Literary Master 1983

Chapter 231 My Brother Yu Qie
Nie Weiping remembered Yu Qie's words deeply.

After Yu Che came on the court, the Japanese side treated him as a formidable enemy and quickly used encirclement tactics against him. As soon as the ball reached his feet, they would surround him and try to force him to make mistakes.

Even so, Yu Che assisted a goal before the end of the game. This made the Japanese fear of him reach its peak. Seeing that the game was about to end, they were wary of any action of Yu Che. Whenever Yu Che started running, several Japanese would run close to him.

This kind of defense is naturally full of loopholes, and the ball that originally belonged to the Japanese team was taken away by the Chinese side.

Yu Qie immediately asked for the pass to be made wider.

He was entangled again soon after receiving the ball and had to pass it before the encirclement was formed, so he shouted again: "Pass it wider."

“How big do you want to spread it?”

"Just focus on my side of the ball, I'll catch up."

"boom!"

The ball was passed really far, and Yu Qie really dared to catch up with the ball. The one who intercepted him was the amateur long-distance runner and Japanese writer Murakami Haruki.

Murakami Haruki is an Akutagawa Prize-nominated writer who has never played football. He came this time because he was relatively young and could run long distances, so he was drafted into the army.

Murakami Haruki ran desperately. The ball was originally in front of him, but he watched Yu Qi receive the ball and kick it to the left side of the penalty area, then he went around from his left side and received the ball that was passed to him five seconds ago.

From the left side of the penalty area, a powerful volley ended the game.

Yu Qie scored six goals by himself. It can be said that Japan lost completely at his hands. No, it was his legs that caused the defeat.

Murakami Murakami later wrote a short story, which roughly means "I don't like playing football in the first place. I hate social sports. Pulling me to defend Yuqi makes me almost vomit when running the whole game. This futile back and forth movement makes me hate this sport even more."

This small football match caused a great uproar in Japan, and many Japanese writers wrote about Yu Qie's performance in their subsequent narratives. He was like a devil, showing no mercy to anyone.

This can be corroborated by various fans who were present at the time, as well as a handful of media reporters, who restored the full picture of the incident from every angle.

It can be a draw.

Everyone hopes for a draw.

But I really don't want him to ruin this happy occasion.

However, this "disrespect" did not lower Yu Qie's reputation in Japan. Surprisingly, the number of people donating to "Operation Spring Rain" began to increase, and some people who did not read novels originally came to buy his novels.

NHK TV interviewed several Japanese college students who bought "Happy Hunting" and found that they liked rock and music and had no interest in literature at all, but they bought Yu Qie's novel anyway.

"Why did you buy Yu Che's novel?"

"Because he likes Yu Qie. He is not polite to the old man at all."

"Will you finish reading this book?"

The students immediately looked at each other and laughed: "We don't read books. We bought Yu Qie's book just because we think he is cool."

The news reached Iwanami Publishing, and the president, Toru Midorikawa, said, "Iwanami men and women have appeared in Japan again. During the period of postwar reconstruction in Japan, many young people bought famous foreign works from our Iwanami Publishing House to pretend that they were knowledgeable... Society was very disgusted with these fake literary youths and called them Iwanami men and women."

I know, I know, just pretending!

Is it my fault that my books are so cool? Am I a very bad person?

Of course, Midorikawa Toru didn't think there was anything wrong with it. He hyped up Yu Che's famous Akutagawa works in various ways, dividing them into several versions, upper, middle and lower. In order to prove their purity and to prove that they were a true "literary youth", book fans had to buy the most expensive version. Otherwise, they would be scolded: You don't even want to buy Yu Che's limited edition books, you are not qualified to talk about Yu Che, what we buy here are Yu Che's "limited edition" and Yu Che's "hardcover edition", you buy common goods, no wonder you are not a literary youth! You are not qualified to sit here!

In a very short period of time, Yu Che's novel sold 200,000 copies, and all bookstores in Japan were sold out. The number of reprints exceeded one million. Yu Che set a record for the fastest sales of 500,000 copies for an Akutagawa Prize-winning author.

