Chapter 174 Submarine at Night

Chapter 174 Submarine at Night

Chapter 174 Submarine at Night
From the time I finished my written test to the time the latest issue of Get came out, the days between these two events were as if I were in the eye of a storm, unusually calm.

Wang Zixu did not tell anyone except Ning Chunyan that his manuscript had been accepted by De Dao. Some friends who knew that he was going to submit his manuscript to De Dao called him to show their concern, and after hearing what he said, they all expressed their regret without disguising.

"I have already submitted my article to Shanxing. You too, why don't you stop being so competitive and submit it to a smaller magazine and wait until you are shortlisted." Zhao Peilin said to him.

Wang Zixu asked: "What kind of magazine is Shanxing?"

"It's a very small magazine. You wouldn't know it even if I told you."

Lin Feng smiled and comforted him by saying that his teacher Li Tingfang commented on his new work and believed that he had a good chance of winning the National Reportage Literature Award. If he succeeded, she would definitely support him in the future.

"Teacher Li Tingfang cares about you a lot. She has asked me many times why you haven't published any new works in half a year. What's going on?" Lin Feng said, "Publish your new works soon, even in a small magazine. You are the vice chairman of the Xihe Literary Association after all. If you don't publish new works for a long time, people will complain."

Wang Zixu smiled bitterly. Zhao Peilin and Lin Feng, two people from different places who didn't know each other, actually gave the same advice. Although their suggestions were well-intentioned, Wang Zixu couldn't accept them and could only respond in a stammering voice.

However, the attitudes of others were not friendly, especially after Shi Shuqiu "accidentally" disclosed the list of participants in the seminar.

One day, Wang Zixu was eating at the "Restaurant at the End of the Universe". Ning Chunyan and Lu Qingxuan were not there that day, so he was eating alone. While browsing his phone, he looked up and happened to meet Xu Rongrong's eyes, who was sitting a few tables across from him.

He nodded and continued to eat. He had seen Xu Rongrong once or twice in the restaurant before, and he only nodded to greet her. But this time, Xu Rongrong sat across from him with her own plate.

"Have you visited the forum recently?" she asked.

Wang Zixu shook his head: "I have been avoiding online news recently."

"It's a wise choice." Xu Rongrong said, "You'd better not watch it. They say very... very harsh things about you."

Wang Zixu lowered his head to eat. Shi Shuqiu was busy with propaganda and the best way to unite his small group was to establish a common enemy. Wang Zixu naturally became the candidate.

To Wang Zixu, this was a child's play; to them, Wang Zixu was a comically weak enemy. Neither side was satisfied, but in comparison, Wang Zixu should be avoided. So he didn't read the forum.

"Are you really going to attend the seminar?"

"what happened?"

"Nothing, I just think you have nerves of steel."

"What kind of description is this?"

Xu Rongrong smiled, hiding the embarrassment in her eyes.

"You went to the seminar, weren't you just trying to get attention like they said?"

Xu Rongrong is a very interesting person. She just said that it would be better for Wang Zixu not to go to the forum, and then she told him what others said on the forum.

Wang Zixu was somewhat shocked: "It's just a seminar, what's the point of taking advantage of it?"

Xu Rongrong said: "It is said that all the people going this time are big names, and even Yanzishan is planning to participate."

Wang Zixu asked: "Will Shi Tonghe participate?"

"He's not that blatant. With Yan Zishan's participation, the standard of this seminar is already very high."

Xu Rongrong added: "Do you know? Yan Zishan and Shi Tonghe are both from the northwest, and they are fellow villagers. Shi Tonghe has promoted Yan Zishan a lot, and Yan Zishan will definitely spare no effort to support Shi Shuqiu."

From Xu Rongrong's tone, it seemed that everyone already knew that Shi Tonghe was Shi Shuqiu's father. But what was their attitude towards this matter? He didn't seem to have heard anyone denouncing the "son inheriting the father's business". So he felt a little strange.

Wang Zixu asked: "Do the students in the academy have any objection to the fact that Shi Shuqiu is Shi Tonghe's son?"

"Any comments?"

Wang Zixu stared at her without saying a word. Xu Rongrong understood what he meant and said with a hint of sarcasm, "Your father is your father. Do you have any problem with other people knowing about this?"

After Xu Rongrong left, Wang Zi humbly thought, I don't know if others have any opinions, but his mother must have some. During the time when his mother and his father quarreled the most, she often pinched him for no reason. If she could choose, she probably didn't want him to be his father's son.

Other people's misunderstanding of Wang Zixu was not so bad. Confucius said, "Don't be angry if people don't know you." Wang Zixu could ignore "those who don't know me." Only Chen Qingluo's gaze was unbearable.

He went to work as usual that day, but Chen Qingluo came to the magazine abnormally. When she saw him for the first time, she walked straight towards him, stood in front of his desk and said:

"How about it?"

