Wen Leyu Gets Angry

Li Ye knew that the little spy sitting beside him was secretly watching him write, but he had no intention of stopping her.

After all, he would be writing this novel for a long time. With Wen Leyu sitting so close by, there was no way to hide it from her.

Besides, why hide it from a little girl whose approval rating was a full twelve out of ten?

Not only would that make things too distant between them, it would waste energy as well.

Rather than spend that energy on that, he might as well scrub away the era-specific discrepancies in Latent more thoroughly and carefully, lest they cause unnecessary trouble.

This was 1981, before the internet existed. Much historical knowledge that would be commonplace in later generations should not appear in a nineteen-year-old youth from a small northern city.

For example, the identity of the novel's important character, Yu Zecheng.

Yu Zecheng had graduated from the Qingpu Special Training Class in the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China. Later, he joined the Counter-espionage Section of the Chongqing Military Action Department, before being transferred to become Chief of the Confidential Section at the Jincheng Security Bureau.

The names of those three organizations alone were not something ordinary people in the eighties should know.

If Li Ye copied every detail from the TV drama Latent wholesale, it would certainly stir tremendous interest among readers. But by the same token, it would also draw suspicion from many people.

How did you know all this so clearly?

You say you had a grandfather who fought in the war? Your grandfather was an illiterate brute—he knew about this stuff too?

What? Yu Zecheng even went over there in the end?

Therefore, Li Ye definitely had to blur certain knowledge points and specific plot details without affecting the readers' experience. That was quite a challenge.

Bang—

The gunshot put Yu Zecheng on alert. At that moment, Zhang Mingyi, the communications interceptor assigned to replace him, appeared—only to reveal a gunshot wound in his back.

Li Ye had already written the climactic scene of the first chapter and was writing furiously when Wen Leyu lightly nudged his elbow.

A writer hated being interrupted when his train of thought was flowing smoothly through a scene, but who could get angry at Little Mute? He couldn't get angry.

Li Ye turned to look at Wen Leyu and found that her expressive eyes were filled with solemnity.

She pushed over a note. It read: "Is this Yu Zecheng the protagonist of your novel? If he is, do you know this could bring you a lot of trouble?"

The little girl had quite a high level of awareness.

Li Ye was rather pleased. A girl sincerely worrying about him was precious for that thought alone.

Of course, Li Ye's awareness in this regard was even higher than Wen Leyu's.

He had witnessed the Harmony God of later generations. Forget issues of political stance—even certain descriptions in a novel had to be carefully distinguished.

For example, Director Dai, who appeared in the first episode of the TV drama, had an overwhelmingly powerful presence. He was a big shot, after all—naturally, he had to radiate the aura of a king.

But if Li Ye lavishly described Director Dai's personal aura in his novel now, forget whether it could pass review—the trouble it caused might not be small.

And when it came time for Zuo Lan to appear, he would have to use rich, heavy strokes to fully and thoroughly highlight the vigor and positive spirit of youth in the new era.

That conformed to the values of the era. Besides, commercial writing meant balancing money and art. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't shameful either.

Seeing worry appear in Wen Leyu's eyes, Li Ye wrote on the paper: "No. Justice will inevitably triumph over evil."

Wen Leyu looked at Li Ye's handwriting, then looked at him with a slight frown. Several seconds later, she suddenly wrote on the paper: "This Yu Zecheng is an underground Party member, isn't he?"

Little sister, are you trying to make me spoil the story?

Li Ye wrote on the paper: "The quality of a novel's reading experience lies in whether the plot is uncertain enough, so I can't tell you the answer."

Wen Leyu blinked, pouted her little mouth, then turned away and stopped looking at Li Ye. Her little butt even scooted to the other end of the bench, putting distance between them.

She was angry. Obviously angry.

An angry little beauty was quite interesting. Li Ye sighed inwardly, It is not that this old man's willpower is lacking; it is simply that beauty is too seductive.

Li Ye did not deliberately coax Wen Leyu. He believed that a good girl could adjust her own bad emotions.

Sure enough, Li Ye had barely turned back and written for a while when the angry Wen Leyu secretly "scooted" back from the other end of the bench.

However, she did not crane her neck to keep peeking at Li Ye's novel. She twisted about awkwardly, preserving a bit of her little temper and little dignity.

Li Ye picked up the several pages of letter paper he had written and pushed them before her. "Help me out. Proofread this for me, then copy out a version. I'll need it for submission."

Wen Leyu was caught off guard, but she quickly accepted them. The smile curling at the corners of her lips revealed the joy in her heart.

Li Ye had not told her the "answer," and she had thought he did not trust her as a friend. But now he was letting her proofread for him—had she just been overthinking things?

Proofreading meant finding typos and inappropriate wording in an article. It tested one's command of language quite a bit.

