1978 Synthetic Writers

Chapter 59 All the Paper is Used Up

Zhu Lin burst out laughing. "You are just a little brother, so I will call you Xiao Jiang, Comrade Xiao Jiang."

It was time for lunch, and the stage manager came over with a cart. She stood up, picked up her aluminum lunch box, and went to queue up for lunch.

"Mandarin ducks are living together and butterflies are flying together. The spring scenery in the garden is intoxicating. I quietly ask the holy monk, "Is my daughter beautiful?" Jiang Xian hummed a song and followed behind.

The lyrics of this song were actually written by Yan Su. Jiang Xian knew him on the Star Boulevard, hosted by Lao Deng. Later, director Yang Jie revised the lyrics for him to make them more delicate, but did not change the meaning too much.

"Writer Jiang, Writer Jiang!"

He was suddenly stopped by Lin Li, the screenwriter from the same crew.

Lin Li is also the screenwriter of the movie "Look at This Family". This movie is Wang Haowei's debut work and also Chen Peisi's debut comedy. He and his father fought together as father and son. Later, the father and son made many more movies.

"Teacher Lin, what's wrong?"

"Guess what I saw." Lin Li smiled and handed over a copy of the Literary Gazette. Jiang Xian glanced at it and saw an article on the front page -

My Reading of The Chess King: A Letter to a Young Literary Man

It was not the first time that he had seen literary criticism of "The Chess King" in "Wenyi Bao", so he did not seem too surprised.

"Look at the author." Lin Li reminded in a low voice.

Jiang Xian looked under the title and suddenly saw two regular script characters.

Ding Ling?

Lin Li whispered to him, "Ding Ling has been silent for many years. I didn't expect that the first article he published after returning to Beijing was a review of you. You have to treat us to a meal later!"

"sure."

Jiang Xian agreed, found a bench to sit down, and quickly read the review.

The article highly praised Jiang Xian's pioneering nature and praised him for standing on the other side of the ideological trench.

Jiang Xian was so frightened that he trembled.

He didn't know whether Ding Ling wrote this criticism out of resentment. After reading it, it didn't seem like she was praising him. Instead, it was like the flag she had planted on the arrow tower, floating in a direction that was completely different from the mainstream.

Speaking of Ding Ling, Shen Congwen and her were not only from the same hometown, but also close friends. Their relationship was even closer than that of Shen Teng and Ma Li. They lived in the same house, and in order to protect her, the two even pretended to be a couple.

Everyone knows that Mr. Lu Xun "scolded" Mr. Shen, but it was actually a misunderstanding. Even this incident is closely related to Ding Ling.

However, this friendship could easily capsize, and the two of them went from being friends to becoming enemies.

This hatred has continued to this day and will become more and more intense in the future.

Return to the guest house.

Jiang Xian fetched a basin of water, wiped his face, sat at the table, filled his pen with ink, and then carefully wrote the three words "Furong Town" on the first line of the grid paper.

Now, following the "scar literature", "reflective literature" has gradually become popular. The famous "The Soul and the Flesh", which is the movie "The Horse Herder", is an iconic "reflective novel".

"Furong Town" is also a piece of "reflective literature", and this is also the first time that Jiang Xian has entered mainstream literature.

The protagonist is Hu Yuyin, also known as "Tofu Beauty", who has been with three men in the story.

Jiang Xian was most impressed by two of them:
One is Qin Shutian, who was with Hu Yuyin until the end, played by Jiang Wen.

The second is Hu Yuyin’s first love Li Mangeng, played by Zhang Guangbei, who also played Chu Yunfei in "Drawing Sword" and Lu Bu in the old "Three Kingdoms".

Jiang Xian likes his Lu Bu so much!
"I am hurt by wine and women.", "If you don't abandon me.", "A real man is born between heaven and earth" are all his famous scenes.

I heard that when he was acting, he was scolded by director Cai Xiaoqing: How can a man not even be lustful! The portrayal of the villain in "Furong Town" is also a classic. After reading this novel, no one can help but be jealous of Li Guoxiang.

The best way to describe her is to quote a sentence written by Mr. Lu Xun in "On "Fuck!"": "She talks about morality, but she has a belly full of thieves and whores."

[“You are so coquettish. You wear a short skirt to work. Do you want to show off your white and tender legs? That’s disgusting! Do you want to be like the female vendors who run rice and tofu stalls? Or do you want to be a salesperson in a state-owned restaurant? You are shameless. We state-owned restaurants still have to consider political influence! First write a self-criticism to your party branch and dig out the ideological roots of dressing so fancy and coquettishly!”]
As he wrote, all the grid paper was gone. Jiang Xian put down his pen helplessly, wondering if he could borrow some.

He went to Shen Congwen's room and knocked on it. His wife was inside, so Jiang Xian didn't go in. He just stood at the door and asked.

"Teacher Shen, do you have some grid paper?"

"Yes, how much do you want?"

"The more, the merrier."

"The more the better?" Shen Congwen responded, "What are you writing about?"

Jiang Xian nodded obediently.

"During this period of time in Xiangxi, I suddenly had some creative inspiration and planned to write a novel about Xiangxi."

"Really?!" Shen Congwen's eyes showed a hint of surprise.

He remembered that Jiang Xian had just finished writing a novella, and only a few months later, he had already written another novel?
What a vigorous creativity!

Shen Congwen has always felt that Jiang Xian is a very talented author, but today, he feels that his judgment of Jiang Xian should be raised to a higher level.

"You are at a great age to create."

Shen Congwen did not hide his envy, "When I was this age, Director Ling asked me to compose the lyrics for the theme song, but I spent several nights trying to come up with one."

"You are too modest." Jiang Xian comforted.

Listening to the writer's sigh, he also felt a little sad.

Shen Congwen wrote more than 25 novels in 80 years, but unfortunately he did not write any novels in the last 40 years of his life.

Similar to him is Cao Yu, who wrote Thunderstorm at the age of 23, and wrote seven works worthy of being handed down from generation to generation in the following seven years. The second half of his life, 7 years, was almost fruitless. Before his death, the old man often read Tolstoy's Biography, and often said that he wanted to write something big before dying, and wanted to leave behind one more work. Unfortunately, he died with regrets.

The crew stayed in Xiangxi for more than two months and was finally leaving.

Jiang Xian packed his luggage and put a thick stack of manuscripts in his "Shanghai" brand travel bag. The manuscripts were filled with densely written words, totaling more than 300 pages.

Before leaving, Ling Zifeng arranged for the staff to take a group photo together as a souvenir.

"Chen Hong, come stand in the first row."

"Teacher Shen, please sit in the middle."

"Gyu, open your eyes wider."

"Writer Jiang, you're too close to Zhu Lin!"

"Okay, look at me here."

A white light flashed, and with a click, the one hundred and eighty people from the "Border Town" crew took a group photo in Zhenxian City.

It was still a green bus back home. Jiang Xian looked at the hills of Jiangnan receding outside the window, and was looking forward to the day when he could get on a plane.

It is extremely luxurious to take a plane nowadays. You need a letter of introduction from the county or regiment level, and you also need money. A flight from Hongqiao to Beijing costs more than 60 yuan.

The experience is so great, there is no leg-stretching fee, and since 75, passengers on China Civil Aviation flights are given a free bottle of Moutai. Later, they stopped giving "package drinks" and instead offered free drinks on the plane, and how much they wanted to drink depended on their alcohol tolerance.

(End of this chapter)