1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 141 The Last Stack of Paper in Life

Fu Yonglin stood at the door in a daze. Liu Heng was actually crying?
When he saw the manuscript in Liu Heng's hand, he immediately understood that it was because of reading that manuscript that Liu Heng burst into tears.

However, editors read so many manuscripts every day, and as they gain more work experience and knowledge, their emotions will become dull or even numb, and there will be very few things that can resonate with them. Not to mention that Liu Heng is a male editor and is not as emotional as female editors.

"Liu Heng, what's going on?"

Fu Yonglin handed over a cigarette and took the initiative to help Liu Heng light it. The flame of the cigarette butt was sometimes bright and sometimes dim.

Liu Heng took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, using the tobacco to calm his emotions. He wiped away his tears, but his heart still felt like it was cut by a knife, and he couldn't suppress the sadness brought by the story.

At the end of the letter, the strange woman could no longer write. Her limbs ached and she felt everything was so cold. She said, "Mr. Ren, who will send you a white rose on your birthday in the future?"

In the past, the woman would send a bouquet of white roses to Mr. Ren on his birthday every year. This was because when she first made love with him at the age of 18, Mr. Ren gave her a white rose before leaving. This flower became her treasure, and she kissed it until it withered.

Now, the woman is about to die, the white roses in the vase disappear, and the last breath of the woman disappears with them.

Liu Heng would never cry because of such a hopeless and tragic love.

Even Gorky cried for it.

As a good friend of Zweig, Gorky commented: My sympathy for your protagonist, her image and her sorrowful heart moved me so much that I could hardly control myself and I cried without feeling the slightest bit of shame.

"Whose manuscript is this?"

"Jiang Xian."

"Is it well written?" Fu Yonglin couldn't help but ask as he looked at the manuscript in Liu Heng's hand.

"It's a rare good manuscript." Liu Heng slowly exhaled a puff of green smoke. "I thought that a novel of this style would have a weak storyline, but it turns out not to be the case. It has a unique flavor to read. Writer Jiang is worthy of his writing. It's really well written."

Fu Yonglin was somewhat moved by what he heard and took the manuscript from him. "A letter from a strange woman?"

[The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but when I stand in front of you and you don’t know that I love you.]
The sentence quoted above caught Fu Yonglin's attention and made him want to read on.

“What kind of literature is it?”

Liu Heng almost calmed down, pondered for a moment, and said in a hoarse voice: "I feel it is a bit like reflective literature. It writes about things from 1930 to 1948. The main content of the novel is a letter, a letter written by a woman to a man, telling a love story."

"Love story?" Fu Yonglin frowned.

If that's the case, then it's similar to the theme of the novel "Love, Can't Be Forgotten".

But Jiang Xian is a man after all, so his writing about love is bound to be a bit rough. I wonder if this novel can capture some of Zhang Jie's charm.

He thought of something important to do, "Go and say hello to Comrade Yang Mo. You were so focused on reading the manuscript just now that no one noticed you."

"Comrade Yang Mo is here?" Liu Heng wiped his eyes carefully and suppressed the emotions on his face. After all, it was quite embarrassing for a grown man like him to cry. "I'll be there right away.

Please keep Brother Fu’s events today a secret for me.”

"Well, don't worry, I'm tight-lipped."

After Liu Heng left the office, Fu Yonglin sat back in his seat holding the manuscript.

He wanted to take a good look at what kind of manuscript could make a man like Liu Heng cry.

He scanned the lines:
The strange woman lived in a courtyard with many residents. When she was 13 years old, a wealthy, knowledgeable and talented newspaper writer moved into the north room. The naive woman was deeply attracted by his temperament.

Her mother was going to remarry and move to Shandong. Before moving away, she waited in front of the door of the north room all night, eager to see him again. Finally, she waited for the drunken Mr. Ren, who was hugging a lady in cheongsam and kissing her passionately in the corridor.

As time passed, she returned to Beijing to attend university at the age of 18 and moved into the courtyard opposite, where she met Mr. Ren, whom she had been dreaming about.

This time, the young and beautiful girl quickly attracted Mr. Ren's attention. Of course, he could not recognize that she was the little girl from the widow of the elementary school teacher.

He rescued her during a student march when they were being chased by patrolmen, and this time, they spent a night together.

The letter read: "I still remember that you were fast asleep, I heard your breathing, touched your body, felt myself so close to you, I cried in happiness at night. The next morning I was in a hurry to leave, I had to go to school, I got dressed, you held me in your arms, and magically conjured up a white rose. I knew clearly that you got it from the blue crystal vase on your desk."

The two spent three more ecstatic nights together.

"North China is in danger, the capital is in danger!"

Mr. Ren packed his bags and fled for refuge. Several months passed, and when he came back, he had already forgotten the woman with whom he had been so affectionate. She was just an unknown woman whom he had met briefly.

What he didn't know was that she already had his son. She dropped her studies and raised the child alone. In order to give him the same good life as his father, she slept with all kinds of upper-class people of all ages.

She had the opportunity to become an officer's wife, but she refused it. She refused all marriage proposals so that she could respond to the call of her dear Mr. Ren as soon as she heard it.

This moment did come, and she met Mr. Ren again at a dance party, in the ballroom filled with lights, wine and women.

She was charming and beautiful, but he knew nothing and treated her as his new love.

After the joy, when she put on her cheongsam, Mr. Ren took out a stack of gold yuan notes and stuffed them into her hand warmer.

"How could I not scream out and slap you in the face at that moment?!" The words on the letter were written in anger and were scribbled.

Even so, the woman was still making her last struggle, using the white roses in the vase to remind him and hint at her past.

But she was disappointed in the end. Mr. Ren was kind but knew nothing.

At this time, Jiang Xian exaggerated the tragedy to the extreme:
The embarrassed woman went out of the north room, and the man's butler came in from under the hanging flower door. The moment the two looked at each other, the old butler's eyes lit up for no reason.

The old housekeeper, who had only seen her in childhood, recognized the thin and shy little girl in the yard!

The letter said: "In this second, he knows more about me than you will in your entire life.

Everyone pampers me, dotes on me, and is nice to me.

Only you! Only you have completely forgotten me!

Only you! Only you never recognized me!"

The woman's story ended here.

This was the last stack of paper in her life.

Like a bleak cold wind blowing from another world, bringing an unattainable message -

A message from someone who has passed away.

Fu Yonglin was immersed in the story woven by Jiang Xian, the story revealed in a letter, and his heart was filled with ups and downs.

He tried hard to suppress the intense sadness in his heart and only let out a soft sigh.

"It's so well written."

He even wanted to say that he wrote better than Zhang Jie!
This article is written in a simple style, with sincere emotions and silent narration, but it is so shocking.

Fu Yonglin couldn't help but feel an urgency to share this manuscript with his readers.

"When will Dening come back to collect the manuscripts?"

"do not know."

"Hurry up and call to urge them.

What else is there to write?
The good manuscript is on her desk!"

(End of this chapter)