Chapter Fifty-Three: An Editor's Note Bearing the Mark of Its Era

The young woman shoved the newspaper into Xu Chengjun’s arms, her ponytail quivering with indignation. “You yourself think your writing is just average? Then what about us, copying it over and over in the dorm until our fingers ached?”

Still not appeased, the girl jabbed her finger at the line “Planting two shadows under the moonlight,” her manner fierce as a little lioness. “Yesterday in the department reading room, we discussed this line half the night, saying ‘the wrinkles of city and countryside are hidden in the shadows.’ And you say it’s not as good as ‘playing the fool’? What kind of thing is that to say!”

Xu Chengjun just looked at her with a genial smile, silent.

She glared at him, cheeks puffed out, and said nothing more. Her swinging ponytail only made her cuter.

The young man in the shirt, sensing an opening to speak, hurried to interject, “Comrade Xu, this isn’t humility, it’s lack of confidence. That line in ‘The Letter’—‘The path is made by those who walk it’—I know a lot of students who’ve taken that as their motto. You dismiss it as ‘just venting,’ but that really hurts.”

The short fellow crouched to pick up the newspaper and chimed in as well, “’Hope that grows from hardship is the most moving’—how touching is that? Yet you talk about it like you’re writing a recipe.”

So the three of you think I’m not “putting on enough airs”?

Xu Chengjun rubbed his nose, then suddenly grinned. “So what you want is for me to boast that I’m the new star of the literary world? You should have said so earlier! I could praise myself until even Fudan University’s admission letter would blush.”

That made all three of them laugh.

The young woman’s cheeks flushed, but she persisted, “We don’t want you to brag, just that an author should believe in their own words. There’s light in your poetry—why do you hide it?”

“Exactly!” The young man in the shirt had switched sides. “‘All flowers will bloom in their time’—how many people has that inspired? You need to know how much your writing touches people.”

Seeing the students getting earnest, Xu Chengjun quickly set aside his jokes and replied seriously, “Alright, I admit my mistake. Mainly I was worried you’d be disappointed when you met me. You’d expect the author to be a scholar in a long gown, but it turns out he’s just a mud-spattered educated youth.”

He took out his fountain pen. “You’re the one with glasses? Want a signature? What’s your sister’s name?”

“I’m Su Wenyuan, History Department. My sister’s name is Su Xiuxiu.”

Su Mingyuan quickly handed over his notebook. “I’d like you to sign it for my sister, so she can stick it in front of her desk for motivation.”

Xu Chengjun wrote, “For Xiuxiu: Though the moss flower be small as rice, it learns to bloom like the peony.”

He glanced at Su Mingyuan and then added, “For Mingyuan: Let the historian’s pen hold true meaning, let the lamp of the heart illuminate the path ahead.”

Su Mingyuan hadn’t expected one for himself. He stammered his thanks, his eyes glimmering with excitement as he read the lines.

Lin Wei, cheeks still burning, timidly held out her notebook. Her voice was a little nervous. “Could… could I have your signature too?”

“I’m Lin Wei, first year in Chinese Literature. Who knows, maybe I’ll be your senior one day!”

She added this quickly, then waved her hands, “Don’t take it to heart that I scolded you earlier. I just couldn’t stand you belittling your own words!”

Xu Chengjun looked at her with surprise, and the girl seemed about to combust under his gaze.

So this little spitfire isn’t immune to teasing either.

He took up his pen and wrote, “For Lin Wei: Let a literary heart hold sun and moon, and call forth wind and thunder from the tip of the pen.”

When he looked up, Lin Wei’s eyes shone as though catching starlight.

Fans, after all, are timeless.

The sudden emergence of a “handsome poet” has an impact on literary young women comparable to the way a top idol would strike high school girls after appearing in a youth talent show.

Who was the most popular poet in 1979? Shu Ting.

How popular? After her “To the Oak Tree” was published, countless young people copied its lines into their notebooks, pinned them above their beds, even used them as love letters. She received tens of thousands of letters from readers!

And that’s under the communication conditions of 1979.

