Chapter 142 Years of Loneliness

Chapter 142 Years of Loneliness

Chapter 142 One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wang Zixu quickly introduced her: "This is junior Lu Qingxuan. She is Xiao Mengyin's cousin."

"I know. I've known her much earlier than I have known you." Ning Chunyan said unhappily.

Lu Qingxuan stepped forward: "Sister Xiaochun."

She stood slenderly with her legs together, smiling calmly, and Wang Zixu suddenly realized: No wonder he had felt that this girl's temperament was familiar before, as if she was a lady from a wealthy family. The upper class was a larger circle, and it turned out that she and Ning Chunyan knew each other, and should have known each other.

Ning Chunyan greeted Lu Qingxuan and pointed at the two of them: "How did you two know each other?"

Lu Qingxuan said: "He came to register for graduate school, and I was the examiner for this registration. There was a small misunderstanding, and then... we got to know each other."

Ning Chunyan looked curious: "What's the misunderstanding?"

"Well..." Lu Qingxuan blushed a little.

Lao She said that a girl's blush is better than a long confession. 19-year-old Lu Qingxuan looked better when she blushed. 26-year-old Ning Chunyan felt the pressure of collagen and felt even more indignant. He poked Wang Zixu's arm with his finger:
"Wang Zixu, your wife ran away. What on earth did you do?"

Wang Zixu felt wronged: "I said it was a misunderstanding, and now you misunderstand me even more. I didn't do anything at all."

Lu Qingxuan opened his mouth wide: "You have a wife?"

Ning Chunyan said, "You can say no. But he's already thirty, why do you care whether he has it or not? Tell me what's going on."

Lu Qingxuan pulled her aside and briefly explained the whole story in a low voice. Ning Chunyan laughed so hard that she was shaking:
"Finally someone understands how I feel! I was once a victim too!"

She immediately told Lu Qingxuan about her first meeting with Wang Zixu. Lu Qingxuan had a strange expression on her face after hearing it, but she felt much better. She turned around and asked, "So how did you become friends later?"

Ning Chunyan said: "I tried to persuade him with emotion and reason... Bah, why does it sound like I'm pestering him? I told him it was rude to talk to a girl like that, and then I accepted his apology."

After saying that, Ning Chunyan turned to him and asked again, "Why are you back to your old ways this time?"

Wang Zixu said: "I didn't want to refuse, but my subconscious helped me."

Ning Chunyan said: "Not everything can be blamed on the subconscious mind!"

"Really," Wang Zixu said, "She and I are so different in age, and our lives don't overlap much. After adding each other as friends, we might say hello and chat for a while at first, but each of us is pushed by life, living a wonderful or dull life, gradually forgetting each other, and finally becoming a silent existence in each other's message list.

"Sometimes I might suddenly think of him/her, but then I would forget about it because I haven't contacted him/her for a long time. If I say a few words rashly, it might disturb his/her life, so I would discard the thought. When I hear from him/her again after many years, it is a major moment in life, such as marriage or childbirth. Only then will I finally say hello again, carefully determine the relationship between the other person and myself, what kind of blessing I should send, and whether I should give a gift.

"When I wake up in the middle of the night, I might think that the other person might be quite compatible with me, and it would have been better if I had talked to him a little more. But what would it matter if I talked to him a little more? It would only leave me with more regrets. Therefore, I will not add the other person as a friend without necessary reasons."

After Wang Zixu finished speaking, Ning Chunyan and Lu Qingxuan both looked horrified. After a long while, Ning Chunyan said, "You think too much. I didn't expect that being friends with you would put such a heavy burden on you. How about we just delete each other?"

Lu Qingxuan pondered for a moment, pointed out his finger and said, "Avoidant personality disorder. He seems to have avoidant personality disorder."

Ning Chunyan thought for a moment and said, "It seems a little bit. Let me tell you, he had an ex-girlfriend before..."

