Chapter Forty-Three: How Should We Live in These Changing Times

Anhui University Library.

Ji Yu, a 27-year-old writer from Anhui who had just graduated from the library science program at Anhui University, was holding a copy of the Anhui Youth Daily. Unfinished drafts of "The Pawnshop" were still spread out on his desk—he was revising the opening for the thirty-seventh time.

His recently published "Farewell" had earned him some recognition within Anhui Province, but now he found himself mired in a creative slump. Outside, the cicadas sang in full force, yet his attention was utterly captured by a poem titled "Walking Toward the Light" in the newspaper's literary supplement.

"When the wind brings the first hint of fragrance / You are bowing your head, counting the moss on the stone steps."

He paused at this line. As a writer who had grown up in rural Feidong, he was intimately familiar with the posture of "bowing one's head to count the moss." What a beautiful turn of phrase, he thought—the imagery so deftly rendered, light yet profound.

"Moonlight will seep through the cracks in the window lattice / Planting two shadows on the floor."

He recalled his own nights at the writing desk in the educated youth outpost, composing "The Ferry." In those days, literature always seemed to grow in the crevices between "the collective" and "the individual," just as the poem described: "One root waking in the darkness / One sleeping in the light."

But what pressed hardest on his heart was the line, "Maturity is a kind of deep despair."

When he was forced to stop writing in 1975, his father had stuffed his manuscripts into the stove, telling him, "Be sensible, don’t bring trouble to the family." Back then, "being sensible" meant swallowing the urge to write, grinding that longing into dust and forcing it down. Yet Xu Chengjun had laid bare that despair and then added, "Better to learn from the stream / Singing your own song even at a bend."

So this young author, far away in Shanghai, left Ji Yu with a first impression: he didn't wallow in "wounds," but could pluck starlight from the cracks.

Ji Yu copied the entire poem on the back of his draft paper.

"Every line seems to carry philosophical insight; the whole poem is a hazy reverie, yet the emotion strikes with blunt, overwhelming force."

"Impressive!"

"This Xu Chengjun is sure to make his name with a single poem."

He picked up his fountain pen again, bent his head once more under the title "Winter 1978," and resolved to walk toward the light himself.

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Gong Liu’s hands trembled three times as he held the Anhui Youth Daily, nearly scorching his fingers with the cigarette over a proof copy of Poetry Journal. He glanced at the title and snorted, "‘Walking Toward the Light’? Sounds like a lovesick girl’s poem."

Despite his words, his fingers had already loosened the pages of the newspaper.

"Hey, this kid!"

He pressed his finger to the line, "One root waking in the darkness / Counting the paths of falling stars," and burst out laughing.

"This isn’t poetry—it’s drilling an air hole into a stuffy gourd!"

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"This isn’t walking toward the light—it’s plunging a torch straight into the heart!"

The cigarette flickered in the ashtray. Gong Liu stared at the words "Walking Toward the Light" and suddenly grinned. Poetry? This was like tossing a firecracker into the literary world of 1979—crisp and clear, with a lingering, sweet hint of gunpowder.

"Lao Zhou, come check out the poem by that kid you’ve got your eye on—these youngsters are something else!"

Beside Zhou Ming, Liu Zuzi, who had been poring over manuscripts, suddenly slammed the table. "That scoundrel—publishing a poem without showing me first!"

"Wait till he comes back—I’ll give him a piece of my mind!"

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Throughout Hefei, and indeed all of Anhui Province—in factories, schools, hospitals, rural communes, even the vendors on street corners—everyone was passing the poem around. Every young person was moved to tears, and anyone who had read the Youth Observer column in the Anhui Youth Daily knew his name.

Xu Chengjun, the educated youth writer, the poet of natural lyricism!

...

Poetry can be spoken of this way, or rather, all literature: a thousand readers, a thousand Hamlets. Each person finds their own life reflected in the work. At this moment, in the eyes of everyone reading this poem, it evoked different emotions, different lives, different memories—like Chunlan’s mirror in the fitting room.

And those scars that bore pain, under the soothing touch of this poem, seemed less painful, yet the marks themselves grew even clearer.

Bitter and beautiful.

The youth of ’79 had never witnessed such a phenomenon. It was as if they had been injected with a powerful stimulant—workers labored with renewed vigor, students studied with greater diligence, even the educated youth sent to the countryside...

Truly,

Addictive!

...

At this very moment, on this land of Anhui, countless young people—just like the students in the literature department—were beginning to read that letter.

"Walking Toward the Light" had deepened their anticipation for letters, perhaps more than a little; they gazed at letters as devout Christians would toward their Jerusalem—letters became an object of worship.

One could say,

Toxic chicken soup was still breathtakingly potent in this era.

...

Students unfolded the newspaper, crowding around in lively excitement. What they didn’t know was that Xu Chengjun still had an even greater surprise waiting for them.

After the commotion, it was Lu Xiaoxiao who was finally chosen to read the letter aloud to everyone.

