I am not a literary giant

Ye Lan and Zuo Ziliang returned to the private room and told Cheng Xing about their earlier agreement, asking if he had any objections. Cheng Xing was still engrossed in Wang Zixu's script and, it was unclear whether he heard them, hastily nodded in agreement.

So Ye Lan forwarded Cheng Xing's draft to Zuo Ziliang, who then sent the draft to the speech therapist group.

Just as she finished operating the device, Ye Lan snatched the phone from Zuo Ziliang. Zuo Ziliang frowned, and Ye Lan smiled smugly, saying:

"Sorry, I'll keep your phone for now to prevent you from giving the speech therapist any hints. I'll be waiting here for 30 minutes from now. If more than three people raise questions, you win. Everyone agrees to the bet, how about that?"

Zuo Ziliang said, "Then give me back my phone first, I'm going to the restroom."

Ye Lan said, "Go ahead and go. Leave your phone here; I'll keep it safe."

Zuo Ziliang said, "Ye Lan, this is no fun."

Ye Lan said, "Damn it, Zuo Ziliang, who's the one who can't take a joke? Who's trying to pull some tricks?"

Zuo Ziliang lay down and rubbed his forehead. Ye Lan had a triumphant expression; she had the situation under control.

Zuo Ziliang looked up and said, "Then let me add one more notification. If we send it out without crediting the author, even if someone feels the script is wrong, they'll just think the scriptwriter was being perfunctory and won't suspect that someone else has been replaced."

Ye Lan shook her head. She was determined not to let Zuo Ziliang touch his phone again.

"Zuo Ziliang, we just agreed that a bet is a bet, so if you can't handle it, then don't play."

Zuo Ziliang said, "It's not that I can't afford to lose, but this bet was inherently unfair to the Little Prince."

Ye Lan frowned: "Unfair to the Little Prince? Zuo Ziliang, what's the point of your company? Being fair to the company is enough, why do you have to be fair to the Little Prince?"

Zuo Ziliang sighed and said, "I'm too lazy to talk to you anymore."

……

Prince Xu raised his wine glass and pointed it towards Guo Ranran.

"Xiao Guo, speaking of which, you toasted me earlier, but I haven't returned the toast yet. Let me toast you."

Guo Ranran raised her glass, and the two clinked glasses across the room. Before drinking, Wang Zixu said:

"Xiao Guo, I'm a few years older than you, but I'm not taking advantage of my age. I read a quote in a book that I'd like to share with you: 'It's better to put yourself in others' shoes than to judge others by your own standards.' I hope you'll think about it more."

After saying that, he drank it all in one gulp. Guo Ranran, holding the cup, was stunned for a long time.

She pondered those words for a moment and realized that Wang Zixu was mocking her, implying that she was judging him by her own petty standards! She immediately turned red with anger, but couldn't refute him.

The others at the table didn't notice this little incident. Lin Feng lowered his head to eat, then looked up and said, "Brother Wang, wait for me a moment. Let me eat a few bites to calm down before we continue our competition."

Seeing this opportunity, one of the inspectors picked up his cup and said to Wang Zixu:

"Brother Wang, you're even more formidable than we imagined. I think we need to step up our game a bit. We can't just let President Lin deal with you alone. Come on, let me toast you."

Zhang Cangnian laughed and said, "Alright, so you're using underhanded tactics, aren't you? You got Xiao Wang drunk, so he's dizzy and can't answer the questions."

The others hadn't realized this before, but after Zhang Cangnian pointed it out, they all came to their senses and raised their glasses to toast Prince Xu.

Zhang Cangnian picked up his wine glass and said, "That won't do. Our unit has to get involved too. We can't let them all focus their firepower on Xiao Wang alone, can we?"

However, after he finished speaking, no one responded to the call. The leader held his cup, hesitant, unsure whether he should help to take the lead.

One of the inspectors said, "That won't do. Even if you want to help carry the firepower, we have to finish paying our respects to Comrade Xiao Wang first."

So Lin Feng's group raised their glasses and took turns toasting Wang Zixu. Wang Zixu was forced to drink five or six glasses in a row. He had only been slightly tipsy a moment ago, but now he was completely drunk and felt dizzy.

Lin Feng, who was sitting next to him, finished his food, patted him on the shoulder, and laughed loudly:

"Brother Wang, your knowledge is vast, but you still need to work on your drinking capacity! I can hold my liquor a little better than you, relying on my overall ability to keep up. Don't blame me for taking advantage of your situation; I'll test you with something difficult: Dostoevsky!"

Guo Ranran frantically searched on Baidu on her phone, shouting, "Wait a minute, what? What? Hunchback what?"

