My era, 1979!

Chapter 43 How Should We Live in This Changing Era?

Anhui University Library.

When Ji Yu, a 27-year-old writer from Anhui who had just graduated from Anhui University with a degree in library science, received the Anhui Youth Daily,

The unfinished manuscript of "The Pawnshop" was still lying on the desk.
This was his thirty-seventh revision of the opening.

His book "Farewell," published last year, brought him some fame in Anhui Province.
However, at this time he was in a creative slump.
The cicadas were chirping loudly outside the window, but he was so captivated by the poem "Walking Towards the Light" in the newspaper supplement that he couldn't take his eyes off it.

"When the wind brings the first wisp of fragrance, you are looking down, counting the moss on the stone steps."

He stopped reading this line.

As a writer who came from the rural area of ​​Feidong, he was familiar with this posture of "bowing his head to count the moss".

Well written! The imagery is described with effortless grace!

"Moonlight will spill through the cracks in the window frame / Planting two shadows on the floor."

He recalled the nights he spent writing "The Ferry Crossing" at the wooden table in the educated youth settlement.

Literature at that time always grew in the gap between the "collective" and the "individual," like the poem says, "One plant is awake in the darkness / One plant is asleep in the light."

What troubled him most was the phrase, "Being sensible is a deep kind of despair."

When he was forced to stop writing in 1975, his father stuffed his manuscripts into the stove and said, "Be sensible and don't cause trouble for the family."

Back then, being "sensible" meant swallowing the words "want to write" deeply and silently.
Xu Chengjun, however, laid bare this despair and added, "It's better to learn from the stream / singing its own song at the bend."

So his first impression of this young writer from Shanghai was:

He doesn't wallow in his "scars," but he can pull starlight out of the cracks.

Ji Yu copied the entire poem onto the back of the manuscript paper.

"Every sentence seems to contain philosophical insights. The whole text is a hazy fantasy, yet the emotions it evokes are frighteningly direct and intense."

"Great!"

"Xu Chengjun is probably going to become famous with this poem."

He gripped the pen again and lowered his head once more under the heading "Winter 1978".

He too will walk toward the light.
-
Gong Liu's hand, holding the Anhui Youth Daily, trembled three times, and the cigarette almost burned the sample copy of Poetry Journal between his fingers.

I glanced at the title and scoffed, "Walking Towards the Light? Sounds like a love poem written by a young girl."

He said that, but his fingers had already twisted the newspaper.

"Hey, this kid!"

He laughed heartily as he followed the line "A plant awake in the darkness / Counting the trajectory of falling stars".

"This isn't writing poetry; it's opening a vent for a taciturn person!"

"This isn't about facing the light; it's about holding a torch and drilling into people's hearts!"

The cigarette glowed and faded in the ashtray. Gong Liu stared at the four words "Walk Towards the Light" and suddenly laughed.

Hey, writing poetry?

This was like a firecracker thrown into the literary world in 1979, a loud and clear explosion, carrying a sweet, gunpowder-like smell.

"Old Zhou, take a look at the poems that kid you've taken a liking to. These young people are going to be amazing!"

Zhou Ming's side,

Liu Zuci, who was reading the manuscript, suddenly slammed his fist on the table and stood up: "That brat, he didn't even give me the poem first!"

"When he gets back, I'll give him a piece of my mind!"
-
Hefei, and even within Anhui Province,
In factories, schools, hospitals, rural communes, and even street vendors
Everyone was eagerly passing it around, and all the young people were moved to tears.
Anyone who has read the Youth Observation column in the Anhui Youth Daily knows this person.

Xu Chengjun, a writer who was sent to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and a nature lyric poet!

Poetry, in this sense,
Or, to put it another way, literary works can be described in this way.

There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes.

Everyone sees their own life reflected in a work of art.
now,

In the eyes of everyone who reads this poem,
This poem presents different emotions, different lives, and different memories.

It looks a bit like Chunlan's dressing mirror.

And those marks that bear the marks of pain,
Under the "soothing" effect of this poem,

It seems to hurt less, but the marks are becoming clearer.

Both tragic and beautiful
Young people born in 79 clearly hadn't experienced anything like this.

So they were given a shot of adrenaline.
Workers worked harder, students studied more diligently, and educated youth were sent to the countryside.
That's right.
poisonous!

At this time, on this land of Anhui,
Like these Chinese literature students, many young people began to read that letter.

"Walking Towards the Light" made them look forward to the letter even more.

It might not just be a few points.
They worship like devout Christians, turning towards their "Jerusalem"—faith.

It should be said that
Poisonous chicken soup is still far too lethal in this day and age.

The students opened the newspapers, and a crowd of heads crowded around, creating quite a lively scene.

But what they didn't know was that Xu Chengjun had an even bigger surprise waiting for them.

A chaotic scene ensued.
We will still elect Lu Xiaoxiao to use her voice to guide everyone to "hear the message".

Lu Xiaoxiao's voice drifted over softly:

To our young friends: Before setting off tomorrow, let's have a conversation with the soil and the starlight.

