Literary Master: Starting with Refusing to Be a Child Star

Chapter 52 Breaking into the Municipal Writers' Association

Harvest is a bimonthly publication, released only once every two months. The schedule is extremely tight, with issues usually planned in advance at a pace of three to four months.

In the few rooms of the editorial office, manuscripts were piled up higher than a person, and each one had been revised several times with red pen circles. For domestic writers, being able to appear in such a publication was considered a great achievement.

The fact that "Going Out at Eighteen" could be included in "Harvest" has nothing to do with "early spring tea"—after all, for "Harvest," its own brand is the strongest.

The real reason was that the deputy editor was deeply shocked by the novel's unprecedented avant-garde nature and its skillful storytelling.

The deputy editor-in-chief, a graduate of the Chinese Department of Fudan University, was a novelist in his youth before transitioning to editing, where he unearthed many excellent manuscripts. After reading it the first time, he paused for a moment, then read it a second time, before calling Lao Zhou over: "Have you read this one?"

Old Zhou nodded. Deputy Editor-in-Chief Chen asked, "What do you think?" Old Zhou was silent for a long time before saying, "All my previous reading experience is useless now."

It's not his fault. In fact, in his previous life, Luo Jinnian had read "To Live" and "Brothers" first, and only later did he stumble upon Yu Hua's debut novel. While researching, he learned that this little old man who wrote "To Live" was actually one of the representative writers of avant-garde literature in the 1980s. He had originally thought that Mo Yan, his fellow Shandong native and a fan of magical realism, China's own Márquez, was the true avant-garde writer.

Having read all of Yu Hua's short stories, he still only liked "Going Out into the World at Eighteen." Others, such as "A Kind of Reality" and "Inescapable Fate," were certainly technically impressive, but he always felt that something was missing—that lingering feeling of "you think you're reading a story, but after you finish, you realize you're reading about yourself."

Although in 2012, most literary journals were operating at a loss, barely selling any copies, and would have gone bankrupt one after another without government support, those years were truly difficult for magazine publishers. Subscriptions declined year after year, postal receipts became increasingly scarce, and printing presses were pressing for payments more urgently than at the end of the year. However, top-tier literary journals subscribed to by writers' associations across the country—such as *Harvest*, *Contemporary*, and *People's Literature*—were still subscribed to every issue. How could you know the current trend in manuscript acceptance without understanding the preferences of each journal and without "scanning the lists"? So, in the writers' association buildings of each city, every two months (because literary journals are bimonthly), there would always be a couple of days where a few old men would gather in the tea room, each with a copy of the new journal in hand, wearing reading glasses, flipping through it while drinking tea. This had almost become an unshakeable ritual within the writers' association circle.

Since its development in the 1980s, the format of pure literary journals has become very mature, and most people in the Writers' Association are very familiar with various techniques and routines. For example, how to start, how to change the narrative perspective, how to embed subtext in dialogue, and how to conclude—these things have been repeatedly polished by generations of authors and have almost become a set of industry-standard rules, namely the magazine format.

But today, when the latest issue of "Harvest" was in their hands, the old men who had gathered together for tea were utterly shocked as they opened the first article.

The title alone tells you what "Leaving Home at Eighteen" is about. Any reader with a modicum of comprehension can discern the metaphor: a young man embarks on a journey, encounters absurd violence, and ultimately finds refuge in ruins. This is growth, disillusionment, and the process of reaffirming oneself after disillusionment. But it is precisely because of this that it is even more terrifying—this is avant-garde literature.

What is avant-garde literature? Simply put, it's deliberately going against traditional writing styles. Traditional narrative logic emphasizes cause and effect, while avant-garde literature insists on severing cause and effect; traditional characters are three-dimensional, while avant-garde literature flattens them; traditional language emphasizes precision and beauty, while avant-garde literature uses all sorts of bizarre metaphors and a cold tone to leave you dizzy.

Not every piece of avant-garde literature is like "The Metamorphosis," with both an explosive opening and an easily readable story. Most avant-garde literature is not actually written for the average reader.

Although literature is easier to judge as good or bad through interpretation than painting, and works can gain a lot of social attention through hype, in terms of ultimate benefits, literature and art are incomparable.

