1978: Female educated youth, don’t want an illiterate husband

Chapter 31 I was the one who stabbed you, but your son-in-law handed you the knife (please give me a monthly ticket)

"This Old Li... is weird, right?"

Liu Xinwu, the chief editor of October, received a call from Li Qingquan, the chief editor of Yenching Literature, and was completely confused!

Suddenly he called to thank them and invited me to dinner. It was so unclear, what was wrong with Li Qingquan?
The two magazines are department-level units of Yenching University, and they are in a competitive relationship, neither of them wants to be the second.
But Yenching Literature was indeed ahead of them, and Li Qingquan had just taken office as the editor-in-chief of Yenching Literature at the beginning of the month!
So, can Li Qingquan's nonsensical phone call be regarded as a provocation?

"What's wrong, Lao Liu? Is it Li Qingquan from Yanjing Literature?!"

Gu Xueqing and others from the editorial department happened to be in Liu Xinwu's office, typeset and proofreading this issue of the journal. When they saw Liu Xinwu answering a phone call and his expression and tone were not right, Gu Xueqing asked a question.

"He, Li Qingquan, just took office and said he would like to thank us October and treat us to a meal. What's going on?!"

Liu Xin brought up what General Li Qingquan said on the phone for everyone to refer to.

"Li Qingquan from Yenching Literature? It's not a festival, and he called to invite us to dinner?!" Editor Zhang Shouren looked up in surprise, also feeling confused and puzzled. What the hell is Li Qingquan doing!

"No, no! I think this is a bit strange. Li Qingquan is messing with us! It seems that these two days are also the days when Yanjing Literature will finalize the manuscript and edition, right?" Liu Xinwu walked around the desk and came over to say to Gu Xueqing and the others, "Teacher Gu, has your editorial team recently rejected any manuscripts in a tactful way, or sent letters asking them to switch to Yanjing Literature?"

"Could it be that we missed a masterpiece and Li Qingquan picked it up, so he called us to make fun of us?"

They are in competition with Yenching Literature in terms of manuscript utilization in October, and they usually compete openly and covertly to see who has higher sales and better quality.

Of course, there are also many small actions of stabbing in the back.

For example, for those papers that are so poorly written that they simply cannot be accepted, it is not easy to directly tell them that their writing is too poor and they do not need to revise or submit again.

They all made suggestions very tactfully: "Your manuscript has not yet met our requirements, you can try submitting it to Yenching Literature."

Liu Xinwu came to his senses and thought that maybe their editorial department missed a certain author's submission, and Li Qingquan found it and discovered the masterpiece, and then let him know that it was they who asked him to transfer to their Yenching Literature in October.

So there was this inexplicable phone call of thanks! ?
When searching through a massive amount of submissions from all over the country, occasionally a manuscript gets rejected, but that doesn’t really mean anything.

Those ordinary manuscripts that are usable or not can be rejected. There are precedents of manuscripts being rejected when they are transferred to Yenching Literature.

But someone like Li Qingquan called specifically to express his gratitude and even invited me to dinner!
That leak is quite big!
If a masterpiece was really missed by October and picked up by Yenching Literature, and this were to spread, October would be a huge joke!

The cultural circle is so small that once the joke spreads, their October jokes will make Li Qingquan and others laugh for several years, but they can forget about catching up with Yenching Literature.

No, no, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that this was the possibility. Liu Xinwu couldn't sit still anymore!

"That's not the case, Old Liu. Li Qingquan just called us. It's not enough to make us panic!" Wang Shimin, the editorial team leader, felt that Old Liu was a little paranoid. A call from Li Qingquan wouldn't make them doubt themselves so much. He then said, "Maybe Li Qingquan just wanted to thank his old friend?! After all, he had just been transferred back to Yanjing to preside over the work of Yanjing Literature!"

"Old Liu, there shouldn't be any problems with our manuscript review. We have cross-reviews for every manuscript submission. How could Li Qingquan find any loopholes?"

"Li Qingquan even called to express his gratitude and offered to treat us to a meal. How big a treasure must this be? I, Gu Xueqing, do make mistakes sometimes, but it's not possible that all five or six pairs of eyes in our editorial department are blind, right?!"

Liu Xinwu's words made Feng's mother Gu Xueqing unhappy. What did he mean by asking their editorial department to check themselves to see if there were any manuscripts that were missed by Yenching Literature?
A masterpiece?!

If there really is a masterpiece missing for him, Li Qingquan, then unless she, Gu Xueqing, is blind!

