My era, 1979!

Chapter 60 The Five Vajras
As Xu Chengjun was packing up, putting "Selected Essays of Lu Xun" into his bag, Wang Zengqi suddenly said, "Keep that copy of 'Border Town.' There are annotations I drew on the title page; they might be useful for your writing."

Good heavens, so you literary veterans are all professional book-giving clerks, huh!

He pointed to the corner of the bookshelf, "Anyway, I bring a lot of books with me, so I don't need this one."

"Then can I really take it with me?"

"Border Town," eh? Whose book is that?

Shen Congwen!
Wang Zengqi was a direct disciple of Shen Congwen. The two shared the same literary ideals, both pursuing "human warmth" and "poetic narrative".

Shen Congwen had a profound influence on Wang Zengqi's writing. Just the other day, every time Wang Zengqi mentioned Mr. Shen Congwen, he would say, "My writing foundation was given to me by Mr. Shen Congwen."

In a sense, this also reflects Wang Zengqi's good intentions.

While it may not be a matter of passing on the torch, there is a genuine hope that my "friends across generations," Comrade Xiao Xu, can grasp the "warmth and purity that literature should possess."

Holding the book, Xu Chengjun said shamelessly, "I'll send you a copy of my novel later, consider it an exchange."

"Exchange books?" Wang Zengqi was amused. "Your two novels haven't even been published yet, and you dare to exchange them with me? Let's talk about it after they're published."

"If it's not well written, I won't take responsibility."

"You're not good at wrapping things."

Wang Zengqi ignored him.

He got up and moved to the edge of the bed, shaking his head. "My old bones can't stay up all night anymore. If I don't sleep by 10 p.m., I won't have any energy the next day."

Xu Chengjun also got up and helped make the bed, although he was just busy doing chores.
This is what happens when you serve your superiors too much.

He said with a smile, "I'm also benefiting from your help; I go to bed early and get up early to keep myself healthy."

Silent all night.
-
Early the next morning.

As soon as Xu Chengjun opened his eyes, he saw Wang Zengqi sitting on the old wooden chair, holding a copy of "A New Account of Tales of the World" in his hand.

"If we don't get up now, there won't be anything left in the cafeteria."

Xu Chengjun was still half asleep when he heard this, but he quickly got out of bed, dressed, and made the bed.

Halfway through, I glanced at the old wall clock.

Wait a minute, isn't it only 5:30 now?

"No way, it's only 5:30! How come there's still no food in the cafeteria?! Can our friendship ever get back to the level it was when we first met the day before yesterday?"

Wang Zengqi remained as nonchalant as ever: "Get up early, eat early, and go to your place at Fudan University to study."

Xu Chengjun pursed his lips, "Goodness, you've really said everything I mean."

It was almost 6:30 when I arrived at the cafeteria.

The literary and art association's guesthouse was much livelier than usual that day.

Sister Chen Rong, whom I had met earlier, greeted me with a smile again. When she saw Xu Chengjun, she asked, "Why didn't I see Comrade Xu yesterday?"

The older woman seemed to be in a good mood, probably because she was happy with the revisions to the manuscript.

Xu Chengjun, showing the courtesy due to a junior, responded with a "hello" and replied, "I went out to collect folk songs yesterday."

Wang Zengqi, who was standing to the side, twitched at the corner of his mouth.

You still just spout off whatever comes to mind. It's a good thing I initially thought you were an honest person.

The steam from the cafeteria carried the aroma of fried dough sticks.

The blackboard hanging in the window read in chalk: Today's offerings: soy milk (3 cents/bowl), glutinous rice balls (8 cents/each, 2 liang of grain coupons), and plain noodles (12 cents/bowl, 2 liang of grain coupons).

The chef, dressed in a blue cloth shirt, wielded a long ladle, and the soy milk in the iron bucket bubbled and gurgled.

Just as Wang Zengqi and Xu Chengjun had exchanged their national grain coupons for two glutinous rice balls, Chen Rong waved with a smile: "Mr. Wang, Comrade Xu, come quickly, Teacher Ru brought some salted eggs."

Wearing a gray shirt, Ru Zhijuan was poking at an eggshell with chopsticks when she greeted Wang Zengqi.

