A Literary Life Starting from the First Year of High School

On the third day of winter vacation, Lin Shubai was looking at his phone on the bus.

The results came out a couple of days ago. The homeroom teacher, Mr. Chen, posted a screenshot of the report card in the class group. Lin Shubai opened the picture and scanned it from top to bottom: Chinese 132, Math 118, English 141, Physics 79, Chemistry 93, Biology 94, History 96, Geography 90, Politics 92, Total 935 out of 1050. He scored 935, which was higher than he expected. He thought he would be lucky to get 900. The first thought that popped into his mind was Wang Xiulan's expression when she saw the report card.

Sure enough, Wang Xiulan cooked a table full of dishes the night she found out the results. While putting ribs into Lin Shubai's bowl, she said, "You did well on the test, but don't be arrogant." Lin Jianguo poured a glass of rice wine, drank half of it himself, held up the glass to Lin Shubai with the other half, and then drank it all in one gulp.

He's sitting on the bus now, heading towards the office of the October magazine. He's finished writing "Four Generations Under One Roof," which is nearly a million words long. He started writing it last November and continued until January of this year, a little over two months, and eventually, he finished the book.

He texted Chen Yuanshan yesterday to say that the book was finished, but Chen Yuanshan didn't reply. Instead, he called him and asked him to come to the magazine office this morning.

When I arrived at the magazine office at 10 a.m., Chen Yuanshan was already in his office.

Lin Shubai sat down on the sofa and took the manuscript out of his bag. It was a thick stack of nearly a million words.

"Is it all finished writing?"

"It's all finished."

Chen Yuanshan didn't turn to the first page to read, but instead turned directly to a page in the middle and started reading. He read for about ten minutes, and when he saw the part where Qi Ruixuan was listening to Japanese military songs in the courtyard, he paused, brought the manuscript closer, read it twice, and then turned the page. When he saw the part where Qian Moyin was released from prison, he paused again, this time for a longer period of time.

Chen Yuanshan cleared his throat. "I'll take a look at the manuscript first. It's nearly a million words long, and it's not something I can finish reading in a day or two. I'll give you an answer after I've finished reading it, but don't worry, just based on what I've seen, it's definitely fine."

"You wrote about Qi Ruixuan's struggle after the fall of Beiping, where he wanted to leave but couldn't. You wrote about it very accurately. Intellectuals of that era didn't lack the desire to resist; they were bound by their families. Their elderly fathers, wives and children, grandfathers' 80th birthdays—these things may sound trivial, but they were what kept people rooted to the spot. And Qian Moyin, from poet to underground worker, you wrote about that transformation without any abruptness. Poets are inherently tough; it's just that you don't usually see it."

Lin Shubai smiled.

"You've been submitting quite a few articles to Science Fiction World lately."

Lin Shubai nodded: "Yes, I submitted two papers at the end of last month, and both were accepted."

Chen Yuanshan said in a gentle tone, as if to say, "Xiao Lin, how long has it been since you submitted an article to 'October'?"

Lin Shubai did the math; the last time was in October with "Life on a String," and it's been three months now.

Chen Yuanshan continued, "I don't lack manuscripts, but I've received several letters from your readers. Some are asking if Lin Shubai will be published in the next issue, while others say they've read 'Life on a String' several times and want to see your new work. How am I supposed to respond?"

Lin Shubai felt a little guilty. Chen Yuanshan had treated him well. From their first meeting until now, Chen Yuanshan had helped him turn down "Charlotte's Web" and had now taken over "Four Generations Under One Roof". However, he didn't have any suitable manuscripts for "October" at the moment. "Night on the Galactic Railroad" was too fairy tale-like and not suitable. Moreover, he planned to put it in "Hope". Shinichi Hoshi's short stories were all science fiction fables, which would be perfect for "Science Fiction World" and would seem out of place in "October".

Lin Shubai had no choice but to say helplessly, "Not for now. I've been writing fairy tales and science fiction lately, which aren't suitable for the style of 'October.' But don't worry, I'll give it to you as soon as I have it."

Chen Yuanshan finally heard what he wanted to hear. He knew that Lin Shubai was definitely not available recently, but he was just giving a slight reminder in case Lin Shubai forgot about "October".

"Alright, you can go back now. Leave the manuscript here, I'll call you when I've finished reading it."

......

