Ordinary World: Starting with a divorce from Tian Runye

Du Zhengxian watched the two figures disappear at the entrance of the cave dwelling, his face showing an expression as if he had swallowed a raw peppercorn.

This is an insult to scholarship, an insult to scholarship! What would Huiliang think if he saw this?

It's only been a few days?

I said, "Why did my daughter suddenly let me read Li Xiangqian's poems and even recommended that Li Xiangqian write recitation lyrics?"

I even praised her for her political acumen.

Du Zhengxian stood there stunned, frantically piecing together the chain of evidence in his mind, a sense of lingering fear rising from nowhere.

"Tsk, how are we going to explain this to Huiliang? Li Xiangqian asked Li Dengyun for it himself."

Du Zhengxian smacked his lips and muttered to himself. When he turned around, he saw Xiao Zhao peeking at him from behind and was startled.

"Cough! Cough!"

Du Zhengxian coughed twice, and Xiao Zhao quickly sat back down at his desk, picked up his drawing board, and pretended to be deep in thought.

I only breathed a sigh of relief when I saw Du Zhengxian carrying the enamel mug out of the studio.

in the afternoon.

Du Lili sat at the table in the reading room, a manuscript paper spread out in front of her, her brows furrowed as she pondered it repeatedly.

Li Xiangqian moved a chair over and sat down next to him, looking smug.

"It's settled then, I'm just going to sit in on the class."

Du Lili bit the nib of her pen, without even lifting her head.

"I know, you are the Stone Bodhisattva, just sit there."

"That's more like it."

"The topic of this discussion is the future direction of literature. Can you help me think of something?"

Du Lili kept her head down, unable to write a single word, and asked anxiously and angrily.

Li Xiangqian was startled.

"You guys really dare to have a discussion. A local poetry society holds a meeting to discuss such a big topic. What's the difference between this and a kindergarten class discussing how to achieve world peace?"

Du Lili looked up and glared at him.

"Our poetry society is set to go nationwide. Our voices can appear in *Yanhe*, and even in national literary magazines. As a great man said, a single spark can start a prairie fire. What do you, a cookbook writer, know?"

"Then you can keep burning it. I'm going to take a look around the reading room."

After saying that, Li Xiangqian was about to get up.

"All that nice talk, all you want is a place to sleep, right?"

Du Lili grabbed his sleeve.

"Help me think of something to write. We're in the era of Misty Poetry, and reflective literature is all the rage. The entire literary world is searching for direction. What direction do you think literature should take?"

Li Xiangqian pulled his sleeve out of her hand and leaned back in his chair.

"What nonsense! Literature is just the arrangement and combination of words, why make it all so metaphysical? Literature is about expression, about getting your hands dirty, about speaking out for the times. Why all this pointless whining?"

Du Lili stopped writing.

What does it mean to have your hands covered in mud? What does it mean to speak out for the times?

"Getting your hands dirty means understanding the lives of ordinary people. The pain of personal confusion often stems from being too well-fed. We must understand the demands of the times and dare to speak out. In short, literature must stay ahead of the times."

Du Lili muttered it to herself.

Literature must stay ahead of the times.

How can literature stay ahead of its time?

Li Xiangqian leaned back in his chair, his hands crossed in front of him.

"The point is to provide commentary on the development of the times and to speak out for the transformation of the era. If we just leave it there all day, either immersed in the past or lost in the future, then literature can only become a eulogy for an era, the stench of decay emanating from a corpse."

After listening, Du Lili quickly scribbled a few notes on the manuscript paper.

"Sure, a recipe poet."

"What do you mean? I'm just picking up scraps from other places."

After saying that, Li Xiangqian was about to get up and leave when Du Lili grabbed him again.

"Say it again, so I can pick up your words too."

Du Lili held onto Li Xiangqian's arm tightly with one hand, while quickly scribbling a few more strokes on the manuscript paper with the other.

Seeing that he couldn't refuse, Li Xiangqian had no choice but to start rambling.

