1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 235: Gathering of Old Artists
In December, Zhang Yimou wore a gray coat and walked to the newspaper stand, looking exhausted.

"Comrade, give me a copy of China Youth Daily."

He tried to act calm.

Not long ago, Zhang Yimou handed a photo he had taken to China Youth Daily. Unexpectedly, he received a reply from China Youth Daily, saying that the newspaper would publish the photo.

He was ecstatic.

China Youth Daily is a national newspaper. It is a special case in Beijing and even in the whole country that a photo taken by a college student can be published in a newspaper of such level.

The salesperson brought him a copy, and Zhang Yimou flipped through it and immediately found the photo he had taken.
——《Chinese Girl》

"Ah! It really happened!"

The photo shows a woman from behind, wearing an ordinary white shirt and a thick, long braid that goes over her hips.

Well, maybe Zhang Yimou’s XP is really a big braid.

This photo has a large area of ​​white space and high-end black, white and gray. Except for a braid and a head, the whole body is almost invisible in the entire work.

This is a girl that Zhang Yimou asked his cousin to find for him when he was a worker at the National Cotton Mill. He can't even remember her name, but he took this photo of her on a whim.

In a sense, this person can be regarded as the first generation of "Mou Girl". Her whereabouts were unknown later. Rumor has it that she became a flight attendant.

It is human nature to attract other people's attention. In simple terms, everyone likes to show off.

Like Liu Cixin, after The Three-Body Problem won the Hugo Award, he was calm, cautious, modest, and indifferent when interviewed by reporters. He immediately declared: "The award is not worthy of the award."

When he got to the forum, he changed his account and changed his tone: "This is the Nobel Prize for science fiction! It is highly regarded in the United States! It is absolutely great!"

When seeing his photos published, Zhang Yimou had a similar mentality as Liu Cixin.

He hissed loudly, as if he wanted to suck in all the cool air in the capital city into his stomach, and smacked his lips hard, fearing that others could not hear him.

"Wow, this photo is quite well taken!"

“The composition, light and shadow, and characters are all very creative!”

"And it was taken by a college student. Incredible, really incredible!"

He made quite a lot of noise, but not many people paid attention to him. A man came over and Zhang Yimou was quite happy, "Look, isn't that very bold?"

As a result, people ignored him and went straight to the newspaper selling point.

"Comrade, is there any issue of People's Literature in December this year?"

"Have."

Seeing this, Zhang Yimou rubbed his head awkwardly, put the newspaper away, and heard the conversation between the salesperson and the gay man.

"This issue of People's Literature contains a novel by writer Jiang Xian. We only published his novel. It's very impressive!"

"I know. I read half of it in the library last night, but when I went to borrow it this morning, it was out of stock."

"Oh, then you can read it. This novel is good. It feels just like Four Generations Under One Roof. My heart was in my throat the whole time I was reading it."

"Four Generations Under One Roof" is very famous, but it is an incomplete version in China. The "Four Generations Under One Roof" published by Renwen Press this year only has the first eighty-seven chapters, and the last thirteen chapters are missing. On the contrary, the complete English and Japanese translations can be seen in the United States and Japan. The main reason is that the original manuscript was destroyed during serialization, and these thirteen chapters were later supplemented from the English manuscript.

"A new novel by writer Jiang Xian?" Zhang Yimou was curious and took out a few dimes from his handkerchief. "Comrade, please give me a copy of this issue of People's Literature."

The salesperson ate some melon seeds and said, "But I asked you to buy it. This is the last copy."

Zhang Yimou took the booklet and saw the title of the novel printed on the cover.
——"Xu Sanguan Selling Blood"

Selling blood?

Zhang Yimou became interested.

Because he sold it too.

This was admitted by Lao Mouzi himself.

That was probably five or six years ago. He played with his cousin's camera a few times and became interested in photography. He sold blood for three months, relying on the 4 yuan monthly salary from working in the factory at that time, plus the yuan subsidy for young workers who donated blood each time, he finally saved more than yuan and bought a Seagull camera at that time.

