It was just a love letter; I'm really no great writer!

"Is this a pirated copy?"

Wen Yu is the head of the Chinese language grade group at the No. 1 High School in the provincial capital.

Yesterday in class, a girl was caught red-handed secretly reading a magazine. She stubbornly argued that she was learning about the latest developments in contemporary literature.

Wen Yu laughed.

Then they confiscated the Huaizhong Pictorial. I flipped through it after class; the cover was nice, but the content was just some student work.

However, the last novel, with its light and effortless language, allowed Wen Yu to savor a different flavor.

When I read the sentence, "Youqing lay in the pit, getting smaller and smaller, not like he had lived for thirteen years, but like Jiazhen had just given birth to him," my hands and feet felt cold in the middle of summer.

A thirteen-year-old child died from having his blood drawn.

She searched for "living" online and found only a few scattered discussions. Before evening self-study, Wen Yu returned the "Huaizhong Pictorial" to that girl and told her to read extracurricular books during breaks.

That night, Wen Yu tossed and turned, unable to sleep. A grave kept appearing in her mind, a grave under the moonlight, where Youqing, Fengxia, Jiazhen, Erxi, and Kugen were buried...

Her eyes narrowed.

Snapped!

The husband, Guo Qing, turned on the light, fuming. "What are you doing in the middle of the night? Aren't you going to sleep or not?"

Wen Yu, who was almost forty years old, burst into tears, "Youqing is dead... Waaah—"

The cries were so mournful and heart-wrenching that Guo Qing's eyes reddened as he embraced his wife, saying, "I'm here, I'm here..."

After hugging and crying for a while, Guo Qing's mind went blank: Who is You Qing?

I don't think I've ever heard of this person before, and there's no such person in my father-in-law's family either. Could he be my wife's first love?

Guo Qing looked at his wife, who was crying her heart out, and his feelings were as complicated as a bowl of noodles with all the flavors of life.

"Who is Yuqing...?"

"Fugui, Fugui's son."

"Who is Fugui...?"

"To Live, the protagonist of a novel called 'To Live'."

"..."

Guo Qing wanted to light a cigarette to calm down. "Seriously, you're reading a novel, and you actually cried?"

Wen Yu rubbed away her tears: "What if you cry while watching this?"

Guo Qing replied without hesitation, "Impossible. If you send me the link, I'll cry and wash dishes for a year."

"You were supposed to be washing it anyway, but you cried and turned my study into my walk-in closet."

"Send it!"

"It's not available online."

"Then give me the book."

"The book... I'll buy it tomorrow. Time for bed!"

"..." Guo Qing looked at his wife, who was sleeping peacefully, and fell into deep thought.

Wen Yu was concerned about this matter, and went to many large bookstores the next morning, but couldn't find it. So she had to try her luck at the newsstand in the afternoon, but it was still not available.

But then, a new path opened up before us...

"Plagiarism is this well-made? Mine are all original and genuine!" The scalper handed over a magazine.

"How much?"

"Fifty dollars," the scalper chuckled.

"You?" Wen Yu flipped it over to look at the price: ten yuan.

"Don't be angry, beautiful lady. This Huaizhong Pictorial is an internal school publication of Huaicheng No. 1 Middle School. It's not for sale to the public. I used my connections to secretly get it out and transported it from Huaicheng. It even includes grains from the author of Pipa Xing. It's definitely worth more than its price!" Huang Niu said confidently.

"The Ballad of the Pipa?" Wen Yu was taken aback.

"How about fifty? Forty-five is the lowest I can go." The scalper looked troubled.

Wen Yu frowned: "I'm warning you, don't sell scalped books on our school. If I see you again, I'll call the police!"

"Damn it, who is this guy?!" The scalper angrily snatched the magazine and quickly ran away.

Wen Yu returned to the teachers' apartment from the east gate and absentmindedly cooked dinner.

A jumble of thoughts churned within me: the pipa ballad, Huaicheng No. 1 Middle School, Lu Ran, living...

Guo Qing came out of the study, smelling the aroma of the food, and strode into the kitchen: "Wife, I want to see you alive!"

"I couldn't buy it," Wen Yu said irritably.