Ning Chunyan's dark eyes peeked out from the pile of waste manuscripts and stared at Wang Zixu with a warning look.

The prince pretended to be stupid: "What?"

"Submit your article." Chen Qingluo said in a hurried tone, as if she thought he was stupid.

The prince shook his head.

Chen Qingluo asked: "What does shaking your head mean?"

The prince was speechless and felt guilty.

Chen Qingluo reached out her hand and slammed it on his desk: "What do you mean by shaking your head? Tell me!"

Her tone was as urgent as that of a patient's family member, and it seemed that the one who was shaking his head was not Wang Zixu, but the doctor who came out of the emergency room.

Wang Zixu looked at Ning Chunyan for help, but Ning Chunyan looked away irresponsibly. Chen Qingluo looked at the two of them, then returned to her seat in a cold manner.

The back of Chen Qingluo's hands were white, and her fingernails were not painted with nail polish, but they were also very shiny. She had left her hands for a long time, but there seemed to be a faint fragrance lingering on the table.

Chen Qingluo did not talk to Wang Zixu that day. Although she had not talked to Wang Zixu before, she had talked to him before simply because she did not want to talk. This time, she did not talk to him because she did not want to talk to him. She seemed very unhappy, and no one dared to disturb her. She said goodbye and left before the end of the get off work day.

Wang Zixu was like a submarine sailing in the depths of the black ocean, entering silent mode, enduring all the loneliness, and only he knew his mission. Even Chen Qingluo could not tell him this mission, so he could only endure it alone.

Another incident that could be considered a minor episode was that the magazine began recruiting employees, and Wang Zixu also helped with the interviews. To his surprise, an acquaintance also came to apply for the editor position - it turned out to be Lin Luo.

After Lin Luo's disastrous defeat at the last Xihe Literary Association, Shen Qingfeng seemed to have completely given up on him. Later, he took the initiative to withdraw from the Xihe Literary Association. Lin Feng said that he seemed to have disappeared from Xihe. When Wang Zixu met him and asked, he found out that he had moved to Donghai to develop.

After the interview, Lin Luo pulled Wang Zixu out alone and asked in a low voice, "I heard that you plan to submit your new work to Get?"

Wang Zixu asked, "How come you also know about this?"

Lin Luo patted him with a smile and said, "You are the number one in our Xihe Literary Society! I have to pay more attention to your movements so that I can keep up with the latest trends in the literary world."

Wang Zixu was speechless. This person was good at flattery. If Lin Feng hadn't overheard the two of them plotting to use all kinds of shady tricks to deal with Wang Zixu outside Qingfeng Residence that day, he would have been deceived by him if he knew that Lin Luo was a sinister villain.

"I sent it. But there was no response."

Lin Luo was surprised: "How long have I submitted it? There is still no response?"

"It's been a month."

Lin Luo asked tentatively: "Then there is no chance, right? I heard that Obtained will not return the manuscript."

"Well, there probably is no chance." Wang Zixu nodded.

Lin Luo finally showed a relieved smile on his face: "Is that so? That's a bit regrettable. But your level is indeed not good enough. After all, it is "Obtained". You still need a few more years of experience before you have a chance to climb up."

Wang Zixu nodded: "Yes." After Lin Luo left, Wang Zixu asked Ning Chunyan whether he would accept him. Ning Chunyan stared at him in surprise: "Accept him? I remember he didn't like you?"

Wang Zixu said that although this person was not well-liked, his level was not bad. He was willing to be the editor-in-charge and could help us a lot.

Ning Chunyan waved his hands in annoyance: "Forget it, we insist on employing people based on their morals. Besides, I get annoyed when I see him, so don't force me."

Wang Zixu did not persuade her. Instead, he said that it was quite nice to have a leader who did things according to his own preferences and whose preferences were exactly the same as his own.

It was the day before the seminar, a sunny and mild Sunday. Wang Zixu was in a state of panic, so he tucked a book under his arm and went to the magazine office.

As he walked along the road, he was still thinking about the last time he unexpectedly met Chen Qingluo in the office on a day off like this. As a result, he pushed the door open and saw Chen Qingluo.

She was wearing a white suit and her hair fell to her cheeks. In the sunlight shining through the glass, she had a heart-pounding beauty.

The prince stood at the door for a long time before he started walking towards his seat. Because Chen Qingluo hadn't spoken to him in the past few days, he couldn't decide whether to talk to her first.

Unexpectedly, Chen Qingluo took the initiative to speak: "Forget it, eight out of ten things in life are not satisfactory, and keeping a calm mind is the most important thing."

Wang Zixu asked: "Are you talking to me?"

"Is there anyone else here besides you?" Chen Qingluo said unhappily.

