A Literary Life Starting from the First Year of High School

At 2:30 pm on Saturday, Lin Shubai stood at the entrance of the Children's Publishing House.

He pushed open the door and went in. The receptionist was the same young woman as before, wearing round-framed glasses and eating a carton of yogurt with her head down. She looked up when she heard the door open, saw Lin Shubai, and her yogurt spoon stopped in mid-air.

"You... are you the one from last time?"

"right."

"He said you can go straight up to the fourth floor when you arrive." She pointed towards the elevator with her spoon. "He said you don't need to wait, just knock on the door."

"Thanks."

The elevator reached the fourth floor and the doors opened.

The corridor was quiet; the gray carpet made no sound underfoot. Lin Shubai walked to Zhou Mingyuan's office door and knocked twice.

"Come in."

He pushed open the door and went in. Zhou Mingyuan was sitting behind his desk, a pile of documents spread out in front of him, and a red pen in his hand, scribbling away. He looked up and saw Lin Shubai, threw the red pen on the desk, and leaned back in his chair.

"You're here? Have a seat."

Lin Shubai sat down on the sofa. Zhou Mingyuan picked up a brown paper envelope from the table, walked over, sat down opposite him, and dumped the envelope onto the coffee table.

A sample book slid out.

The cover is light green, with a large gray spider and a pink pig drawn on it. The spider is hanging in its web, and the pig is standing below, looking up. The title is "Charlotte's Web," and below it is "Lin Shubai."

Lin Shubai picked up the sample book and flipped through it. The paper felt quite comfortable to the touch; it wasn't the smooth, coated paper, but rather a slightly rough offset paper. There weren't many illustrations, but each one was drawn with great care.

"The cover has been revised three times." Zhou Mingyuan leaned back on the sofa, his hands crossed over his stomach. "The first one was too realistic; the spider looked like it had jumped out of an animal documentary, it was scary. The second one was too cartoonish; the spider looked like it was wearing a sweater. This is the third one, and I think it's alright. What do you think?"

Lin Shubai glanced at the spider on the cover again: "Not bad."

"That's fine then." Zhou Mingyuan took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, pulled one out, thought for a moment, and then put it back. "We're not allowed to smoke in the office, I forgot."

He picked up his teacup, took a sip, and when he put it down, the bottom of the cup hit the coffee table with a "thud".

"Take a look at the sample book first, and let me know if you have any problems. If there are no problems, we'll print it in a while. After printing and distribution, you should be able to see it in bookstores around the end of November."

Lin Shubai flipped through the pages, reading line by line. He read quickly, but paused at each page to check for any obvious errors. When he reached the section about Xia Luo's death, he paused, glancing at the illustration beside it—a gray spider perched on an empty web, the scene serene.

"By the way, I heard about your essay competition. You won first prize nationwide? And People's Literature is going to publish your essay?"

"Um."

"How should I put it..." Zhou Mingyuan tilted his head and thought for a moment, "You remind me of an author I knew when I was young. He wrote all his life and told me before he died that his biggest regret was never having published anything in People's Literature. You did that when you were sixteen."

"I was lucky; I came across the right question."

Zhou Mingyuan glanced at him. "Luck? People's Literature isn't something you can get into just by luck. You need to have something in your heart before you can write something."

Lin Shubai didn't reply and continued flipping through the sample book. When he got to the last page, he saw the words "First Edition, November 2010" printed on the copyright page.

"Teacher Zhou, when can we expect to receive the royalties?"

Zhou Mingyuan paused for a moment, then laughed: "You only get royalties when the book sells. Publishers usually settle accounts every six months, at the end of June and the end of December. Your book was released at the end of November, and it only sold for a month by the end of December. That amount of money isn't enough to settle the account. You'll have to wait until next June."

"So you're saying I have to wait until next June to get the money?"

"Yes. It's always like this for the first book. You can discuss advance payment when you sign the contract, but you're a newcomer, so you can't have that option." Zhou Mingyuan glanced at him. "Need money urgently?"