"Look at what you said, Teacher Gu. I'm worried that Li Qingquan will really catch me!" Liu Xinwu said angrily after being criticized by Gu Xueqing. "Maybe I'm just being too suspicious. Li Qingquan is really going to treat us old friends to dinner when he is transferred back to Yanjing this time!"

"Yes, let him treat us to a meal! I'll invite that old guy out later to test his opinion!" Liu Xinwu said with a smile to liven up the atmosphere. "Okay! Old Wang, let's sort out the manuscripts from last month again. Don't let Li Qingquan take advantage of us while we are still in the dark!" Although Gu Xueqing said that, she was also worried that their editorial team might miss some manuscripts, so she asked the team leader Wang Shimin to talk to her.

"Okay, Teacher Gu, that's no problem, but it shouldn't be that serious!" Wang Shimin nodded and agreed.

Li Qingquan's nonsensical phone call caused Liu Xinwu's "October" editorial department to be in a state of panic!

At the same time, Cheng Xuemin has already reached an agreement with Yenching Literature!
Yenching Literature was indeed wealthy and powerful. They paid him the maximum fee of seven yuan per thousand words for his two manuscripts, "The Shepherd" and "The Grass Heart", which is the standard for well-known old writers!
The total number of words in the two manuscripts is more than 45,000 words, which makes it an integer of 46,000 words. If we calculate the price of 7 yuan per thousand words, the total royalties is 315 yuan!
"Xuemin, it's settled then! We've decided to put the article 'The Horse Herder' on the front page of this issue!"

"The article 'The Heart of Grass' is also very good. We plan to use it as the headline of the next issue. According to your request, we will publish it under the pen name 'Lao Xu'. Is that okay?!"

After the final agreement was reached, Li Qingquan left early because he had a meeting at Renwen Press. Zhou Yanru and editor-in-charge Zhang Dening were responsible for finalizing the manuscript and publishing it.

After the discussion on the royalties was almost settled, Zhou Yanru smiled and told Cheng Xuemin about the publication arrangements for his two manuscripts.

Both the manuscripts "The Shepherd" and "The Grass' Heart" are excellent. That's why Li Qingquan couldn't help but call the editor-in-chief of "October" after eating the melon.

Two excellent manuscripts will definitely not be sent out at the same time.

So before going to the meeting, Li Qingquan decided that "The Horse Shepherd" would be the front-page headline for this issue, and "The Grass Heart" would be in the next issue, also to be the front-page headline.

Obviously, Li Qingquan wants to push Cheng Xuemin, the new author, to the most famous direction!

Perhaps, some people also recommended it to Liu Xinwu of October, and they almost told Liu Xinwu to take a look at it carefully!

These two front-page headlines were all submitted by your October son-in-law to Yenching Literature!

Just wait and see!

"Sure, sure, Teacher Zhou!" Cheng Xuemin certainly had no problem with this arrangement.

Since "The Horse Herder" has made the front page headlines, why would a dead pig be afraid of "The Grass Heart" making the front page headlines again? !
After all, these were the first prizes for outstanding short stories in the country that year. Wouldn't it be unfair to the original authors if they didn't make the front page headlines?
And if his mother-in-law really knew about it, at worst she would rather die than let her friend die, and push her rebellious and filial daughter Feng Jiayou out to take the blame.

"Okay, then it's settled!" Zhou Yanru nodded with a smile, and then said, "Youyou Cuncaoxin basically doesn't need to be revised, it can be published directly! There are some minor issues with Wrangler, I will let De Ning help you, Xuemin, to revise it later!"

"By the way, as for the manuscript fee, we will pay you for both manuscripts together, but it is not the day for us to pay the manuscript fee yet, so we will mail it to you together with the sample issue after it comes out at the end of the month!"

"Should the manuscript fee be in your name or Jiayou's name?"

"Mine, mine! Aunt Zhou, please put my name on the payment slip!"

Without waiting for Cheng Xuemin to speak, Feng Jiayou, who was standing next to him, heard the manuscript fee slip and his eyes lit up instantly, and he answered quickly!

Cheng Xuemin rolled his eyes and thought to himself, Teacher Zhou, why are you asking this? Why don't you ask something else?

Can’t you just fill in Cheng Xuemin’s name and send it over? !
Besides, Cheng Xuemin actually wanted to come and pick it up himself. If he had the money, he wouldn't mind the trouble of coming here in person!

……

(End of this chapter)