The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

  A thin middle-aged man, dragging a rickshaw galloping down the street. The temperature in early spring was still very low, and he was only wearing a single shirt, but his vest was so hot that he sweated a lot.

   Zhou Hexuan was sitting on the rickshaw with all kinds of daily necessities in his arms. Seeing how hard the driver was working, he couldn't help but ask, "Master, is your life okay?"

   "Sir, are you talking to me?" the coachman asked, lowering his speed.

   "Yes." Zhou Hexuan said.

  The driver wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with a smile: "I just pull the car, but I'm not a master, you are too polite."

   Zhou Hexuan asked, "Is business okay?"

   "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 the tram. He asked again, "How much can you earn in a day?"

  The driver replied: "Depending on the situation, if the business is good, you can earn seven or eight cents, but if the business is bad, it will only be three or four cents."

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

"What kind of money do you save?" The driver sighed again and again, "Every day you have to pay 10 cents to the car dealership, and you have to pay 20 cents for your own meals. Including miscellaneous expenses, you spend at least 40 cents a day. Live alone. It’s alright, I have the money to go out to restaurants and drink every once in a while. But I still have a wife and children to support at home, so I’m thankful that I can ensure that the whole family is not hungry.”

   Zhou Hexuan was silent, it was really difficult for the common people of the Republic of China.

   After a few more minutes, the driver stopped the car in front of the courtyard gate and said, "Sir, we've arrived at the place."

   "It's hard work." Zhou Hexuan handed the driver 20 copper plates.

  The driver repeatedly refused: "Too much, you gave too much!"

   Zhou Hexuan smiled and said, "The rest is the tip."

   "This... how embarrassing this is." The driver smiled helplessly, grinning his mouth full of yellow teeth, a little embarrassed in his happiness.

   "You've been shopping with me for a long time, so you should get a tip." Zhou Hexuan got off the car with the things he bought.

  The driver hurriedly stepped forward and said, "Sir, I'll help you get it, leave this kind of rough work to me, you can just help me watch the car here."

   Zhou Hexuan did not refuse, handed over the pots and pans to him, and stood by the rickshaw waiting by himself.

  The driver took two trips before he finished moving the things. He came back and said gratefully: "Sir, I put the things under the roof of the east wing. You are a good person. I wish you great wealth and prosperity and a long life."

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

  The door of the main house suddenly opened, and the landlord Shan Chengfu came over to say hello, "Where's the purchase?"

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

  Shan Chengfu chatted with him a few words and asked, "Do you pay for your water bills and coal bills by yourself, or do I pay for you together?"

   Well, what the transmigrants face at the beginning is not about saving the country and saving the people or the great cause, but the daily trivial matters. Not only the water and coal bills, but also the disposal of excrement and urine, the sanitation workers will come to collect the filth in the toilet from 8:00 to 9:00 every morning.

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

   Zhou Hexuan took out dozens of coins and asked the landlord to help with these chores. After all the daily necessities he bought were placed, he took a piece of pork and went to visit Li's house: "Auntie, I'm too lazy to start a business by myself, and I may come to your house to eat in the future. I bought this at the vegetable market. Meat, I still bother you to cook and deal with it."

   Mrs. Zhou is not the kind of person who cares about things. She took the pork and said, "Don't spend any money in the future, just tell me when you're hungry. Have you eaten lunch yet?"

   "I ate outside." Zhou Hexuan smiled.

  …

   went back to the house and spread out the newly bought manuscript paper, Zhou Hexuan filled the pen with ink, and 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 debate between old and new literature in the Chinese literary world has basically settled. The new literature advocated since the May Fourth Movement has won a great victory, and vernacular writing has become a social consensus.

   Now you have to submit articles to newspapers and magazines, there are only two choices: serious literature and popular literature. Serious literature is all kinds of poetry, prose, essays and pure literary novels; popular literature is mainly for entertainment, such as martial arts novels, romance novels, and even **** novels that mainly sell meat.

   Of course, there is no strict boundary between the two, and the distinction is mainly based on the ideological connotation expressed by the work.

   Zhou Hexuan thought about it for a long time, and finally decided to write some recreational works, such as martial arts novels. Pure literature is too high, 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, tens of millions of words, and can be serialized for a long time, and the manuscript fee is endless.

  Jin, Gu, Wen, Liang, Huang, among the five masters of martial arts novels, Gu Long, Wen Ruian and Huang Yi were excluded first. The works of these three are too trendy, and it is 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 them out, and Jin Daxia's novels are the most reliable.

   Then which work of Jin Yong should be copied?

Zhou Hexuan wrote "The Condor Heroes" trilogy, "Eight Dragons" and "Swordsman" on the manuscript paper. After considering it again and again, he finally chose "The Legend of the Condor Heroes", which is an enlightening book for the new school of martial arts. 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 emerged crazily, lingering in his mind.

  Goldfinger?

"The Qiantang River is a vast river, day and night, endlessly bypassing the Lin'an Niujia Village and flowing into the sea in the east. There are dozens of cypress trees in a row by the river, and their leaves are as red as fire. It is the time of August... "

   Zhou Hexuan, like God's help, quickly wrote the content of the novel without punctuation. 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 Chinese writing is a process of continuous simplification. There are many simplified characters in the inscriptions, calligraphy and paintings of the Tang and Song Dynasties preserved in later generations. Although Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty ordered that the traditional Chinese characters must be used, even the lettering on the waist plate of his Household Affairs Office was simplified because it was more convenient and easy to recognize.

   Even if Zhou Hexuan's manuscripts are all in simplified form at the moment, there is no problem in taking them to the newspaper office, but writing them all in traditional Chinese characters will make his brain sick.

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

"coming!"

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