Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 559 Where is the opponent?
May 4th is Youth Day.

It's a pity there's no holiday.

Since he didn't have to go to class today, Chen Fan went to find He Qingsheng.

He Qingsheng was working when he saw him come in. He just glanced at him and asked, "Is the enrollment work at the correspondence education center finished?"

Chen Fan pulled out a chair and sat opposite him, saying earnestly, "Right now, all I want is war!"

He Qingsheng's lips twitched slightly. He closed the folder and put it aside. While twisting the pen cap, he looked at him and said, "Then you may be disappointed. There are indeed troublemakers, but none worth our attention have shown up yet."

Chen Fan's eyes widened. "Who was it? Why didn't they tell me?"

He Qingsheng chuckled twice, put the pen back in the pen holder, took a sip of tea, and grinned, "I won't say who it is specifically, but from what I've heard, there are probably a dozen or so. They're all unknown writers who haven't even joined their respective provincial writers' associations. At most, they're just regional members, and some aren't even members. They're just using their seniority to lecture you because they've been working for a long time. There's no need to pay attention to these kinds of people."

Chen Fan frowned, puzzled, and asked, "How could this be?"

Shouldn't writing such "avant-garde" articles provoke "public outrage"?

When did the literary world become so friendly?

He Qingsheng looked at him, picked up a cigarette and tossed it to him, laughing, "Why do you seem a little disappointed?"

Chen Fan held the cigarette between two fingers, casually tossed it into his mouth, and said, "I've been prepared for a war of words ever since I started writing this book, okay? And now you're telling me this? How can I not be disappointed?!"

He Qingsheng shook his head and said irritably, "I think you're just asking for trouble. You're not happy even when no one is scolding you."

He lit a match, exhaled a puff of smoke, and said, "At first, I didn't understand either, otherwise I wouldn't have told our association members beforehand not to be reserved when it's time to step up, and to prepare them in advance. But, how should I put it, you've managed to get rid of all the influential people who dared to criticize you."

Chen Fan looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

He Qingsheng sighed and looked at him, saying, "I'm asking you, where are the people who have the right to criticize you and who can get us to respond?"

Chen Fan's eyes darted around slightly. "The provincial writers' associations, I suppose."

Only the older generation of national members are qualified to engage in verbal battles with Chen Fan and need the assistance of the Jiangnan Writers Association.

The National Writers Association is more like the headquarters of a group company. It sets up a council there and puts a few permanent staff members in to work. That's about it.

Members generally do not stay at the Writers Association headquarters for long periods. These people either have their own jobs and stay at their own workplaces year-round, like Qu Bo, or, like Mr. Ba Jin, they serve as local members and reside in their local branches to preside over the work.

As for the council members and staff of the association, they generally do not get involved personally. If writers from below start a fight, they act as mediators and referees, making the final decision.

That's why Chen Fan said the opponents were in the provincial branches.

He Qingsheng nodded, then pointed at him and asked, "Still haven't figured it out?"

Chen Fan watched him blink, about to ask what he was thinking about?
Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind, and he said hesitantly, "A provincial magazine?"

Upon hearing this, He Qingsheng's lips curled into a wide grin, and he chuckled, "That's right!"

He slammed his hand on the table and leaned back in his chair. “You’ve been submitting articles to more than a dozen provincial journals and have been working with them for more than six months. You’re practically one of their ‘insiders.’ Who would offend you for no reason? Aren’t you afraid of losing a high-quality contributor in the future?”

Yes, there are quite a few stubborn people in the literary world who will find a way to criticize someone for no reason and call themselves critics.

But they're just stubborn, not stupid. They know you have to choose your target when you're going to insult someone. What good would it do to insult someone who consistently contributes to the provincial magazine? Why risk offending the leaders of the provincial writers' association?

Provincial publications are generally affiliated with the provincial writers' association, and sometimes even the leadership team is shared, so offending a provincial publication is equivalent to offending the writers' association. Who would be so foolish?
Looking at He Qingsheng's radiant face, Chen Fan couldn't help but chuckle, "I just submitted a manuscript, and it had this kind of effect?"

He only wanted to earn more royalties, he never expected to achieve this additional success.

He Qingsheng exhaled a puff of smoke, waved his hand and said, "Not only that, several people I found work in their provincial branches. I heard from them that they are all keeping an eye on the sales of 'Yunhu Love' and are just waiting for the final results before they plan to talk to you about publishing it separately."

Chen Fan's eyes darted around slightly. "Articles that were previously published in their magazine?"

He Qingsheng nodded and explained with a smile, "Generally speaking, when a serialized novel is published separately, the original publishing house has priority publishing rights, but the author's consent is also required."

A single book, "Love in the Clouds and Lakes," can bring in over 100,000 yuan in revenue for Jiangnan Literature and Art Publishing House. That's real money; how could they not be tempted?

When the time comes, all your published articles will be released separately. You'll earn some more royalties, and they'll also make some extra income. Who wouldn't be happy?

At this point, who would be so foolish as to publicly criticize your article? Aren't they afraid you'll flip the table? Or that it will cause a significant drop in sales for the standalone edition? Wouldn't that cut off everyone's source of income?!

