I am not a literary giant

Wang Zixu lowered his head. He vaguely grasped a thread, but the truth he had deduced was too shocking for him to fully accept, so much so that he dared not face Ning Chunyan.

Ning Chunyan walked up to Wang Zixu, looked down into his eyes, and said, "Huh? What's wrong with you? Don't you recognize me?"

Wang Zixu still didn't dare to look up. He felt this scene was somewhat like Zixia's first meeting with Supreme Treasure in "A Chinese Odyssey." He was so self-conscious that he couldn't utter a single word unless the other person wanted to enter his important Spider Cave.

Lin Feng, standing beside him, laughed: "Talented Ms. Ning, long time no see."

"haven't seen you for a long time!"

"You two know each other?" Lin Feng asked her.

Ning Chunyan smiled and said, "Aren't you surprised? I'm surprised too. How do I know him?"

She waved her hand in front of Wang Zixu: "Wang Zixu, the one who's married! What are you doing here?"

Wang Zixu moved a stack of manuscripts from the table to the ground, squatted down and said, "I want to see why I haven't received a response to the manuscripts I submitted."

Ning Chunyan said, "Oh, is that what it is? Then I'll help you look for it too."

At this point, she laughed again. She realized she knew far too much about this Prince Xu, even knowing his persistent missed shots. And they had only met twice.

She moved a small stool over from the side, sat down with her legs together, reached out to get the manuscript, carefully read out the author's name, and tossed it aside after confirming it wasn't Wang Zixu.

Wang Zi squatted on the ground with his legs spread wide, looking quite undignified. Without raising his head, he said in a low voice, "You don't need to help me find it. You don't even know what my manuscript looks like."

Ning Chunyan said, "It's okay. I'm just killing time anyway. I'm in a good mood today. I'll leave on my own if I get annoyed later."

Lin Feng sat down beside her and helped hand over the manuscript: "Why is Miss Ning here at the Writers' Association today?"

Ning Chunyan said, "I just finished attending a meeting here."

Raymond Lam said, "Oh right, there is indeed a meeting today, I almost forgot."

Chen Qiaosheng secretly glanced at his watch behind everyone's back, calculating the time to leave work, and praying in his heart that Wang Zixu would find his manuscript quickly.

Ning Chunyan picked up a manuscript and suddenly chuckled: "Take a look at this one, this modern poem."

She cleared her throat and read aloud in a serious and dignified tone:

"The Mind Like Bodhi"

"If the mind is like Bodhi, then no one is invincible."

"Upon seeing her, my heart was filled with joy."

"Three days apart, I feel both sorrow and joy."

"I laid down my armor and sheathed my sword, all for you..."

After reading it aloud, Ning Chunyan said, both amused and annoyed, "What kind of nonsense is this! No wonder it was rejected!"

Wang Zixu looked up at her and said, "This stack has been adopted and is in line."

Ning Chunyan paused for a moment: "Huh?"

Chen Qiaosheng walked over, took the manuscript from Ning Chunyan, and scanned it with his glasses:

"We receive very few poems, and this one is fairly well-written and fluent. The ones that were rejected were simply unreadable."

Pointing to the signature on the manuscript, he said, "And look, this submission came from a retired comrade. It's really encouraging that someone so old still has a passion for poetry."

Lin Feng asked, "How old is this old comrade?"

"He's 86."

Lin Feng nodded: "Most of the older comrades from that era came from night school. You can see the polished writing here, which shows they really put in the effort. Skill level became secondary."

Chen Qiaosheng spread his hands: "Exactly! Just based on their enthusiasm, shouldn't we publish it? And there's something else..."

He whispered, "This old comrade's family came to us and said that he is old, has heart disease, and his greatest dream in life is to write literature. If he gets upset because of the rejection of his manuscript and something happens to him, they will come and cause trouble for us."

Lin Feng and Ning Chunyan listened with amazement, while Wang Zixu remained silent.

Lin Feng said, "What I admire most about Editor Chen is that he has a photographic memory. He can remember who his colleagues in the Xihe system are and which unit they work in just by glancing at their names."

Chen Qiaosheng grinned and said in a pleading tone, "President Lin, please don't flatter me. I'm just a lowly clerk, and I'm only capable of doing things because of pressure. In my position, I have to be able to recognize who wrote the manuscript, otherwise I'd be working overtime until midnight every day and still not be able to finish my work."

Ning Chunyan picked up another manuscript, flipped through it, and said, "This novel is alright, but I have a question—"

She flipped to the last page and held it up: "Why is there a color photo of the author at the back?!"

Everyone looked over and saw that the woman on the paper was wearing a white veil, with a serene face, holding flowers in her hands, standing gracefully. It was actually a full-body artistic photograph.

Chen Qiaosheng took the manuscript and said, "Well, this is a beautiful writer from Xihe. She always attaches a photo of herself when she submits her work."

Ning Chunyan said, "But why?"

Chen Qiaosheng said helplessly, "You can understand it as... a persona, right?"

Ning Chunyan asked, "So, what did you do with this photo?"

Chen Qiaosheng said, "Let's publish it in the magazine together."

He turned around, grabbed an issue of "Xihe Literature" from behind him, and, to everyone's astonishment, opened it to a page and showed it to them:

"To be honest, the most troublesome part of layout is her articles. If I shrink her photos too much, they don't look good; if I enlarge them too much, they take up too much space. And color photos always end up as a blurry mess when I convert them to black and white."

Everyone glanced at it and agreed with him. Converting a color photo to black and white simply doesn't improve its appearance.

Wang Zixu said, "No wonder when I saw her photo in your Xihe Literature and Art magazine, I was puzzled as to why you chose to publish an artistic photo. I couldn't believe it was a picture of the author herself."

Chen Qiaosheng smiled awkwardly: "Next time I'll add a line below the photo: 'This is a recent photo of the author.'"

Ning Chunyan felt that this matter was both absurd and somehow reasonable. She picked up the color photograph, examining it from all angles, but still couldn't discern anything about the "beauty" in the photo. She held it up and asked:

"Is she considered a beautiful writer?"

Wang Zixu looked up at the photo, then at her, and said, "Not as beautiful as you."

Caught off guard, Ning Chunyan was both embarrassed and flustered: "Oh dear, you're married, what are you saying!"

Raymond Lam chimed in, "She's definitely not as pretty as Ning Cai Nu."

Chen Qiaosheng gave him a "spare me" look and said, "How many people in the literary world can be like Ning Cai Nu? Not to mention our Xihe. She's already considered very beautiful."

The group continued searching for Wang Zixu's manuscript. Wang Zixu squatted on the ground, not daring to lift his head. Ning Chunyan was right opposite him, less than a meter away.

Every time she bent down to pick up the manuscript, Wang Zixu was terrified.

Today she was wearing a light white sundress with a loose neckline. Prince Xu had no doubt that if he were to inadvertently look up while she was leaning forward, his gaze would be instantly drawn in, leaving him teetering between heaven and hell—like falling into a black hole on a highway.

"Found it!" Ning Chunyan suddenly straightened up, holding a manuscript in both hands, and waved it in the air.

"Wild Grasses," by Wang Zixu. This manuscript was tucked inside another manuscript.

Wang Zixu reached for his manuscript, but Ning Chunyan dodged it. She winked mischievously and said to him, "I want to read it."

Chen Qiaosheng walked over and said, "This was found in this stack of passes, right? Hmm, that means it's in the queue, and it might be featured in a few more rounds."

Wang Zixu couldn't help but ask, "I submitted my work four months ago, have I been waiting in line ever since?"