He went downstairs and out the door. Sunlight shone on his face, and he squinted, suppressing his guilt. No manuscript, no manuscript; he couldn't force himself to write. He'd give it to him when he had one.

His phone vibrated, and when he took it out, he saw it was a text message from Su Wan.

"Don't forget this afternoon, at two o'clock."

Lin Shubai replied: "I can't forget it."

He had already arranged with Su Wan yesterday to go see a movie this afternoon.

The bus ride took more than forty minutes before I arrived home.

At lunchtime, Lin Shubai wasn't very hungry and ate less. When Wang Xiulan cleared the table, she glanced at him and asked, "Why are you eating so little? Are you feeling unwell?"

No, I'm not hungry.

"Are you going out again this afternoon?"

"Yes, I went."

......

At 2 PM, Lin Shubai came downstairs, and Su Wan was waiting for him at the door. "Let's go."

The two walked to the bus stop, and just then the bus arrived. "Did you go to the magazine office today? Did you submit your manuscript?"

"It's paid."

"What did Teacher Chen say?"

"They said they'd take their time and give me a reply after they finished reading."

Su Wan nodded and didn't ask any more questions.

The bus swayed for forty minutes until it reached Nanjing Road. The two got off and walked towards the mall. The movie theater was on the fourth floor. Lin Shubai casually bought two tickets for a romance movie, along with some cola and popcorn, and then went inside with Su Wan.

Halfway through the movie, a train station appeared on the screen.

Old-fashioned, with a round arched ceiling, faded GG pictures on the walls, and a green train parked on the platform, its engine emitting white smoke.

【Trigger Keywords】

[Movie + Train Station]

[The Wrong Station - Italo Calvino]

Lin Shubai picked up the cola and took a sip; it was ice-cold and very sweet.

He watched the rest of the movie absentmindedly, while Su Wan finished watching it. When the movie ended, she handed him the empty popcorn bucket, which he took and threw into the trash can.

"Is it pretty?"

"good."

"You've been spacing out the whole time," Su Wan glanced at him. "Thinking about the manuscript again?"

Lin Shubai thought for a moment and nodded.

Su Wan didn't ask any further questions. She turned and walked towards the elevator. The two of them went downstairs and out of the mall. A cold wind hit them, and Su Wan zipped her coat all the way up and shrank her neck.

After getting off the train at the station, Su Wan walked back to her apartment complex. The motion-activated lights in the stairwell turned on and off repeatedly. When she reached the fifth floor, Su Wan stopped and took out her keys.

"Don't forget to send your feedback to Yu Xingzhi tomorrow."

"I can't forget it."

"Also, don't write too late at night."

"understood."

After dinner, he went into his room, sat down at his desk, took out a new sheet of paper, wrote the title on the first page—"The Wrong Station"—and then picked up his pen to start writing. He first went through the core of the story "The Wrong Station".

The protagonist, Marcovaldo, is a low-level porter whose life is dull and oppressive. Day after day, he works on buses, in warehouses, and around gas stoves, like a machine fixed on its tracks. One night, he goes to the cinema alone to watch an Indian jungle adventure film. The grasslands, mountains, mysterious temples, and exotic drumming on the screen form an almost cruel contrast with his gloomy reality. He is immersed in the fantasy, like a drowning man grabbing at a straw.

As the movie ended and a thick fog rolled in, he was still preoccupied with the scenes from the film. He waited absentmindedly at the bus stop, boarded the No. 30 bus, and kept staring out the window, mistaking the lights in the night for scenes from the movie, completely unaware of the bus stop.

When he came to his senses, the carriage was empty. He hurriedly got off the train and found himself standing in a completely unfamiliar place—thick fog had swallowed everything, there were no road signs, no pedestrians, only boundless darkness and blurry shadows. He had “gotten the wrong station” and was lost on the edge of reality and fantasy, as if he had accidentally wandered into a foreign land in a movie and could no longer find his way back.

Calvino wrote this story like a lucid dream. It's light, even humorous, but beneath it lies something unsettling—about loneliness, about rebellion against a mundane life, about how one can briefly escape in fantasy, and then become more thoroughly lost in reality.

Then he started writing.

"For those whose living conditions are unbearably bad, the best place to go on a cold night is naturally the movie theater. Marco became fascinated with color films because the huge screen was enough to show the widest range of scenes: vast grasslands, rolling mountains, African jungles, and islands covered in wildflowers."

