Restart life

Chapter 50 0049 [We can strongly promote Chen Guiliang]

Magic City.

Cupid's Garden.

This is the location of the Shanghai Writers Association.

The editorial offices of several magazines, including Harvest, Sprout, and Shanghai Literature, are located here.

On the second floor of the Mengya magazine office, competition submissions were piled up like mountains.

The room was already overflowing, and it even filled the balcony outside.

This year, there were only over 60,000 participants, but the number of submissions reached over 400,000, which means an average of 7 submissions per person.

Chen Guiliang only submitted 4 papers, which is already considered very conservative.

With over 40 preliminary submissions, reviewing manuscripts became a physically demanding task, so it was impossible to burden renowned authors.

The first step is coarse screening.

The selection process is carried out by regular editors, who will choose approximately ten thousand high-quality submissions.

The second step is to examine it carefully.

The competition was organized by the editor-in-chief, deputy editors, senior editors, and second-tier writers and literary critics residing in Shanghai. From the 10,000 submissions, 400 participants (Group A + Group B) were selected to advance to the semi-finals.

Renowned authors like Yu Hua and Su Tong will not participate in the review process at this stage; they will only appear during the semi-finals.

In any matter in the world, as long as it involves "profit," someone will inevitably try to take a slice of the pie.

The same applies to the New Concept Writing Competition.

For example, some well-known high schools, especially those in Shanghai, can recommend students to participate in competitions.

Of course, it still needs to look presentable.

The typical procedure is as follows: a top-tier language arts teacher polishes their student's work and then recommends it on behalf of the school. This results in a high-quality preliminary essay that is guaranteed to pass the initial screening and has a very high chance of advancing to the semi-finals.

If you make it to the semi-finals, you're guaranteed at least a qualifying award, and if you're lucky, you might even get a second or third prize.

Although it won't give you extra points on the college entrance exam or guarantee admission to a prestigious university, having an award-winning resume can be used to influence other things.

So who knows how many of those 400 spots in the semi-finals were actually reserved for students recommended by prestigious universities?

……

At this moment, the preliminary review has ended.

Those rejected manuscripts were bundled together in groups of one hundred, labeled with "Group X, 100 copies," and thrown onto the balcony of the editorial office.

We definitely can't just sell them as scrap; it will take at least six months to process them.

Zhao Yan and Hu Weishi were repeatedly reading the draft article.

First, we need to select twenty or thirty essays to be included in next year's "Selection of Winning Essays from the New Concept Writing Competition"; second, we need to select a few promising contestants to be included as key candidates for promotion and cultivation in "Mengya" magazine.

"Li Haiyang's essay is quite good; his writing style is very mature," Zhao Yan said.

Zhao Yan is the editor-in-chief's biological son, a senior editor and reporter for *Mengya* magazine, and a future renowned suspense novelist. He also frequently appears on Longkong (a Chinese online literature platform), where he has published a web novel.

He can be considered a legendary figure in ancient online novels.

Hu Weishi said, "I called Li Haiyang yesterday, and he said he's working on a novel. He's already finished the beginning, something like 'The Case of Young Cha Biliang's Assault.' However, he's busy with his senior year of high school and plans to continue writing after the college entrance exam."

After reading dozens more essays, Zhao Yan sighed, "Although the number of submissions has surged this year, the quality has continued to decline. Most of the articles are the same and have no appeal whatsoever."

Hu Weishi commented: "It's too utilitarian, full of new concept formulaic writings, which has gone against our original intention of holding the competition."

The theme of the New Concept Writing Competition is "newness," but the submissions received in recent years have been incredibly "outdated."

After counting them, there are mainly two writing styles.

One type imitates Han Han's style, feigning maturity, but it's really just showing off erudition and cleverness. They quote obscure books or famous sayings, write childish pieces that sound profound, and offer so-called scathing satire of social issues.

Another approach is to imitate Guo Jingming's melancholy, forcing oneself to write new poems and feign sorrow.

Submissions that can break free from these two writing styles are extremely rare, and those that can be written exceptionally well are even rarer.

When editors are reviewing manuscripts, they are faced with hundreds of thousands of submissions, which is no different from finding gold in the trash!

