Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Chapter 43

When the film crew started work, the leave from school was arranged by Director Mo.

This doesn't mean that Director Mo didn't value learning. He also hired a professional tutor for the two child actors on set. The tutor, surnamed Duan, looked very fierce.

Just like now, during a break after filming a scene, Luo Jinnian and Gu Yanxi are diligently reciting their Chinese textbooks.

Who knows where Director Mo found the teacher? His arms and legs are covered in patterns, so who would dare not pay attention in class?

"Looking at Dongting Lake, by Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty: The lake's light and the autumn moon blend together, the surface of the pool is calm, like an unpolished mirror. Gazing afar at the verdant mountains and waters of Dongting, it is like a green snail in a silver dish."

After the two finished reciting the text, they were finally able to see Teacher Duan off.

"Did you submit that article?"

"It's been thrown."

When Luo Jinnian was choosing between the four leading literary journals, Harvest, October, Flower City, and Contemporary, he ultimately chose Harvest, which always held the top spot.

Although avant-garde literature gradually faded after the 1990s, Harvest magazine also adjusted its approach, narrowing the scope of its publications.

However, "Going Out at Eighteen" is the avant-garde of the avant-garde, and the groundbreaking short story "Harvest" is always one of the first choices. Although Yu Hua's debut work was published in "Kyoto Literature" in her previous life, after becoming famous, Yu Hua "forgot her benefactor" and basically submitted all her works to "Harvest".

Moreover, the deputy editor-in-chief of Harvest is Mr. Cheng, who is known as China's number one "editor," and he is very open to experimental works.

"I can't wait to see your new work."

Luo Jinnian's expression was strange. He was expecting at least six months for the article to be published. "Why don't you just read it yourself?" Then he explained the situation of pure literary journals.

"ah?!"

Gu Yanxi decided to disregard any formalities surrounding journal article review and just read it now.

"Going Out at Eighteen" is a type of avant-garde literature that is accessible to the general public.

I was eighteen years old that year. The few yellow whiskers on my chin fluttered in the wind. They were from the first group of people to settle here, so I cherished them all the more...

The story begins with a young man with a newly grown beard waiting for a car by the roadside.

I stood by the roadside waving at that car, trying my best to make it look cool. But the driver didn't even look at me... he just flashed past me and fucking drove right by.

Young people imagine themselves to be cool, but in reality, nobody pays them any attention. Yu Hua doesn't write "I was very disappointed," but rather "I chased after it for a while, just to have fun, then I laughed out loud, and after laughing, I felt it was affecting my breathing, so I stopped laughing."

Gu Yanxi was immersed in the light and graceful words written by the young man.

As dusk approached, the young man, who still hadn't been able to hail a taxi, finally began to get anxious.

The road undulated, and the higher elevations always tempted him, urging him to rush up to see the hotel, but each time he only saw another higher elevation, with a disheartening curve in between.

The higher up the road = hope, over it = despair, over it again = hope again.

The process of pursuing a goal is a cycle.

Finally, they encountered another driver. The young man took a few puffs of the cigarette the young man offered him, then put his head back in the cigarette. The young man felt at ease, thinking that if the young man accepted the cigarette, he had to let him ride in his car.

But the driver, who had been smoking, pushed him away and yelled "Get lost!"

Offering a cigarette means the other person has accepted a favor and must reciprocate. This is a child's logic of exchange, which the adult world simply doesn't accept.

The young man knew it was time to go all out. So he ran to the other side, opened the car door, and climbed in, ready to fight the driver in the driver's seat. As he entered, the young man yelled at him, "You still have my cigarette in your mouth!"

However, the driver looked at the young man with a friendly smile, which puzzled the young man greatly.

This is the first truly absurd twist in the novel. The person who was just yelling "Get out!" is now grinning. There's no explanation, no psychological motivation. This inexplicable, dreamlike interpersonal relationship is both absurd and captivating for Gu Yanxi—this isn't realism, it's existentialist chance: human behavior is incoherent and unpredictable.

The driver asked the young man with a smile, "Where are you going?" The young man said anywhere. The driver then asked if he wanted some apples and told him to go get them from the back. But the car was driving very fast, and the young man was too scared to climb out, so he said no. The driver didn't insist, and the two started chatting. The young man learned that he was a small-time vendor, and that the car and the apples belonged to him.

The car broke down... The driver in front turned around and said to the young man, clearly annoyed, "Did you eat the apple?"

A moment later, five or six people on bicycles came up to the bike... Four of them crawled under the bike and started banging on it, one climbed onto the front, and the other two squatted in the back, loading apples onto the bike. I was completely bewildered by what I was seeing.

People suddenly appeared and, without asking any questions, started grabbing apples. Some crawled under the car and banged on it, some climbed onto the front of the car, and some loaded apples onto bicycles.

The young man stood in the truck bed and shouted, "These apples are mine!" but no one paid any attention. He lunged at them to grab them, but was beaten black and blue, with his lips and nose bleeding profusely.

The apple certainly didn't belong to the young man, but at that moment he saw himself as its guardian. It was a moral instinct: he couldn't stand by and watch the robbers act, so he stood up.

The driver who was actually robbed just stood by laughing. Instead of stopping the people who were stealing the apples, he picked up the young man's red backpack (which he had previously placed in the driver's seat), opened it, took out the contents—including a hat—and put it on himself. Then he pushed a bicycle and followed the villagers.

This is the most absurd scene in the entire film: the apple's owner joins the robbers and even steals the boy's backpack.

The driver's laughter persists throughout, evolving from a friendly laugh to a laugh of participating in the robbery. This character has no moral compass; he simply goes with the flow—a complete nihilist.

Everyone else had left, leaving only the young man lying in the smashed truck with its wheels removed. It was completely dark, and all was quiet. Lying in the truck bed, he suddenly realized that this wrecked truck was the hotel he had been searching for all day.

It's absurd, but also tender.

Gu Yanxi's initially heavy emotions eased after reading the last sentence.

Just like Luo Jinnian's own annotation in the margin of the book: "Going Out at Eighteen" is a counter-narrative of "coming of age". Traditional coming-of-age novels are about the protagonist overcoming difficulties, gaining experience and becoming more mature; this one is about the protagonist being beaten up by the world, being deceived by adults, having his backpack stolen, and being covered in wounds. The final "maturity" is that he no longer has any illusions about hotels.

Setting off on a long journey at eighteen was an absurd yet fascinating adventure.

At least when young Luo Qingli finished reading it, he didn't feel any fear about the future; of course, it's more likely that he didn't understand it at that time.

"I hope the journal 'Harvest' will approve the manuscript soon."