Chapter Twenty-Eight: "A Bustling Threshold"

“Bang! Bang!”

Someone knocked on the door with their knuckles—neither too hard nor too soft, more like rapping on an office door.

Xu Chengjun, with a razor blade between his lips, opened the door to find two strangers standing outside.

The man wore a gray Zhongshan suit, its cuffs polished to a sheen. A pair of black-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, the lenses smudged with a fly-speck of grime that lent a touch of earthiness to his otherwise scholarly gaze.

Beside him, the woman was even more striking: flared khaki trousers dusted the floor, her hair set in waves and pinned with a silver hairpin, and she twirled a battered Parker fountain pen in her hand, the gold lacquer on its cap chipped and worn.

“Comrade Xu Chengjun?” the man spoke first, his voice soft yet resilient.

“I’m Chen Jianguo from the Hefei Evening News, and this is my colleague, Zhai Ying.”

Zhai Ying tilted her head and smiled, her eyes crinkling with light. “I’ve long heard the author of ‘Balance Star’ is an educated youth—didn’t expect you’d be so handsome!”

“You outshine the editors at our newspaper by far. They’re hunched over manuscripts all day—their backs are bent!”

The woman’s manner and looks were utterly at odds with the times—there was a boldness about her that couldn’t be put into words.

Yet… it was rather refreshing.

Xu Chengjun took the razor blade from his mouth and brushed his fingertips on the doorframe, suddenly bursting into laughter.

“Comrade Zhai, you flatter me. But Editor Chen, your reputation precedes you. That rascal Ma Shengli can’t mention his cousin without talking my ear off!”

He stepped aside to let them in.

“Oh, and I have to thank you both for those two tickets to ‘Little Flower.’ It really was a fine film. Honestly, if not for your help, my ‘Balance Star’ would still be gathering dust in the draft pile.”

His tone was warm and teasing. “Truth be told, I still owe you cousins a meal. Once I get through this busy spell, I’ll treat you both at the Jianghuai Noodle House—extra spicy, as much as you like!”

“Of course, I’ll have to count on Editor Zhai’s help too. You must come along!”

Chen Jianguo had just stepped over the threshold when his glasses slid down to the tip of his nose. He hurriedly pushed them back up with the back of his hand.

“Comrade Xu, you’re too kind!”

He rummaged through his canvas bag and pulled out bundles of letters.

One of the strings had snapped, and the envelopes scattered across the table with a flutter.

“That rascal Ma Shengli talks about you every day at the office. So I thought I’d use this opportunity to deliver your mail and come meet our future literary star!”

“Oh, come off it, Chief Editor Chen!” Zhai Ying cut in, her silver hairpin flashing in her curls.

“It’s you who wanted to see the excitement, dragging your cousin along as a cover.”

She plopped down on the bed, her flared trousers sweeping the bed’s edge. “But honestly, Comrade Xu, your place is even messier than our editorial office!” She tapped the pile of scrap paper on the table. “Is this where you wrote ‘Balance Star’?”

Xu Chengjun was pouring water into an enamel mug. Hearing this, he smiled. “Comrade Zhai, if you saw the conditions in the brigade, you’d know this is already tidy.”

Zhai Ying laughed as well. “Then I must visit the place you were sent down to someday. But truly, your ‘Balance Star’ is remarkable—reader letters have broken all our previous records!”

“Poor Chief Editor Chen has been swamped!”

Chen Jianguo had already sorted the letters. The top envelope was decorated with a crooked drawing of a set of scales, the beam labeled ‘Fairness’: “This one’s from a child at Red Star Elementary. Says his father no longer stuffs lead into the weights after reading your story.”

He suddenly lowered his voice and pulled a thick, yellowed envelope from his bag. “And this—sent by the Party Committee. They want to invite you to a symposium…”

“Oh? Is this a recruitment?” Zhai Ying arched an eyebrow.

“I’ll bet fifty cents they’ll ask you to change ‘Buy two taels, get half a tael free’ to ‘Love the collective, act with integrity.’”

“Editor Zhai!” Chen Jianguo’s face darkened. “Can’t they simply appreciate good writing?”