Guo Qing wasn't annoyed: "Haha, it's alright, it's alright. I don't think it's good; it'll make me uncomfortable."

"Alive? Who wants to see someone alive?"

Guo Tianjun, who had just come home from school, excitedly pulled a stack of brand-new, shiny magazines from her schoolbag and proudly declared, "I have twenty of these! Anyone want to read them?"

Wen Yu ran out with a shovel, and her vision blurred as she looked at it: "Where...where did you buy this...?"

Guo Tianjun stuck out her tongue: "The bookstore! I bought fifty books in one go. They're so cheap, only ten yuan each!"

"...There are still thirty books left?" Wen Yu trembled.

"I gave it to the fans in the fan club. Oh, I'm the president of the No. 1 Middle School branch of Lu Ran's fan club." Guo Tianjun put her hands on her hips. "The introduction of Huaizhong Pictorial to No. 1 Middle School was also arranged by me in contact with the president of Huaicheng No. 1 Middle School."

Wen Yu: "..."

Guo Qing thought for two seconds, then said, "Give me one to look at first."

"Okay." Guo Tianjun took out an application form. "Dad, you have to join Lu Ran's fan club too..."

Guo Qing had no choice but to fill out the form and become a full member before he received the magazine. He stroked the cover and said, "Not bad at all. The production quality is excellent. The printing and binding alone must have cost six or seven yuan."

He compared the catalog to the table of contents, "Let me see... This is the third issue, aren't the previous ones included?"

Guo Tianjun was speechless: "The first two issues are already out of print, and they're being sold online for exorbitant prices. You can't buy them even if you want to."

"Heh, even magazines can be hyped up, what about fan circles..." Guo Qing habitually made his usual comment. Then he flipped to the chapter on "Living (Part 2)" and skimmed through it sentence by sentence.

Xu Youqing is dying; he's in the hospital...

I asked the PE teacher, and that's how I found out that Youqing died from having his blood drawn...

I sat before my parents' graves, holding my son tightly, refusing to let go...

I covered him with soil with my hands and picked out all the small stones, afraid they would hurt him...

【…】

Her eyes narrowed.

Ugh... Guo Qing wanted to light a cigarette to calm down. An image of a boy running with a schoolbag on his back floated into his mind, facing the sunlight, the schoolbag swinging back and forth behind him...

……

"That's all?"

Under the gentle golden rays of the setting sun, in front of the lush green newsstand, Xia Liang pressed, "When did it disappear?"

"They were all sold out on the first day," the shop owner recalled. "I was wondering why. I'd heard of scalped tickets, but never magazines."

Lu Ran frowned and remained silent.

"It might not be scalpers; it could be a wealthy person with a hoarding hoarding hoarding habit," Xia Liang reassured her.

bookstore……

Bookstore...

Large bookstores...

Chain bookstores of arts and literature...

Everything was completely sold out!

Xia Liang was startled: "What's going on?"

"Needless to say, we got scalped." Lu Ran said, laughing and crying at the same time. "Sigh, it's also my fault for being inexperienced. We set the price too low, and it got too popular online."

This group of high school students is a completely makeshift team, running it entirely with a student mindset.

The seasoned veterans of society won't tolerate you.

For a few pennies, they dare to shortchange customers and sell inferior goods.

They're willing to take risks for a few hundred dollars in profit.

For a few thousand dollars, they would abandon morality and principles.

All that hard work on the poster, not only did I not make any money but I also lost a lot of money, only to have scalpers steal the profits... How can I stand for that?

"Then, what should we do?" Xia Liang looked at Lu Ran with a panicked expression.

Lu Ran thought for a moment and said:

"The occurrence of this situation indicates a complete imbalance between supply and demand."

"To curb scalping, we must increase supply significantly and adjust pricing to suit the market..."

"I don't know the specifics either, I'll ask my uncle."

Actually, Sister Di is more knowledgeable about business operations, but he didn't want to bother her with work, as he was already very busy.

"Then, Lu Ran, could we please not tell everyone about this...?"

Xia Liang tapped her fingertips together, blushing, and said, "This time it was my mistake to make such a decision. Let's just keep it a secret between the two of us... okay?"

"Oh?" Lu Ran chuckled, rubbing his fingers together. "Your secret..."