Chapter Seventeen: The Revision Meeting and "Thirty Promising Newcomers"
August 15, 1979. Morning sunlight slanted through the wooden lattice windows of the meeting room in the old foreign-style building of the Anhui Federation of Literary and Art Circles.
Enamel mugs sat at both ends of the long table, their rims stained with dark brown tea residue. Cigarette butts piled like small hills in the ashtrays.
Xu Chengjun clutched the manuscript of "The Granary," took a deep breath, and pushed open the door. The thick smoke inside made him frown.
“Achoo!”
Everyone at the long table looked up in unison.
Well, that’s a promising start!
Xu Chengjun smiled.
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“Everyone’s here. Let’s begin.” Zhou Ming stubbed out his cigarette in a mug. “First, an introduction. This is Xu Chengjun, a sent-down youth from Fengyang and the author of ‘The Granary.’” He gestured to Xu Chengjun, then turned to the others. “Here is Teacher Su Zhong from the provincial federation, head of reviews for ‘Anhui Literature’; Teacher Liu Zuci, leader of the poetry group; Teacher Liu Xianping, chief editor of the fiction group; poets Gong Liu and Han Han; and Teacher Qian Niansun, a theorist of the arts.”
Xu Chengjun bowed carefully.
His gaze swept over these writers, critics, and poets whose names had been etched in bold strokes upon the literary history of Anhui, even across the nation.
Time itself seemed to pause.
He suddenly recalled a book he’d found in the university library, "Forty Years of Anhui Literature."
On the black-and-white photo on the title page, Su Zhong’s hand gripping a jujube wood pipe, the patched elbow of Liu Xianping’s shirt, Gong Liu’s blue-rimmed glasses perched on the tip of his nose—all matched the people before him with uncanny precision.
...
“Let’s have Comrade Xu speak about his creative process first.” Zhou Ming tapped the table, his eyes scanning the room. “We won’t bother with formalities today—let’s get straight to the point.”
Xu Chengjun cleared his throat, his voice tinged with the accent of Fengyang: “I wrote ‘The Granary’ because I saw with my own eyes in Fengyang—Xu Honest, who is the original for Xu Old-Scales in the novel, picking up spilled wheat grain by grain and hiding them in a cloth pouch. He said, ‘What leaks from the collective granary will be accounted for someday.’
This made me realize that the granary isn’t just a place to store grain. It’s a vessel for the farmer’s worries.”
He opened the manuscript, pointing to the chapter “Marks on the Granary Wall”: “Some of these marks are deep, from ‘1958.’ Some are shallow, from ‘1978.’
The deep ones are sorrow, the shallow ones are sweetness. When Xu Honest carved the marks with the balance rod, I noticed his hand trembling. Not from fear of being discovered, but fear of letting down the land.”
Su Zhong suddenly interjected, his pipe tapping out a crisp sound on the table.
“This imagery is quite good. But let me ask—when you write about ‘Xu Old-Scales hiding his cloth ledger,’ are you trying to portray the conflict between the individual and the collective, or are you recording history?”
“Both,” Xu Chengjun met Su Zhong’s gaze. “Last year’s real yield difference is right there in the ledger. Collective fields produced three hundred jin per mu, private plots five hundred and twenty-eight.”
“Teacher Su, I’ve read your work. You wrote, ‘True pain has more power than false brightness.’ When I wrote ‘The Granary,’ that sentence kept coming back to me.”
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Su Zhong raised his eyebrows, spinning the pipe in his palm. “Oh? Then tell me, where is your ‘pain’ hidden?”
“In Xu Old-Scales’ cloth ledger.” Xu Chengjun opened the manuscript, his finger resting on the line “Forty-five jin of spilled wheat.” “When he recorded the spilled wheat, he deliberately carved ‘collective granary’ shallow and ‘private plot’ deep.
It wasn’t intentional—it was instinct. Just as you wrote, the land never lies.”
Liu Xianping suddenly laughed. “In 1962, I worked in Dingyuan. Your details are even more faithful than my interview notes back then.”
“Because history is simply there.” Xu Chengjun’s voice was soft, yet it seemed to clear the smoke from the room.
Gong Liu stubbed out his cigarette in the mug. “That’s powerful! The ending of your ‘Key Melts the Plowshare’—try revising it. ‘When the molten copper washes across the marks, it’s as if all the old accounts sprout anew.’ How’s that?”
Xu Chengjun smiled. The poet’s pursuit was always for subtle expression.
He’d memorized “Ah, Great Forest” three or four times in university.
