1979 Golden Age

No. 74, Shaoxing Road, Shanghai.

Two leafy camphor trees guard this single courtyard, which is quiet and secluded. Inside is a three-story building with a sign hanging at the door: Story Club Magazine!

Early in the morning, He Chengwei rode his bicycle to work. He joined the magazine in 1974 and was the youngest editor.

"Good morning, editor-in-chief!"

"Morning!"

He Chengwei went up to the second floor and sat in his seat. There were not many people in the magazine, with only twenty editors, art designers, and publishers in total.

As a bimonthly publication, it stands to reason that he has plenty of time to write articles, but he lives a very stressful life every day.

Because there are too few manuscripts available.

The current "Story Club" has no columns. Each issue serializes five long stories, two are manuscripts, two are old revolutionary stories from the past, and only one is a new story.

When the editor is in a hurry, he can only write it himself or collect materials from everywhere.

He Chengwei went to Chongming Island yesterday to visit a braggart who loved to brag and was often good at telling stories. He emptied the guy, dug out a dozen short stories from his stomach, and memorized a full book. .

"Xiao He, look at this manuscript. Can you publish it?"

"OK!"

The editor threw him a worn-out notebook. It was very thick, the writing was messy, and the pages were torn.

He Chengwei is already very used to it. From the beginning of the year to now, he has seen too many manuscripts, all of which are "banned books" from special periods. Like the "Second Handshake" mentioned earlier, there are also "Green Corpse", "A Pair of Embroidered Shoes", "Plum Blossom Party", "Girl's Heart" and so on.

How keen will you be on manuscripts?

It is said that an educated youth learned that a man had "The Second Handshake" in his hand. He walked 20 miles to borrow it, made a broken oil lamp with an ink bottle, and hid in a stuffy barn at night to read it secretly. There were a lot of mosquitoes in summer, so he put on thick clothes, soaked his feet in a bucket of water, and spent five nights finally reading "The Second Handshake."

"Girl's Heart" is even more famous. It tells the story of two young people falling in love and also contains sexual descriptions.

The so-called sexual description is actually quite funny.

It is unknown what the earliest version was. In short, during the circulation process, these turbulent men and women could not help themselves when they saw the passionate places. They used their imagination and added a lot of sexual descriptions themselves.

But they have little sexual experience, and what they write is laughable and generous. It is nothing more than smacking your tongue, touching your dick, and watching the gurgling stream.

Just like some current Internet article authors who can write virgin literature such as "I rubbed my girlfriend's breasts from C to B"...

However, at that time, "Girl's Heart" was no less than a flood of spiritual food. Countless people circulated it, and many people were poisoned by it. It is said that a student in Shanghai read this book and began to pursue his sister. He also imitated the plot of the book and acted like a gangster, and was sentenced to death.

He Chengwei flipped through the manuscript as quickly as possible.

He only needs to confirm what kind of story it tells and whether it can be published. As for whether there is any prohibited content, he will review it carefully in the future.

“This story works!”

"Okay, you take responsibility."

It’s already noon to get this done.

He Chengwei had lunch and went for a short walk outside. When he came back, he was looking at the postman.

"There are more and more letters from your magazine. I read every issue of "Story Club". Come on!"

"Thank you, comrade!"

He Chengwei took the package upstairs and opened it. There were letters from readers and submissions in brown paper bags.

He read the submissions first. The first one was a new story, written by an amateur writer from Jiangsu who claimed to be a worker. He wrote a story about the factory security office, catching thieves, chasing factory flowers and so on.

“The standard is acceptable!”

He marked it, kept it, then looked at the second one.

"Sent from Lushan..."

As soon as He Chengwei turned over the manuscript paper, he knew that it was about 20,000 words. The handwriting was not very beautiful and could barely be read. The title of the work was written at the beginning:

Kapok cassock!

"What is this? What a strange name."

He read the first sentence again.

