My era, 1979!

Chapter 42 Xu Chengjun is the greatest singer of youth (Seeking monthly votes and continued reading)

While Xu Chengjun was still discussing magical realism with Li Xiaolin
Xu Chengjun's outrageous remarks ignited a firestorm in various circles in Anhui, including but not limited to literature.

Even more surreal things are happening in the streets, alleys, and campuses of Hefei.
This occurred among all young people who can read and who have purchased the Anhui Youth Daily.

And it is spreading in Hefei at an exaggerated, even viral, speed.
-
On July 17, 1979, the "Youth Observation" column of the Anhui Youth Daily published the first work by columnist Xu Chengjun.

This will give the most affirmative answer to all those who are looking forward to this column because of its "outrageous opinions".

You got your hopes up right.

It was a poem called "Walking Towards the Light" and a letter called "To Young Friends: Before Setting Off Tomorrow, Converse with the Soil and the Starlight".

It brought the greatest comfort to Hefei, which had been experiencing continuous rain.

What kind of solace?

If I had to say,
That's Xu Chengjun, the one with the barbs in the interview.
After slapping everyone in the face

They were given another date.

sweet,
It's sickeningly sweet.
-
On the campus of Anhui University.

When Lu Xiaoxiao heard Old Wang, who sells newspapers on his bicycle, say that this newspaper contained Xu Chengjun's work.

He immediately bought one and ran all the way back to school.
Together with the other Chinese literature students who, for various reasons, remained at the school at this time, they looked at the newspaper.

At the very beginning of the column is a poem.

It's quite long.

From a psychological perspective
The younger you are, the more emotional and intense your feelings are.

Therefore, students of all eras are the group most easily moved by poetry and also the group that loves poetry the most.

They became curious even before they read the poem.

What kind of poems will Xu Chengjun, who wrote "Scales Star," write next?
Some students said it would be a profound poem like Ai Qing's "I Love This Land," because "Scales" reflects Xu Chengjun's observations of humanity in this land and this era.
Some students said it would be a line from Bei Dao's poem "Answer": "Baseness is the passport of the base, nobility is the epitaph of the noble," because Xu Chengjun's dialogue with them was very philosophical.
Many people also know that Xu Chengjun wrote short poems like "Time," which have the flavor of Misty Poetry, while "Answer" is a representative work of the nascent Misty Poetry of that era.
Some people objected on the spot, feeling that "The Answer" needed richer life experiences, and might resemble Gu Cheng's "A Generation".
You know, Chinese literature students these days are a bunch of real "nitpickers". Someone immediately disagreed, saying, "Doesn't 'A Generation' require life experience?"

Before the words had even finished, someone brought up the "age theory," saying that Bei Dao was exactly thirty years old, while Gu Cheng was only in his early twenties!
Some might even think it's like Guo Moruo's "The Goddess," a passionate celebration of "self" and "rebirth" erupting like a volcano.
Nobody asked why.

Because anyone who can say something like "The pen is not for whitewashing the truth, but for exposing those who are hypocritical" must have a fiery temper inside them.

But Lu Xiaoxiao had a vague feeling that none of it was right.

The argument didn't last long, and everyone got bored.
After all, the answer is there.

So the students all looked at the poetry.

The title is "Walking Towards the Light".
Does this feel like a hazy, obscure poem?

The poem is very long; it takes up a small portion of the page.

Lu Xiaoxiao slowly sank in.
Initial expectations;

It was shocking later;

Finally, she even shed two lines of tears;
Young students of this era have all experienced some hardships and past misfortunes to varying degrees.

If that's not the case, it might happen to their family or friends.

Humans possess a unique psychological effect called empathy.

The most peculiar thing is that sometimes this effect does not diminish at the margin.
It will increase!

Of course, this is also one of the most beautiful things about humankind.

Emotions,
Even Heaven grows old if it has feelings!

When Lu Xiaoxiao looked up, she noticed that the girls all had glistening tears in their eyes.

Many boys were even covering their reddened eyes with their hands.
"This poem is truly beautiful."

Lu Xiaoxiao sighed from the bottom of her heart.

She read it over again from beginning to end, as if those few lines of small print in the newspaper were some rare treasure.

Walking Towards the Light

Author: Xu Chengjun

When the wind brings the first wisp of fragrance
You are looking down, counting the moss on the stone steps.
A dandelion, holding its fluffy parachute, passed by.
it says--

I believe even the humblest flower has thoughts.
Hidden deep where tears cannot reach.
Moonlight would seep through the cracks in the windowpane.
Plant two shadow plants on the floor

A plant awake in the darkness
The trajectory of falling stars
A plant sleeping in the light
Dreaming of unopened letters
/
No need to chase the mountain wind

It has no fixed shape.
you

The outline of a mountain cannot be changed.

You can't change a bird's flight path

The speed at which the river flows cannot be changed.
So it's enough to simply observe it and discover its beauty.

/
As the morning mist creeps over my ankles

Someone is calling your name from behind.
Like the hawking cries of candy vendors at the alleyway in my childhood.

"The older I get, the more grateful I am for having had that childhood. It was paradise."

And you suddenly remember when you set off

Half a piece of moonlight in my pocket

So far!

Still holding onto the initial light

/
Don't let fear erode the warmth in your palms.
When people are gripped by fear, they lose their wisdom.
Those armors called "sensible"
I only discovered it when I removed it.
Being sensible is a deep kind of despair.
Why not learn from the stream?

At the bend, he was also singing his own song.
/
What do passersby leave behind?

Perhaps it's half a fallen leaf, or a sigh.

But those who evoke our emotions and memories are all just passersby.

in fact
Most of the time you are rejecting yourself

Instead of being rejected by others
So please make the wrinkles in the shadow

Iron gently
/
The cicadas chirping in the treetops
An unheard heartbeat in the chest

The sounds we hear are beautiful, but the sounds we cannot hear are even more beautiful.

it says--

The most important decisions in life are planned by the heart.
Like a pre-calculated framework

Waiting for your zodiac sign to move
therefore
There's no need to stand at the crossroads waiting for a belated answer.
Some say that if waiting for an answer takes too long...

Then the answer itself loses its original meaning.

/
After all, the end of the road
New buds are always brewing.

Don't forget why we started, just because we've gone too far.

Flowers will bloom in succession throughout the world.
Magnificent and immortal things will follow one after another—
Shocked!

I was absolutely stunned!

No, there might be even more touching moments!
After a while, the students came to their senses. They looked at each other and realized that they weren't the only ones who had shed tears.

At first, one does not understand the meaning of the song; upon hearing it again, one has become a part of the song.

Impatient Zhou Mingyuan, the bespectacled poet, was the first to comment: "What a beautiful poem! More beautiful than any I've ever read!"

Wow, what a high evaluation!
But none of the self-proclaimed "literary criticism experts" from the Chinese literature department who were actually argumentative trolls around me refuted them.

"If you take each stanza out of the poem, it feels like it could be a poem on its own. Putting them all together is such a luxury!"

"In my eyes, this poem alone is enough to make Teacher Xu the greatest singer of youth!"

If Xu Chengjun were here, he would know that it's not that his poems are truly incomparably beautiful.
But
These pure, natural, and pollution-free young people

I got poisoned from drinking chicken soup!
For a moment, the classroom was quiet;

I wonder who first realized there was a bowl of soup on the newspaper.

Oh no!
It's a work of art!
No, that's not right either. It should be called a letter to them.

after all,

Are they really young people?
(End of this chapter)