Exciting 1979!

Chapter 75: The Contemporary Visitor (Please Read!)

Wei Ming thought to himself, “Oh no”, are they not allowing me to eat until I finish writing?
"Aunt, I'm not writing a short story this time. It's probably going to be a novella, tens of thousands of words, and it involves a lot of knowledge points, so you have to give me some time."

"It's a novella, so it has to be serialized."

"That should be the case." Wei Mingdao said. Considering the capacity of each issue of Children's Literature, if the entire issue was published at once, it was estimated that one-third of the space would have to be reserved for himself.

Lu Xiaoyan nodded, thoughtfully.

After dinner, everyone talked about how the Renri and Guangming newspapers endorsed Duck Prophet, sparking heated discussions throughout society.

Wei Ping'an had anticipated that "Duck Prophet" would be very popular, but the reality exceeded his imagination. Wei Ming went from being an unknown to a popular writer overnight.

Nearly 20 media outlets have reprinted "The Duck Prophet", and there are dozens of articles commenting on this novel. Previously, most of the comments were negative, but after the article written by Deputy Editor-in-Chief Fan of "Renri", the comments basically turned positive.

"Both the Literary Gazette and the China Youth Daily want to do an exclusive interview with me. Uncle, I'm a little hesitant about this."

Wei Pingan: "Oh, tell me what you think."

Wei Ming said: "Look, the country is promoting this novel so vigorously, they must want the public to focus on the novel and the spirit it conveys. If I jump out and take away the attention now, it is definitely not what the higher-ups want to see."

Wei Pingan nodded: "If it was before, I might have advised you to accept it, but now the heat is really too high, it is wise to cool down the situation, but you'd better call back these two companies and refuse in a more tactful way."

"Well," Wei Ming then jokingly talked about his readers' letters and the money in the letters, "Uncle, do you think I should return them? They are a little hot to my hands."

Hearing about this, Lv Xiaoyan immediately came over curiously: "Xiao Ming, did you bring the photos?"

"No."

"Then tell me if there's anyone you like."

"What are you talking about? I'm still young and haven't thought about those things yet."

Wei Pingan laughed and said, "It's time to think about it. Your father and your mother were already married when they were your age."

Lv Xiaoyan: "Ah, so early?"

"That's right, I was still in high school at that time."

Amid the couple's gossiping discussion, Wei Ming quickly stood up and said goodbye.

It's not that he didn't consider it, but after moving to the city, it wouldn't be so easy to get married at the age of 18 or 19 like Lao Wei did.

But if we don’t get married and can’t be serious about anything, what’s the point of being with this person?
His uncle and aunt didn't give him any advice, so Wei Ming had to keep the money for the time being. He wrote down the amount on the envelope. When he had more money and more free time, he could give a small gift in return.

On the way back to the dormitory, Wei Ming met the two foreigners Li Aiguo and Li Kui again.

Are they in love? Why are they always sticking together?
The two Li brothers now knew that Wei Ming was not a student but a poet, and could even recite a few lines from "Ideal". With their accents, it was really difficult for them.

Li Aiguo also solemnly invited Wei Ming, saying that his birthday would be in a few days, and invited Wei Ming to come to Shaoyuan to attend his birthday party.

Wei Ming agreed readily. As a patrolman, he couldn't even enter Shaoyuan, and he was really curious about what life was like in this "country within a country".

Back in the dormitory, Mei Wenhua was telling his colleagues about the follow-up content of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes".

Wei Ming found that this kid was good at learning to talk, so he talked to him during patrol, and then asked him to talk to other colleagues, thus freeing himself.

Although it was a second-hand story, Mei Wenhua told it quite well and sometimes included some of his own creations. Listening to the applause from his colleagues greatly satisfied his vanity.

But now he is more addicted to the letter opening game, so he drove the listeners away and started to open the letters alone. Today he received more than a hundred letters.

What’s more, this time we even received letters from readers in Sichuan and Chongqing, which were not there in the previous two days.

Wei Ming quickly collected the local food coupons for future use.

Brother Feng said, "It's probably too far away, so the letters are arriving a little slower. I think we can still see letters from Yunnan and Guangdong in two days."

Wei Ming nodded. Due to limited conditions, transportation and mail are slow, and it was even slower in the past.

