Before long, Chen Wu set down his brush, blew on the paper, and handed what he had written to You Dongyun and Li Zhixin.
The two took it and read it, nodding despite themselves.
"No wonder you were the top scorer in this year's unified examination!" Li Zhixin said with a smile. "Your wording and style are already an eighty-percent match for that rebel Lu Xun."
"More than that. I'd say ninety percent," You Dongyun agreed, stroking his chin.
Chen Wu laughed inwardly. He had taken first place in a Lu Xun imitation contest!
The plan Chen Wu proposed was simple: since the People's Daily could no longer serve as bait, they would switch to something else.
He suggested imitating the tone of the People's Daily, writing a brand-new rebel essay, and planting it in Wude Palace.
They would observe the students' reactions as a test.
Naturally, the task of writing this imitation fell to Chen Wu. And so Chen Wu imitated himself, openly playing the rebel.
Chen Wu openly turned his earlier thoughts on perpetual tenancy into an essay. In Lu Xun's style, he cursed the locust while pointing at the mulberry, accusing the Great Shun court of turning back the clock, betraying Emperor Taizong's intentions, and proving utterly unworthy of its forebear.
You Dongyun and Li Zhixin had no idea that this supposed imitation was a completely authentic rebel piece-and even part of the draft for the next issue of the People's Daily.
Perpetual tenancy would be the main subject of discussion in a forthcoming issue of the People's Daily. Chen Wu had merely extracted a portion and written it out.
The greatest difficulty in this imitation was actually reducing Lu Xun's characteristic turns of phrase so that the resemblance would not be too strong.
Later, he would