1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 252 Full of Color

The first print run of "Glass Moon Shining on Copper Coin Street" was 20 copies, which is an astonishing number.

Take "Life", a book that Jiang Xian has been paying attention to recently, for example. The first print run was only 13 copies.

This is of course influenced by the popularity.

Jiang Xian's current fame and status in the literary world are definitely not comparable to that of Wang Weiguo when his masterpiece "Life" was just published.

An article written by "Xu Fei" caused quite a stir in the city, and the instigator Jiang Xian has not been idle during this period.

First, he followed Wu Qinghua to the street office, housing management office, and notary office to which Cuihua Hutong belonged, and ran around to finalize the property rights of the courtyard in Cuihua Hutong.

Wu Qinghua felt that this was the first time in his life that he felt so untrustworthy. He sighed, "Society has really become bad" and "People no longer trust each other."

Jiang Xian ignored him and signed a three-month temporary residence agreement with him.

When it comes to houses, there are too many troubles, and there can be no ambiguity in this regard.

These days, many people just stay in other people's houses and refuse to move out. They live there for decades and cannot be driven away. If you want them to move out, you have to help them solve their housing problem.

On April 4, Jiang Xian came to the auditorium of Yanda University.

The college drama troupe has held performances here for four consecutive days. Today is the last day. "The World's No. 1 Restaurant", which has been rehearsed for a month and a half, will also be on stage today.

This is the first appearance of "The World's Number One Restaurant" since its creation. Jiang Xian is quite looking forward to how Liang Zuo and others can rehearse this drama.

Among the four plays of the drama troupe, "The World's Number One Restaurant" has the longest performance time, a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes, plus a 15-minute intermission. This is the result of Liang Zuo simplifying many roles and content.

During these four days, the drama troupe performed a play every day in the Yan University Auditorium.

The four performances were led by Yingda's "Nine of Us". Over the three days, the students' enthusiasm grew day by day. By the last day's "The World's No. 1 Restaurant", students from the entire campus came to join in the fun.

In the evening, before the show started, the entrance to the auditorium was already crowded with students. Thanks to the relatively high quality of Yan University students, they started queuing up spontaneously and there was no commotion like buying vegetables in the vegetable market.

Many teachers and professors of Yanda University heard that there was a drama performance in their own school and rushed there, bringing their families with them.

Faced with this situation, the school responded quickly.

The security personnel arrived in time to maintain order, and with the cooperation of the drama team students and teachers, they guided the teachers and students of Yan University to enter the auditorium in an orderly manner.

"So many people come to watch?" Jiang Xian was surprised to see the grand scene outside the auditorium.

Liang Zuo and Wang Xiaoping were busy making preparations backstage. The person who came to greet Jiang Xian was a student writer from Yan University - Chen Jiangong.

Chen Jiangong is the same age as the founding of New China. He is 24 years old this year. He is still studying in the Chinese Department of Yenching University and is only a junior. In fact, he is still a junior of Liang Zuo, who is years old this year.

"The drama troupe has received a lot of attention in the school these days, and this drama is written by you. Who wouldn't be looking forward to it?" Chen Jiangong said with a smile.

"Don't tell me, I'm looking forward to it myself." Jiang Xian muttered, "Don't smash it."

"How could it break with this notebook of yours?"

Chen Jiangong praised: "I have read your script. It has a strong sense of history and realistic implications."

Chen Jiangong's works are mainly realistic, and he is particularly interested in folklore, especially the customs of the common people in the capital.

The script of "The Number One Restaurant in the World" incorporates urban culture and has a strong Beijing urban flavor, which is exactly what he likes.

As they were talking, the two walked to the back door of the auditorium. Chen Jiangong took out his student ID and entered the auditorium accompanied by several Yan University students.

When several students saw Jiang Xian, they felt itchy in their hearts. One of them couldn't help but ask, "Teacher Jiang Xian, can you sign an autograph for me?"