He wrote smoothly, almost without pausing. Calvino's original text was like a negative laid deep in his mind. What he had to do was to develop it in his own language—not translate, but restate it, replacing the Italian customs with domestic ones, erasing those European place names and habits, exposing the bones of the story, and then wrapping it with new flesh and blood.

But this story is different from "The Gift of the Magi" and "Lunch." Those two stories required him to make major revisions—names, place names, customs, and prices were all changed. Otherwise, readers would ask: How could a sixteen-year-old high school student from Shanghai know so much about apartment life in New York?

"The Wrong Station" is not needed.

This story can happen anywhere—at a train station, in a movie theater, on a bus, in thick fog, or late at night—these are universal settings, with no fundamental difference between domestic and international settings. A porter working in Shanghai and a porter in Turin face the same daily routine, the same exhaustion, and the same fantasies about distant places. The only thing that needs to be changed is the subtle, European-style descriptions—change the bus models to those commonly seen in China, erase the street names, and change the names of the people.

He continued writing.

"Only then did he realize that the bus was almost empty. He stared intently through the glass window, trying to figure out what the faint lights were, and determined that he should get off at the next stop. So he quickly ran to the door and got off just in time. He looked around, trying to find any landmarks to help him orient himself. But the little light and shadow his eyes could catch couldn't form any recognizable shapes. He got off at the wrong stop and didn't know where he was."

As he wrote this, a question suddenly occurred to him—did the protagonist really "make a mistake"?

Or was he subconsciously thinking the wrong thing? He'd walked that road to the warehouse and the gas stove countless times; he could find his way back with his eyes closed. But tonight was different. Tonight, his mind was filled with grasslands and temples, the Ganges and celebrations. He didn't want to go back to that cramped room, didn't want to face the same moving, the same bus, the same gas stove tomorrow. So he let himself drift off, let himself miss his stop, let himself walk into the thick fog.

This is not a mistake, it is a choice.

He just didn't know it.

Lin Shubai felt that this was probably Calvino's greatest strength—he didn't write the characters' inner monologues or "the protagonist's thoughts." He only wrote about actions, the environment, and the light and shadow in the fog, yet the reader understood everything.

"He was trembling with excitement. He had finally arrived in India from the movies, on the sacred banks of the Ganges. He could even see the twinkling lights on the opposite bank, which must be the lights of Kolkata. He walked along the riverbank, looking for a place to cross. He saw a bridge in the distance, decorated with colorful lights, which looked especially beautiful in the darkness."

Having written this far, the story was already more than halfway through. Lin Shubai put down his pen, stretched his wrists, stood up, walked to the window, and drew back the curtains. It was pitch black outside, and the faint sounds of traffic from the overpass in the distance could be heard. He glanced at the alarm clock on his desk—11:20. He had been writing for almost two hours, but it felt like only a short time had passed.

He sat back down and continued writing the last paragraph.

He walked to the bridge, ready to cross. Just then, a strong wind swept by, dispersing the thick fog that had enveloped him.

The scene before my eyes changed instantly.

There is no Ganges, no Calcutta, no temples, and no celebrations.

He stood on an abandoned highway, the concrete surface beneath his feet cracked, surrounded by a desolate construction site piled high with steel bars, cement, and construction debris. In the distance, a few dim streetlights flickered in the thick fog, illuminating the desolate and bleak landscape.

"So, it was all a dream..." he murmured to himself.

After writing the last word, he put down his pen and read it over from the beginning.

The ending is after the dream ends and the fog dissipates. There is no Ganges River or temple, only a desolate construction site, an unfamiliar city, and a loneliness with nowhere to go. The protagonist stands on an abandoned highway. The fog has lifted, but the way home is gone too. He left that cramped room, but he also lost his only refuge—the dream in the movie theater.

Calvino didn't write about what happened to him afterward; he left him on that highway.

This story is unlike anything he has written before. "The Most Precious Gift" is heartbreaking yet heartwarming, "Life on a String" is heavy yet powerful, and "Charlotte's Web" is sad yet full of hope. But "The Wrong Station" is a story with no way out. The fog has dissipated, the dream has ended, and you can neither go back to where you were before nor go to where you wanted to go. You stand in a desolate place where you don't belong to any place.

"You can't solve your real-world problems by running away." Lin Shubai felt that this was probably what Calvino wanted to express.