Wen Leyu was actually better at Chinese than Li Ye. Li Ye was stronger at exams, while Wen Leyu's breadth of reading and accumulation of literary knowledge truly surprised him.

It seemed that not only had Teacher Ke put great care into Wen Leyu's education over the years, but the little girl herself was also a studious and good child.

But what Li Ye did not know was that this little academic ace, Wen Leyu, would soon admire him to the point of complete prostration.

After taking Li Ye's draft and the letter paper, she began proofreading and copying carefully. Yet before she had even copied a full page, she forgot her proper task and became deeply immersed in the novel's plot.

Zhang Mingyi collapsed to the ground. The gunshot wound and bloodstains on his back were a shocking sight, but Yu Zecheng did not spare him another glance. Instead, he quickly retreated to the blind corner on the right side of the door, drew his gun in one motion, bent his arm, held it level, and aimed forward.

This pistol stance allowed flexible changes in firing angles and made it difficult for someone to ambush him and knock the gun away.

Wen Leyu had never seen such a fresh style of novelistic description. Simply reading the words on the page, she could picture in her mind an alert lackey spy making sharp tactical firearm movements when suddenly faced with danger.

By 1981, pirated Wuxia novels from Hong Kong had already appeared on the market.

But whether they were masters like Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng, or the many more ordinary novelists, their writing methods differed greatly from the refined web fiction of forty years later.

The literary foundations of Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng were beyond question. Their classic masterpieces could leave readers savoring them endlessly.

Refined web fiction might not possess such deep foundations, but it won out through fresh plots and imagination that soared beyond the heavens.

Refined web fiction might be looked down upon by orthodox Wuxia, but if orthodox Wuxia were placed on a web novel site, it too would find itself like an orange tree planted north of the Huai—out of its element. (The Wuxia channel on Qidian was truly cold.)

Wen Leyu read rapidly and soon finished the three pages of letter paper. Then she went back and reread them from the beginning.

After finishing a second time, she habitually nudged Li Ye with her elbow and asked excitedly, "Li Ye, have you ever fired a gun? How can you write it so skillfully?"

Mm, I was very skilled. Whenever a teacher I liked released a new episode, I would definitely practice once until I was skilled.

"Cough, cough. My grandfather killed dozens of enemies, so I heard him talk about some things when I was little."

Li Ye hurriedly covered for himself. At the same time, he took a deep breath and silently recited, Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, before finally regaining his calm.

This body was too kind and honest—a pure little virgin. He could not even think about it.

Wen Leyu was also an innocent girl. She did not notice Li Ye's strange reaction in the slightest. Instead, she moved a little closer again and asked, "Will there be scenes like this later?"

Li Ye said, "Not necessarily, but there will definitely be similar scenes."

Since Li Ye had weakened some of the sensitive historical background while writing this novel, he needed to compensate in other areas.

So he decided to emphasize tactics and deduction in the field of special operations. Spy novels of later generations emerged one after another, and much of their common-sense deductive knowledge would absolutely leave people of this era astonished.

For example, in the work of Chang Qing Teng, the elder brother of spy fiction, there had once been a plot about catching a japanese spy.

King Ning had already determined that the other party was a woman and discovered that she had made a public phone call from a general store.

But the general store owner could not describe the woman's appearance.

King Ning, however, made use of women's competitive mentality and questioned the general store owner's wife.

Women looked at women from a different angle than men. Men looked at XXX; women looked at outward details such as clothes, hairstyles, perfume, shoes, and so on.

Sure enough, the boss's wife gave accurate descriptions of the woman's clothing, cosmetics, and hairstyle. She even pointed out traits such as the exceptionally expensive fabric of the cheongsam the woman wore.

King Ning thus deduced the target's precise characteristics and found the hidden spy among the VIP customers of upscale clothing stores.

Such a deductive plot could draw a chorus of cheers even from readers forty years later, let alone in 1981.

Look at the spy movies of this era: hiding a radio transmitter inside an ice-pop box was enough to provoke gasps all around. With the detailed deductions, buried clues and payoffs, cliffhanger hooks, and chapter breaks of later generations, how could readers possibly not be captivated?

Wen Leyu had been captivated by Li Ye. Without realizing it, she had pressed close to his side.

Watching Li Ye write the novel slowly, word by word, the anxious little girl wished she could pry open his mind and read every later development in one go before she would be satisfied.

But when Li Ye looked over and questioned her, Wen Leyu suddenly realized that she had not finished her own work.

"Have you finished copying it? Let me see!"

"What? I-I'll copy it right away."

Thanks to reader 20170806222249766 for the reward, thanks to reader "Colorblind Running a Red Light" for the reward, and thanks to reader "Pin Dukou" for the reward. Thank you, brothers!