This strange development curve has caused the price of inviting Yu Qie to interview to increase instead of decrease. By March, the price of Yu Qie recording an interview program had reached one million yen, and he was nicknamed "Mr. Million Yen".

But the Japanese don't care about this premium. After the Plaza Accord was signed, the yen appreciated, and in the next three years, Japan's GDP in US dollars increased by 120% (you read that right). Life was so good that even though Yu Qie predicted the future collapse in his novel and expressed his concerns in interviews, most people didn't think these things would happen.

This became Yu Qie's only "stain". He always spared no effort to be pessimistic about Japan's real estate and stock markets, and advised everyone not to increase leverage, but who would believe the nonsense he said.

Gu Fangzhou also flew from Beijing to Tokyo, Japan, to raise funds with Yu Qie. In the 1980s, Japan's home appliance industry was very developed, and they were willing to enter the mainland market. Some companies planned to participate in this charity event.

These home appliance companies did not donate money or sugar pills, but instead donated refrigerators.

Gu Fangzhou said: "More than 13 years ago, when the expensive Pfizer special vaccine entered Japan, only % of Japanese households had refrigerators, so it became impossible to distribute the vaccine to families for self-administration because the vaccine needs to be kept at minus five to minus degrees Celsius to maintain its efficacy."

"So, Japan finally organized this through the government, and we have to do the same in our country. If we want to get things done, we can't just rely on the private sector."

Gu Fangzuo told Yu Qie about some changes he had seen in the capital, where the government had already begun organizing donations in some areas.

"After you won the award, a leader soon noticed this matter and issued an order: allocate a sum of money as soon as possible and organize a group of people to distribute sugar pills to children in remote areas." Just like the donation activities originally organized by Yu Qie personally, now many semi-official and semi-civilian comrades from the Writers Association are helping to coordinate. As the amount of money grows and more and more people participate, Yu Qie begins to become a spiritual founder-like figure.

In the countryside and in big cities, there are cadres everywhere who organize propaganda and donations. Donators come from all walks of life, and they take out new or wrinkled coins. It may take one or two years to count the amount of these donations. Some of them have indeed read Yu Che's novels, while others have no knowledge of literature at all and still don't know Yu Che or any other writers. It can no longer be said that this "Spring Rain Action" is completely led by Yu Che and his fans.

Some vaccinated children only realized after they grew up that the writer "Yu Qie" who appeared many times in their textbooks was the older brother who gave them the sugar pills.

Gu Fangzuo said: "Your name 'Spring Rain Operation' is very good. When spring is over and summer comes, we will start the first batch of pilot projects and injections. By next spring at the latest, most newborns in the country will be able to receive this vaccine."

"When the spring rains begin to fall, the summer crops will begin to sprout."

"Based on the incidence rate in mainland China, you have prevented at least hundreds of thousands of children from contracting polio. They can stand up straight, run after kites, and jump. They no longer have to worry about losing their ability to move suddenly one day."

"Yu Qie, you have done a great deed." Gu Fangzhou became more and more excited as he spoke. Finally, he couldn't help but hold Yu Qi's hand and breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Qi was still a little confused after hearing what Gu Fangzhou said. In his opinion, the data provided by Gu Fangzhou were too abstract and he could not intuitively feel the changes.

Gu Fangzhou said: "Your hometown, Wanxian, has become one of the pilot counties. Although Wanxian is not a backward place compared to many areas in the country, many children still did not have the opportunity to be vaccinated before this."

Wanxian has a population of more than 7 million and is a giant region in eastern Sichuan. According to the incidence rate, more than 1,000 people born in the 1980s have avoided the risk of paralysis and death, which is equivalent to all the students in a rural middle school.

The money raised directly by Yu Qie alone was enough for several Wanxian counties to use, with plenty of surplus.

This is what Yu Qie did, and he felt an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.

Alai, I did what I promised you!

I am not the real King Gesar, but King Gesar cannot do what I do!
Yu Qi wrote a letter to his old friend Alai and sent it from Tokyo, Japan. He also wrote another letter and sent it back home, asking them to pay attention to the popularity of "Operation Spring Rain" in the rural areas of his hometown.

