wrong choice.

Moreover, most American readers are white, and they identify with the protagonist throughout the book, only to discover at the end that they are "earth creatures" and the culprits behind humanity's extinction.

This is where the literary quality lies.

(End of this chapter)