1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Chi Zijian looked around the room and asked, "Didn't you guys come to check in before?"

Yu Hua nodded and said, "Yes, I just came today and just checked in downstairs."

"Are you not leaving tonight?"

"It depends on the situation." Yu Hua smiled, "Did you see Han Shaogong or Su Tong when you came back?"

"I didn't see Han Shaogong, but I did see Su Tong. We took the same bus back. He should be in his room now."

"Su Tong is back."

Yu Hua was very excited to hear that Su Tong was back, and asked Chi Zijian again, "Do you know which room he lives in?"

"I know it's on the fourth floor, but I don't know the specific room number. What do you want to see him about?"

"Something big." Yu Hua said seriously.

"I know where Su Tong lives. He's in room 412." Liu Zhenyun said.

After getting the room number, Yu Hua immediately stood up and walked outside, saying, "I'll be back soon."

"Where is he going?" Liu Zhenyun looked at Yu Hua's back as he disappeared at the door, with a strange look on his face.

Shi Tiesheng rolled his eyes, "Maybe he went to ask Su Tong for poker cards."

Mo Yan nodded, "Something he would do."

Less than three minutes later, Yu Hua brought Su Tong with him, and he really had two decks of poker cards in his hand.

When they met in the hall, Yu Hua had already asked Su Tong that Su Tong had poker cards.

That's why he asked Chi Zijian just now if Su Tong had come back.

If Su Tong didn't come back, Yu Hua was going to go to the front desk to get a deck of poker cards. His main purpose of coming to the hotel was to play cards.

"We can just make two tables."

Including Su Tong, there are seven people in the room now. If they play two-on-one, there will be one more person for two tables.

"I won't play anymore."

"You guys play."

"You six are just enough for two tables."

After Yu Hua finished speaking, Zhou Yan, Chi Zijian and Shi Tiesheng spoke up almost at the same time, saying that they didn't want to play.

Hearing what they said, Yu Hua curled his lips and said, "If you three don't play, we are not the right people."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "Aren't you four just playing tractors?"

"That's fine." Yu Hua accepted the advice.

Su Tong smiled and said, "No, I recently learned a new way to play, which is also played by four people. I think it's more fun than tractors."

"What is the way to play? Is it difficult?"

Yu Hua was quite interested when he heard that there was a new way to play, but he also paid attention to the difficulty.

They didn't have much time, and if the rules were too difficult, it would be a waste of time.

"It's not difficult. You will understand after two rounds."

Su Tong did it right away. While shuffling the cards, she explained the rules to them. "This game is played by four people. Two people form a team. Those who sit opposite each other are in the same team. You need to start from 2..."

Zhou Yan only heard the first two sentences of the rules and knew that Su Tong was talking about throwing eggs.

He didn't expect that throwing eggs already existed now.

In his impression, throwing eggs became popular only later. At least he hadn't seen anyone else playing in Jinling now, and he didn't know where Su Tong knew this way of playing.

After Su Tong finished explaining the rules, Mo Yan and the others were all confused. They felt that the rules were very complicated, much more complicated than two-on-one.

The key is that this game is a protracted war, and every card must be upgraded. It made them very confused.

However, in the spirit of exploration, they decided to try playing two games first. If they couldn't adapt, it wouldn't be too late for everyone to change to other ways of playing.

After playing two games, the others found that this way of playing was not as difficult as they thought, and the rules were easy to remember.

Moreover, this game is not only easy to play, but also very interesting. It takes some effort to play it thoroughly.

Although Su Tong introduced this game to them, he himself was not very good at it, so the four of them were basically noobs fighting each other.

The biggest problem with playing cards is that the level gap is large, which is a very bad experience.

Either everyone is a master and shows their skills, or like this, everyone is noob and can play together.

After playing a few games, everyone was quite confident and felt that they had mastered this technique. Yu Hua took the lead in proposing, "We have tried it, so now we should start to get serious, right?"

Liu Zhenyun asked with a smile, "Teacher Yu, what do you think?"

"Add some prizes."

Yu Hua is addicted to gambling, and he must add some prizes when playing cards, otherwise he will not have fun.

However, although he must add prizes, he has no requirements for the size of the prizes, and it doesn't matter whether the money is large or small.

Even no money is needed. They have played with stickers before.

Others have no objection to adding prizes, but now they have encountered a problem, that is, how to calculate the prizes.