"No problem." Jiang Xian was humble.

The student immediately took out the paper excitedly.

Jiang Xian took out a pen from his pocket and signed his name: "I wish you academic progress. Jiang Xian, April 1981, 4."

The auditorium of Yan University is very large and can accommodate a thousand people. It is almost full at this moment. Teachers and students are whispering in their seats, and the auditorium is in chaos.

Jiang Xian followed Chen Jiangong and found a middle position in the front with a good angle and vision. He turned his head and saw Yingda sitting nearby.

"Teacher Jiang." Yingda greeted him.

Jiang Xian nodded and responded calmly.

Yingda pursed his lips in boredom.

From the first time they met, he inexplicably felt that Jiang Xian didn't seem to think much of him.

He didn't pay much attention either.

Jiang Xian looked down on him? He didn't think much of Jiang Xian either.

Yingda is a well-known person who is arrogant because of his talent.

Song Dandan once commented: "His intelligence, his erudition, his wildness and his arrogance make those who like him fall in love with him at first sight, and those who hate him cannot tolerate him."

How arrogant is Yingda? He has no filming experience, but he thinks that everyone in the crew is stupid. He doesn't accept even the senior directors and screenwriters in the industry, and he likes to give advice on the set.

Even if the result of doing so is that he is persuaded to quit by the crew under various pretexts and becomes unemployed, he is still happy to do it.

Once, Song Dandan had just given birth to a child, and the family was short of money, but he still complained as usual, and ended up losing his job. Song Dandan, who had just given birth to a child a month ago, had to go out to perform in order to make a living.

"I can't stand watching others trying to climb up the ladder to be as tall as me." These are Yingda's original words.

He had read Jiang Xian's script, but didn't think it was that great.

The script cannot explain anything. Whether a drama is good or not depends on the final performance on stage.

The literary form is not important, what is important is the performance result; this is their concept of modernist drama.

Yingda even deliberately arranged his own play "The Nine of Us" to be the first to be performed on the first day, giving up the chance to be the finale and giving it to "The World's Number One Restaurant", even though he knew that the finale play was more likely to attract attention.

He did this on purpose because he believed that his work would definitely be better than Jiang Xian's. Even if it was just the first to be launched, it would surely be warmly welcomed by Yanda teachers and students and become a Yanda classic.

"Teacher Wang Yao!" Jiang Xian shouted.

Chen Jiangong was a socialite at Yanda University, and Jiang Xian was introduced by him to several teachers sitting in the front row.

He recognized at a glance the Wang Yao who was puffing on his pipe. This was none other than the Wang Yao who came to give lectures at the Institute of Literature.

"Comrade Jiang Xian, why are you here too?" Wang Yao puffed on his pipe, quite surprised.

Chen Jiangong interrupted, "Professor Wang, you may not know that the hero behind today's play is our comrade Jiang Xian."

“The hero behind the scenes.”

Wang Yao was stunned for a moment, but soon reacted and said with a smile: "It seems that the identity of a writer can no longer satisfy you. You are already moving towards the direction of a playwright."

"No, no." Jiang Xian scratched his head modestly, "I am just a person who pursues progress."

"Hahaha."

Time passed quickly. Jiang Xian and Wang Yao chatted briefly for a while, and then the lights in the auditorium dimmed.

Everyone looked at the curtain intently, and the noise hovering over the auditorium gradually died down.

"Act One."

"Time: One night in early summer of 1917."

"Location: Fujude Roast Duck Restaurant at Roushikou outside Qianmen, Beijing."

"The last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, under the call of his people that 'the imperial system must be maintained and the people want their old master back', was protected by Zhang Xun and took the throne again.

The old and young people inside and outside the Forbidden City became excited. They rummaged out the court robes from the bottom of the boxes, put on their real and fake braids, and the streets were full of "ancestors".

According to the tradition of our Chinese nation, the only way to express happiness is to eat, so the Qianmen meat market was bustling with activity as if a last gasp of light had returned.

