Chapter 131 I am not a literary giant
After hanging up the phone from Ye Lan, Wang Zixu was still thinking, a book signing?
Among all the actions of a writer, book signings are one of the things he dislikes the most. Not because he didn't want to reveal his identity as a little prince, but because a writer came to his school for a book signing in high school. It left an indelible impression on him.
The writer’s name is Xie Dongyu, and he is an author of children’s books. His story style is traditional and conservative, with animals as the protagonists, somewhat allegorical, and highly readable. Rather than being loved by readers, it is more popular with teachers and parents.
In fact, students prefer to read several other children's book authors who have better market performance, and some of those authors' descriptions are too bold, and in the eyes of parents, they have more entertainment content and insufficient educational significance. After all, Xie Dongyu's works are much better than those old-fashioned stuff. Therefore, in the world of children's books, he, a middle-of-the-road choice, has become the most famous one.
At that time, Wang Zixu was in his first year of high school, and the autograph session was held in the playground. It's not so much a book signing as it is selling books. As long as the students are not sitting in the classroom, they are willing to bask in the sun on the playground. Wang Zixu followed his classmates on the playground laughing and joking. Xie Dongyu was giving a speech at that time, but Wang Zixu's attention gradually shifted to the girl next to him.
“The vocal cords should be the appendix of a writer. If you have this time to keep talking and defraud students of their money, why not go home and polish your writing more, and stop plagiarism...”
Wang Zixu looked over with interest and saw that the girl had a ponytail and put her palms on her forehead to make a awning. Her eyelashes were as fine as curtains. Her arms and slender neck, her skin was as white as snow, which was particularly dazzling in the sun.
He thought to himself, no wonder she looked so unhappy. With such fair skin, even he would feel a pity if he got tanned.
“Hello, hello.” Wang Zixu spoke to the girl, “You said he plagiarized?”
The girl turned to look at him with a sharp look: "What's wrong? He is your idol, do you want to defend your idol? What's wrong with him just plagiarizing?"
Wang Zixu said: "No , I am just interested in the fact that he plagiarized it. Who did he plagiarize from? ""Ditlov Lacey's "The Golden Rat"" almost copied the structure of that book," the girl said.
Wang Zixu said: "I've never heard of it at all."
"Haha." The girl laughed twice, then turned away and stopped talking to him, probably because she thought he was too ignorant.
Wang Zixu was not at peace in his heart. He felt that this girl was a bit aloof and a bit aggressive.
After a while, he heard the girl whisper: "Many writers of the older generation rely on their wide reading and at the same time bully the relatively closed domestic market to plagiarize foreign works to their heart's content. Those works that have become famous in the mature market in China are making a lot of money in China. I just can't stand this kind of behavior."
She seemed to be talking to herself or to Wang Zixu. He wasn't sure. Although he decided that this girl was very cold and planned to treat her coldly and give her a taste of rejection, he couldn't hold it back in the end and turned around and said, "You look like you have read a lot, so you can copy it too."
The girl rolled her eyes at him: "Who do you think I am?"
Wang Zixu remained silent. Sorry, I don't know you.
After a while, Wang Zixu said: "I think we should respect the older writers a little more. It is not easy for people to come all the way to give us a speech."
The girl sneered: "What speech? Do you think it is for charity? He He’s here to sell books!”
She then said, “Look, how many students are there in this playground? Do you see the truck next to the playground? He will sell his old books later. How much can he sell them for?”
"How do you know so clearly?"
He secretly exclaimed. At his age, 200,000 is a huge sum of money for him.The girl said: "If you want us to go up and buy books later, just say you didn't bring any money."
Wang Zixu said: "What about you?"
“I didn’t bring any money either.”
Wang Zixu was silent for a while and said, “Ditrov Lacey, right? I’ll go see it another day.”
The girl raised her face and glanced at him with the lower part of her eyes, her eyes filled with disbelief.
Later, Wang Zixu found out her intention. It turns out that she didn't just fall in love with him at first sight and wanted to help him save money. She encouraged Wang Zixu not to buy books mainly because she was afraid that she would be scolded by the teacher if she was the only one who didn't buy them.
Sure enough, they were the only ones in the class who didn’t buy any books. The teacher's criticism was all focused on Wang Zixu alone, but she was safe and sound.
Of course, she honestly admitted this afterwards, and Wang Zixu also forgave her. However, Wang Zixu still preferred to believe that she encouraged him not to buy the book because she fell in love with him at first sight.
That was the first time Wang Zixu talked to Chen Qingluo.
……
He wiped his face, jumped out of bed, groped for his slippers on the ground, opened the music software on his phone, played a random song, and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth.
"The Fold" by the American rock band Ivan & Alyosha is streaming from the phone. Wang Zixu tapped his feet until his mouth was filled with toothpaste foam.
The name of this band, translated into Chinese, is "Ivan and Alyosha", which is undoubtedly from "The Brothers Karamazov". The milk of the Russian writer is still suckling the world, whether it is Americans far away across the ocean or Wang Zixu here.