Wang Zixu took his book and sat down in his seat, feeling more and more guilty. Chen Qingluo muttered, "Fool."

Wang Zixu suddenly looked at her, and Chen Qingluo was confused. He said, "I have something to tell you tomorrow."

Chen Qingluo's face turned red for no apparent reason: "What's the matter?"

“It’s a surprise anyway.”

"Then don't tell me."

Wang Zixu asked: "Why?"

He planned to confess to Chen Qingluo tomorrow that he had appeared on Get. Would it be a surprise? But Chen Qingluo's answer left him puzzled.

"Tell me when you win the Feishi Literature Prize."

Wang Zixu thought it might be his illusion: she seemed a little angry.

"It will be too late to tell you after I win the Feishi Literature Prize," he said.

She looked up at him: "So, you still have the confidence to win that award?"

"Yes, there is, but my main point is that it's too late."

For some reason, he felt that she was happy again.

"What book?" she asked?
The prince held up the book in his hand and pointed the cover at her: "A Thousand Cranes by Yasunari Kawabata. To be more precise, it also includes the Wave Thousand Birds."

Chen Qingluo showed a surprised look: "No way, you haven't even seen this?"

Here it comes again, Luo Shi questioned.

Wang Zixu blushed a little: "I think I have read it - I don't know if you have had this experience, you clearly remember that you read a book, but you have no memory of the content of the book at all."

Chen Qingluo said blankly: "No."

"That's how I feel." The prince flipped a page. "The content of this book is particularly surprising to me. If I had read it, I would definitely have an impression of it, but I really don't have an impression of it."

Chen Qingluo said: "After all, there are a lot of cheating, incest, love and desire and other contents."

"Yeah. I clearly remember that I read it. Look, there is dust in the seams of the book. This book has been in my house for a long time, but I have no recollection of its contents..."

Chen Qingluo said: "After buying a book, you just consider it as having read it. This kind of thing does happen."

The prince wanted to refute her, but stopped talking because he saw that there was a line underlined under it on the page.

That was a sentence about the change in a husband's mentality after his infidelity. Wang Zixu was sure that he had absolutely no memory of underlining this sentence. Given his personality, it was impossible for him to see this and underline this sentence, and it was even more impossible for him to have marked it but have no memory of it.

The book is kept at home, and if I were to explain it, only one person other than myself could touch this book.

It’s my wife.

Wang Zixu frowned.

In his memory, she was definitely not a woman who would read Yasunari Kawabata's books and carefully underline them.

Moreover, why did she underline this sentence?
Did she already have a plan at that time?

"Once the distress is over, will it leave no trace?"

“Once it’s over, sometimes it’s still missed.”

Those were the two sentences my wife used to draw the line.

What kind of suffering did the wife miss? Were these two sentences just casually written by her, or did they contain some metaphor? The prince had no idea.

Because the topic came to an abrupt end, Wang Zixu was unable to continue chatting with Chen Qingluo. After that, he desperately turned the pages, trying to attract her attention and get her to say something. Unfortunately, she didn't talk to him again until she left.

……

The symposium on Shi Shuqiu's works gradually became an increasingly grand event for the entire School of Literature of Nanjing University.

The School of Arts is not a monolithic entity, and not everyone stands on Shi Shuqiu's side.

Some arrogant students felt that Shi Shuqiu was a bit high-profile and were quite disdainful of the so-called seminar. However, as information about the seminar was gradually disclosed, these voices disappeared before they could cause any waves.

The people who were coming to attend the seminar were more talented than each other. Even though the students from the School of Arts looked down on Shi Shuqiu's works, they couldn't help but lose confidence when they heard that their idol was also coming to praise Shi Shuqiu.

In contrast, the group of students who supported Shi Shuqiu became increasingly arrogant. They planned to form a literary club and held many activities to support Shi Shuqiu. They all wore white shirts, rode together on campus, or recited poems at the school gate, making a lot of noise.

The seminar will be held in the auditorium in the afternoon. At 8 o'clock in the morning, Wang Zixu got up and went to the newsstand early. He repeatedly asked whether "Get" had arrived. At 10 o'clock, he finally bought a copy.

The name "Fire in the Stone" stands at the top of the list with a decisive attitude.

He took the magazine and rushed to the school library. On the shelf of current literary newspapers and periodicals, Obtain was placed in a very prominent position.

After reading it, he finally felt a little relieved, but in comparison, his social network was very silent. Apart from Pu Yuyang who sent him a message to remind him that the magazine was on sale, no one else noticed that his work was published in "Get".

This is normal: after all, "Get" is a print media, and its dissemination is not as immediate as the Internet. It will not cause a huge sensation as soon as it appears in the magazine.

But he also knew that this did not mean there would be no waves. At the bottom of the black sea, there were even more turbulent waves brewing, steadily gathering potential energy.

(End of this chapter)