Ning Chunyan told all the stories about Wang Zixu as he walked. The two of them were whispering not far from him, laughing from time to time and turning their heads to look at him from time to time. Lu Qingxuan's face occasionally showed a thoughtful expression.

Prince humbly thought that with Ning Chunyan's personality, his affairs would sooner or later spread throughout the entire Nanjing University.

He asked, "Where are you taking us?"

"The magazine office," Ning Chunyan said, "My magazine office is already in place, don't you want to take a look?"

"think."

"That's it. Just follow your sister."

The prince thought humbly, sister?

Lu Qingxuan asked: "What name do you plan to give the magazine, Sister Xiaochun?"

Ning Chunyan said: "New rewards. New news, rewards for rewards."

Lu Qingxuan silently repeated the name: "It sounds very unique."

"Is that right?" Ning Chunyan put his hands on his hips. "My goal is to make New Appreciation the most distinctive literary magazine in the country!"

Wang Zixu cheered for her ideal, but felt that her ideal did not sound likely to make money.

Ning Chunyan's "New Appreciation Magazine" is very close to Nanjing University, or rather, it is almost connected to Nanjing University. Wang Zixu felt like he had entered the magazine before he even left the school gate.

This is an old building, with half of the sallow wall peeling off and the iron fence at the door rusted. It seems as if a dishevelled man dressed in the style of the Republic of China will walk out at any time and recite the "Book of Songs" with his hands and feet gesticulating.

Ning Chunyan used a small key to unlock the U-shaped lock on the fence door, raised the shutter door, and put the iron hook in the umbrella bucket beside the door. He took the two people up the narrow stairs to the second floor, opened the office door, dusted the table with a towel, and asked them to sit down.

She felt very familiar with doing these things. Wang Zixu's previous impression of her was that she was a very delicate rich lady, and it was hard for him to imagine her working with her own hands. Now seeing her busy in the dilapidated place like a wife with a difficult family background, he suddenly realized that Ning Chunyan really wanted to do something this time.

"Well," Ning Chunyan sat down opposite Wang Zixu, "let's start the interview now. Mr. Wang Zixu, what have you been doing these past few months?"

Wang Zixu said: "Is this a question that should be asked in an interview?"

Ning Chunyan slammed the notebook on the table shut and said fiercely: "I have the final say on what to ask in the interview!"

Prince humbly thought that the magazine company was just a small one and it was already showing off. If it became big and powerful in the future, wouldn't it be a big deal?

But he still answered honestly: "Stay at home and write."

Ning Chunyan said, "You see, this shows that you are insincere and careless. It has been several months since we last met. Have you done nothing but writing? Have you not had dinner or chatted with colleagues at work? Or played cards or drank with Ye Lan?"

Wang Zixu was depressed: "Does this have anything to do with the interview?"

Ning Chunyan said, "Of course it is related. Our magazine has so few staff members. Hiring an editor-in-chief might affect the corporate culture. Shouldn't I learn more about it?"

Wang Zixu said: "In the past few months, I have basically done nothing except writing at home. I go out once every three days to buy groceries. While buying groceries, I observe humans and collect materials. I go home to write for two hours in the morning, spend two hours in the afternoon to organize the outline and revise the previous text, then write for another hour, and then cook..."

Ning Chunyan stopped him from continuing and asked, "Are there no interpersonal interactions?" "No." Wang Zixu shook his head.

Ning Chunyan looked at him with a bit of pity: "You are so miserable. Is writing always this miserable?"

Writing is not always so miserable, it's just that Wang Zixu has a lot to write. In addition to submitting manuscripts for the Feishi Literature Award, he also has to write two scripts every day. So every day he is either writing or preparing to write, and he can't stop.

Ning Chunyan asked again: "Did you bring the manuscript you wrote?"

Wang Zixu said, "I brought it." He turned around and took out a thick file bag from his bag and threw it in front of Ning Chunyan.