When you read this letter, I may be on a speeding train, or I may already be pursuing my dreams in Shanghai. Before I leave, let me say a few words to you all.

As night fell through the windowpane, I always liked to write an extra line on my manuscript. The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered, casting a shadow on the earthen wall like a stumbling traveler. This shadow accompanied me through many nights: on the wooden bed at the educated youth settlement, on the hard chair in the Hefei guesthouse, and under the streetlights at Bengbu station. It knew how painful my frostbitten fingertips were, how glaring the red crosses on rejection letters were, and how the unextinguished light in my heart lingered every time I wrote "To be continued."

Last winter was particularly cold; the ink froze into ice crystals on the pen tip. I huddled in the drafty mud-brick house revising my manuscript, my fingers swollen like carrots. Every time I gripped the pen, my frostbite felt like being pricked by needles, and drops of blood dripped onto the straw paper, spreading into tiny red blotches. Back then, people would always advise me, "What's the use of writing this for a sent-down youth? You should earn more work points." I didn't say anything, I just tucked my frozen hands into my clothes, trying to warm the ink with my body heat. But I knew that some things were more important than cold or warmth, like wheat seeds buried under the snow, seemingly lifeless, but their roots quietly working hard in the soil.

You may have had moments like this too: standing at a crossroads, the wind blowing in two directions. On one side is "stability," what others call the "proper path," like stale grain in a warehouse that won't sprout; on the other is "restlessness," that inexplicable itch in your heart, the urge to write "maybe" instead of "impossible." I once waited at the commune post office for my manuscript fee, standing there for half a day with three jin of grain coupons, enough for six cornbreads, but not enough for a hard-seat ticket to Shanghai. Back then, I felt that a speck of dust in the era felt like a mountain on an individual's head, suffocating you. But when the acceptance notice from *Anhui Literature* finally arrived, the pages were wrinkled and soaked with sweat, yet heavier than any award certificate. It turns out that no matter how heavy the mountain, it can't stop those who want to climb it.

People often ask me if I'm afraid. Of course I am! How could I not be? I'm afraid of revising a manuscript ten times and still getting it rejected; I'm afraid of being criticized for "not doing my job properly"; I'm afraid of giving it my all and ending up still stuck in the same place. Once, while revising a manuscript in Hefei, I looked in the mirror at three in the morning and saw my sunken eyes and stubble on my chin. Suddenly, I thought, "Forget it, I'll go back to the county town and be a private school teacher. At least I'll have a coal stove in the winter." But when I picked up my pen and touched the holes poked in the paper by the pen tip, I couldn't bear to stop. Those holes were like stars, blinking in the darkness, saying, "Write one more line, try one more time."

This era is like a newly turned field, where everyone is learning how to sow seeds. Some sow the seeds of the "college entrance exam," some plant the sprouts of "street vending," and some hold the seedlings of "crafts." I've seen young people listening to English broadcasts late at night at the brigade headquarters, memorizing vocabulary by moonlight when their kerosene lamps were almost out; I've seen girls taking secretly embroidered handkerchiefs to the market, clutching their earnings, their fingers trembling like ears of wheat in the wind; I've seen old carpenters studying new blueprints, saying, "This furniture style must be acceptable to city dwellers." These small attempts are all answering the same question: How should we live in this changing era?
I can't give an answer, but I know some more concrete things. I know that frostbitten hands can write about spring, that the back of a rejection letter can be used to draft a manuscript, and that stale grain in a warehouse can sprout in the sunlight filtering through a corner. Just like the foxtail grass in the cracks of the rocks right now, no one waters it, yet it stubbornly struggles to grow green from the cracks, its thorns still clinging to last year's snow. Perhaps this is the fate of our generation: not hoping for favorable weather, but only learning to take root in the wind and rain.

Youth is wonderful, its beauty lies in "not being afraid to try." Afraid of failure? Who hasn't risen from failure? Afraid of taking the wrong path? Paths are made by walking. I met editors of *Anhui Literature* in a two-story building in Hefei, and they said, "Good manuscripts are polished." In a bathhouse in Hefei, I heard a worker say, "If you want to set up a stall, don't be afraid of people laughing." On the ridges of the fields in Fengyang, watching the new wheat sprout, I suddenly understood: the so-called "future" is never a pre-drawn map, but footprints left step by step, deep with sweat, shallow with tears, but all pointing towards the light.

As night deepened, the words on the manuscript gradually became clear. The wheat fields of this land rippled in the moonlight, like a flowing sea. Hidden within these waves were countless youthful dreams: some wanted the rice ears to be fuller, some wanted to make cloth ration coupons more colorful, and some wanted the pen to be more powerful than the hoe. These dreams may be small, but they gently touched in the wind, sparking countless points of light.

Don't despise their small size, or their long journey. Remember, all great things begin in humble beginnings. Like the weeds under the stones, like frostbitten fingertips, like the crooked, yet persistent words we write under this lamplight.

The wind rose again, carrying the scent of wheat. It said: Keep writing, like seeds longing for spring.

Sincerely,
salute
Xu Chengjun

July 1979, at the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers Guesthouse in Hefei
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(End of this chapter)