Chapter 24 [Second update]
Jiang Ning really forgot about this.
During those days, she was woken up by Jiang's mother before dawn every day to go to the brick factory to move bricks. She didn't go to move bricks but went to fish for lobsters. At dawn, she went back to the mountain cabin to roast the lobsters and sell them. After selling them, she came back to continue writing because she had to collect more than 700 yuan before school started. Before the royalties came, she felt uneasy in her heart, and she would not return to the Jiang family until it was completely dark at night.
Because she was worried every day that Jiang's mother would find out that she didn't go to the brick factory, and then a big fight would be inevitable, she was always on edge, and for a moment she forgot that she sent the letter under a pen name. When she talked to Grandpa Jiang, she also mentioned her letter and forgot to mention the pen name Ning Meng. In fact, Grandpa Jiang might not remember it even if she told him, so it was just a coincidence.
In the evening, Jiang Ning and Jiang Bai ate in the cafeteria. The dish was a large can of salted fish and snail meat sauce that Jiang Ning brought with him.
Jiang Bo originally thought that the snail meat sauce was just salty cowpeas, but he didn't expect that when he scooped out a spoonful, it was full of snail meat!
Jiang Bai simply couldn't stop eating!
Jiang Ning had spent all the money he had on tuition, books, miscellaneous fees, accommodation, and school uniforms.
In addition to the seven kilograms of meal tickets that can guarantee her food supply for the next week, she urgently needs a new source of income.
When she returned to the dormitory, she had no intention of socializing with others. She put down the mosquito net and started writing inside.
Her roommate Xu Xiuli's parents had already left, leaving only her and Xu Xiuli.
Xu Xiuli saw that her roommate was so engrossed in her study that after dinner, she did nothing but put down the mosquito net and started writing inside. She thought she was reviewing the contents of a new book, so she was so scared that she quickly picked up the new book and started reviewing.
Apart from the locals of Wucheng, those who are able to be admitted to No. 1 Middle School are basically the top students from the middle schools in various towns and villages under Wucheng, and they have both learning ability and self-discipline.
Jiang Ning wrote directly until the lights in the dormitory were turned off.
Xu Xiuli saw that her bedmate in the next bed finally put down her pen after turning off the lights and prepared to go to the bathroom to take a shower in the dark. She finally breathed a sigh of relief and followed her to wash up, carrying her water bottle.
The bathrooms are public, one on each side of the east and west. Each bathroom has about twenty shower heads and no hot water.
If you want to take a hot bath, you can only fetch water from the boiler downstairs, pour it into a basin of cold water, and pour it on yourself.
The place for brushing teeth and washing clothes is also a common area. It is the inverted U-shaped area between the bathroom and the toilet. The entire inverted U-shaped sink can be used to wash clothes.
There were fewer people at this time, but there were still four or five of them, chatting in the dormitories next door.
Maybe it was the first day here, everyone was not familiar with each other, but everyone was very excited, and from time to time, the sound of classmates visiting each other and shouting could be heard in the dormitory corridor.
The shouting was heard downstairs, and the dormitory manager came up and knocked on the iron door: "It's ten o'clock! Why aren't you going to bed yet?"
The girl above shouted: "Wash your clothes and go to bed immediately!"
Hearing the voices of the girls upstairs, some voices of the freshmen boys downstairs were heard, and the dormitory auntie below immediately shouted: "Hurry up, turn off the lights and go to bed!"
The noise upstairs and downstairs suddenly stopped.
It was pitch black with only a few faint lights in the corridor. Jiang Ning took advantage of the hot weather to wash the green checkered bed sheets and quilt covers issued by the school, as well as the camouflage uniforms for military training. When Xu Xiuli saw her washing new bed sheets and quilt covers, she quickly went to wash her own.
When they were washing dishes and hanging out clothes, they realized there were no hangers. They had to go downstairs to buy some tomorrow.
The clothes were simply hung on the clothesline outside the dormitory balcony. Jiang Ning even took a special look down to make sure there were no dry quilts underneath. There were only some trial clothes that were also washed tonight, so she hung up the sheets and other things.
There are five poles, Jiang Ning and Xu Xiuli each take up two, and there is one for hanging clothes. When everyone in the dormitory arrives tomorrow, these poles will be even more crowded.
These days Jiang Ning got used to being woken up by her mother before dawn to go to the brick factory. Although she did not go to the brick factory but went to catch crayfish, her biological clock stayed and she still woke up before dawn, washed her face and brushed her teeth, and ran two laps on the playground before the first ray of sunlight pierced through the dark blue clouds.