A painting can sell for tens of millions at auction, but what about a novel? Let alone tens of millions, a few thousand dollars in royalties is considered top-tier treatment. Therefore, emerging authors basically rely entirely on their talent to make a name for themselves, and "Going Out into the World at Eighteen" is such a work.

"After reading it, I felt completely bewildered. All my past reading experience was rendered useless—I never thought novels could be written like this!"

"The character design is deliberate and flat. The characters are no longer complex social archetypes, but simply symbols that carry meaning. The driver, the farmer who snatched the apple, they don't need to have their own stories; they are projections of the world itself."

"Avalanche, avalanche! I read it in one go and felt like I experienced an avalanche. Harvest truly deserves its reputation as the premier journal of pure literature. When it comes to innovation, you really have to look to it."

Luo Jinnian received an unexpected invitation—the Langya City Writers Association invited him to formally join. The notification arrived by mail in a kraft paper envelope, containing a document stamped with a red seal. The wording was very formal, essentially stating: "In view of your outstanding performance in literary creation, the Presidium of the City Writers Association has decided, after deliberation, to extend a special invitation to you to join." Luo Jinnian held that document for a long time, unable to describe the feeling in his heart.

"Harvest" is, after all, "Harvest"; a single article could get him into the city's Writers' Association. In contrast, publications like "Tales of the Tang Dynasty" and "Science Fiction Vision," which truly rely on sales, have virtually no influence on literary legitimacy. Liu Cixin contributed to "Science Fiction Vision" for over a decade, and his eventual entry into the Writers' Association was purely due to the Hugo Award and the international influence of "The Three-Body Problem." Within the domestic literary system, science fiction, suspense, and genre fiction always fall short—not in quality, but in their "origin."

However, in terms of actual impact in China, this article actually received the least discussion. In my past life, people often joked online that "Singularity has more authors than readers," but that's really the case with "Harvest."

A literary journal prints several thousand copies, half of which are distributed to writers' associations and libraries across the country. The actual number of readers who actually pay to buy a copy is probably only one or two thousand. Without readers, how can it gain wider recognition?

However, while this article seems to have caused a stir in "high-end" writers' circles, it is completely ignored outside of the Writers' Association.

Gu Yanxi quite liked the article. Children who have been acting since childhood are indeed precocious, and she even made a special phone call to comfort the young man.

Luo Jinnian found it amusing but didn't know how to explain it—he couldn't just say, "Articles in literary journals are just for self-entertainment," could he? That would be too socially conscious.

If something exists, it has value. There are plenty of articles in literary journals that have become popular all over the country. Works like "Blossoms" and "The World" were also passed down by word of mouth—although they were mainly promoted by TV dramas.

But who can be blamed for this? Times have changed, reading habits have changed, and even the meaning of the word "literature" has changed.

If Luo Jinnian had been bolder, what he published in People's Literature wouldn't have been the cheerful New Year's story "Lost in Thailand," but rather the chilling "The Justice of the People," a story whose very title sends shivers down your spine. But he didn't.

In the 1980s, these publications primarily accepted manuscripts on the following genres: the trauma, reflection, educated youth, root-seeking, avant-garde, urban folklore, and women's issues—the "golden age" of pure literary journals, with seven major genres, each producing timeless works. As for the changes in recent years, the first three have largely disappeared, with only the addition of "Northeast narrative" or "Northern narrative." However, in Luo Jinnian's view, this is more of an extension of root-seeking literature. The writing style has changed, but the core remains the same—it still asks the question, "Where do I come from?"

He knew all this inside and out, having spent half his previous life writing. Unfortunately, he was unlucky—for a few years during his school years, he insisted on writing pure literature. By then, pure literature was already dead; the most prominent spots in bookstores were reserved for self-help and youth literature, while pure literature was relegated to a corner, gathering dust. Realizing pure literature was finished, he tried publishing on Tianya (a Chinese online forum), only to find it shut down. By the time he truly understood that online literature was the future, it was already a red ocean, and his meticulous, slow-paced writing style couldn't break in. At this point, his true forte—short online stories—was gaining momentum again on the internet—public accounts, Zhihu (a Chinese Q&A website), short video scripts; a few thousand words of content could earn more than a novel when traffic was high.

He thought for a moment, then smiled.

He truly walked the path of literature for two lifetimes before finally reaching the Writers' Association.