The Road of Life, Part 2

Early the next morning, Chen Qi skipped work again.

Setting out from Menkuang Hutong, he followed the central axis north, past the Forbidden City, Beihai, and Shichahai, all the way to HD District. Once again, it was all lightning and thunder. Passersby winced at the sight of him pedaling his heavy old 28-inch bicycle. Who would have the heart to ride a bike like that?

Chen Qi snorted. Other people might not have the heart to ride their bikes like this, but I'll stand up on the pedals!

And I won't just stand up. I can ride with my leg through the frame, too!

What did riding with your leg through the frame mean? When a child was too small and short-legged to ride a bicycle normally, they would stick a leg through the frame and ride like thaaat.

It was no short trip, about twelve kilometers in all. At Jimen Bridge on the North Third Ring Road, both Beijing Film Academy and Beijing Film Studio were in the area. Universities were clustered here too: Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing Normal University, and Beihang University were all nearby. Beyond them was Zhichun Road. Hey, that was where Commander Yao had fought his battles!

This was Beijing Film Studio's third location, and also its most familiar. The buildings were all Soviet-style, and a statue bearing the studio's emblem stood at the gate-three figures representing a worker, a peasant, and a soldier.

In another twenty years, a guy named Wang Baoqiang would be staking out this place...

He parked his bicycle, walked over to the gatehouse, knocked on the window, and called, "Hello, sir!"

"Who are you looking for?" the old man asked.

"I'm here to submit a manuscript. I live in the south of the city, and I figured it would be quicker to bring it over myself, so I wouldn't have to trouble the postal worker."

"..."

The old man took the brown paper envelope and gave it a look. His expression didn't change; this sort of thing was common. He was just about to set it down when the young fellow handed him half a pack of cigarettes with a cheeky grin. "Have a smoke, sir. Sorry for the trouble!"

"Mm, leave it there!"

The cigarettes were called Daqianmen and cost thirty-two fen a pack. They came from his father Chen Jianjun's private stash, which he had stolen.

Daqianmen was considered a midrange cigarette. At the time, Zhonghua cigarettes came in large and small varieties: Large Zhonghua cost seventy-two fen a pack, and Small Zhonghua sixty-two, and they were generally reserved for special supply. Tianjin also had a brand called Hengda. That's right, Hengda. It also cost thirty-two fen a pack.

The old man was practical enough: he took the cigarettes and got to work.

He reached out and pulled over a small blackboard, then swiftly wrote a line across the top: Manuscript submission for the literary department's "Film Creation"!

"Thank you kindly!"

Chen Qi hopped on his bicycle and took off, then raced over to the China Youth Daily office and submitted "The Road of Life." He hadn't given it to the People's x Daily. The People's x Daily might not publish an article like this, but the youth paper definitely would, because it was right up its alley.

China Youth Daily now had a circulation of two million, the largest of any newspaper in the country.

In any case, he spent the whole morning delivering manuscripts and didn't finish until nearly noon. He rode slowly back along the central axis and stopped in front of the Chairman's Memorial Hall.

The memorial hall was completed and opened to the public on September 9, 1977.

In his previous life, he had first come to the capital in 1998. He remembered it so clearly because it had been during the World Cup. He had come sightseeing with his family and visited the memorial hall, so he knew its layout:

A seated statue of the Chairman stood in the front hall, and a crystal coffin lay in the back hall.

There seemed to be a long queue here at every hour of the day. Many people were visiting the memorial hall for the first time while on business trips from out of town. They looked grief-stricken and wore black-after all, he had only been gone for three years.

"..."

Chen Qi watched from outside for a while but didn't go in.

Only then did he return to the tea stall. Grinning sheepishly, he apologized to everyone, saying his stomach had hurt and so on. Nobody made much of it; he had already made a name for himself in a single battle yesterday.

There was still no news from Auntie Wang. He didn't know whether she had actually talked to anyone, only pretended to, or whether the matter was still under consideration. In any case, he had sent his manuscripts out.

China Youth Daily.

The paper had been founded in 1951, suspended publication for a time, and resumed in 1978. It was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, with young people as its primary readership. The Chairman had written its masthead, and it was highly influential.

Lately, everyone at the paper had been in high spirits.

With vision and boldness, they had found a "banned book" from the time of the humanitarian torrent called The Second Handshake. They had abridged it to sixty thousand characters and were serializing it in daily installments that took up a quarter of a page.

For a time, paper in Luoyang became precious. People at workplaces everywhere eagerly awaited each installment, long queues formed at newsstands, and frenzied readers even smashed the glass at a Shanghai post office in the crush.