The young man in the shirt scratched his head and spoke up, “I’m Chen Yang, Philosophy Department. To be honest, I used to complain your poetry was too gentle, a little… well… ‘soft.’ But then you went and sold yourself short.”

“Don’t worry.” Xu Chengjun’s hand didn’t pause as he signed. “I can handle both soft and hard, and my writing’s the same.”

He looked up with a smile. “Would you like a signature?”

“Uh… if it’s not too much trouble, sure.”

Xu Chengjun wrote, “For Chen Yang: Let your thoughts reach across a thousand years, your steps bring spring to ten thousand miles.”

It made sense. A rookie idol signing for a critical young man, who would most likely never refuse, not really. It was just a bit of “mocking for being conventional, but secretly keeping the ticket.”

In the distance, the streetlights gradually dimmed. Chen Yang, understanding the value of reciprocation, left a copy of the Guangming Daily for Xu Chengjun.

The group had only walked a few steps when Lin Wei suddenly turned and called out, “Good luck with your interview! An author should have confidence—just like you wrote in your poem!”

Her clear voice echoed far into the night.

When Xu Chengjun returned to Room 302, his paper was still spread on the nightstand.

He yawned and glanced at the Guangming Daily.

In 1979, Guangming Daily had nationwide influence, with a circulation of 1.5 million—third in the country. First was Reference News, second was the People’s Daily.

It could be said, without exaggeration, that Xu Chengjun’s name had been delivered to millions of households in those 1.5 million copies.

The front page of Guangming Daily focused on major political events and policy interpretation, with literary pages for creative writing, theoretical pages for ideological debate, science and technology for research breakthroughs, and social pages highlighting people’s issues—a multi-faceted layout covering politics, culture, theory, technology, and society.

Both Xu Chengjun’s “Toward the Light” and “A Letter to the Youth” were reprinted in this issue. It was worth noting that in January of that year, Wang Meng’s “Afterword to ‘Long Live Youth’” had also been published there.

Xu Chengjun scanned the newspaper.

Ah, the editor’s note was so steeped in the spirit of the times.

Well written!

“At this historic moment as the Party shifts its focus of work, today our paper reprints the poetry ‘Toward the Light’ and ‘A Letter to the Youth’ by Anhui educated youth Xu Chengjun, adding fresh voices to the ideological emancipation stirred by the tide of reform. These works, drawn from the grassroots, use the unique practical perspective of the sent-down youth to vividly expound the profound meaning of ‘practice is the sole criterion for testing truth.’

“‘Toward the Light’ employs the image of ‘fingers cracked by frost writing spring’ to elevate the wounds of the individual in a special era into an unwavering pursuit of brightness. This transformation from a narrative of suffering to the awakening of life perfectly echoes the national call to break the shackles of thought and explore the road to modernization. The poem’s assertion that ‘the path is made by those who walk it’ is both a deep reflection on the extreme leftist line and an eager summons for youth to join the reform in practice.

“‘A Letter to the Youth’ uses vivid examples from the Fengyang sent-down youth settlement to reveal the dialectical truth that ‘old grain in the warehouse can sprout.’ Through self-study by kerosene lamp and reflection in the fields, the author gives concrete form to the Senior Designer’s directive to ‘respect knowledge, respect talent,’ painting a picture of grassroots youth striving forward. This perspective, embedding personal growth within the nation’s modernization process, serves as the most vivid literary annotation for the strategy of ‘Four Modernizations.’

“In the surging tide of youth returning to the cities in 1979, such writing not only continues the historic memory of ‘tempering a red heart in the vast world’ but also conveys the powerful message of ‘science and technology are productive forces’ in the era of reform. Just as the breakthroughs of Wang Xuan’s team in laser typesetting show, China’s modernization requires both cutting-edge technological breakthroughs and the accumulation of grassroots practical experience.

“Our paper publishes these works in hopes of providing more diverse practical examples for the emancipation of thought. As the discussion on the criterion of truth deepens, we look forward to more thinking and exploration from the front lines of production, to together paint the magnificent picture of ‘Chinese-style modernization.’”

Hey, does reprinting also pay a manuscript fee?

How much was it, in those days?