Then she looked up and smiled at Xu Chengjun, saying, "Comrade Xu, right? I saw your poem 'Walking Towards the Light' in the Guangming Daily yesterday. The line 'Moonlight sows shadows' is quite clever. Your sister Chen said you still have a lot of manuscripts to publish. Next time you have a good manuscript, remember our Shanghai Literature!"

Don't take it seriously, it's just a polite gesture!
At this time, Xu Chengjun indeed doesn't have any works that have national influence.
To put it bluntly, he is nowhere near as famous as someone who gets invited to write articles.

Speaking of which, like Sister Chen, Ru Zhijuan is also a famous contemporary Chinese female writer with high literary achievements and far-reaching influence. Her works such as "Aunt Guan" and "The Story Before Dawn" are very literary.

Moreover, Sister Ru's family is no ordinary family.

She is the wife of renowned director Wang Xiaoping and the mother of famous writer Wang Anyi.

At this time, it was the core force behind the relaunch of "Shanghai Literature".

If it were a matter of inviting someone to write an article, her words would carry considerable weight.

Suddenly, someone at the next table started whispering complaints.

"Hmph, it's just a poem."

Ai Xuan, wearing a white shirt, put down her chopsticks.

He glanced at Xu Chengjun and said, "Young people these days love to write about romance and nature, but their writing lacks power."

Xu Chengjun had just bitten into the glutinous rice ball when a crumb of fried dough stick wrapped in glutinous rice fell into his trouser seam, and he froze.

Who is this!
Do I know you well?
Wang Zengqi stuffed a salted egg into his bowl: "Ignore him, Lao Ai is stricter than most when it comes to reviewing manuscripts."

Ru Zhijuan suddenly laughed and pointed to the door: "Look who's here?"

"Wow, what's Wang Meng doing here?!"

Early in the morning, this literary guesthouse was surprisingly filled with many prominent figures from the literary world.

But it's not surprising.

During this period, the Federation of Literary and Art Circles Guesthouse, as the officially designated reception unit for literary and art workers, was responsible for providing accommodation for visiting writers and editors.

It is not just a physical space, but also a "literary salon" for the collision of ideas.

When a large group of familiar writers sit together, they inevitably chat about everything under the sun, and then complain about current literary works.

It took almost an hour to eat breakfast.

During this time, Xu Chengjun mostly just listened.

Young age, and his works are not well-known.

In short, "That year I stood like a lackey."

Of course, this is only temporary.

After finishing our meal, we said goodbye to Wang Zengqi and took the bus to Xianzhou Museum once again.

It was already past nine o'clock when I arrived at the archives.

When Xu Chengjun pushed open the wooden door to the archives, Su Manshu was lying on an open copy of "Some Theoretical Problems of Socialist Economy," her pen tip hovering above the notebook, her hair swaying gently with her breath.

"Is Su standing guard for my thesis?" He walked over quietly and saw a piece of paper next to her, which was the missing annotation of "Wenxin Diaolong" in his thesis, with beautiful handwriting.

Su Manshu looked up abruptly, her cheeks flushed slightly: "No, I just finished copying it. Your handwriting was so illegible that I had to copy it three times."

She pushed the manuscript paper over, and a piece of chewing candy peeked out from the corner of the table. "This is a reward for you. You told me yesterday that you never ate this when you were sent to the countryside."

Xu Chengjun unwrapped the candy, and a sweet aroma wafted out: "Will you have all of these from now on?"

"Dream on." She raised an eyebrow and flipped through an economic yearbook. "Get down to business. Professor Zhang likes to test you on real-world cases, so you'd better watch out."

Sunlight streamed through the pages of the book as the two of them huddled together, discussing and annotating. A strand of her hair occasionally brushed against the back of his hand, tickling him so much that his pen trembled.

Xu Chengjun deliberately mispronounced "the beauty of harmony" as "what to eat for lunch," making Su Manshu laugh and reveal her dimples: "If you mess with me again, I'll change 'wonderful insight' in your thesis to 'hunger.'"

The next morning, Xu Chengjun arrived at the conference room an hour early and neatly arranged all the manuscripts, including papers, on the long table in the conference room.

At 8:25, Academic Affairs Officer Sun arrived.

The interviewers for today were: Professor Zhu Dongrun, Professor Jia Zhifang, Professor Zhang Peiheng, Professor Wang Shuizhao, and Professor Su Liancheng.

Xu Chengjun was startled.

Jia Zhifang?

(End of this chapter)