Ning Chunyan took the manuscript: "What's your name?"

Prince Xu scratched his head: "I haven't decided on a name yet. This time I want to tell a story about 'eternal reincarnation'."

Lu Qingxuan came over to watch. Ning Chunyan unsealed the file bag and asked, "Nietzsche's eternal recurrence?"

"Yes. History is a series of infinite cycles, and I want to show it on a more microscopic scale."

Ning Chunyan tilted his head and asked, "How are you going to behave?"

"On January 1900, 1, the first generation of male and female protagonists were born in a small village on the east coast of my country. The male protagonist's father was originally a tenant of the female protagonist's family. He participated in the Boxer Rebellion and died tragically when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China. The male protagonist was later adopted by the female protagonist's family. The two grew up together. After the Xinhai Revolution, the female protagonist's father opened a factory and the male protagonist became their apprentice..."

"Wait a minute," Ning Chunyan interrupted him, "'The first generation of male and female protagonists,' are you going to write a story about more than one generation?"

Wang Zixu nodded: "Yes, I plan to write about four generations, from 1900 to 2020."

Ning Chunyan took a deep breath and said, "Wow, a Chinese version of One Hundred Years of Solitude?!"

Wang Zixu said: "Don't interrupt. I have only just begun to talk about this. I will continue..."

Ning Chunyan and Lu Qingxuan were dumbfounded as they heard a story with the most grand and ambitious ambition.

The first generation of male and female protagonists both grew up, the female protagonist became a female college student at Yenching University, and the male protagonist worked as a worker in the factory of the female protagonist's father's family. The male protagonist participated in the strike movement and was kicked out of the house by the female protagonist's father, while the female protagonist participated in the May Fourth Movement as a student.

The hero was forced to leave his hometown, was drafted, and was captured in battle, and later joined the Red Army. The heroine was spotted by a KMT cadre and pursued madly, but she never agreed because she was always concerned about the hero.

The male protagonist later joined the Special Operations Group and became an underground worker. He was sent to his hometown and forged his identity to hide. There, he met the female protagonist again. At that time, the organization assigned a fake wife to the male protagonist. After the female protagonist found out, she angrily married the Kuomintang cadre who pursued her. The male protagonist was heartbroken and fell in love with the fake wife. After that, the two gave birth to a son and a daughter, and they were born on the same day.

After the July 7 Incident, the city where the hero and heroine lived fell. The heroine's family planned to flee westward. The hero chose to entrust his wife and daughter to the heroine, and stayed behind to defend the city with a gun, and then died in battle. The hero and heroine's young children grew up in the war, and they are the second generation of the hero and heroine.

With the founding of New China, the second generation of male and female protagonists also grew up. The son of the first generation female protagonist was sent down to the countryside because of his family background, while the daughter of the first generation male protagonist chose to go to poverty-stricken areas for support, and was assigned to the village of the second generation male protagonist and became a village cadre.

The two people had different social statuses and went through many entanglements, but ultimately they did not end up together. After they each started their own families, they each gave birth to a son and a daughter on the same day of the same month of the same year.

Afterwards, the second generation male protagonist saved half of the village from a flood, but died of exhaustion, finally washing away his original sin of "bad background" after his death. The female protagonist followed family tradition and adopted the male protagonist's son and raised him together with her daughter. This is the third generation of male and female protagonists.

The third generation male and female protagonists grew up in the same family but have different values. The male protagonist hopes to take root in his hometown and contribute to his motherland, while the female protagonist is determined to study abroad and get a US green card. The two are also the most deeply in love.

The hero is strong and hardworking. Even if the heroine wants the moon in the sky, he will make a plan to save money and calculate how to buy it. But because of different ideals, the two have been breaking up and getting back together. In order to get the opportunity to go abroad, the heroine cheated on him, became a mistress, and did everything. The hero was pursued by a school girl. In the end, the hero hurriedly got married under social pressure, and the heroine got pregnant unexpectedly.

