Literary Master 1918: Starting with New Youth

The sun set quickly, and it gradually got dark.

Liang Shouming snapped out of his thoughts and realized he couldn't see the manuscript clearly, so he quickly grabbed it and looked down.

Old Bao's voice was ringing... The honking of car horns and the loud shouts of street vendors were making him very irritated.

Three young men approached, chatting and laughing. They were all wearing fashionable coats and scarves. One of them was carrying a newly framed scroll of calligraphy and painting.

Bao Guowei was walking with two classmates, carrying a paper bag, probably containing the new peanut paste... his hair swayed forward from his head to his chest.

"Bao Guowei!" Several young men stopped in surprise. Bao Guowei immediately withdrew his smile, replacing it with a frown. He only turned half his face, his dark eyes darting to the corner of his eye as he looked at his father.

"When are you coming home today? When are you coming home today?"

The son turned down the corners of his mouth and snorted, "I'll come home whenever I want! They're having a feast waiting for me! ...I thought it was something huge. Just one sentence! The editor-in-chief of the *Gongyan Bao* newspaper wanted to talk to me about something!"

The two classmates walked more than two zhang (approximately 6.6 meters) away. Bao Guowei immediately ran up to them as if he were running a long distance. He smiled and put his hand on Guo Chun's shoulder. "You didn't say it just now—what Mr. Gu said to Hu Shi at the salon last night..."

"Who was that old man just now?"

"Uh, it's unrelated. Just a relative."

"Ugh!"

Liang Shouming only felt that this was truly ironic.

Old Bao was devastated and heartbroken, but Bao Guowei dressed fashionably and acted leisurely, showing no concern for the family's predicament.

The two met on the road, but Bao Guowei looked down on Lao Bao and didn't care about Lao Bao's hardships at all. He kept bragging about going on a date with the chief editor of "Gongyan Bao" and refused to acknowledge Lao Bao's identity because of his vanity.

It's irrelevant... How disheartening to hear that.

This can be seen as a sequel to "Kong Yiji," revealing the distorted personalities produced by the traditional Chinese education system.

Young people should confront falsehoods with sincerity, rather than using "traditional Chinese studies" as a pretext to cover up their inferiority complex!

"Mr. Gu was truly brilliant, using Latin to critique 'New Youth,' wasn't he? Brother Gong, don't you agree?"

The one named Gong Deming simply took something out of the paper bag Guo Chun was holding and put it in his mouth; he didn't say a word.

Bao Guowei, hands in his coat pockets, talked about how to imitate Mr. Wang's writing style of cursing, and then drifted to their organization, the "Changming Chinese Classical Studies Society." He sighed; he felt that his last verbal battle with a modern student had been a truly painful defeat.

"I guess I can host a column in the club magazine this semester, I'm... "

"Your previous article on the textual research of the *Erya* cited too many common versions."

"However, I—I am—but my philology is still…"

"Philology?" Gong Deming exclaimed. "The other day you were talking about the ancient meaning of '窈窕'..."

Two female students with short hair and wearing black dresses walked towards us.

The three of them immediately lined up tightly, marching with the precision of military drills. They were more experienced at this than anything else. They wanted to prevent them from passing: the two female students lowered their heads and moved aside, walking close to the wall, and they squeezed to the wall as well.

Bao Guowei laughed until his eyes narrowed into slits: "Tsk, tsk, you've even cut your hair, what a disgrace!"

The two women moved aside again, trying to walk along the opposite wall, but they squeezed to the other side. Guo Chunliu, in a high-pitched voice, imitated a line from a play: "Young lady—excuse me—"

[“Young lady—excuse me—” Bao Guowei mimicked the line as if performing a duet, sticking out his tongue at Guo Chun.]

The two female students blushed, lowered their heads, and hurried away. Bao Guowei felt himself floating. Like a moral guardian, he suddenly shouted at them, "A woman's virtue lies in her lack of talent! What's the point of studying? You'd be better off going home and learning needlework!"

The female student, both embarrassed and angry, glared at him and ran away. Guo Chun and the others burst into laughter.

"Bao Guowei, well done! That was a satisfying scolding!"

"Tsk!"

After finally finishing the second section, Liang Shouming realized with a start that it was already dark.

He felt that the character of Bao Guowei, created by Wu Zhu, was truly unique.

He wouldn't even acknowledge his father, and tried hard to squeeze into the inner circle, but was always looked down upon.

He is keen on imitating writing styles to insult others and engage in verbal battles, and regards this as a cause of "promoting Chinese studies". In reality, he has turned academic debates into a kind of江湖 (jianghu, a term referring to a world of martial arts and chivalry), and even his fellow members believe that his academic foundation is not solid.

What should we do?

The plot takes a sudden turn when the appearance of a modern female student leads to the frivolous behavior of Bao Guowei and his associates.

The three men were skilled in their actions, clearly indicating that they frequently harassed women.

Moreover, it is done under the guise of defending morality to satisfy one's own baser instincts.

In the end, this actually earned him the approval of the other two, which is really like catching some people by their noses and cursing them...

......

"Baseness is the passport of the despicable, don't you think?"

Wu Zhu arrived in front of Liang Shouming at some point, standing motionless like a stone statue.

The rooftop was completely dark, and Liang Shouming couldn't see his expression, but he felt that the sentence was somewhat pretentious.

"Like Kong Yiji, it's not just one person's fault."

Liang Shouming dusted himself off, got up, carefully collected the remaining manuscript paper, put it back into the envelope, and put it in his pocket.

"You've only read two sections, but your writing is still so precise."

"You took apart that robe that says 'Respect Teachers and Value the Way' and 'Preserve National Essence' and showed it to me, inside and out, down to the last stitch."

"What is revealed is not just Bao Guowei's vanity and baseness, but also... an ecosystem, an ecosystem of using scholarship to embellish oneself and using antiquity to pursue personal gain."

He walked to the railing, his back looking somewhat forlorn.

"Like I said before, you are too cruel."

"Prickling open the abscess and letting the blood flow freely... The small world of traditional Chinese culture has become an absurd farce in your writing."

"How could Huang, Gu, Liu, and their disciples sit idly by and allow themselves to be portrayed in this way? This is no longer literary criticism, but a declaration of war!"

Yes, if "Kong Yiji" is a bombshell, targeting the entire old learning system, then "The Bao Family" is a direct insult.

How could people in the Chinese classical studies circle tolerate this? They will definitely publish articles to retaliate.

Wu Zhu shook his head, looked up at the twinkling stars, and murmured:

"You know, young people have no shortage of time. I can't just throw my skin around like that; insulting me is one thing, but openly insulting Mr. Qian is quite another. If they dare to talk back..."

"Then let's have a debate! Let's debate until they give up their pens and retire from the literary world, never daring to set foot in it again!"

For a foolish college student like him, writing a thesis is much easier than writing a novel.

The old-fashioned fighting techniques I learned from the old professor in my past life, I haven't seriously used them since transmigrating...

Liang Shouming turned around and gazed at Wu Zhu for a long time:

"I'm not taking sides on this. I'll go back and read the manuscript, then send it to the newspaper. You'd better watch yourself."

"Thank you for your trouble, Mr. Liang."