Why had the provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles convened this symposium? Naturally, because the Wen Mosheng scandal and its growing repercussions had inflicted a profoundly negative impact on the entire literary and artistic community of Jiangnan Province.
Federation chairman Yao Caizhi, Dong Qing, and the others fully recognized the need to remind and warn their fellow literary and arts professionals to take Wen Mosheng as a cautionary example, lest they stray in their thinking and morals and make irreparable mistakes.
They also planned to use exchanges with representatives of the literary and artistic community to prepare for the upcoming revision of the "Jiangnan Province Code of Ethics for Literary and Arts Professionals."
Of course, demonstrating their stance to the Provincial Party Committee and the Inspection Team was also part of their duty. Otherwise, they would not have specially invited Zhou Yi and Xu Ruogu to attend.
To ensure the symposium proceeded smoothly and achieved its intended purpose, Chairman Yao had racked his brains and taken painstaking care. Not only did he need representative figures of different types and standing to attend, but more importantly, he had to guard against certain people refusing to follow instructions, shooting their mouths off, and behaving outrageously!
So he had issued a "notice" in advance to organizations including the Writers Association, the Artists Association, and the Musicians Association, then carefully screened the actual attendee list to weed out several potential troublemakers.
Finally, he had settled on a "guided" format for the symposium, assigning a handful of comrades in advance to prepare thoroughly and deliver focused remarks on the theme. This would further reduce the likelihood of anything unexpected happening.
But as the saying went, "Man proposes, heaven disposes." There was also another saying: "What you fear comes to pass."
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