If I come across an article with originality, I read it repeatedly to cleanse my eyes. Garbage articles, on the other hand, are finished in a few seconds; just looking at them for a second feels incredibly tiring.

“Take a look at Chen Guiliang’s manuscripts,” Hu Weishi tossed over a stack of manuscripts. “Four articles. One is a parallel prose piece, one is a science fiction novel, one is a rural essay, and one is a reading notes. They all passed the initial screening. That’s very impressive.”

Zhao Yan laughed and said, "Are there still people writing parallel prose these days?"

“I even suspect that he either had someone else write it for him, or that he copied it from somewhere,” Hu Weishi said, adding, “He is Guo Jingming’s classmate.”

Upon hearing that he was Guo Xiaosi's classmate, Zhao Yan couldn't help but frown.

Chen Guiliang's four articles were clipped together by the review panel using paper clips.

When Zhao Yan read the article "A Proclamation Against the United States for Invading Iraq," he immediately laughed and said, "It certainly doesn't sound like a high school student's writing. It must have been polished by a Chinese language teacher. These Chinese language teachers are just hoping their students will win awards and become famous."

Two years ago, the author of the perfect score essay in the college entrance examination, "The Death of Red Hare," was also written in classical Chinese, and was even admitted to Nanjing Normal University through a special exception.

But that was just classical vernacular Chinese.

Chen Guiliang's piece, however, is a parallel prose in the four-six style!
Of course, it's impossible to assess the level of difficulty.

After all, "The Death of Red Hare" was written during the college entrance examination period, with extremely limited writing time, and most people wouldn't dare to do it.

Below Chen Guiliang's article is Hu Weishi's comment: "It is rare for a high school student to have such a foundation in classical Chinese. 'Ten thousand lives become new ghosts, a thousand years of civilization fall into the abyss,' this sentence fully expresses the cruelty of war and points out the anti-war core of this article."

After reading the first article, Zhao Yan read the second one and was immediately struck by its brilliance: "It's cyberpunk!"

Hu Weishi asked, "Isn't it science fiction? What is cyberpunk?"

Zhao Yan said, "Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction. The Matrix is ​​a cyberpunk story."

"Is this kind of memory deletion, customization, replacement, and sale common in cyberpunk novels?" Hu Weishi asked.

Zhao Yan shook his head: "It seems uncommon. It's a pity it's just a short story; it would be great if it could be expanded into a novel." He then wrote a comment: "The imagination is bizarre and chilling. Although it's a short story of five thousand words, it vividly depicts a distorted future world."

Then look at the remaining two articles; both have comments.

In the past two or three years, there have been fewer and fewer articles that are qualified to be commented on.

Even among the articles included in the "Selection of Winning Works from the New Concept Writing Competition," more than one-third failed to receive comments from the reviewers.

Since the quality is just so-so, writing a review would be a waste of ink.

"Dong dong dong."

An editor knocked on the door, which was not closed: "Editor Hu, the editor-in-chief requests your presence."

"Just come."

Hu Weishi, carrying several manuscripts, walked straight towards the editor-in-chief's office.

"Boom boom boom!"

"Please come in."

Two people were sitting in the editor-in-chief's office.

One of them is Zhao Changtian, the editor-in-chief of "Mengya" magazine.

The other is Li Qigang, the general manager of the New Concept Writing Competition.

Hu Weishi fanned away the smoke in the air and walked in, teasing, "Are you two worshipping the gods? How many cigarettes have you smoked?"

"I'm not smoking anymore, out of respect for the women." Zhao Changtian got up and opened the window wider.

Hu Weishi asked, "What difficulties have you encountered?"

Li Qigang's expression was grim as he said, "Universities will further lower their cooperation standards. Only two institutions remain willing to admit students without examination, and both are art colleges. Next year, admission without examination will be completely abolished!"

"That serious?" Hu Weishi was taken aback.

Editor-in-Chief Zhao Changtian nodded: "To further standardize independent enrollment, all universities must implement the policy. This competition has already started, and those universities are not in a position to change their minds at the last minute. They also understand our difficulties. So, each university will still send people over, but it will just be a formality."

"What is Tsinghua and Peking University's attitude?" Li Qigang asked.