"Dostoevsky, Do, replace the 'camel' radical in 'hunchback' with the 'left ear knife' radical..."

Prince Xu closed his eyes again, regulated his breathing, and said, "No need to investigate."

Lin Feng turned around with a glimmer of hope: "You haven't heard of the writer Dostoevsky?"

Wang Zixu said, "How could that be? I can vividly recall the plot of every one of his books."

"The Insulted and Hurt, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. The Brothers Karamazov is a posthumous work, unfinished, but an eternal jewel in literary history."

Lin Feng held the glass in silence for a long time before drinking it all in one gulp.

Before Guo Ranran could type out a few words, she saw that Lin Feng had already drunk them, and she couldn't help but dejectedly put her hand down.

The leader patted Wang Zixu on the back and asked, "Little Wang, are you alright? Can you still hold on?"

Prince Xu shook his head: "It's alright, let's continue!"

Lin Feng, his speech already slightly slurred, said, "Even Dostoevsky can't stump you. It seems I need to change my strategy."

After shaking his head and thinking for a while, he continued, "It seems you are very familiar with Western writers, so let me test you on Eastern writers, Kawabata Yasunari!"

Wang Zixu said, "I don't read many Japanese writers."

Lin Feng's face lit up with a triumphant smile, but before he could celebrate too soon, Wang Zixu continued:

"Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, The Old Capital, and The Sound of the Mountain. These are some of his major works."

Lin Feng's smile froze on his face.

Guo Ranran, who was standing nearby, suddenly jumped up, holding her phone, and said, "You missed one!"

Wang Zixu turned to look at her: "Which one did I miss?"

Guo Ranran said, "According to Baidu Baike, 'The Dancing Girl of Izu' is one of his important works!"

Wang Zixu said, "I know. 'The Dancing Girl of Izu' is his debut work. I have read it, but the reason I didn't mention this work is because it is only a short story, so I didn't put it on the same level as a novella or novella."

Guo Ranran curled her lips and said, "Tch, I've already revealed your name, so you can say whatever you want now? I'll say I've seen it too."

Prince Xu calmly replied, "I really have seen it. And I can even recite it from memory."

Guo Ranran opened her eyes wide and looked at him.

"The mountain road became winding and meandering, and we were almost at Tiancheng Ridge. At that moment, a sudden, bright rainstorm enveloped the dense cedar forest and swept rapidly towards me from the foot of the mountain."

"That year I was twenty years old, wearing a high school cap, a navy blue blouse with white floral patterns, and a skirt, with a schoolbag slung over my shoulder. I was traveling alone in Izu, and it was my fourth day. I spent one night at Shuzenji Onsen, two nights at Yushima Onsen, and then climbed Mount Amagi in my high-toothed wooden clogs. The overlapping mountains, the primeval forests, the deep valleys, and the autumn colors were breathtaking. But my heart was pounding. Because a hope was urging me onward..."

After reading this long passage, the prince paused for a moment and said:

"This is the translation by Ye Weiqu and Tang Yuemei, and it's also my favorite translation. Should I continue memorizing it?"

The room fell silent. Everyone stared at Prince Xu as if he were a madman.

After a long silence, Guo Ranran finally asked, "Why do you know it by heart?"

Wang Zixu said, "Because Kawabata Yasunari was the 1968 Nobel Prize laureate in Literature."

The question and answer seemed completely nonsensical, and only Prince Xu knew the cause and effect behind it.

That was his lonely journey.

Lin Feng stood up, his expression serious. He put his left hand on Wang Zixu's shoulder, raised his wine glass with his right hand, and said:

"Everyone, please listen to me."

"If I hadn't come to your unit for inspection today, I wouldn't have known that our city actually has such a remarkable person as Brother Wang. I was truly ignorant and narrow-minded before. Director Gou, a talent like him should have already made his mark in the literary world. This is my dereliction of duty as the vice chairman of the Writers' Association. I failed to discover him. Today, I criticize myself and punish myself with three drinks."

The leader standing nearby quickly stood up and said, "President Lin, you're too kind."

Seeing Lin Feng's gaze, he quickly raised his glass and said, "I should be the one punished. If it weren't for today, I wouldn't have known that Xiao Wang is so talented. I haven't been paying enough attention to my comrades. I'll punish myself with three drinks."

The two most prominent figures at the table stood up, and the others followed suit, raising their glasses in a menacing display that instantly blocked out all the light from the table.

Only Prince Xu sat in the shadow of the crowd, like a piece of burnt firewood, his chest stained with wine and his body disheveled, all embers after the fire.