The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

A thin, middle-aged man dragged a rickshaw and galloped down the street. The temperature in early spring was still very low. He was only wearing a single shirt, but his vest was so hot that it was wet with sweat.

Zhou Hexuan was sitting in the rickshaw, with all kinds of daily necessities in his arms. Seeing that the coachman was working very hard, he couldn't help asking: "Master, are you doing well?"

"Sir, are you talking to me?" the coachman slowed down and asked back.

"Yes." Zhou Hexuan said.

The coachman wiped the sweat from his brow and said with a smile, "I'm just pulling the cart. I'm not a master. You're too polite."

Zhou Hexuan asked: "Is the business usually good?"

"It's okay," the coachman said in a helpless tone. "The tram tracks in the city are getting longer and longer, and our business of pulling carts is getting worse and worse."

Zhou Hexuan immediately understood the reason. Trams are fashionable and cheap, so people will naturally choose to take trams when traveling. He asked again: "How much money do you earn a day?"

The coachman replied: "It depends on the situation. If the business is good, you can earn seven or eight cents, and if the business is poor, you can earn only three or four cents."

Zhou Hexuan calculated the current prices and said, "That's not bad, you can save a lot of money every day."

"What kind of money do you want to save?" The coachman sighed again and again, "I have to pay 10 cents to the car dealer every day, and 20 cents for my own meals. Counting miscellaneous expenses, I spend at least 40 cents a day. Living alone It’s okay, I have money to spare and go to restaurants every now and then to drink. But my family still has a wife and children to support, so I work from dawn to dusk, and I’m thankful that the whole family won’t go hungry.”

Zhou Hexuan was silent, the people of the Republic of China were really struggling.

A few minutes later, the driver stopped the car in front of the courtyard and said, "Sir, we've arrived."

"Thank you." Zhou Hexuan handed the coachman 20 copper coins.

The coachman repeatedly declined: "It's too much, you gave too much!"

Zhou Hexuan said with a smile: "The rest are tips."

"This... how embarrassing it is." The coachman smiled helplessly, showing his yellow teeth in a grin, and was a little embarrassed in his joy.

"You have been shopping with me for a long time, and you should get some tips." Zhou Hexuan got out of the car with the things he bought.

The coachman hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Sir, I'll take it for you. Leave this kind of rough work to me. Just stay here and help me look after the car."

Zhou Hexuan didn't refuse, handed over the pots and pans to him, and stood beside the rickshaw and waited.

It took the coachman two trips to finish moving the things. When he came back, he thanked: "Sir, I put the things under the eaves of the East Wing. You are a good man. I wish you great wealth and a long life."

"Thank you." Zhou Hexuan nodded with a smile, and walked into the courtyard.

The door of the main room opened suddenly, and the landlord Shan Chengfu came over to say hello, "What about shopping?"

"Hello Uncle Fu, I bought some daily necessities." Zhou Hexuan greeted.

Shan Chengfu chatted with him for a while and asked, "Do you pay your water and coal bills by yourself, or should I pay them for you?"

Well, what the traveler faced at the beginning was not about saving the country and the people, grand plans, but trivial daily chores. Not only the water and coal bills, but also the disposal of excrement and urine. The sanitation workers will come to collect the waste in the toilet every morning from 8 to 9 o'clock.

This is equivalent to the water, electricity and property management fees in the Republic of China.

Zhou Hexuan took out dozens of copper coins and asked the landlord to help with these chores. After placing all the daily necessities he bought, he took a piece of pork to Li's house for a visit: "Auntie, I'm too lazy to start a business by myself, so I may come to your house often for dinner in the future. I bought this at the vegetable market. Meat, I’m sorry to bother you to cook and dispose of it.”

Mrs. Zhou is not the kind of person who cares about every detail. She took the pork and said, "Don't spend money on it in the future. Just let me know when you're hungry. Have you had lunch yet?"

"I've eaten outside." Zhou Hexuan said with a smile.

...

Going back to the room and spreading out the newly purchased manuscript paper, Zhou Hexuan filled the pen with ink, sat at the table and began to think about what to write.

Zhou Hexuan's undergraduate major is history, and he has some understanding of the situation in the Republic of China. Today, the dispute between old and new literature in the Chinese literary world has basically settled down. The new literature advocated since the May Fourth Movement has won a big victory, and the writing of vernacular Chinese has become a social consensus.

Nowadays, if you want to contribute to newspapers and magazines, you can choose between serious literature and popular literature. Serious literature refers to all kinds of poetry, prose, essays and pure literary novels; popular literature mainly focuses on entertainment, such as martial arts novels, romance novels, and even pornographic novels mainly selling meat.

Of course, there is no strict boundary between the two, which is mainly distinguished by the ideological connotation expressed in the works.

Zhou Hexuan thought for a long time, and finally decided to write some recreational works first, such as martial arts novels. Pure literature is too lofty, and he doesn't want to touch it for the time being—the main reason is that martial arts novels have a lot of words, often tens of millions of words, can be serialized for a long time, and the manuscript fees are endless.

Among the five masters of martial arts novels, Jin, Gu, Wen, Liang, and Huang, Gu Long, Wen Rui'an, and Huang Yi were the first to be excluded. The works of these three are too trendy, and it may be difficult for readers to accept them all at once in the Republic of China.

Liang Yusheng's works are too limited, Zhou Hexuan also ruled out, and Jin Daxia's novels are the safest.

So which work should I copy Jin Yong?

Zhou Hexuan wrote "The Condor Shooting" trilogy, "The Eight Parts of Heavenly Dragon" and "Swordsman" on the manuscript paper. After careful consideration, he finally chose "Legend of the Condor Heroes". but.

Recalling the plot of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", Zhou Hexuan was about to organize the writing, when the content of the original work suddenly appeared crazily and lingered in his mind.

Goldfinger?

"The mighty waters of the Qiantang River bypass the Niujia Village in Lin'an day and night endlessly, and flow eastward into the sea. Dozens of black cypress trees line the banks of the river. The leaves are as red as fire. It is August... ..."

With the help of God, Zhou Hexuan quickly wrote down the content of the novel without adding any details. In one afternoon, he actually wrote more than 10,000 words.

Zhou Hexuan's calligraphy is not bad, and the writing is cursive, which greatly reduces the trouble of traditional characters.

In fact, simplified characters have existed since ancient times, and writing Chinese characters is a process of continuous simplification. There are many simplified characters in the inscriptions, calligraphy and paintings of the Tang and Song Dynasties preserved by later generations. Although Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty ordered that traditional characters be used, even the inscriptions on the waist badge of his Ministry of Internal Affairs are in simplified characters because it is easier to recognize.

Even if Zhou Hexuan's manuscript is all in simplified characters at the moment, it will be no problem to take it to the newspaper office, but writing all traditional characters will make him appear mentally ill.

In the evening, the third child of the Li family knocked on the door and shouted, "Brother Zhou, it's time to eat!"

"coming!"

Zhou Hexuan responded, picked up the 10,000-word draft of the novel, and planned to ask Li Shoumin to forward it to the editor of the newspaper tomorrow.