“Teacher Gong Liu,”
Xu Chengjun looked up, “I’d like to add: ‘On the day the plowshare enters the earth, Xu Old-Scales counted the marks on the granary wall and suddenly realized the deep and shallow together were just enough for this year’s wheat seed.’
Suffering must yield something real, else it betrays those days of hunger.”
Gong Liu laughed, slapping the table. “What a ‘real thing’! You speak better than us old bones!”
At that moment, Qian Niansun opened his notebook, the pen tip hovering over the page.
“Let me put it another way. The most valuable thing in ‘The Granary’ is how the ‘collective ledger’ and the ‘cloth ledger’ reflect each other.”
“Xu Old-Scales fears being criticized for dividing too much, yet can’t resist scattering wheat in the granary corner. This contradiction isn’t a character flaw—it’s the truest spiritual state of this era. Your character lays bare this inner struggle.”
Those words were more moving than any praise, and Xu Chengjun felt his heart flush with heat.
He remembered analyzing the “hesitation in literature of 1979” in a past life’s thesis.
Now, a witness was saying it aloud, and his novel became the annotation.
“But I have a question,” Su Zhong suddenly spoke, pointing his pipe at the section “528 jin.” “That number stands out too sharply and could be used against you.”
“Teacher Su,” Xu Chengjun hesitated, “That’s the actual figure. If I change it, I’m not being honest with the land.”
He paused, his voice small but unwavering. “If literature can’t even speak the truth, then I’d rather go home and sell sweet potatoes!”
The room fell silent.
After a moment, Zhou Ming slapped the table. “Well said! I promise this manuscript won’t change the numbers. I’ll vouch for it!”
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At lunch in the federation’s cafeteria.
Liu Zuci placed a piece of braised pork in Xu Chengjun’s bowl. Just past forty, this man had excavated talents like Gu Cheng and Liang Xiaobin from history, becoming a key driver behind the rise of poetry in the new era.
His eyes glowed with approval. “You’ve got the same spirit as Gong Liu did when he was young. Let me give you a heads-up: the editorial board has already chosen ‘The Granary’ for the September headline in ‘Anhui Literature.’”
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He observed Xu Chengjun’s lack of outward excitement and nodded.
“I actually didn’t come today for your ‘The Granary.’ I came for your poem ‘Time.’
Your ‘Time’—Editor Lin showed it to me, and both Gong Liu and I agreed it’s excellent.”
“I’m preparing a collection, ‘Thirty New Poets,’ and you, as a homegrown talent from Anhui, are as new as they come. I’d like to include ‘Time’ and wanted your opinion.”
Xu Chengjun's hand, holding his chopsticks, suddenly froze.
When he looked up, his eyes shone brightly. “Teacher Liu, you mean the ‘Thirty New Poets’ collection that’s supposed to feature Gu Cheng and Liang Xiaobin?”
Liu Zuci raised his brows and smiled. “Oh? You’ve heard about it?”
“Uh…”
“Editor Lin mentioned it once. When this collection is published, it’ll shock the nation. After all, Gu Cheng’s ‘A Generation’ is famous even in Xujiatun.”
That was a lie.
He had truly never heard of “Thirty New Poets” in this life, but in a previous life…
No need to say more—that was just coursework!
Gu Cheng’s “A Generation,” Liang Xiaobin’s “White Wall,” “China, I Lost My Key”…
Recite them all!
Still, the collection was indeed influential nationwide.
Historically, this album and the launch of “Today” magazine that same year echoed north and south, marking the official debut of “Obscure Poetry.”
Gu Cheng, Liang Xiaobin, Han Dong and others entered the national spotlight, directly leading to the 1980 “Youth Poetry Gathering.”
He suddenly remembered something and scratched his head. “But my ‘Time’—Editor Lin said it’ll be published in the September issue, so it might miss the collection’s first round…”
“What does that matter?” Liu Zuci added a ladle of soup to his bowl. “The first round isn’t finalized until October. What matters is ‘freshness,’ not ‘newness.’
Gu Cheng’s ‘A Generation’ has already been circulated in folk journals, but it’ll still be featured in BJ’s magazine. Your poem’s ‘shards of porcelain in the window,’ the somber tone, perfectly complements the sharp edges of these thirty poets.”
He pulled a kraft envelope from his pocket and pushed it across. “Here, submission guidelines for the column. Try writing two more this month? No need to be formal—even short lines picked up from the fields are welcome.”
“Just think—your poem placed alongside ‘A Generation,’ let readers see that even the soil of Fengyang can produce sharp, cutting verses.”
You know, that actually sounds quite appealing!
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