Reborn in 1977

Chapter 559: Where are the Opponents?

May 4th, Youth Day.

Unfortunately, there's no holiday.

Chen Fan didn't have to go to his teacher's place for class today, so he went to find He Qingsheng.

He Qingsheng was working in his office. He glanced at Chen Fan when he came in and said, "Is the enrollment work for the correspondence center finished?"

Chen Fan pulled out a chair and sat opposite him, saying with a serious face, "I only want to start a war now!"

He Qingsheng's mouth twitched slightly. He closed the folder and put it aside, twisting the cap of his pen as he looked at Chen Fan. "Then you might be disappointed. There are indeed people looking for trouble, but none of them are worth us taking action against."

Chen Fan widened his eyes. "Who is it? Why didn't anyone tell me?"

He Qingsheng chuckled twice, put the pen back in the pen holder, picked up his teacup and took a sip, grinning. "I won't say who specifically. The news I received is that there are about a dozen of them, all unknown little writers who haven't even entered their respective provincial writers' association branches. At most, they're just regional members, and some aren't even members. They're just trying to lecture you with their seniority. There's no need to pay attention to these kinds of people."

Chen Fan frowned, asking in confusion, "How could this be?"

Shouldn't writing such "avant-garde" articles cause "public outrage"?

When did the literary world become so friendly?

He Qingsheng looked at him, picked up a cigarette and threw it over, laughing. "Why do I feel like you're a little disappointed?"

Chen Fan pinched the cigarette between two fingers and casually put it in his mouth. "I've been preparing for a literary battle since I started writing this book, okay? But now you're telling me this, how can I not be disappointed?!"

He Qingsheng shook his head, saying unhappily, "I think your skin is itching. You're not happy if no one scolds you."

He picked up a match, lit the cigarette, and exhaled a puff of smoke, saying, "At first, I didn't understand either. Otherwise, I wouldn't have greeted the comrades in our association beforehand, telling them not to be reserved when the time came and to prepare in advance. But, well, how should I put it? The people who are qualified to scold you and would warrant our response have all been eliminated by you."

Chen Fan looked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?"

He Qingsheng sighed and looked at him, saying, "Let me ask you, where are the people who are qualified to criticize you and would require us to respond?"

Chen Fan's eyes rolled slightly. "The provincial writers' associations, I guess."

The only people qualified to engage in a war of words with Chen Fan and require the assistance of the Jiangnan Writers' Association comrades would be the older generation of national members.

And the National Writers' Association is more like the head office of a group, setting up a board of directors and stationing a few permanent staff members to work there, that's about it.

Members themselves generally don't stay at the association headquarters. These people either have their own jobs and stay in their own units year-round, like Qu Bo, or, like Mr. Ba Jin, they stay at the local branch as local members to preside over the work.

As for the directors and staff of the headquarters, they generally don't personally get involved. If there really is a writer below who starts a war, they act as mediators and referees, making the final decision.

So Chen Fan said that the opponents were in the provincial branches.

He Qingsheng nodded, then raised his hand and pointed at him. "Still haven't figured it out?"

Chen Fan blinked at him, just about to ask what he should have figured out.

At this moment, a flash of inspiration suddenly struck him, and he said with some hesitation, "The provincial magazines?"

When He Qingsheng heard this, the corners of his mouth spread open to both sides, and he chuckled, "That's right!"

He said, slapping the table and leaning back in his chair, "You, submitting articles to more than a dozen provincial magazines at once, and having cooperated for more than half a year, you can be considered half of their 'own people'. Who would offend you for no reason? Aren't they afraid of losing a high-quality contributor in the future?

Yes, there are many stubborn people in the literary world who like to find people to scold for no reason, posing as critics.

But they are just stubborn, not stupid. They also know that scolding people requires choosing the right person. What good is it to scold someone who can steadily contribute to provincial magazines? Wouldn't that offend the leaders of the provincial writers' association for nothing?"

Provincial magazines are generally affiliated with the provincial writers' association, and sometimes even the leadership team is shared, almost inseparable. Offending the provincial magazine is directly equivalent to offending the writers' association. Who would be so stupid?

Chen Fan looked at He Qingsheng's flushed face and couldn't help but chuckle, "I just submit articles, and it has this kind of effect?"

He just wanted to earn more royalties at first, he didn't expect there to be this kind of additional achievement?

He Qingsheng exhaled a puff of smoke, waved his hand and said, "It's more than that. The people I found are all working in their provincial branches. I heard them say that they are now staring at the sales of 'Yunhu Love', just waiting for the final results to come out so they can talk to you about publishing it separately."

Chen Fan's eyes rolled slightly. "The articles that were previously published in their magazines?"

He Qingsheng nodded, explaining with a smile, "Generally speaking, for serialized novels that are published separately, the original publishing house that published it has priority for the copyright, but it also needs to get the author's consent.

A 'Yunhu Love' can bring Jiangnan Literature Publishing House hundreds of thousands of income. This is real money, how can they not be tempted?

When the time comes, they will take out all the articles you published and issue them separately. You, in turn, will earn a little more royalties, and they can also earn an extra income. Who wouldn't be happy?

