Exciting 1979!

Chapter 54 Wei Ming: I’m so rich

Tomorrow is October 1st, National Day. In a blink of an eye, it has been a month since Wei Ming was reborn. Time flies so fast!
On this day, all the logistics staff of the entire school took action and made final preparations to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Wei Ming is both tall and agile, so he is mainly responsible for hanging the big red lanterns high.

After finishing work, seeing that there was still some time, Wei Ming did not even change his clothes. He ran to attend classes in the Chinese Department of the Class of 78 in his uniform to learn about Hong Zicheng's modern and contemporary literature.

The students in the classroom did not care about this. Liu Zhenyun even warmly invited him to sit with him and shared his class notes.

Liu Zhenyun had heard from his senior classmates about Wei Ming's success in Professor Qu's class, and believed that Wei Ming was knowledgeable.

So he pointed at the girls in front of him and told them a question that had been in his mind for a year.

"Brother Wei, what are those girls doing? Are they ruminating?"

Wei Ming looked in the direction where his finger pointed, and saw several girls chewing their food without swallowing it, but their cheeks were still working hard.

Liu Zhenyun was puzzled. In his understanding, only cows had such living habits.

Wei Ming held back his laughter and told Liu Zhenyun: "They are eating candy."

"Shouldn't you hold the candy in your mouth?"

Wei Ming explained in a low voice: "This is a new type of candy, called chewing gum. Put it in your mouth and chew it. It not only tastes sweet, but also makes your mouth fragrant. But there is one thing, you can't swallow this candy. When it has no taste, just spit it out."

"Ah, there is such magical candy in the world!" Liu Zhenyun's eyes widened, and he was very grateful to Wei Ming for clearing up his doubts.

At the same time, he thought of an important question: how nice it would be if he could buy such a rare thing and give it to Mei Zi!

Well, I'll ask them where they bought it after class.

So after class, Liu Zhenyun and Wei Ming separated. When coming out of the teaching building, Wei Ming ran into Zhang Dening, the editor of Yenching Literature and Art.

The elder sister called Wei Ming aside with a smile, and when there was no one around, her face immediately changed.

"Comrade Xiao Wei, we agreed to let our Yenching Literature and Art be the platform for your first work to be published, why did you submit it to Wenhui Daily?"

If you don't know, you might think this is the word "surrender".

"Editor Zhang, I was talking about the first publication. Wenhui Daily is a newspaper, and I was not wrong."

Zhang Dening seemed to have expected this and took out a steaming copy of "Weiming Lake" from behind him.

"This is a publication, right? This song 'Ideal' is your work, right?"

Wei Ming laughed again: "I didn't make it clear. What I said was that the first publication of the first novella was your Yanjing Literature and Art."

To be cautious, Wei Ming added some adjectives.

Zhang Dening was even more suspicious: "You didn't submit your short story to another publication and publish it before ours, did you?"

"No, absolutely not. I haven't been creating much recently. I've been busy enriching myself."

Zhang Dening breathed a sigh of relief.

Wei Ming asked: "You came to Peking University just for this magazine, just give me a call and I'll send it to you."

"Don't say nice things. You're so famous now, how dare I order you around?" Zhang Dening shook his head and said, "Actually, I came here mainly to give you the manuscript fee. This magazine is just a side job."

"Ah, the royalties came out so soon!"

Although Wei Ming already had more than two hundred dollars in his hands, he still couldn't ignore the money. Zhang Dening could hear his sincere joy. Zhang Dening smiled and said, "After all, the version has been finalized, and I heard from my colleagues in Shanghai that Harvest paid you the manuscript fee in advance, so we, Yanjing Literature and Art, can't fall behind."

This is a good time to invest in feelings while Wei Ming has not yet completely taken off. It's a pity that Zhang Dening didn't ask how much the price offered by "Harvest" was, otherwise they would definitely deliberately suppress them.

Precisely because he didn't know, Zhang Dening tried his best to obtain a very generous level of royalties for Wei Ming.

She asked Wei Ming to sign the receipt for the royalties, and Wei Ming also saw the specific number.

Two hundred and twenty-five yuan!

"Erniu" has 4.5 words, which means that "Yenching Literature and Art" paid yuan per thousand words, which is one yuan more than "Shouhuo"!

Adding to his previous gains in Shanghai, Wei Ming now has a huge sum of more than 400 yuan. I am so rich!

With just this little bit of money, their whole family would have to work hard in the countryside for several years to earn it!

As for the 400 yuan in cash, the family probably hasn't seen so much money since we stopped grandma from running the tofu workshop.

"Click it." Zhang Dening said.

Wei Ming shook his head: "No, it feels about the same thickness as Harvest, so there shouldn't be any problem, and I trust you."

Zhang Dening's heart skipped a beat, and he felt the thickness and thought, could it be that Harvest also offered five yuan per thousand words?
That's impossible. At that time, "Duck Prophet" hadn't been published yet. He was a pure newcomer. Li Xiaolin was too wasteful!
However, the royalties paid by other magazines are the writers' privacy. Although Zhang Dening was curious, he did not ask rashly. Maybe Shuanglu had more words.

She actually had one more thing to say.

"Xiao Wei, your article 'The Duck Knows When the River Water Warms in Spring' has been widely discussed in society recently, and some newspapers have criticized it. Don't take it too seriously."

"Ah, I was criticized!" Wei Ming shuddered instinctively.

Zhang Dening was afraid that he was young and inexperienced, so she specifically reminded him when sending him the royalties to prevent him from being suddenly frightened.

"It's inevitable that articles won't be criticized. If no one criticizes them, what will those students in the Chinese department do after graduation? And although there are criticisms, there are more praises."

Hearing the praise, Wei Ming breathed a sigh of relief, and then focused on asking which newspapers were criticizing.

As soon as Zhang Dening left, Wei Ming didn't even have his meal. He went to buy a newspaper first. He wanted to see for himself how they reviewed it.

~
Shanghai Chinese Medicine Factory No. 2.

They didn't know whether they were criticized or not. Liang Lu, the head of the sales department, only knew that there were more and more order calls from major shopping malls and pharmacies in Shanghai in the past two days.

Director Chen of Wenhui Daily is right. This novel is more effective than ten advertisements!
Seeing the inventory dwindling, Wang Zhenxu, director of the medicinal wine workshop, felt happy but also a little regretful.

He said to Section Chief Liang, "You gave him two bottles of wine, and I gave him one bottle of tiger bone wine. He will complain about me being a stingy person later."

Section Chief Liang laughed: "Writer Wei is in his prime, so why would he need your tonic wine? Old Wang, you are worrying too much."

"I'm just worried that he might feel weak. I heard that people who write novels sit for long periods of time and are prone to feeling weak. Nine out of ten people feel weak."

As the two were talking, Section Chief Liang's phone rang again. As he listened, he stood up and his expression became excited.

"What's wrong, Chief Liang?"

After hanging up the phone, Liang Lu slapped the table excitedly: "Order, order from Beijing!"

(End of this chapter)