Literary Master 1983

Chapter 95 Lecture
On the other side, Yu Qie finally woke up and touched a piece of chocolate candy next to his pillow.

Gong Xue's appearance seemed to appear in front of Yu Qie immediately.

She is a bit literary, a bit well-behaved, and a bit cute person - just like the concept of the only child in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai that became popular later. If she were a mother, she would definitely push her child hard, but if she were a daughter, she would hope to have freedom.

So, you can't like her first, she has to like others first.

Yu Qie stayed in the guesthouse for three days because Zhang Li had called her earlier and asked to come to Chengdu to see Yu Qie. The train from the capital to Chengdu takes three days and three nights. Zhang Li is currently in closed training with the crew of Dream of Red Mansions, so it is not easy for her to ask for leave.

Yu Qi simply waited in the military district guesthouse and found out when Zhang Li's train would arrive. Then for three whole days, he said goodbye to his leaders, said goodbye to all social activities, and did his essential work of writing novels.

The short story "Kiss of Death" has been completed. This is Yu Qie's third short story after "College Entrance Examination 1977" and "The Two of Us".

It tells the story of a nurse kissing a soldier before he died... I expanded the story to tens of thousands of words, but I didn't expect that this story actually has a prototype.

What happened on the battlefield is simply all-encompassing, and every story has been interpreted by someone:

After retaking Laoshan, many wounded soldiers were not immediately transported down due to various reasons. A 16-year-old soldier was shot through the leg by an anti-aircraft machine gun. He felt that his leg could not be saved, so he became depressed and refused to eat or drink for many days.

Then the caring nurse (19 years old) went to ask him what happened, and the young soldier said, I have been in the mountains for too long, and maggots have grown in my wounds. Does it stink?

The female nurse wore two layers of masks and insisted that it didn't smell bad.

He also asked, I’m afraid I’m going to lose my legs, what should I do next?
The female nurse hugged the soldier and comforted him, telling him to eat well so that his legs would grow well in the future.

——The novel "Kiss of Death", out of humanitarianism and romanticism, wrote a plot about a nurse kissing a soldier, but in fact it should have stopped at a hug or at most a kiss on the cheek.

This is what happened in reality.

Liu Jiaju of Military Literature and Art lived next door to Yu Qie. He watched him finish writing the novel and then read it immediately after. He said: "It's really well written. Art comes from life and then goes beyond life. Your plot is well arranged. This is a good novel!"

Yu Qie asked: "How does it compare to "Blood Battle at Laoshan"?"

"'Blood Battle at Laoshan' is a long novel, but you haven't finished it yet, right? Look, you wrote about a medic, and about love... These are rare, and can be considered a breakthrough in your writing... But I've always had a question, why are your novels so story-driven? They make people want to read them and can't stop."

"Storytelling is one aspect of literary creation, but in your novels, I feel like you deliberately emphasize this aspect."

Of course, later generations have proven that all doctrines and literature have been shattered, and only storytelling is eternal.

Yu Qie described his philosophy: "Suppose we live in a society with abundant material wealth, and there are many works that take away people's leisure time... Novels are just one of them. Do you think they must be interesting first, and then other things can be considered?"

Liu Jiaju took out a pen and suddenly started writing on his memo. As he wrote, he asked, "I can't imagine this kind of world. You are talking about what will happen after we defeat capitalism and completely establish a GC society."

"——Not that far." Yu Qie was sweating. "For example, in the United States, people go to watch basketball games, boxing, entertainment programs... and occasionally read novels, so their novels have to be particularly exciting."

Liu Jiaju laughed: "Then how do Americans write novels?" "Americans have reached a higher level. They use their cultural hegemony to promote their ideas to others... For example, the novel "Nguyen Thi Lilac" we talked about before tells the story of a Vietnamese female soldier who was influenced by our army. If an American wrote it, it would be that the Vietnamese female soldier fell in love with an American and then shot her own compatriots! This is the climax of the whole novel."

Liu Jiaju said: "Americans are so stupid. How could they write such a thing? Who would believe him?"

He also mentioned: "When I first participated in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea, I heard that the Americans would specially modify some tanks and have them pull up screens at the front to play movies for the volunteer soldiers. The pictures were all skyscrapers, beautiful women cheering, and all kinds of feasting and revelry. As you can imagine, we were disgusted."

Yes, Americans are so stupid. They use the same trick they used against Germans to deal with the old-fashioned people in agricultural countries: I haven’t even seen these things, how can you seduce me?
But Americans will make progress.

Yu Qie did not talk about what happened later, but said: "This is because of a lack of research and blind propaganda... The Vietnamese also made this mistake. They copied everything from us, so our story did not attack us, but attacked them instead."

"In Laoshan, everyone can hear what's played on the loudspeaker. We all have a steelyard. Everyone knows who did the bastard thing."

In the past half month, we captured some Vietnamese people, and the news we got was shocking. All the propaganda aimed at the Chinese army turned into a boomerang and hit the Vietnamese army... Many Vietnamese people who understood Chinese became sad after listening to what they heard and had no intention of fighting anymore.

Can’t find a wife…no food to eat…short supply of ammunition…the fighting seems to be a crime of passion, impromptu…what are you talking about, aren’t you talking about us Vietnamese?
"The story can continue to be told. This time we will tell it to the Vietnamese people."

Liu Jiaju was very excited. He said, "I will write down your words and send them to the leaders... If possible, I hope you can write a critique and explain the principles behind it."

Yu Qie said: "Once this critical draft is sent out, won't the Vietnamese also know about it? They will change it, and then the critical draft will have a negative effect."

Liu Jiaju was stunned, and then, for some reason, he organized a group of cadres to listen to Yu Qie's lecture.

"This is the representative of the 119th Regiment, the battalion, company, and platoon level cadres. Teacher Yu Qie, please tell us about your theory. We often say that spiritual atomic bombs are not as useful as real atomic bombs, but they are better than nothing... Now we are fighting on a new front and have started a propaganda offensive again."

Yu Qie was not polite at all, and talked about the American propaganda during the Korean War and the propaganda of the other side. The central idea was that the propaganda should be down-to-earth.

If there had been a Korean War, given the completely different economic development levels of the two sides, the propaganda would have been irrelevant and completely useless.

If this is the current situation, whoever does not do well will be in trouble.

Yu Qie's lecture was very successful, and the troops decided to purchase a batch of high-pitched speakers to hang up on the front line for the Vietnamese to listen to.

"According to the decision of the military commander, because the Vietnamese army is likely to launch a large-scale counterattack, we will temporarily switch from offense to defense. Comrade Yu Qie, the propaganda you proposed is useful to us. Let's try it out in a small batch first and see the effect."

Liu Jiaju listened to the entire lecture and couldn't help but applaud. Then he said: "Wang Meng's evaluation at the party is not wrong. You have the potential to become a different writer. I know what he means by 'different'..."

"What he meant was that other people are always writing novels, but you have the potential to become a literary giant. His article was published in the Literary Gazette, and I learned that he also spoke about it at the 'Youth Party' and spoke highly of you!"

Yu Qie said, "Isn't the Youth Gala the one where Liu Xinwu gave a speech?"

Liu Jiaju was very happy: "You noticed it too? He has lost everything and is singing your praises instead, in such a public place... It's hard to imagine."

(End of this chapter)