Except for Mei Wenhua, Wei Ming and Biaozi were not so excited about opening the letters this time. Wei Ming was even a little worried. There were more and more letters, and his bed was a little overwhelmed. He discussed with everyone: "If I set up a set of cabinets in the dormitory to store the letters, will it be too crowded?"

Everyone had no objection, so let him do it.

"That's fine. I'll go to the city some time and buy a cabinet."

Biaozi hurriedly said: "Brother Ming, no matter what you say this time, you have to take me with you!"

So, considering both of their schedules, they decided to go into the city the day after tomorrow to buy a second-hand cabinet, take a look at second-hand cameras, and pick out a second-hand birthday present for Li Aiguo.

The next day, Wei Ming had a morning class. At noon, Liu Rulong came and brought with him the raw egg pie chart he had successfully drawn.

Wei Ming was very satisfied. The picture had a lot of details and was much more refined than the illustrations in Children's Literature.

"But there's no need to make it in color. Magazines are in black and white."

"Ah? Okay." Aaron felt sorry for his color combinations.

Afterwards, Wei Ming showed him the character designs of several other important characters that he had drawn, and again received a lot of praise from Aaron. The three foxes in particular were very stunning.

"I feel like you, A Ming, are my grandfather's real grandson!" A Long felt that Wei Ming had inherited all of his grandfather's skills.

There was nothing wrong with his feeling. After returning from Yanjing at the age of 18 in his previous life, Wei Ming not only farmed and did odd jobs, but also often went to the old man's place. Although he did not become his disciple, he learned some real things over time.

"Stop talking nonsense and take a look at this." A Ming threw the manuscript of more than 10,000 words that he had already written to A Long. These were probably the contents of the first issue when it was serialized.

“You can choose some interesting passages and characters and draw about ten of them.”

"Okay." Aaron started watching it with great interest. When he saw some interesting parts, he wanted to discuss it with Wei Ming several times but he held back.

Because Wei Ming is also working, he is writing the sequel. After finishing "The Magic Book" this week, he can write about his parents' love story.

The two were busy with their own things in the dormitory when a colleague on duty suddenly came down and called Wei Ming: "Brother Ming, someone is looking for you. They say it's the editor of Contemporary magazine."

Wei Ming was very surprised. He had not received any invitations to write for his articles from several publications. He originally thought that the wealthy and powerful families looked down on him as a rising star. Unexpectedly, Contemporary Magazine actually sent someone directly to the school to invite him to write for his article.

After going up, standing in front of him was a charming middle-aged woman.

"Hello, Bai Shurong from Contemporary," the other party extended his hand, "I didn't expect you to be so young."

Wei Ming knew that she also had the subtext of "handsome": "Editor Bai, thank you for the compliment. Are you here to ask for an article?"

"Well, it seems that quite a few publications have asked you to contribute to your work recently. So, do you have any new creations recently?"

"Indeed, I haven't started writing yet. But I can write quickly and will probably have the manuscript finished by early next month."

Hearing this, Editor Bai was overjoyed: "Can you consider us, Contemporary? We are under the People's Literature Publishing House, and we are from the same school as People's Literature."

This is also one of the reasons why a new magazine like Contemporary can rise quickly.

Wei Ming smiled and said, "I know all this, but I am also very happy to cooperate with Harvest and Yanjing Literature and Art. They are also keeping an eye on my new works."

Bai Shurong smiled and said, "Yanjing Literature and Art will be released tomorrow. I chose this time to come to you. Do you know why?"

Wei Ming shook his head.

"Because our editorial department is very optimistic about your talent. Although the literary world is quite critical of your talent now, and believes that you rely on luck just based on the article "Duck Prophet", we don't think so. We believe that someone who can write both "Duck Prophet" and "Ideal" must have superb literary accomplishment. His success is by no means accidental, but inevitable."

Editor Bai paused and said, "I also believe that your new work will still be successful after the publication of Yenching Literature and Art. Even though I haven't read it yet, I specially asked you to write in person before that. This is our sincerity. I believe that other publications of the same level should not have responded yet."

The publications of the same level she was referring to should be "Huacheng", "Shiyue" and "Zhongshan", and she actually guessed it right.

Wei Ming smiled slightly: "You have convinced me, but I also have a small condition."

……

(End of this chapter)