"In the last years of the Ming Dynasty, the people were in dire straits, and traitorous ministers were in power. They did not care about the life and death of the people but still imposed tyranny. The righteous men from all over the country took up the banner of Shaolin True Story and fought against it. The traitorous minister Wang Cheng hated this so much that he summoned the Wudang traitor Qi Tianyuan and ordered him to go to Shaolin Temple to seize the power. Kapok cassock…”

He Chengwei perked up.

This is a great storyteller!

"Story Club" is called a magazine, but it actually publishes oral literature, which must be easy to understand, fast-paced, and have climaxes, much like today's Internet articles.

When writing a novel in "People's Literature", for example, describing a woman, it might be: "She is in her 20s, tall and fair, with picturesque eyebrows and beautiful eyes..."

But in "Story Meeting", it is "a woman, she is very beautiful."

This is also the reason why "Story Club" is looked down upon by others. It is called a reading book for migrant workers and the first choice for blind immigrants. Even Sister Feng in the United States never forgets it. She still reads "Story Club" after going abroad.

He Chengwei continued to look.

The following also maintains this popular and lively style. The writing is very simple, and it actually tells a martial arts story.

It is said that when Bodhidharma traveled eastward, he brought a kapok cassock with him. It has been passed down from generation to generation in Shaolin Temple that whoever owns this cassock can be the abbot. Qi Tianyuan, a rebel disciple of Wudang, shaved his head and sneaked into the Shaolin Temple with the intention of obtaining cassocks and becoming the abbot.

The words are divided into two parts.

Ding Mo, a lay disciple of Shaolin, was traveling around and met a horse dealer named Lin Cangbo.

Lin Cangbo has four daughters, all of whom are extraordinary, especially the eldest daughter Lin Ying, who is beautiful and good at both civil and military affairs. On this day, Wang Cheng's men suddenly arrived and wanted to forcibly requisition horses.

Lin Ying secretly instigated the herdsmen to scare the horses.

On the vast grassland, thousands of horses were galloping, and Wang Cheng's men had no way to catch up, so they had to give up with resentment. Lin Ying took her three sisters to collect horses. Ding Mo met by chance and helped her. Lin Ying saw her extraordinary bravery and secretly fell in love with her.

Ding Mo also had a good impression of her, and the two exchanged tokens.

Ding Mo learned from Lin Cangbo that Wang Cheng might deal with Shaolin Temple, so he hurriedly left and went south to Songshan.

On the other side, Qi Tianyuan wanted to force himself to be the abbot, and fought with Shaolin Master Yuanhui, but was defeated. Wang Cheng brought his troops and ordered a strong attack on Shaolin. Ding Mo arrived in time, rescued Master Yuanhui, and retreated to the Sutra Pavilion.

Master Yuanhui handed the cassock to Ding Mo and several other disciples and asked them to leave first.

Wang Chengze led his troops to capture Shaolin Temple, detained a group of disciples, and threatened Master Yuanhui with their lives to hand over the cassock. Master Yuanhui resolutely walked into the blazing flames.

"Abbot!"

"Abbot!"

"I came here with a clean body, and I will leave with a clean body. What can the sword mountain and the sea of ​​fire do to me?"

Amid the cries of the disciples, Master Yuanhui stepped into the sea of ​​fire and chose to burn himself to death.

Ding Mo and his fellow apprentices fled, and the court's lackeys pursued them relentlessly. Ding Mo made a fake cassock and led the pursuers away alone, but he was no match for Qi Tianyuan and was thrown off a cliff...

"Oh!"

This story was written smoothly, and He Chengwei felt happy and sad, sad and happy. Seeing Ding Mo fall off the cliff, his heart ached, and he couldn't wait to see what would happen next, but when he turned over...

"Gone?"

"Oh my God!"

He Chengwei was restless like a wild donkey in heat. Isn't this torture? What happened after falling off the cliff? It was broken!