Chapter Thirty-Two: This Is a Leg Worth Holding On To!

When the wooden door of the editorial office of Anhui Literature was pushed open, Zhou Ming was marking Xs on a manuscript with a red pen.

“What did you bring?” He sniffed, shifting his gaze away from the cloth bag in Xu Chengjun’s hands. “Don’t tell me it’s those vermicelli from Fengyang again. I haven’t finished the last lot you brought!”

Xu Chengjun placed the bag on the desk, revealing small mung bean cakes inside. “Fengyang mung bean cakes. My fellow townsman sells them—taste just like the ones from home.”

He scratched his head awkwardly. “I wanted to ask you to write a recommendation letter for Fudan. Deputy Director Wang said I need signatures from two associate professors or higher…”

Zhou Ming grabbed a mung bean cake and stuffed it into his mouth, mumbling, “I can’t write it.”

His tone was that of a familiar old hand, a little roguish.

Xu Chengjun was stunned.

Before he could protest, Zhou Ming’s teasing voice followed.

“You think Old Su’s pen is just for show?”

Zhou Ming suddenly grinned, tapping Xu’s forehead with his cigarette. “Old Liu was just talking about you the other day. Go ask them to be your mentors—they’ll write you something fancy, much more useful than my lousy pen!”

“Think about it, one writes critiques, one writes poetry—who better to write you a recommendation, right?”

What on earth did poetry and critique have to do with recommendations?

This old rascal!

Xu Chengjun saw Zhou Ming laughing.

Zhou Ming saw him smiling too.

His wrinkled face looked just like a sunflower turning toward the light.

He fished out a leather notebook from a drawer, tore out two pages, and said, “Su Zhong’s home is in the old alley on Tongcheng Road—there’s a pomegranate tree at the door. Liu Zuci loves his cheap liquor. Bring him two catties and say I sent you to ask his advice on revising ‘The Granary’…”

Xu Chengjun gripped the slip of paper.

How could he not understand?

Old Zhou was truly generous!

This wasn’t refusal—it was him setting up a ladder and urging him to climb.

Xu’s mouth was faster than his brain—he shamelessly pressed on, “Editor Zhou, there’s one more thing…”

“Enough, don’t call me Editor. I’m twenty years your senior—if you want to be polite, call me ‘brother,’ if not, just call me Old Zhou, all right?”

Fine, Old Zhou was truly a man who knew the ropes.

He spoiled people when he liked them!

Xu Chengjun pushed his manuscript, “The Fitting Room Mirror,” forward. “Zhou, would you take a look? Could this piece make it into Anhui Literature?”

“Sure!” Zhou Ming’s fingers paused on the manuscript.

“You sure write fast! But don’t be perfunctory.”

Despite his words, Zhou Ming read slowly and with great care.

He drew tiny circles in the margins of every page. When he came to the part where Chunlan stepped barefoot over broken glass, he suddenly slapped the table. “So you’ve hidden a knife behind the mirror.”

“Is this reform literature? No, I’d say this is new realism.”

He pondered a moment and exhaled a smoke ring. “It’s wilder than ‘The Granary,’ less sugarcoated.”

Xu Chengjun’s mouth twitched. What school was new realism anyway?

“So…” he began.

“No more of that. Anhui Literature can’t publish this.” Zhou Ming pushed the manuscript back, his tone final.

“Your mirror is too clear—shows the dirt in people’s trousers. Our little temple can’t hold this.”

He suddenly lowered his voice, leaning in. “Do you know Harvest? In Shanghai. Bolder than People’s Literature, sharper than Contemporary. Last year they published Lu Xinhua’s ‘Scar,’ and this year they need someone prickly like you.”

Xu Chengjun’s eyes lit up.

He knew Harvest well—had practically worn out the bound volumes writing his thesis in his previous life.

In 1979, it was stirring the literary world with “The Legend of Tianyun Mountain.” Editor Li Xiaolin was famous for being a gambler—if a manuscript was solid enough, she’d publish it, no matter how sensitive the subject.

And who was Li Xiaolin?

You know Ba, who wrote the Torrent Trilogy?

Her father!