"How do you calculate the money for winning or losing?" Yu Hua looked at Su Tong, after all, it was Su Tong who proposed this way of playing.

Su Tong shook his head and said, "I don't know either. I just watched others play. I don't know how to calculate the money."

He had never seen anyone else play this game with a gamble.

"It's not easy to calculate. After all, you have to upgrade every time. You can't always count the money after you hit A. How long will it take to win a game?"

"Also, the teammates are the same every time. Isn't this unfair?"

"It took us two games to upgrade to level 3. If we upgrade to A, it will take at least an hour."

Just when several people were frowning, Zhou Yan smiled and said, "This is not difficult. Just don't go up. Just play 2 every time. After playing, you can pay according to the price of the first level. As for teammates, you can also change every round and turn over the cards."

Liu Zhenyun thought about it and nodded, "Very reasonable."

Mo Yan smiled, "You are so knowledgeable about this. Are you sure you don't want to play a few rounds?"

Zhou Yan waved his hand, "I don't usually play cards."

Liu Zhenyun smiled, "Teacher Zhou, are you the type who pretends to be a pig and eats a tiger? Although you are a master, you keep saying that you can't play. After we pull you to the table, you will kill all the people?"

"I can prove this. He will never do that." Yu Hua laughed, "Besides, Zhou Yan is a rich man. Let alone killing all the people, he doesn't even look down on killing all the people."

"That's true." Mo Yan nodded.

"Okay, okay, quickly decide how much is the first level. We are going to eat soon."

"One dollar per level?" Mo Yan suggested.

"Okay."

The others all agreed. They were not the type to play big cards. One dollar per level was fine.

To be honest, the four people at the card table were not short of money.

In recent years, not many domestic writers have been able to make money. Prices are getting higher and higher, but the writers' royalties have not increased.

Earlier, even if writers could publish single books, they could only earn a fixed amount of royalties, and the amount was not large.

But later, because of Wang Shuo, the country also began to implement a royalty system, and well-known writers gradually made a profit from the sales of single books.

But even so, writers did not make much money.

On the one hand, it is not easy to publish a single book, and even if a single book is published, it may not be sold.

First, the market is indeed not very good, and second, there are many pirated books in China, which has a great impact on the sales of genuine books.

Many books are selling very well, but they are all on street stalls, and writers can't get a dime.

But the few people sitting here should be the most profitable among domestic writers.

Yu Hua's collection of works with Zhou Yan and others can make him worry-free, and now that "To Live" is selling well, his royalties are also increasing.

Mo Yan and Liu Zhenyun didn't actually earn much in royalties, but they went into the sea to write scripts for Wang Shuo and others two years ago and made a lot of money.

It may not be as much as the hundreds of thousands that Yu Hua said before, but there are definitely tens of thousands of yuan. In this day and age, if you have tens of thousands of yuan in hand, even if you are not rich, you can definitely live a comfortable life.

The poorest may be Su Tong, but he earns a lot of royalties, and "Wives and Concubines" also brought him some income, which is higher than the income of most writers.

Zhou Yan watched for a while at the card table, and then lost interest, mainly because the four of them were too bad.

On the contrary, although Shi Tiesheng never got on the stage, Yu Hua got a particularly bad card later, and he lost confidence in playing it. After Shi Tiesheng got on the stage, he helped him reverse and won.

After Shi Tiesheng finished that game, he didn't want to fight anymore and quit directly, just like the hidden master in martial arts novels who only showed one move when he appeared.

...

They played until almost eight o'clock, and then the four of them reluctantly got up and went to the restaurant to eat.

They thought that there shouldn't be many people in the restaurant at this time, but what they didn't expect was that when they arrived at the restaurant, there was still a large group of people.

Most of these people didn't catch the bus in front, and didn't want to take the bus by themselves, so they waited for the bus in the hall until now.

Han Shaogong was also among them. As soon as he saw Zhou Yan and others, he came over with a plate.

"Why are you so late? Didn't you come back a long time ago?"

Yu Hua didn't answer his question at all, but just stared at the dishes on his plate, and said with some disdain, "Is this all the restaurant has?"

Han Shaogong's plate was indeed a bit shabby, with just a little rice, some green vegetables, some shredded potatoes, and a few pieces of meat that I didn't know whether it was chicken or duck.

"At this time, it's good to have so many dishes. And there's no limit, you can play as much as you want."