The curtain opened as the narration began.

"The three ducks are out of the oven!"

When the curtain opened, it was dinner time and the meat market was bustling with activity.

The kitchen of the restaurant was frying, stir-frying and cooking, the waiters were greeting the guests, and the diners were toasting each other.

There are three plaques hanging side by side on the lintel in the middle of the storefront, with "Fujude" in the middle, "Chicken and Duck Shop" on the right, and "Lao Lu Pu" on the left.

Corresponding to the three duties that Fujude was currently performing: roast duck, raw chicken and duck, and Su box. On the left side of the front hall were two large wooden basins, with people sitting next to them, plucking duck feathers skillfully.

Along the wall, a row of wooden racks are hung with freshly-cut duck embryos. The ducks are inflated, painted with sugar color, and are fat, tender and white.

On the right side of the front hall is Fujude's century-old oven, with red bricks on the ground and the fire always burning. There is a couplet at the entrance of the oven:
The golden furnace has been burning for thousands of years, and the silver hook is always hanging with a hundred delicious foods.

Horizontal banner: The master of a furnace.

The stage design was basically done by the students themselves. Several sets of clothes were worn in previous dramas and were put on again. If the professional drama actors from Beijing People's Art Theatre saw the quality, they would definitely describe it as "terrible".

However, to the laymen, and to the group of Yanda students, it seemed quite authentic; with the added coverage of vision and light, many flaws were concealed.

"Three ducks walking!"

"Come on!"

"Manager Wang, it's a good meal tonight. I think we don't have enough lotus leaf cakes and sesame cakes."

"Oh?"

"Let's get ready."

"."

It was obvious that a lot of thought went into the curtain opening; every Beijing accent was a detail that had been polished over and over again, so a picture of the bustling city life was presented right from the start, and the audiences in the audience quickly became immersed in it.

"Fujude?"

Wang Yao thought about it, turned around and looked at Jiang Xian, "If I'm not mistaken, the prototype should be Quanjude."

Jiang Xian nodded, "It is true that the history of Quanjude was used."

"Roast duck restaurant, that's the right name." Wang Yao said approvingly.

He was born before the liberation, and he had almost witnessed the era depicted in the drama when he was a child.

The vivid scenes interwoven on the stage brought his memory back to that period of heavy history, and he seemed to be in the jumbled and turbulent old capital.

“You got this right, too.”

Wang Yao noticed another small detail, and his eyes lit up. He praised: "In the past, in the meat market, diners were not in a hurry to leave. The tactful waiters would immediately wipe the table, hand the master a towel to wipe his hands, and pour out the leftover tea.

The diners will naturally feel embarrassed and leave when they see this. This is the way to send them off. It does not offend them, nor does it hinder your next business."

He explained, then looked at Jiang Xian and blew on his pipe twice, "Jiang Xian, am I right?"

"That's right, you are absolutely right." Jiang Xian nodded quickly, as if he was back in the days when he was taking classes at the Institute of Literature.

The actors on the stage were performing the first act lively.

The pigtailed commander Zhang Xun then helped Puyi ascend the throne, all kinds of characters appeared on the meat market, the owner of the Fujude Roast Duck Restaurant was old, and the two young masters of the Tang family were not ambitious. The eldest son spent all day in the theater, keen on supporting famous actors, and the second son spent all day practicing guns and sticks and learning martial arts.

The old shopkeeper knew that it was hopeless to revive the family business with his two sons. In addition, the Eight Banners descendants like Master Ke Wu took things for free, bullied others and acted tyrannically. The Quanyingde Roast Duck Restaurant opposite Fujude also opened for business. With internal and external troubles, the family business that had been built for many years was about to collapse.

Seeing that the time-honored brand Fujude was facing bankruptcy, the second manager Wang Zixi asked his senior brother Lu Mengshi for help. Lu Mengshi saw that Fujude was in a quagmire and was unwilling to take over.