Perhaps Aba was too remote, and Alai did not reply to the letter for a long time, but Yu Che's family sent a letter first.

The letter was written by Yu Qie's sister: "Our place suddenly became the first area to receive the vaccine. I have been wondering if it has something to do with you... But this is a bit exaggerated. How can one person have such a big influence? Then, our county also organized a composition submission activity for students to comment on this Spring Rain Operation. I wrote a composition called "My Brother Yu Qie" and won the first prize."

"After the composition was sent to the provincial government for circulation, they set up a special prize, the 'Special Prize'. I won this prize and was awarded 50 yuan."

"I was afraid of gossip, so I donated all the fifty dollars. Brother, you don't have to pay me back no matter how much money you have, because this is Yu Xian's donation."

After reading his sister's letter, Yu Qie didn't sleep all night and suddenly wanted to go back to see his family. Since he became "Yu Qie", he rarely contacted his family. Except for taking Zhang Li home, he never went back again.

I promised my sister that I would help him with his homework, but I didn't do anything. I don't know how well my sister is doing and whether she can get into Yanda.

After coming to Japan, Gu Fangzhou gave speeches many times to promote the trivalent sugar pill to Japanese pharmaceutical companies, hoping to resell the patent. However, although Gu Fangzhou's speeches won applause, they did not attract investment. Pharmaceutical companies made symbolic donations and were not very interested in cooperating in the production of sugar pill vaccines.

In the end, those who supported Gu Fangzuo were young literary people and some Japanese companies with tangible interests in mainland China.

Gu Fangzhou was not disappointed: "I had thought of this situation a long time ago. The trivalent sugar pill was actually developed based on the original Soviet technology. At that time, we had a better relationship with the Soviet Union, and the Japanese wanted to use American technology! But our cost is the lowest in the world, which is especially suitable for our situation."

"The Japanese no longer need this vaccine, so of course they are not interested. They are not world hegemons like the United States and the Soviet Union, and they have no obligation to distribute vaccines to other countries in the world. The trivalent sugar pill is completely useless to them, and they feel backward."

"We still need money and refrigeration equipment."

As a result, some Japanese left-wing writers joined in to help Yu Che promote this charity. Yu Che's new work "Little Shoes" was also added to the list of "World Famous Writers' Series" of Iwanami Bookstore, becoming one of the new round of Yu Che's novels introduced to Japan.

At Yu Qie's strong request, the novel was printed in two versions.

One version is the ordinary version: the cover is a pair of plain sneakers and the words "Yuqie".

The other version is the "charity" version, which is almost identical to the previous one, except that at the end of the story there is a page of "Yu Qie's letter to readers": "The price of this book is 1,100 yen, and the price of another book is 1,000 yen. Are you willing to spend an extra 100 yen and donate it to children in China?"

On it, Yu Qie drew a scarred little foot soaked in goldfish.

That is to say, this page of paper will cost an extra 100 yen, and readers can choose not to buy this version.

"——Our various costs for printing this page alone amounted to 20 yen. Although it's not much, if readers are unwilling to buy this version, it will not be cost-effective compared to the regular version. You will also lose royalties because you have a royalty of 14% of the sale price of this book."

"In short, this is equivalent to one yuan out of the seven yuan you can earn from each book being used for this page. You use it to gamble, which can get more people to donate the hundred yen, but can it really attract people's attention?"

As a veteran in the industry, Midorikawa Toru saw this differentiation strategy for the first time. "You are a very talented and gifted writer, but you are not an expert in the publishing industry. In the book industry chain, publishers and writers are two completely unrelated professions."

Midorikawa Heng thought that Yu Qie would be better off donating one dollar out of every seven dollars of royalties to his compatriots.

Anyway, with the huge royalties, Yu Qie has no worries about food and clothing. Just for the reprint of 500,000 copies of "Happy Hunting", Yu Qie received millions of RMB in royalties. He donated one seventh of the royalties for another book, which did not affect his life.

Why do we have to have this dual version?
However, Yu Qie was very persistent.

(End of this chapter)