At this time, there were quite a few people running and reading on the playground. Everyone was running and reading on their own. Some were muttering to themselves while running. Everyone was quiet and did not disturb each other.
The canteen was open at this time, but the buns were still steaming in the steamer. The chefs were frying dough sticks, leek boxes, and glutinous rice cakes. The wonton and noodle chefs had also boiled the water for cooking the wontons and noodles.
The hungry boys basically went to buy fried dough sticks and glutinous rice cakes, each of them holding one, and walked to the classroom with books in their hands.
They are all high school students who are about to enter their third year of high school and have not had any vacation for the entire summer vacation.
The second-year high school students have been in school for a month, and only the first-year high school students are relatively free.
Jiang Ning had breakfast and brought a kettle of hot water. Xu Xiuli had just gotten up.
Jiang Ning put down the kettle and said hello to Xu Xiuli: "I don't know what you like to eat, so I didn't bring you breakfast. The water bottle is here, pour it yourself if you want to drink water."
Xu Xiuli pursed her lips and smiled: "You're so early, I'm going to buy hangers later, do you want to come with me?"
Jiang Ning hesitated for a moment, "Go ahead, I want to read for a while."
In fact, she was short of money and didn't even have enough money to buy a clothes hanger.
She planned to write the manuscript first, wait for the bank to open, and then go to the bank to check. If there was still no response after sending it to the two magazines "Story Club" and "Wuxia", she would resubmit the two manuscripts.
Fortunately, she had kept a draft beforehand.
Around eight o'clock, the school gate was even busier than yesterday. Those who did not come to register yesterday all came today. Whether it was the Academic Affairs Building, the Finance Office, or the registration desks of the freshmen's class teachers, there were long queues. Some students were queuing by themselves, and some were lined up with their parents. The second and third year students upstairs were still attending classes as usual.
Seeing that the time was almost up, Jiang Ning took her latest manuscript of 45,000 words and the manuscript she had previously sent to Story Club and went to the bank at the school gate.
At this time, there were a lot of people queuing at the bank window, because many people were withdrawing money from their passbooks to pay tuition.
Jiang Ning waited in line for a long time before it was her turn. She handed over the passbook and said, "Please help me check if there is any money in the passbook."
The staff member took the passbook and saw the balance in it was 2.00 yuan.
But she dutifully checked for her and found that there were actually two remittances coming in. She printed out the two remittances on the passbook, told her the balance and asked her, "There are two remittances. Do you want to withdraw the money?"
"Take out 100." Jiang Ning quickly asked her, "Where did the two remittances come from?"
The staff quickly processed the withdrawal procedure for her and said, "Same place."
Jiang Ning took the bank passbook and found that the two remittance amounts differed by twice.
She didn't know what was going on and had no phone to ask.
She counted the manuscripts she had sent, several short stories. The longest one was 8,000 words and was sent to "Story Club". The one with nearly 5,000 words was sent to "Zhiyin". She had already received the royalties for all of them. There were also two short stories, one for "Reader" and the other for "Youth Digest". She should have received royalties of 40 and 60 respectively in her passbook.
At present, the magazine "Zhiyin" has the highest payment for articles.
No matter how she calculated, the two royalties were wrong. She could only guess that they were royalties from "The Years I Was a Constable in the Song Dynasty", the only novel she had ever sent out. As for why there was such a big difference between the two royalties, she didn't know.
Since the manuscript was accepted, she also sent the 45,000 words she had written along with it. Thinking that the other party was asking for two payments and that she didn't have many manuscripts left, she sent it by express delivery.
The address she left for the letter this time was her school address. As it was inconvenient to leave the school's phone number, she went to an Internet cafe and applied for a Yahoo email account, which she put at the bottom of the letter. She also asked about two different types of royalties and also sent a short story she wrote for "Zhiyin".
There is no way, the royalties from "Zhiyin" are high.
But I didn't expect that it would be so difficult for Story Club to approve the manuscript. In this case, Jiang Ning decided to modify the story slightly, give it a name that suits the Zhiyin style, and send it to Zhiyin to try.
There is no rush for this matter. With the two royalties from "Wuxia", Jiang Ning's financial situation is suddenly not so tight.
The two payments of royalties, one for four hundred and one for eight hundred, add up to a total of twelve hundred.
Jiang Ning planned to go to the small commodity market to buy some daily necessities.
It costs one dollar to take a tricycle from the station, but only fifty cents to take a tricycle from the school gate to the small commodity market.