Chen Fan chuckled, thinking that it seemed to make sense.

He Qingsheng pointed at him and laughed, "They've taken your bait and are already hooked. Unless they don't want to make money, no one will target you."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "Besides, the stance of the book 'Love of Cloud Lake' is not problematic, and it conforms to the guiding principles of higher authorities. What we were worried about before was merely a part of your bold descriptions in the article."

"But then again..." He suddenly stood up, walked to the door, opened it, peeked inside, closed the door again, turned back to Chen Fan, and whispered, "Speaking of which, what was this kind of description 20 years ago?!"

After saying that, he turned around, walked behind his desk, and sat down. He tapped the table with his fingers and continued in a low voice, "Compared to back then, you're just a novice."

Chen Fan blinked. "Now you call this naive?"
He Qingsheng continued, "And those handwritten copies are much wilder than what you wrote."

Then he quickly added, "But you absolutely mustn't copy those handwritten books. You still have to have a bottom line; you can't go too far."

Chen Fan nodded, "Even if I write it, there's still the publisher to review it, so there won't be any problems."

He Qingsheng raised his forehead. "It's best not to write it."

Chen Fan: "I won't write it, I won't write it."

Well, to be honest, he really doesn't think much of those things.

As everyone knows, a handwritten copy is something that needs no further explanation.

It's not that all the handwritten copies were bad books, but the percentage of good books was ridiculously low.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past few years alone, more than 300 handwritten copies have been popular, while the number of those that failed to become popular is at least 10 times that number.

Even among popular editions, very few are eventually released for public publication.

Apart from a very few exceptional pieces, the vast majority of handwritten manuscripts skirt the line of decency. They might contain descriptions of animalistic violence, be biased in their content, or go from one extreme to the other.

It perfectly meets the needs of those angry young people.

Accidents caused by the circulation of handwritten copies were indeed quite common back then.

Therefore, Chen Fan would absolutely not be interested in that kind of thing.

He's a legitimate "regular soldier," so there's no need for him to learn from them.

Seeing that Chen Fan readily agreed, He Qingsheng nodded in satisfaction and then said, "Also, I've received news that most provincial writers' associations are already preparing to start learning from us and offering correspondence courses in literary creation."

Chen Fan raised an eyebrow slightly. "So fast?"

The Jiangnan Literature Correspondence Course hasn't even officially started yet, but people are already jumping on the bandwagon and preparing to take action.
He Qingsheng nodded and said, "Now that the country is pursuing great development, money is needed in all aspects. Although the arts and culture sector has received some support, the funding is indeed far less than before."

Chen Fan nodded in deep agreement, “You used to distribute Grade A cigarettes as welfare items, but now you’ve been downgraded to Grade B cigarettes, which is indeed much more difficult.”

He Qingsheng couldn't help but roll his eyes. "Where did you learn this sarcastic tone from?"

Chen Fan coughed lightly, "Please continue."

He Qingsheng glared at him and continued, "We have some benefits from the Department of Culture, so we're doing alright. But some provincial branches aren't doing so well. Setting up a correspondence training course isn't complicated. Their resources aren't necessarily much less than ours. We all have two shoulders and one head. If we can earn over 100,000 yuan a year in tuition fees, they can certainly earn it too, even if it's less."

He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, looked at Chen Fan and smiled, "And considering this reason as well, tell me, which other authoritative writer would dare to criticize you?"

They accepted Chen Fan's manuscripts and used his ideas, making money from both sides, and yet they dared to criticize Chen Fan's articles?
Even the most shameless person wouldn't dare to do that.

No wonder only a few minor authors dare to show off; they are fearless because they have no desires and are ignorant, so they dare to act as local bullies in their own little corner of the world.

However, those who dare to criticize have basically blocked their own path to advancement in the literary world. As long as Chen Fan remains a prominent figure in the literary world, which provincial branch leader would accept them as members?

Don't even think about it!

After chatting for a long time, Chen Fan suddenly felt a sense of bewilderment, like someone drawing a sword and looking around in confusion.

Where is the opponent?
No one can fight!

He Qingsheng tossed him another cigarette and said, "Let's leave it at that for now. We'll see if any hothead dares to step forward, but I don't think there will be any."

"After that, go and follow up on the correspondence center's work. This is the first year, so we don't expect it to be perfect, but we should try to do it well to lay the foundation for future enrollment."

Chen Fan nodded. "I know. The enrollment process is now complete, and all 20,000 places have been confirmed. The office staff are preparing to mail the textbooks. Since there are quite a few applicants, it will probably take about a week to complete."

As for the first in-person training session, I think we should schedule it for the first of next month. Each session will last three days and have 500 participants. We'll hold two sessions each month, and with the regional chapters, it should take about a year to complete.

Seeing that he had a plan, He Qingsheng waved his hand and said, "Okay, go ahead and do your thing."

Chen Fan's lips twitched slightly. He grabbed a 72-cent Zhonghua cigarette from the table, got up, and walked out.

He Qingsheng was speechless and lightly slapped himself, "That'll teach you to never learn."

(End of this chapter)