The novel dealt with leaders, intellectuals, love, and overseas connections-all major taboos in that era. Its author had once been sentenced to death, but fortunately he had a charmed life: before the sentence was carried out, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee convened.

The novel was later published as a book and sold more than four million copies, a record that stood for many years.

"Xiao Li, what have you got there?"

"Letters from readers!"

"Another whole sack?"

"More than that!"

In the editorial office, a young editor set a bulging sack of letters on the floor, turned around and went back out, then carried in two more. Panting, he said, "I'm not doing this anymore. I'm an editor, not a coolie!"

"It shows how enthusiastic our readers are!"

"Exactly. Even the paper's circulation has gone up quite a bit."

At the mention of it, everyone felt a deep sense of pride. Their circulation was number one in the country-who could dispute that?

"But The Second Handshake is almost finished. Is there anything new we can focus on?"

"How about the educated youth cooperative? It's the hottest topic right now."

"We could do that, but I've read a lot of articles about it, and they're too dry. Don't make it look like a government document. People like things that are vivid and sincere."

"I do have something here..."

An older editor suddenly stood up with a letter in his hand. "It came in today. Pass it around and have a look."

"Let me see!"

The young editor took it first and glanced at the title: "The Road of Life-Why Does It Grow Narrower the Farther I Walk?"

"Oh, a lyrical piece!"

His interest was piqued. In those years when the wind and the cry of a crane could set everyone on edge, who would have dared openly pour out their feelings? Everyone had kept them bottled up for so long that, once a tiny opening finally appeared, they naturally came surging out. People poured out their own feelings and loved seeing others do the same.

"I am nineteen this year. You could say I have only just begun to make my way in life, yet I already feel utterly exhausted, as though I have reached the end of the road.

"When I was little, I heard people talk about How the Steel Was Tempered and Lei Feng's Diary. Though I couldn't fully understand them yet, the heroes' deeds moved me so much that I lay awake night after night.

"I even copied out Pavel's famous words about the meaning of life neatly on the first page of my diary: 'When he looks back on his past, he will not be tormented by regret for years wasted, nor burn with shame for a life of petty and purposeless activity...'

"When I filled that diary, I copied them into my second one.

"How much encouragement those words once gave me!

"Then came the humanitarian torrent, omitted...

"After returning to the city, I was assigned to a neighborhood collective cooperative. Together with twelve companions, I set up a tea stall in Qianmen and began selling tea, starting a life of supporting myself.

"I longed for truth, goodness, and beauty, but I was disappointed.

"Society's prejudice has made every step difficult for our little tea stall. On our first day of business, we worked hard despite our shyness and unfamiliarity with the job, only to be mocked and ridiculed for no reason by some workers from a plastics factory. They said we were drifters and had come out of prison, and even sang 'Abalagu' at us...

"One girl was so upset she cried, but there was nothing she could do.

"We actually know that what they said is true, and we feel inferior ourselves. We can't compare with those state-owned work units, nor do we ask for particularly generous treatment. We are already quite content to earn our living through labor.

"But the pain and confusion inside us grow every day, until they are hard to bear.

"I often wonder: what do people live for?

"For a lofty ideal? To realize their own worth?

"Those things seem too far away from me.

"Some say the times are marching forward, yet I cannot touch their powerful arms.

"Oh, road of life, why does it seem to grow narrower the farther I walk?

"Yet I still have the strength to go on...

"Perhaps I cannot say what the meaning of life is right now, but in my own experience, I feel it is very important to build a spiritual home within ourselves. It can shine like the sun, illuminating our darkest places.

"It may be literature, painting, poetry, music, or even carpentry, tailoring, fishing, and so on. As long as it is a world that belongs to us alone, and we love it wholeheartedly, it will give us strength.

"I have loved literature since childhood, and it is the sunlight that shines upon me.

"Comrade editors, I did not write you this letter expecting to receive some magic remedy from you. Rather, I want young people across the country to see it. I believe our hearts are connected.

"I hope these words will encourage the countless young people who are lost and confused, and I hope we can all break free of our temporary adversity, face the sea, and see spring flowers bloom!"

"..."

The letter was passed around the editorial office, and everyone sighed softly after reading it. Its prose was simple and its feelings profound, expressing the author's homesickness-ah, ptooey! It expressed the author's confusion and strength to press on.

It was written with great sincerity. Yes, sincerity.

"Well?"

"Good. It'll definitely strike a chord."

"Didn't he say he runs a tea stall in Qianmen... Hey, hey, tell a reporter to hurry over and interview him! I want it in tomorrow's paper!!"

(Thanks to Hua Bixuan and Yuxian Qitian for becoming alliance leaders...)