“No need for formalities among friends,” Xu Chengjun said, watching the two editors bicker, amused.

It struck him how lively this era suddenly seemed.

Their conversation was interrupted by a burst of commotion in the corridor.

Three young people in blue school uniforms crowded at the door. The girl at the front wore her hair in a high ponytail, its ends brushing the ‘Anhui University’ badge on her chest.

There she stood, bright and bold, outside room 302.

“Comrade Xu Chengjun!” Her face was flushed, her voice trembling. “We’ve come looking for you twice. The day before yesterday you weren’t in, and yesterday we heard you’d gone to the Youth News…”

“Lu Xiaoxiao, keep it down!” The bespectacled boy beside her tugged her sleeve, but he too edged forward eagerly. “Hello, Comrade Xu. I’m Zhou Mingyuan—this is Zhao Lei, and this is Lu Xiaoxiao. We’re first-year Chinese majors at Anhui University. We wanted to ask how you came up with a line like, ‘The balance star is worn smooth, then carved again…’”

Looking at them, Xu Chengjun suddenly recalled what he himself looked like at twenty.

In the classrooms of Jinan University’s Chinese Department, sunlight streaming through the blinds onto his ‘History of Modern Literature,’ he’d scrawled ‘writer’s dream’ in the margins.

“There’s no need to call it advice,” Xu Chengjun said, fetching stools for them. “We’re all about the same age—let’s just exchange ideas. I could use your thoughts too.”

“What do you think of the line, ‘Pumpkin pulp sticking to the signboard’?”

“It’s brilliant!” Lin Xiaomei couldn’t help but blurt out, her ponytail flicking like a whip. “It shows Old Zhou’s stubbornness, but also hints at his cleverness in making do…”

“I think it’s a metaphor,” Zhou Mingyuan adjusted his glasses. “Pumpkin pulp won’t stick for long—just like those policies back then: strict on the surface, but actually…”

“You two are starting up again!” Zhao Lei interrupted, his voice muffled. “Comrade Xu probably just thinks it’s written honestly.”

Zhai Ying suddenly laughed, her silver hairpin flashing in the sunlight. “These three know more about writing than our old hands at the paper.”

She slipped a fruit candy into Lu Xiaoxiao’s palm. “Don’t listen to Glasses’ over-analysis, young lady. Writing’s like sewing a quilt—the tightness of the stitches, you only know when you wear it.”

Chen Jianguo, who was fishing sunflower seeds from his bag, shot her a glare. “Don’t lead the youngsters astray.”

Nevertheless, he shoved a handful of seeds into Zhou Mingyuan’s hand.

Lu Xiaoxiao, flustered, blushed as she murmured, “Thank you, comrade!”

Xu Chengjun laughed, gesturing to the editors. “These two are editors at the Hefei Evening News—Editor Chen Jianguo and Editor Zhai Ying. The good pieces they’ve handled could stretch from Huaihe Road to Mingjiao Temple. Talking with them is far better than what a self-taught fellow like me can offer.”

Just then, Zhao Lei suddenly raised his hand and asked a question that caught Xu Chengjun off guard: “Comrade Xu, why do you use your real name as your pen name?”

Xu Chengjun’s heart gave a jolt—were they about to build an idol dossier on him?

Born in March, Pisces, enjoys singing, dancing, rap, and basketball…

Outwardly calm, he smiled and answered, “I’ve nothing to hide, and couldn’t be bothered to think up a pen name, so I just used my real one.”

But inwardly, a thought turned over: When I write something different in the future, maybe I’ll reclaim my old pseudonym, ‘Chu Feng.’ Let the two versions of myself from different eras meet at last.

For a time, the six of them gathered around the wooden table, conversation lively and warm.

They spoke of Old Zhou in ‘Balance Star,’ of the new wheat in Xiaogang Village, of the editorial standards for newspaper supplements, and the theories of literature discussed in class.

When asked how he evaluated his own writing, Xu Chengjun answered lightly, “My writing is simple—I just record what my eyes see and my ears hear, plain and unadorned.”

“I’ve simply been lucky enough to catch the favorable winds of policy.”

“When the wheat in the fields catches a good year, it always bears a few more full, plump grains.”