Who isn't a literary youth at heart? In his previous life, before becoming a rent collector, he was also a literature enthusiast. After becoming a rent collector, he became a literature enthusiast who knew how to collect rent. He was known in the literary world as "The Scholar Who Fears Nothing." When a scholar fears nothing, his words become exceptionally stubborn.

Once Li Xiangqian made his promise, Du Lili's thoughts immediately became more active. She wrote more and more smoothly, occasionally looking up to ask a question, to which Li Xiangqian would reply casually.

They didn't stop talking until Du Lili's manuscript paper was completely filled with pages. Still not finished, Du Lili pulled a book from the nearby bookshelf and opened it.

"By the way, I've been reading this lately."

The cover reads "Anna Karenina".

Li Xiangqian glanced at it.

"Wow. It's a story about a woman having an extramarital affair."

I don't think so.

Du Lili said earnestly.

"I think Anna faced the dilemmas of her time. What she was pursuing wasn't an extramarital affair, but freedom."

Of course you think so.

Li Xiangqian muttered to himself, "When you later had an affair with the poet, Lu Yao wrote about you in the same way. 'Pursuing freedom,' how nice that sounds."

He didn't say anything, just casually replied.

Lenin praised Tolstoy, saying he was a mirror of the Russian Revolution. However, even a mirror has its limitations. Every great work has the limitations of its time. Anna's tragedy was inevitable in her era, but it might not have been so in another.

After listening, Du Lili pondered for a moment and asked, "What about our era?"

Li Xiangqian was startled. "You're not even married yet, and you're already researching the feasibility of having an extramarital affair?"

"Of course not. We live in a new era where marriage is a matter of free choice. Every marriage is a free choice, and one must be loyal and responsible for that freedom."

Li Xiangqian decisively blocked Du Lili's feasibility analysis of the extramarital affair.

"not necessarily."

Du Lili shook her head, then suddenly looked up and gave a twitching smile: "Where's your guy?"

Li Xiangqian's face instantly turned bright red. This was hitting his weak spot, the one he had been groping. He had borne too much for this body.

"What do you mean 'your home' or 'my home'? We're discussing literature, please don't take it personally."

Du Lili laughed so hard she almost fell over. "Haha, sure enough, only you know the pain of your own child. When it comes to your own child, those abstract theories instantly become as fragile as a thin sheet of paper."

"Are you going to talk or not? If not, I'm leaving." Li Xiangqian made a move to leave.

"Let's talk... I was wrong, poet, no, cookbook comrade, let me get another sheet of paper."

……

evening.

Runye rode her bicycle into the courtyard of the cultural center.

She waited at the door for a while.

Li Xiangqian wasn't sitting under the old locust tree; I don't know where he went.

Runye parked the car, walked to the door of the studio, and glanced inside. Apart from three desks, it was empty. The reading room was closed; only the office was still lit.

Runye strolled to the door of the business office and peeked inside.

Li Xiangqian was sitting face to face with Du Lili. On the table were manuscript paper and magazines. Du Lili was writing something with her head down, while Li Xiangqian leaned back in his chair, muttering something. Du Lili was writing and laughing at the same time.

Runye stood at the door for a few seconds but did not go in.

She turned and walked back to the bike shed, leaning against her bicycle to wait.

Almost half an hour later, Li Xiangqian finally came out of the reading room.

"When did you arrive?" Li Xiangqian noticed Runye leaning against her bicycle, waiting for him.

"Just arrived."

After Runye finished speaking, she got on her bicycle, and Li Xiangqian got on the back seat.

The car drove out of the cultural center's courtyard, and the evening breeze blew from the loess slope, carrying the heat of June.

After a moment of silence, Runye suddenly spoke.

"I see Lili is here too. What have you two been talking about for so long?"

Runye kept her eyes on the road ahead, her voice neither too loud nor too soft.

"Let's talk about our views on extramarital affairs."

Runye paused for a moment while pedaling the bicycle.

"Forehead……"

"A cultural center, still talking about these things?"

"Otherwise what? What kind of nice place do you think a cultural center is?"

……