On the day when the hero's wife was about to give birth, the heroine summoned the hero to be by her side and gave birth to a daughter. On the same day, the hero's wife also gave birth to a son.

After the third generation heroine came out of confinement, she finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and got the opportunity to go abroad. She left her son to the third generation hero and went abroad secretly. In order to repay her family for adopting him, the hero decided to raise her son. As a result, his relationship with his wife broke down and they divorced.

Ten years later, the heroine returned home, having obtained a U.S. green card and married a foreigner. Unfortunately, she was no longer able to have children, so she returned to her country to bring her daughter to the U.S. Another ten years later, the fourth generation of hero and heroine had grown up.

The fourth-generation female protagonist becomes a well-known performer and returns to China to develop her career, while the male protagonist uses the Internet to make a fortune and becomes an invisible rich man. The two meet again at a performance, but they do not recognize each other.

There seemed to be a certain fate between the two families. They adopted each other's children and fell in love with each other, but because of the differences in their ways of thinking, ideals and beliefs, they never came together. The fourth generation of male and female protagonists finally broke this fate. After a series of entanglements, they came together and ended this family history that lasted for hundreds of years.

After listening to Wang Zixu's story, Ning Chunyan was unable to regulate his breathing for a long time.

Wang Zixu's story spans 120 years, and elements include history, espionage, romance, war, ethics, cities, marriage, crime... The love, hatred, and grudges of four generations are always closely linked to the fate of the country.

If he can really write this book to a high degree of completion, let alone the Fei Shi Literature Award, it is possible that he will win the Nobel Prize in Literature!
But the difficulty of writing is also Nobel Prize-level!

Ning Chunyan picked up his manuscript and said, "Your idea is magnificent and epic, but I don't know how complete it will be when it's written."

Wang Zixu said: "I have already written 50 words, and I just need to finish it. However, Xiao Mengyin said that it would be a bit disadvantageous if there were too many words, so I am now hesitating whether to delete it or not."

Ning Chunyan said, "Don't worry, let me see your beginning first."

When it comes to novel writing, conceiving the idea is one thing, and actually writing it is another.

There are many people who have wild and imaginative ideas. They can talk to you about their ideas for a whole day, and they sound very interesting. But when they really write them down, you will find that they are actually a bunch of shit.

Ning Chunyan had read two novels by Wang Zixu and knew that he was by no means a novice who knew nothing about writing, but she also knew that the longer the piece and the more elements there were, the more likely the writer would be to show his weakness.

For example, "The Ordinary World" is just the story of a pair of brothers. It took the writer Lu Yao almost exhausted all his energy to write it over a short span of ten years: he read extensively in the fields of politics, economics, philosophy, history, religion, agriculture, meteorology, taxation, etc., and he consulted the bound volumes of five newspapers for nearly ten years year by year and month by month. It took him three years to prepare and write such a book.

Even so, "Ordinary World" was not well received by the mainstream literary world and was repeatedly rejected. After the first part was published in "Huacheng", critics at the symposium were very sarcastic about this work and almost completely denied its value. When Lu Yao was writing the second part, he was poor and sick, and encountered internal power struggles in "Huacheng" magazine. The second part was rejected and never published. The third part was published in a more marginal magazine.

It was not until 1988 that China National Radio broadcast this work as a long program, which caused a sensation among readers and reached 1991 million listeners. In , this book won the Mao Dun Literature Award.

A year later, Lu Yao passed away.

Ning Chunyan marveled at Wang Zixu's ambition and admired his conception, which was no less than that of One Hundred Years of Solitude. But was this ambition just the result of years of hard work or was it just overestimating one's own capabilities? Ning Chunyan had no idea.

With some trepidation, Ning Chunyan opened the first page of Wang Zixu's novel.

Lu Qingxuan came over quietly.

(End of this chapter)