After returning to the dormitory, Zhang Yimou took off his shoes, sat cross-legged on the bed and began to read the novel.

He had a bad habit of not wearing socks with shoes. It was still a bit smelly in winter, but in summer, he wore a pair of rubber shoes without socks, and it was suffocating when he took off his shoes. Chen Ai Ge suffered a lot from this.

Opening this issue of "People's Literature", the table of contents is unprecedentedly short. With a quick flip, the first page is the first page of the novel.

There are large and conspicuous characters reading "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood" and an editor's note below.

Zhang Yimou usually calls himself a literary youth and often reads People's Literature. Knowing that their editors rarely write editor's notes, he couldn't help but read it out of curiosity. The first sentence was:
"Jiang Xian's novel is about creating heroes. His heroes are not gods, but ordinary people. - Guang Weiran"

Zhang Yimou was surprised. Who doesn't know Guang Weiran's name? How could such a person write a comment on this article, and the comment was so high? !
He then looked back and the editorial department first introduced the French "New Novel" genre. A few years ago, Samuel Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature for "expressing human suffering in a sublime art, in the form of a new novel and drama." This marked that the "New Novel" had been recognized by the Western academic community, making it a classic in the history of modern French and even world literature.

Jiang Xian is a writer who is good at trying new literary styles. He keeps up with Western literary trends and created this novel. In this article, the author is no longer a narrative invader, but a listener. He tells the absurd and ordinary life of Xu Sanguan from the perspective of an observer.

Zhang Yimou had only one feeling at the moment: it was huge and coming at a menacing pace.

"People's Literature" has unprecedentedly put all its efforts into promoting a novel, and has given it such high evaluation and treatment that it is no exaggeration to say that it treats it like a son.

You should know that People's Literature basically only publishes short stories, and almost no novellas, let alone novels. As a result, Jiang Xian's novel was published in its entirety.

Although Zhang Yimou is not a person from the literary world, he can vaguely sense that no matter whether this novel is good or bad, the literary world will definitely give the most intense feedback. After all, this is the "No. 1 Journal of Chinese Literature."

With strong curiosity, his eyes penetrated deeply into the publication.

In a blink of an eye, it was evening.

"Zhang Yimou, let me introduce you to a friend." Gu Changwei, my roommate in the same dormitory, led a young man in. "Jiang Xiaojun, from the Performance Department of the Central Academy of Drama, just started freshman this year."

Jiang Xiaojun failed the college entrance examination last year. This year, he listened to his good friend Yingda's advice and applied for the Central Academy of Drama. Unexpectedly, he was admitted into the Acting Department of the Central Academy of Drama.

Zhang Yimou did not pay attention to them immediately. He read until the last line of the novel. He was in a daze for a while, then he raised his head with a look of unsatisfied feeling and a distant look in his eyes.

"Oh, you're reading this too?" Jiang Xiaojun glanced at the volume of People's Literature.

"You know this too?!" Zhang Yimou's eyes gradually brightened.

He is currently in the stage where he is extremely eager to share, just like after watching a movie, he will definitely want to chat with his friends immediately after it ends.

"I read it, it's so damn well written." Jiang Xiaojun sat down on the edge of his bed, "Especially the part where Xu Yulan was taken away as a slut."

Zhang Yimou clapped his hands, "Yes!"

He was so impressed. In other novels, "hum hum hum" would definitely be a tragic episode, and the description would make people sad and angry, cry, and reflect. But when it came to Jiang Xian, he wrote it like this:
[Two days later, a group of people came to Xu Sanguan's house and took Xu Yulan away. They were going to hold a meeting, and they had found all kinds of people except for a jinv. Now there was only half an hour left before the meeting, and they finally found her at Xu Sanguan's house. They said, "Xu Yulan, come with us quickly, we are in a hurry to save her."]
Spicy and humorous.