"No. I was just asking." Lin Shubai didn't mention that he had almost spent all of his New Year's money and royalties. He had spent 3,450 yuan on a TV for his father last time, and he hadn't touched the 3,000 yuan the principal had given him as a reward, but he planned to save that money.

Zhou Mingyuan nodded, took a piece of paper from under the coffee table, and handed it over: "This is the print run confirmation. The first edition is 10,000 copies. Take a look, and sign it if there are no problems."

Lin Shubai took the form and glanced at it—10000 copies printed, priced at 25 yuan, with an 8% royalty. He signed his name at the bottom and pushed the form back.

Zhou Mingyuan put away the order form, leaned back on the sofa, and suddenly asked, "What are your plans for the future?"

Lin Shubai thought for a moment: "I'm writing a new fairy tale."

Zhou Mingyuan raised an eyebrow: "New? What's the content?"

"The story of the Little Prince. He set off from his own planet and went to many other planets, meeting all sorts of people—a king, a businessman, a geographer, a lamplighter. Finally, he came to Earth and met a fox."

"Okay, show me your work when you're done. If it's good, I'll pay for it. We can discuss the terms later."

"it is good."

Lin Shubai closed the sample book and weighed it in his hand. It wasn't heavy, but it felt solid in his hand.

"Teacher Zhou, may I take the sample book with me?"

"Take it. It was originally for you." Zhou Mingyuan stood up, walked behind his desk, and took out another envelope from the drawer. "This is a copy of the contract. Take it back and keep it safe. We have the original on file here."

Lin Shubai took the envelope and stuffed the sample book and a copy of the contract into his backpack. The backpack suddenly bulged, and the zipper was a little difficult to pull up.

"Once the book is released at the end of the month, I'll have the distribution department send you ten sample copies. You can give them away or keep them for yourself; that should be enough, right?"

That's enough.

"Alright, let's go. Be careful on the road."

When he stepped out of the publishing house, the sun was still shining. In Shanghai in November, around four in the afternoon, the sun was already beginning to slant westward, but the light was still bright. Lin Shubai stood at the door, switched his backpack to the other shoulder, and walked towards the bus stop.

I hadn't walked more than a few steps when my phone vibrated.

He pulled out his phone and saw a text message from Chen Yuanshan: "I heard you went to the publishing house to look at sample copies? How did it go?"

Lin Shubai returned the call.

"Not bad. The cover wasn't a disaster."

What does "not crashing" mean?

"They just didn't draw a spider wearing a sweater."

The other person was silent for a few seconds. "Old Zhou's aesthetic sense has always been a bit inconsistent. The last time his company published a children's book, the cover featured a rabbit wearing a suit, and it was so ugly that I couldn't sleep for three days."

"This one's alright. The rabbit isn't wearing a suit."

"That's good. By the way, your article 'Life on a String' will be published next month, in December. I'll send you the payment slip next week, please keep an eye on it."

"Okay. Thank you, Teacher Chen."

"I'll only publish it if you write well. If you don't write well, I won't publish it even if a rabbit in a suit comes begging me."

After arriving home, Lin Shubai went into his room. He put his backpack on the desk, unzipped it, took out the sample book, and placed it on the table. Then he sat down and looked at the sample book.

The pale green cover gleamed softly under the lamplight. He opened the book and began reading from the first page. Although he knew the contents by heart, the feeling of printing it on paper and binding it into a book was different. The words were no longer handwritten ink marks on graph paper, but neat printed characters, straight lines, each one the same size.

He turned to the page where Charlotte wove the "divine pig." The spider web in the illustration was drawn in great detail, and the two characters on the web were handwritten, crooked and twisted, like they were woven by a real spider with silk.

He turned to the page where Charlotte died. The illustration was just an empty web, no spider. Next to it was the text—"Charlotte died. There was no one in the market, she died in an empty corner. No one was with her."

Lin Shubai read it once, closed the book, and placed it on the table.

Then he took out a new notebook, opened it to the first page, and wrote three words at the top: The Little Prince.

He thought for a moment, then wrote another line below: "Dedicated to all adults, who were once children."