Lu Xiaoxiao’s gentle voice drifted through the room:

"To Young Friends: On the Eve of Departure, A Conversation With Earth and Starlight"

You may be reading this letter while I am on a speeding train, or perhaps I am already in Shanghai, chasing my own dreams. Before I go, let me leave you with a few words.

When night falls past the window lattice, I always like to write one more line on the draft paper. The flame of the kerosene lamp flickers, casting my shadow on the mud wall—a stumbling traveler on a long road. That shadow has kept me company through many nights: on the wooden bed at the educated youth outpost, on the hard chair in the Hefei guesthouse, under the streetlights at the Bengbu train station. It knows how much my frostbitten fingers ache, knows how harsh the red crosses on rejection letters burn, and knows that each time I write "to be continued," there remains an ember of light in my heart that refuses to die out.

Last winter was bitterly cold. The ink at my pen’s tip froze into shards of ice. I huddled in a drafty mud-brick house, revising drafts, my fingers swollen like carrots. Each time I gripped the pen, the chilblains throbbed as if pricked by needles, and blood beaded onto the rough paper, blooming into tiny red stains. People often advised me, "What’s the use of writing all this as an educated youth? Better to earn more work points." I said nothing, only tucked my frozen hands into my chest, melting the ink with my own body heat. Yet I knew, some things matter more than warmth or cold—like seeds of wheat buried beneath the snow, seemingly lifeless, but their roots secretly working deep in the earth.

Perhaps you, too, have had such moments: standing at a crossroads, the wind blowing both ways. One side is "security," the "proper path" others recommend, like old grain in the warehouse that will never sprout; the other is "struggle," that restless itch within, the urge to turn "impossible" into "maybe." I once waited half a day at the commune’s post and telegraph office for my manuscript fee, clutching three pounds’ worth of grain coupons—enough to buy six corn cakes, but not enough for a hard-seat ticket to Shanghai. At that time, it felt like a single speck of dust from this era could become a mountain on one’s shoulders, pressing the breath from you. But when the acceptance letter from Anhui Literature finally arrived, the paper, damp with my sweat, felt heavier than any award. No matter how heavy the mountain, it cannot stop those determined to climb.

People often ask if I am afraid. Of course I’m afraid. Afraid that after the tenth revision the manuscript will still be rejected; afraid of being called a good-for-nothing; afraid that after giving my all, I’ll end up right where I started. Once, revising drafts in Hefei at three in the morning, I caught sight of myself in the mirror: hollow-eyed, stubbled chin, and I suddenly thought, "Forget it, go back to the county and become a substitute teacher—at least there’s a coal stove in winter." But when I picked up the pen and felt the paper, pocked with holes from the pen’s tip, I couldn’t bear to stop. Those holes looked like stars, winking in the darkness, saying, "Write one more line, try once more."

This era is like freshly turned earth; everyone is learning how to sow seeds. Some plant the seed of "university entrance exams," some bury the bud of "street vending," some cradle the sapling of "craftsmanship." I have seen young people staying up late in the commune’s main office, listening to English on the radio, reciting words by moonlight when the kerosene ran out; seen young women sneaking embroidered handkerchiefs to market, clutching the money they earned, their fingers trembling like wheat stalks in the wind; seen old carpenters studying new blueprints, vowing to make furniture that city folk would admire. All these tiny experiments are really answering the same question: how should we live in these changing times?

I don’t have an answer, but I do know a few truths. I know frostbitten hands can write the arrival of spring. I know the back of a rejection letter can be used for a draft. I know even old grain in the warehouse can sprout if sunlight finds it through a crack in the wall. Like the foxtail grass in the crevice at this very moment—no one waters it, yet it fights its way out, green and stubborn, still bearing last year’s snow on its bristles. Perhaps this is the fate of our generation: not to count on fair weather, but to learn to take root in the storm.

How wonderful it is to be young—precisely because you’re unafraid to try. Afraid of failure? Who hasn’t gotten up after falling? Afraid to take the wrong road? Every road is made by those who walk it. In a two-story building in Hefei, I once met the editors of Anhui Literature. They said, "Good manuscripts are honed through hardship." In a bathhouse in Hefei, I heard a worker say, "If you want to open a stall, don’t let others laugh you off." On the ridges of Fengyang’s fields, watching new wheat break through the soil, I suddenly understood: the so-called "future" is never a pre-drawn map, but a trail of footprints pressed one after another—some deep with sweat, some shallow with tears, all leading toward the light.

Night deepens, and the words on the draft paper grow clearer. The waves of wheat on this land rise and fall under the moonlight like a moving sea. Within these waves lie countless young dreams: some wish for fuller grain, some for more colorful cloth coupons, some hope that a pen might wield more power than a hoe. These dreams may be small, but when they touch in the wind, they spark tiny points of light.

Don’t despise their smallness, nor the distance of the road. Remember, all that is great begins in humility. Like the weeds beneath the stone, like the frostbitten fingertips, like the crooked lines beneath this very lamp—yours and mine—that refuse to stop.

The wind rises again, carrying the scent of wheat. It whispers: keep writing, as a seed waits for spring.

With respect,

Xu Chengjun

July 1979, at the Gongnongbing Guesthouse, Hefei

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