Later, Xu Sanguan's sons all refused to pay attention to Xu Yulan, and someone instigated Xu Sanguan to pi Xu Yulan off at home, so Xu Sanguan simply held a pi meeting at home.

"They all say Xu Yulan receives guests every night. Who do you think she receives and what kind of guests she receives?"

The youngest son, Sanle, said, "It's you who picked up the phone."

"Yes, I am the guest Xu Yulan receives every night. Am I a guest? But Xu Yulan has a problem with her lifestyle. Xu Yulan, explain the matter between you and He Xiaoyong to your three sons."

Xu Yulan burst into tears again, she said with tears in her eyes:
"I know you all hate me, but you can't blame me for this. It was He Xiaoyong who pushed me against the wall while my dad was in the toilet. I pushed him, but he still pressed me against the wall. I pushed him hard, but he was stronger than me, so I couldn't push him away. I wanted to scream, but he grabbed me, so I couldn't scream. I just went limp."

Xu Sanguan saw that Erle and Sanle's eyes widened at this time. Yile lowered his head and paddled vigorously on the ground with his feet. Xu Yulan continued to speak:

"He dragged me to the bed and undressed me. I had no strength left at that time. He pulled one of my legs out of my trouser leg and left the other leg alone. He then undressed his own trousers."

Xu Sanguan then shouted, "Stop talking! Didn't you see that Erle and Sanle's eyes are about to pop out of their heads? You are spreading poison! You are poisoning the next generation!"

Xu Sanguan pointed at Xu Yulan and shouted at Erle and Sanle, "This is your mother. Are you still willing to listen to me?"

"I didn't hear anything."

"I didn't hear anything either."

"Forget it." Xu Sanguan said, "I also have problems with my lifestyle. Xu Yulan and He Xiaoyong only had one incident, and I had one incident with Fatty Lin. If you want to hate your mother, you should also hate me, because she and I are the same kind of people."

In this way, Xu Sanguan used his little wisdom to maintain the warmth of his small family.

"That's absolutely amazing!"

Jiang Xiaojun took out two cigarettes and started smoking together with Zhang Yimou and Gu Changwei.

"When I first read this novel, I cursed and said what a load of crap it was. But I didn't expect that I would get more and more excited the more I read. It was humorous but also a little cruel."

"Why not?!"

Zhang Yimou and Jiang Xiaojun got along very well. "I also thought People's Literature was a good book at first, but when I read it later, I realized it was really well written!"

Gu Changwei hadn't seen it yet. Seeing the two of them chatting so happily, he was completely confused by what he heard.

"Is it that good?" he asked.

"Very good." said Zhang Yimou.

"What are you talking about?" Gu Changwei asked.

"Just look for yourself," said Jiang Xiaojun.

Gu Changwei shook his head. "I don't like reading novels. My head hurts when I see the words. I can't concentrate."

"Then I guarantee that you will be able to read this article."

Zhang Yimou said: "The old men in the fields of our village are illiterate, but if you read to them, they will definitely understand."

"So amazing?" Gu Changwei was surprised.

Zhang Yimou took a puff of his cigarette and sighed, "I really wish I could make this novel into a movie!"

Jiang Xiaojun was also excited when he heard it, "Brother, you are my bosom friend! I have the same idea, I really want to make this novel into a movie."

The two were full of energy and wrote passionately. They hit it off immediately and dreamed of working together to shoot this movie. Gu Changwei also wanted to get involved, and the three of them started dreaming of reshooting this movie together.

According to the original historical trajectory, there was indeed a director in China who was preparing to shoot "Xu Sanguan Selling Blood", and that director was Jiang Xiaojun. Unfortunately, the subject matter was too sensitive, and the script failed to pass review. Instead, South Korea filmed a movie and made Ha Jung-woo famous.

However, seven years later, the three people in the dormitory did get together to make a movie. Jiang Xiaojun was the lead actor, Gu Changwei was the photographer, and Zhang Yimou was the director. The movie was called "Red Sorghum".

(End of this chapter)