Zhao Changtian said, "They might lower the admission score by 10 to 30 points, but they still need to discuss the exact amount. Actually, the amount of the reduction isn't the key point; the key point is whether or not they'll give out any spots. Even if they agree to lower the score by 200 points, so what? They can choose not to give out any spots, or they can add an interview process to eliminate those who don't qualify."

The specific situation is more complicated.

For example, back then, Xiamen University had agreed to admit Guo Xiaosi exceptionally, as long as he passed the first-tier university entrance exam score. Guo Xiaosi scored a full 54 points above the first-tier university entrance exam score, but because his essay score was only 30 points, Xiamen University reneged on its decision and did not admit him.

These are all excuses; the truth is very simple: universities changed their minds at the last minute due to public opinion and policy influence.

Hu Weishi then asked, "What about other key universities?"

Zhao Changtian said, "Some students have to pass the key university admission line, some only need to pass the undergraduate admission line, and others need to exceed the key university admission line by a certain number of points. The next New Concept Writing Competition is doomed. Without the gimmick of guaranteed admission to prestigious universities, fewer and fewer students will participate, and the media will not give it any attention."

This situation arose because of excessive public controversy and the increasingly poor quality of the event itself.

Furthermore, the state is further standardizing the college entrance examination, guaranteed admission, and independent enrollment.

The triggering event was the leak of this year's college entrance examination math paper, which led to a series of reforms in the college entrance examination and admissions process.

Because of the college entrance examination reform and the strict investigation of various irregularities, a lot of bad things will be exposed next summer.

For example, a teacher from a certain school proactively contacted a candidate, saying that as long as the candidate's college entrance examination score wasn't too far off, they could be admitted by paying 10,000 yuan for every point they were short.

For example, a top art school was found to have engaged in blatant cheating in its art exams, and the cheating was so brazen that the school didn't even bother to hide it.

One university even made headlines on CCTV's "Focus Interview" for allegedly forcing applicants to pay 100,000 yuan for admission. The final investigation revealed that seven students enrolled in the national defense-oriented program were extorted a total of 550,000 yuan by the university's teachers.

The above are just some examples, and they are all from prestigious universities!

The fact that major universities have lowered their cooperation standards and given up on admitting contestants from the New Concept Writing Competition is simply a case of being caught in the crossfire of the college entrance examination reform.

Li Qigang sighed, "We must think of a way."

"Standardized enrollment is an inevitable trend, and we cannot try to stop it," Zhao Changtian said.

Li Qigang thought for a moment and said, "Then we'll organize the event ourselves and invite the media to hype it up."

Zhao Changtian asked, "What are your thoughts?"

Li Qigang explained, "We invited all the first-prize winners from previous years back, especially celebrities like Han Han, Guo Xiaosi, and Zhang Yueran. We let them have dialogues with renowned figures like Yu Hua and Su Tong, discussing the development trends of contemporary Chinese literature."

“Okay.” Zhao Changtian nodded.

Li Qigang added, "This year's winners may also select a few with potential to attend."

"You want to create a new Han Han or Guo Xiaosi?" Zhao Changtian asked.

Li Qigang said, "Han Han is busy racing, Guo Xiaosi is busy running the magazine, and Zhang Yueran can't generate enough buzz. Moreover, Guo Xiaosi is embroiled in a plagiarism scandal. We must promote another new talent to maintain the popularity of 'Mengya' and 'New Concept' magazines."

Zhao Changtian said to Hu Weishi, "The task of finding good seedlings will be entrusted to Xiao Hu."

Hu Weishi presented four articles by Chen Guiliang: "There happens to be a good contestant who is also an alumnus of Guo Xiaosi."

Li Qigang praised, "This is a good gimmick, allowing them, the seniors and juniors, to communicate in front of the media."

After reading the four articles, Zhao Changtian said with concern, "These articles have probably been tutored by a teacher."

They practically admitted to using a ghostwriter.

Hu Weishi said, "So we still need to see his performance in the finals."

Li Qigang said, "During the finals, we'll focus on this... what's it called?"

“Chen Guiliang,” Hu Weishi said.

Li Qigang said, "Yes, we should focus on Chen Guiliang. As long as he has real talent and writes a good article for the final round, we can promote him extensively."

(End of this chapter)