"No limit is fine."

"You're picky." Han Shaogong curled his lips and asked, "You guys don't leave tonight, right? Let's play cards together?"

Yu Hua laughed, "Old Han, you're late, we're all here. But you can find a few more people, I'll teach you a new way to play."

"What's the game?"

"Two on two."

"Two on two? What's this called? Is it a new trend in Yanjing? Is it fun?"

"Yes."

Hearing that it was fun, Han Shaogong asked eagerly, "What are the rules?"

"I'll go get the food first, I'll tell you later . "

"The rules are very simple..."

Seeing Yu Hua teaching Han Shaogong the rules very enthusiastically, Zhou Yan smiled and said to Shi Tiesheng, "It seems that we can't leave tonight. Do you want to call my sister-in-law to report it?"

Shi Tiesheng shook his head, "No, I knew I couldn't go back, so I told Ximi in the morning. What about you, do you want to report it to someone?"

"I'll report it later."

Hearing Zhou Yan say this, Shi Tiesheng smiled and whispered, "When can I drink your wedding wine?"

Zhou Yan smiled and pushed Shi Tiesheng to the place where he got food: "Let's eat."

He found that Shi Tiesheng was getting more and more gossipy now.

It is true that those who are close to Zhu will be red, and those who are close to ink will be black. Whoever stays with Yu Hua for a long time will not be good.

The food in the restaurant is actually OK, that is, the variety is not particularly rich, but the quantity is sufficient and the taste is not bad.

It is not easy for the Writers Association to hold a Writers Congress. The money spent is quite huge. Just the food and accommodation of so many writers is a considerable expense.

Zhou Yan pushed Shi Tiesheng back after the meal and found that Yu Hua and others were already gathered around a round table. They didn't know where they got the white wine from. It was a small bottle, only 250 grams per bottle.

Seeing Zhou Yan coming, Yu Hua handed him a bottle, "There is still white wine to take, it would be a waste if you don't drink it."

Zhou Yan smiled and said, "If you don't take advantage of this, you probably won't be able to sleep at night."

"Haha, it's another bargain for everyone to take it together."

At the table, except Shi Tiesheng, everyone held a bottle of white wine in their hands.

Although the amount of this wine is small, the alcohol content is very high, at 65 degrees.

After drinking it in one gulp, it is hot from the root of the tongue to the stomach.

However, although it is very strong, the taste is okay. It is undoubtedly grain wine.

Originally, there were only eight people at their table, including Han Shaogong. After a while, Han Shaogong pulled Ge Fei and Shi Zhongshan over to listen to Yu Hua's introduction to the rules of throwing eggs.

Han Shaogong's purpose was obvious, which was to develop Shi Zhongshan and Ge Fei into nighttime card friends.

…

Yu Hua and his friends finished playing cards at twelve o'clock. It was not that they did not want to continue, but they had to pay attention to the impact during the Workers' Congress. Otherwise, they could not play until tomorrow morning.

Zhou Yan took the key from Yu Hua and went to room 202.

His roommate did not come back all night. The next morning, he heard someone coming back in a daze. When he opened his eyes, he found that his roommate was already sleeping next to him.

The roommate covered his face and could not see his face clearly. Zhou Yan looked at the coat on the back of the chair, which had a name tag with the words "Feng Yitong" written on it.

"It turned out to be Mr. Feng." Zhou Yan muttered in a low voice.

Feng Yitong was the first secretary-general of the Jinling Writers Association and is now the vice chairman of the Overseas Chinese Literature Research Association of Jiangsu Province.

He is also a director of the Jiangsu Writers Association and is considered Zhou Yan's leader.

It seems that the hotel rooms are arranged according to the region to which they belong.

Although Zhou Yan did not take the quota of Jiangsu Province this time, he was still included in the Jiangsu Writers Association.

He wanted to say hello to Feng Yitong, but seeing that he was sleeping soundly, Zhou Yan did not speak.

He just sighed that Mr. Feng was in good health and was not young anymore, but he still stayed up late.

At this pace, it is estimated that Mr. Feng also played cards with others all night last night.

At the Writers' Congress, not many people gathered together to discuss literature. Instead, the main topic was poker. These writers were actually no different from ordinary people.

They came to participate in the Writers' Congress to join in the fun, which was similar to visiting relatives during the Chinese New Year. (End of this chapter)