Zhang Xinping smiled. "Don't be nervous. Just treat it like an ordinary chat."
"Okay," Chen Guiliang said.
Zhang Xinping asked, "What prompted you to enter the New Concept Writing Competition?"
Chen Guiliang said, "Reduced-score admission for the College Entrance Exam."
"Not a love for literature? Or perhaps the influence of alumni?"
"I'm in my final year of high school."
"What books do you usually read? Be more specific—don't keep answering with just two or three words."
"I read everything. In elementary school, I picked up books from garbage dumps. In middle school, I borrowed wuxia novels from classmates. In high school, I looked for books at used-book stalls or pirated bookstores."
"You found books in garbage dumps?"
"Yes. There was a huge dump in the village next to ours, specifically for factory ash and city trash. The pencils I used in elementary school were all picked up from there. I also found books like 100,000 Whys. They were damaged and missing pages, but they were enough to pass the time."
"You're from the countryside? Is your family very poor?"
"I was a left-behind child. My family's circumstances are decent enough—we never lacked food or clothing."
The interview continued.
Zhang Xinping's questions were fairly kind, and she did not make things difficult for a high school student.
Especially after hearing that Chen Guiliang had been a left-behind child, she deliberately kept her questions simple, hoping to shape him into the image of a plain rural boy who studied hard and loved literature.
The literary seminar followed a basic procedure.
Li Qigang, the general secretary of New Concept, first gave a welcome speech, introduced the topic of the seminar, and then introduced the participants present.
Then Chen Guiliang, as the author, briefly explained his piece.
"I won't discuss the preface. All