Americans are singing "Don't You Fold" on their mobile phones. It is slang, which roughly means "Don't abandon, don't give up, don't back down." Fold means folding. So a more down-to-earth translation should be: You have to stand up.
“You have to stand up.”
The blond American suddenly turned into Marshal Ma with a Northeast accent. The localization work was completed perfectly. Wang Zixu laughed when he thought of this, feeling proud of his amazing talent.
If his English was better, he could write and translate at the same time, just like Haruki Murakami. Unfortunately, his foreign language skills are frustratingly poor. Chen Qingluo's English is very good, and her score hovers around 140 in every exam. The two teachers almost fought over whether she should be the English class representative or the Chinese class representative.
After brushing his teeth, he stared at the calls from Ning Chunyan and Zuo Ziliang on his phone, hesitating who to call first.
In the end, he chose Zuo Ziliang. It's not because he has any special preference for bald heads, but if he calls Ning Chunyan first, he will feel guilty that he values sex over friends.
“Hey, you just woke up now?”
Wang Zixu said: "My average sleep time this month is only 4 hours. I can't make up for it even if I sleep 24 hours a day."
The other person laughed: "That's right. Having said that, Do you know about self, id and superego? "
"Huh?"
Wang Zixu just woke up and was about to go to the kitchen to crack an egg and spread out an egg pancake for himself. Talking about self, id, and superego at this time is really beyond his expectation.
"Is it a concept of psychoanalysis? The id is the most primitive animal impulse of an individual, the superego is the pursuit of lofty morals and ideal beliefs, and the self is the self-awareness formed between the two."
Zuo Ziliang sighed: "You have read so many books. You can explain it better than I thought."
Wang Zixu opened an egg and was a little flattered: "Thank you. No. "Why are you asking this?"
Zuo Ziliang said: "It's nothing, I just thought of this suddenly."
It's baffling.
Zuo Ziliang said again: "You should find a woman to hug."
Wang Zixu said: "Hey, what are you talking about? This is even more confusing. My wife just ran away from home yesterday, and you are telling me such a thing, what are you thinking? I am not the kind of person who can forget all his worries when he hugs a woman."
"I know, I know, your superego is extremely powerful. But that's not what I meant."
"What does that mean?"
On the other end of the phone, Zuo Ziliang seemed to be troubled by some unspeakable things, and it took him a long time to say: "I have read your "Wild Weeds"."
Wang Zixu felt that the topic was back on track now: "Then let's start with "Wild Weeds". Don't be so jumpy and say something I can understand."
"I don't know if you have noticed it yourself," Zuo Ziliang said, "In this story of yours, your protagonist has never hugged his wife. When facing pressure in marriage, he always digests it alone."
Speaking of novels, Wang Zixu spoke a little softer: "Novel is just an artistic cross-section of life. It may not reflect all the truth of life, nor may it reflect all the truth of everyone."
Zuo Ziliang said: "Yes, but it can reflect your subconscious to a certain extent."
Wang Zixu stopped talking.
Zuo Ziliang said: "I am a truly married person. Although the kind of marriage you describe does make people feel airtight and breathless, and in some aspects it is so real that it makes people shudder, but there are also things in marriage. Occasionally, there are bright spots. For example, some problems can be solved with a hug. "The prince replied absently: "Well, a warm harbor."
"So, try to hug." Zuo Ziliang said, "You are the best speech therapist I have ever seen. You understand loneliness more deeply than anyone else, so you can heal many people. But you also need to heal your own hidden wounds, so be sure to pay attention to this aspect."
Wang Zixu fell into silence. He always felt that Zuo Zi had good intentions, but he did not say anything clearly. He seems to be hiding something.
Rather than saying it was a hidden injury, he was suggesting that there was a blind spot in Wang Zixu's vision, a blind spot that he himself could not discover. That blind spot disappeared under the dazzling light of fifty Nobel Prizes for Literature.
Zuo Ziliang said again: "By the way. There is something else to say. The editor from the publishing house is looking for you."
"Ye Lan told me about this. She said, what kind of autograph session are you going to hold?"
Zuo Ziliang said: "She doesn't know how to talk nonsense."
Wang Zixu breathed a sigh of relief: "Say, how could I go to Lao Shizi's autograph session?"
" The point is not about the autograph session. The point is that you are being roasted on the fire. It is difficult for you to go, and it is also difficult for you not to go. In short, this is what a literary hero should bear. "Wizhixu looked confused: "What kind of writer are you talking about?"
"You don't know?"
Zuo Ziliang’s tone seemed like he was ignorant, and Wang Zixu said with a hint of temper, “What should I know? I just got up in the morning and brushed my teeth, and now I’m spreading egg pancakes, and I hear you talking to me about self and superego, what should I know?”
Zuo Ziliang said with regret: "You'd better read the news, especially the ones related to yourself."
After Zuo Ziliang finished speaking, he hung up the phone. Because of this call, the music also stopped. Wang Zixu stayed in the silence blankly.
News related to yourself?