“But it’s risky,” Zhou Ming tapped the desk. “Li Xiaolin may be young, but she edits manuscripts like she’s flaying them. Last month she rejected an old writer’s piece, said his pen ‘was as soft as cotton wool.’ And the ‘shadow rebellion’ in your ‘Fitting Room Mirror’—that could spark three days of arguments with her editorial board.”

He pulled out the rotary phone, the cord looping three times. “I’ve dealt with her before, can call her right now. Whether it works is up to your luck. It’s your choice whether to submit.”

“I’ll do it, with your support, Zhou!”

“You must!”

“We’ve written the soft stuff—let them taste something with thorns.”

Zhou Ming raised an eyebrow and suddenly spun the dial. The rotary whirred, clicking like fate being wound up.

“Hello, Editor Li?”

He smiled into the receiver. “Got a tough one for you… Yes, a sent-down youth from Fengyang, the manuscript’s even bolder than ‘Scar’…”

…

“There’s risk,” Zhou Ming said, hanging up and looking at Xu. “She wants you to bring the manuscript directly and mention my name. Special case—she’ll read it first.”

“It can make it before you go to Fudan, but there’s no telling if it’ll add weight to your application…”

…

Just as Xu Chengjun was about to leave, Zhou Ming suddenly remembered something.

Grinning, he called Xu back.

Before Xu realized what was happening, Zhou Ming had already stacked a wad of bills and handed them over.

Fifty yuan.

“Don’t just stand there—take it. An advance. You’ll be fifty short later, so don’t complain! Don’t go to Shanghai without money and disgrace our editorial office!”

The proud, little old man.

Xu Chengjun ground his teeth in mock resentment, but he was genuinely moved by Zhou Ming’s generosity in this era.

This was a leg worth clinging to!

…

Afterward, Xu Chengjun went to Liu Zuci’s house but didn’t find him.

Instead, he ran into both men together at Su Zhong’s place in the old alley.

Xu, holding two catties of cheap liquor, saw Su Zhong opening the door with a cigarette between his lips.

Su Zhong eyed him suspiciously. “Comrade Xu, looking for me?”

Xu explained the whole story carefully, with a touch of easy familiarity.

Su Zhong laughed and cursed, “That old Zhou shirking again? The old fox has produced a little fox!”

He called into the courtyard, “Liu! The young man you wanted has brought liquor!”

Liu Zuci poked his head out from under a grape arbor, still holding a dog-eared copy of A History of Western Aesthetics. “Which youngster? Xu from Fengyang?”

Well, these two certainly got along well!

Xu put the liquor on the stone table, the metal ringing clear. “Editor Zhou said you two have sharp eyes—I’m here to ask your advice!”

“Advice?” Liu Zuci suddenly grinned, shutting his book. “Last year I argued with your teacher Su about the style in ‘The Class Adviser’ till midnight—almost flipped the table!”

“So, you want to try your hand?”

Xu’s mouth twitched. “Actually, I wanted to ask you both to write me a recommendation letter for Fudan.”

Su Zhong interrupted with a laugh, “A recommendation letter? No problem.”

“But let us see your ‘Fitting Room Mirror’ first—we can’t let that old fox Zhou have all the fun, can we?”

Liu Zuci snatched the manuscript before Su Zhong, and the two began reading it together.

The deeper they read, the more their brows furrowed.

After a while, Liu Zuci suddenly looked up. “You’ve turned ‘longing’ into a living thing.”

“Chunlan’s shadow dares to roll her eyes at Director Wang—that’s bolder than when you wrote ‘The Granary’.”

Su Zhong held his cigarette without smoking, his gaze lingering on the passage where shattered glass sings. “The mirror is a decoy. What you’ve written is that people must live two lives—the body within the wall, the soul outside. That’s a wild thought.”

He suddenly chuckled, tapping the manuscript with his cigarette. “If those old scholars at Fudan read this, they’ll be slapping their desks! But Professor Zhu Dongrun will like it—he hates writing that’s all pretense.”

“Good thing you’re sending it to Harvest, or I’d be the one slapping the desk!”

Xu Chengjun was about to reply when Liu Zuci had already pulled out his fountain pen and, at the top of the letter, wrote: “To the Esteemed Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Fudan University.”

…

Su Zhong took the pen and, at the end, wrote a line: “This student’s writing has the power to break new ground, and in the smallest details reveals the true sinews of the age.”