Finally, the old shopkeeper called out "Lu Mengshi"'s name before his death. Lu Mengshi finally took over Fujude and took responsibility for the rise and fall of the store.

The curtain rises and the first act ends.

It took a long time for the audience to come back to their senses, and some of them looked anxious.

"Why did you stop?"

"They are changing the scene."

"This play is really good, better than the ones in the past three days. I was completely absorbed in it."

The students were talking quietly, and the drama student next to Yingda was also talking quietly: "This play is really good, it's very high-level."

"I watched it when they were rehearsing, it was great."

"What do you think, Yingda?" someone suddenly asked.

Yingda had a complicated expression at the moment, with a hint of unwillingness in his eyes. He opened his mouth, as if he was speechless. After a while, he finally spoke: "It's OK, it has a modern flavor."

The five minutes passed quickly, and the second and third acts of the drama began one after another.

Three years later, Lu Mengshi became the second manager of Fujude. He worked day and night with his confidante Yu Chu'er, and finally made Fujude prosperous.

However, under internal and external pressure, Fujude continued to decline. Lu Mengshi was dismissed and his hair turned white overnight. Liu Jinding committed suicide by jumping into the river.

At the end, the audience sighed, clenched their fists, and sighed with emotion, and the whole play reached its final climax.

Jiang Xian cheered up. It was he who came up with the idea of ​​how to present the final couplet on the stage.

Yu Chu'er: "Meng Shi said that he has done everything he should do in his life, except for this pair of couplets at the door. He has made them before leaving, please hang them up."

Tang Maochang took a look and said, "What a dangerous building. Who is the host and who is the guest? There are only three old rooms, half of which are suitable for the bright moon and half for the wind."

The porters hung up the couplets.

After Xiu Dingxin read it, he understood what was going on and said, "It lacks a banner: All good things must come to an end."

Tang Maochang felt something was not right. Just as he was about to say something, the final song started playing behind the scenes.

The curtain slowly fell, locking everything inside, leaving only the couplet outside.

Very grand!

Chen Jiangong's whole body tensed up and he got goose bumps all over.

"Great! So great! How could they display this couplet like this! Whose idea was this?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he was quickly drowned out by thunderous applause.

The applause was sporadic at first, but soon other audience members responded, and the applause gathered together, like an overwhelming tidal wave, resounding throughout the entire auditorium.

"All good things must come to an end. What a great order!"

"Wonderful! Wonderful!"

"How can this drama be a performance by our students? With such a high standard, it can be performed at the Beijing People's Art Theater!"

The audiences in the audience couldn't help but applaud "The World's Number One Restaurant" while clapping.

Many students still had tears in their eyes. They were moved by the ups and downs and touching plot of "The World's Number One Restaurant". They clapped their hands vigorously, completely ignoring the pain in their hands.

"This kid Jiang Xian even failed in the drama!" Wang Yao exclaimed while blowing on his pipe.

Although the students' performances had many flaws, Wang Yao could fully see the grandeur and complexity of the script of "The World's Number One Restaurant".

This is definitely a good book!
The actors came to the stage to take their bows.

Looking at the cheers from the audience, several male comrades clenched their fists excitedly.

The performance of "The World's No. 1 Restaurant" was a success!

Several female comrades hugged each other and shed tears of excitement, especially Wang Xiaoping.

This taste is even better than eating real roast duck.

The audience's applause lingered in the auditorium for a long time, and even after the actors took their curtain calls, there were still bursts of applause from time to time in the corners.

The staff also began to arrange for the audience to leave in an orderly manner.

When the audience left the theater, they all looked back every few steps, looking at the couplet outside the curtain again with a sense of unsatisfied desire.

"What a dangerous building. Who is the host and who is the guest?"

"There are only three old houses, half suitable for the bright moon and half suitable for the wind."

Many people cannot forget the feeling this couplet brought them after the curtain fell.

It is endless and adds the finishing touch.

(End of this chapter)