Wang Zixu spread out an egg pancake for himself as quickly as possible, then ran to the dining table and picked up his mobile phone to browse the news.
Soon he found the news that Zuo Ziliang was referring to - no need to search carefully, it is available in the circle of friends, it is very popular, and it has been pushed to the front row of the portal website.
"The Desperate Literary Man: The Lament of the Destiny of the Intersection of a Mysterious Erotic Writer and a New Beauty Author".
The article is called this. Wang Zixu seems to have guessed why it became popular.
What is a mysterious erotic writer? Is it me?
Who is the new beauty author?
Wang Zixu’s heart beat a little faster. He clicked on the article and scanned it at a glance.
The article begins with the paragraph where Wang Zixu expressed his "very despair" in the live broadcast yesterday, which leads to the popular story of the little prince, and then intersperses with the story of Atsushi Nakajima.
Further down, the second protagonist of the article is introduced: Xiao Mengyin.
The article said that this is a newly famous young writer who has just won the Feishi Suihan Literature Award.
Wang Zixu also saw some familiar names, "...Yan Zishan commented: She is the author who surprised me the most this year..." and "Dai Jinhua: Like seeing fire in the ice..." "Su Fei: The first one on my reading list this year..."
Most of these names are well-known, and they all encouraged this "emerging young female writer" with their kind words. When Wang Zixu saw this, he immediately exited the reading mode and placed an order for her award-winning work on Dangdang. The original price was 39, and he didn't even get the full discount.
He opened the page and continued reading. Later in the article, the little prince and Xiao Mengyin were compared together. Both of them talked about their "despair", and their despair had differences and similarities. The "despair" that Wang Zixu talked about yesterday was more specific, while Xiao Mengyin's "despair" was more grand and a higher level.
Although this article was written as objectively as possible and every sentence is well-founded, Wang Zixu always felt like he had a lump in his throat when he read it. The article did not praise or criticize the two of them, but in comparison, it seemed that Wang Zixu was a bit despicable. He makes a little too much.
After reading, Wang Zixu looked at the publication time of the article. It was 12 o'clock in the morning, less than 4 hours after his live broadcast. Wang Zixu suspected that this article had been written long ago to praise the new female writer Xiao Mengyin, and he was just pulling it over to be a target to gain traffic.
Wang Zixu finally understood why he had been so uncomfortable reading just now - he felt like he had been touched.
While he was in a daze, the news page displayed "There are new developments in this topic." When I clicked on it, I happened to see a screenshot of Xiao Mengyin's new Weibo post.
“Xiao Mengyin: I feel like I’ve been touched... [eating melon.jpg]”
Wang Zixu opened his mouth slightly.
Isn’t this the first time the evil person files a complaint?
The key is that he can’t be angry yet. The person’s Weibo did not mention anyone by name or point at anyone’s nose. He just posted such a pointed Weibo at this time, which is an insinuation that everyone knows.
And from her point of view, it seems that she was really cheated. After all, the little prince is just a "sexy writer".
He specifically downloaded Weibo, searched, clicked on Xiao Mengyin’s Weibo, and saw several photos of her at a glance.
From a writer’s point of view, it is impeccable. Wang Zixu's personal opinion is that she is not as good-looking as Chen Qingluo.
Then he clicked into the comment area of the Weibo post and found that the number of reads had reached more than 100,000.
The comments below included everything, some comforted her, some praised her, some scolded the little prince, and some scolded those who scolded the little prince... In short, it was very lively, and everyone seemed to have a strong opinion on this matter. It seemed as if everyone was an insider who knew the secrets of the industry.
Wang Zixu felt a little over the top.
The signed author of the article is the editor-in-chief of Jieshi Publishing House. This publishing house published "The Little Prince's Love Letters". Xiao Mengyin's award-winning work was also produced by them (at this point, Wang Zixu realized why there was such an article).
Click on Ye Lan’s WeChat, accept the contact information of the publisher’s editor that she sent, and add the other party.
He was originally aggressive and planned to accuse him, but unexpectedly the other party was extremely enthusiastic when he came up, and messages popped up one after another:
[Little Prince Teacher! 】
【Finally added you! 】
【I am particularly honored! 】
【More than half of your books have been sold. Have you read the article that went viral today? Maybe the day of additional printing is not far away! ]
Wang Zixu rubbed his head and sent a message:
[Did you write that article? ]
The other side replied: [Yes, our editor personally wrote it. I didn’t expect the effect to be so good. After reading it, I felt that you are really amazing! 】
Am I great?
Wang Zixu typed in confusion: [However, it is not very consistent with the actual situation. ]
The other side said: [Are you dissatisfied? How is it inconsistent with the actual situation? 】
The prince thought for a long time and said: [First of all, I am not a literary giant. 】
I spent a long time typing over there.
【You are humble. 】
【These days, who dares to say that he is a literary giant? In the bad times, everyone was holding back their bad feelings and wanted to scold others, and they would scold anyone who dared to stand up. 】
【But what others say is another matter. 】
【In my heart, you are a literary giant! 】
(End of this chapter)