This time she did not skimp on the fifty cents and took a taxi directly there to buy two locks, a lockable canvas suitcase, and other personal items such as hangers, soap, slippers, towels, toilet paper, etc. She also bought a small desk lamp to make it easier for her to write in bed.
When I came back, I saw an Avon store on the side of the road, so I went in and bought sunscreen, face cream and facial cleanser.
Military training was about to start, so she went to get a haircut. Her hair had previously been cut like a bald man's, but now she had it all cut flat into a crew cut.
Walking on the campus, you would think he was a boy.
Their military training lasted for a week. When Jiang Ning returned to the dormitory, she found that the other girls in the dormitory had arrived. They were surprised to see her. Her parents and younger brother, who had sent them to the dormitory, stared at Jiang Ning's hair and face, trying to confirm whether she was a boy or a girl, until they saw her curled up in the mosquito net and continued to write without paying attention to what was happening outside.
Grandpa died suddenly after falling eight years later. She didn't know what his health was like now. She had to continue making money, make money quickly, and then bring Grandpa over for a physical examination.
In Guang City, as the issue of "Wuxia" was about to be released, they still couldn't contact Jiang Ning, and they were so anxious that they wanted to go find Jiang Ning in person.
It's not that they don't want to go find Jiang Ning in person, it's just that their magazine has had too many staff changes recently, and many editors have been transferred to other departments of the publishing house. Now, apart from the founder and editor-in-chief, there are only a few people in "Wuxia" magazine, and there are not enough staff.
Their branch of Guangzhou Magazine is facing the risk of being cancelled. Once cancelled, Editor-in-Chief Bao will have to be transferred to other departments. The founder Li Ang is really busy and overwhelmed.
Editor-in-Chief Bao, who had witnessed the glory of "Wuxia" together with the founder, naturally did not want to leave. They had invested more than ten years of hard work in this magazine from its founding to the present. They watched it go from a monthly print run of one million at its founding to a monthly sales volume of over three million at its peak, and then to its current decline. Now that they see the monthly sales of this magazine rising again, how can they not seize this opportunity?
Editor-in-Chief Bao carried his cloth bag and said, "If it doesn't work, I'll go there myself!"
Director Li said, "You still have to urge us to finish the other manuscripts. The final layout will be confirmed the day after tomorrow. It will be too late for you to leave now..."
It took more than two days to travel from Guangshi to Wucheng and back on the train, not to mention going to find someone.
Not only was the address Ning Meng filled out far away from them, it was also in a remote mountain village. As she was a female comrade, Director Li didn't dare to let her go into the valley alone.
"Then I'll go with Wang Yong."
"Wang Yong won't work either." Li Ang said, "The magazine can't do without you now.
The few new members who joined the magazine were simply unable to independently take charge of the magazine's editing work.
Bao Huixin had no choice but to sigh and say, "I'll take a look at the latest submission box to see if there are any other excellent manuscripts. I'll fill them up first."
It was a pity for both Bao Huixin and Li Ang, as they finally got a manuscript which boosted the sales of the magazine.
As for why they are sure that the popularity was brought by "The Years I Was a Constable in the Song Dynasty", the truth is that the novels currently serialized in "Wuxia" have all been serialized for a long time, and this is the only new work in the past two issues, and most of the letters of feedback sent by readers are also about this work.
Bao Huixin put down the cloth bag in her hand and said: "I should have gone straight to look for it after the first week's publication." It would still be in time to look for it then.
Director Li said, "I should go."
Unfortunately, he has been busy with the issue of closing the branch during this period and has no time to spare.
Until the moment before editing and typesetting, Editor-in-Chief Li Ang and Bao were still looking for suitable new works.
Bao Huixin suddenly found a thick envelope among the letters. Although the address on it was different from the last time, it was sent from the same province and city. The envelope was also the same as last time. She couldn't help but asked in surprise, "Director, take a look at this letter. Could it be from Ning Meng?"
"Open it quickly and take a look!" Li Ang was also a little surprised, but he was not too sure.
The truth is that their magazine is quite large and has a huge readership, and there are quite a few people who send their manuscripts to their magazine every day.
But writing does require some talent and insight. Some authors just write out of passion and enthusiasm and send their works in without any logic or skills. They are not suitable for the "Wuxia" magazine. The editors have to read a large number of manuscripts every day, trying to find gold in the sand.
Among them, there are countless manuscripts sent from the same province and city.
Before opening it, Bao Huixin glanced at the note on the envelope and said, "The handwriting is similar."
Li Ang was impatient, so he snatched the envelope and tore it open.
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