At this time, who would be so short-sighted as to publicly criticize your articles? Aren't they afraid that you will flip the table? Or that it will affect the sales of the separate edition? Wouldn't that be cutting off everyone's financial path?!"

Chen Fan chuckled, thinking that this seemed to be the case.

He Qingsheng pointed at him and laughed, "They've also taken your bait and are already hooked. Unless they don't want to make money, no one will target you."

After a pause, he added, "Besides, there's nothing wrong with the stance of 'Love of Cloud Lake,' and it aligns with the guidance from above. What we were worried about before was just some of the bolder descriptions in your writing.

But, come to think of it…"

He suddenly stood up, walked to the door, opened it, and peeked out. Then, he closed the door and turned back to Chen Fan, whispering, "Come to think of it, what's this kind of description compared to 20 years ago?!"

After saying that, he turned and walked behind his desk, tapping his fingers on the surface, continuing in a low voice, "Compared to then, yours is just naive."

Chen Fan blinked. This was considered naive?

He Qingsheng continued, "And those hand-copied books were much wilder than what you've written."

Then, he quickly urged, "But don't you ever learn from those hand-copied books. You still need to have a bottom line and not go too far."

Chen Fan nodded repeatedly, "Even if I did write something like that, wouldn't the publishing house censor it? There wouldn't be any problems."

He Qingsheng raised his eyebrows, "It's best not to write it."

Chen Fan, "I won't, I won't."

How should he put it? He really looked down on those things.

As everyone knows what hand-copied books are, there's no need to explain further.

It's not to say that all the hand-copied books were bad, but the proportion of good books was indeed ridiculously low.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past few years alone, there were more than 300 popular hand-copied books, and there were at least 10 times that number that didn't become popular.

Even among the popular ones, very few were eventually unbanned and officially published.

Apart from a very small number of excellent works, the vast majority of hand-copied books were pushing boundaries, with descriptions that were either full of animalistic passion, had skewed perspectives, or went from one extreme to another.

They perfectly catered to the needs of those angry young people.

Accidents caused by the circulation of hand-copied books were indeed not uncommon in those years.

So, Chen Fan absolutely looked down on that kind of stuff.

He was a proper "regular army," so there was no need to learn from those sources.

Seeing Chen Fan readily accepting his advice, He Qingsheng nodded with satisfaction and then said, "Also, I've received news that most of the provincial writers' associations are preparing to take action and follow our lead in running correspondence courses in literary creation."

Chen Fan raised his eyebrows slightly, "So soon?"

The Jiangnan Literature Correspondence Course hasn't even officially started yet, and the followers are already preparing to take action?

He Qingsheng nodded and said, "Now the country wants to develop rapidly, and all aspects require money. Although there is some consideration for the literary and art circles, the funding is indeed far less than before."

Chen Fan nodded in agreement, "You used to distribute grade A cigarettes as welfare benefits, but now they've been reduced to grade B cigarettes. It's indeed much more difficult."

He Qingsheng couldn't help but roll his eyes, "Who did you learn this sarcasm from?"

Chen Fan coughed lightly, "Please continue."

He Qingsheng glared at him and continued, "We're doing alright because the Cultural Bureau has given us some benefits, but some provincial branches aren't doing so well. Setting up a correspondence training course isn't complicated. Their resources aren't necessarily much less than ours. We all have two shoulders carrying one head. If we can earn this 100,000 to 200,000 yuan in tuition fees this year, they can certainly earn it too, even if it's a little less."

Putting out his cigarette in the ashtray, he looked at Chen Fan and smiled, "Adding this reason, tell me, which influential writer would dare to stand up and criticize you?"

Having accepted Chen Fan's manuscript and used Chen Fan's ideas, earning money from both sides, who would dare to come out and criticize Chen Fan's writing?

Even the most shameless person wouldn't dare to do that.

No wonder only some minor authors dare to show off. They are desireless, ignorant, and fearless, so they dare to act like local bullies in their small territory.

However, those who dare to criticize have basically blocked their own path to advancement in the literary world. As long as Chen Fan is still standing in the literary world, which provincial branch leader would accept them as members?

Don't even think about it!

After chatting for a long time, Chen Fan suddenly felt a sense of emptiness, like drawing his sword and looking around, but finding no worthy opponent.

He Qingsheng threw another cigarette to him and said, "Let's leave it at that for now. We'll talk again if some hothead dares to stand up, but I don't think there will be any.

After that, you should follow up more on the correspondence center. This is the first session. We don't need to make it perfect, but we should try to do it well and lay a foundation for future enrollment."

Chen Fan nodded, "I know. The enrollment work has already ended, and all 20,000 places have been confirmed. The people in the office are preparing to mail the textbooks. After all, there are quite a few people, so it will probably take about a week to complete.

As for the first face-to-face teaching, I think we should set it for the first of next month. One session will be 3 days, 500 people, and two sessions will be held each month. Counting the branches in various regions, it will take about a year to complete the cycle."

Seeing that he had a plan, He Qingsheng waved his hand, "Okay, go do your work."

Chen Fan's mouth twitched slightly. He grabbed the Zhonghua cigarette worth 72 cents on the table, got up, and walked out.

He Qingsheng looked speechless and gently slapped himself, "I told you not to forget your lesson."