Chapter 420
Wang Jiazhi threw herself into his arms, wailing sadly, like a sad and coquettish kitten.
He stroked her fur and soothed her, "People make mistakes, and tigers get sleepy sometimes. Don't take it too seriously. Even the most talented writer can't write every piece of work."
"But it's clear that this author put a lot of effort into writing so much. What they said is true. I also feel that the more I write, the more boring it becomes. I really focused too much on the wording and was too careless about the character's personality. It has completely fallen short of my previous level. Ugh!!!"
Wang Jiazhi had initially been full of confidence when she started a new novel. However, after a few issues, it didn't perform well, prompting even literary experts to criticize it. They said she became famous too early, inevitably impetuous, and that her writing was a stark departure from her previous standards. It was hard to believe it was written by the same author as her previous work.
Her unique writing style has been criticized from the beginning, but it has had no effect on her. This time, they really have a point.
Wang Jiazhi heard a story from a classmate about an elderly woman who was sold as a lean horse before she could remember anything. She had many men throughout her life, each of whom had many children. She was a womanizer. Not all men were serious about her, but there were one or two who wanted to be with her forever. However, she was a person who was not sincere to anyone. She was always looking for more, and even those who wanted a long-term marriage gradually became discouraged by her. She was like a floating duckweed, changing men again and again.
He consoled her, "Writing a novel is all about expressing your own feelings. Either you have someone like that around you and have gotten to know them over time, or...it would be strange if you could write well!"
She was left unable to refute.
She knew what a woman who was a playboy and a womanizer looked like; his group of ex-girlfriends at the poker table was perfect material. But she only saw their momentary behavior. The complicated journey of seducing men from their teens to their sixties, as described in novels, was simply not enough.
Lai Xiujin has his own strengths. When it comes to writing, rhetoric is just the icing on the cake; the most captivating thing is the central idea. Many writers' writing is a mess, but their content and ideas are so extraordinary that they can still make people endure the simple and crude words and sentences and read on.
Lai Xiujin's writing was poor, but with the way she and a group of men acted, a biography about adultery would surely be a hit. Wang Jiazhi didn't know whether Lai Xiujin had slept with men before her death; adultery had nothing to do with whether or not she had slept with men.
I just can't write about myself and Meng Shunying no matter what I do.
Several of the main characters in "Jin Ping Mei" seem to be pathological, obsessed with that kind of thing like smoking opium. Pan Jinlian and Pang Chunmei are both like that. They can't live without men and are willing to give up their lives. In the end, they die because of this.
Wang Jiazhi later thought of Lai Xiujin. Even at that point, she still couldn't bear to leave those scumbags. She would die without him!
The women Pan Jinlian and Pang Chunmei chose were all pretty, smart, and good at coaxing people. Their deaths were not too unfair. But those women were disgusting. Why would she be reluctant to give them up? She is such a bitch. She can't even walk when she sees a man.
Wang Jiazhi didn't expect there was another reason. Lai Xiujing was stupid and she didn't know when to run.
As he stroked her hair, he inserted jasmine flowers from the bedside vase into her braids one by one. The kitten leaned against her, combing her hair with a small wooden comb in her tiny hands. He also put jasmine flowers in the kitten's braids.
They had their hair done the same way today, braiding it from the top of their heads and tying another braid at the back. There were two identical cats, one big and one small.
He thought that she took the matter so seriously, it would be strange if she wrote it well. If she had written it well, she would not have felt so uncomfortable and suffered such a terrible disease that she would never be able to recover from.
"It's true that our ancestors emphasized tricks and gaudy techniques, but they were superficial. When it comes to things that prioritize thought, being overly obsessed with the techniques of words and phrases is truly missing the point. It's like the long poem "Ode to the Goddess of the Luo River," which describes her appearance in such detail that it feels tedious and boring. It's better than Zhang Hu's line, 'I dislike the color stained by rouge and powder, and I lightly sweep my eyebrows towards the Supreme Being.' It provokes the imagination and leaves one with endless aftertaste."
"I love the scene in 'Song of Everlasting Regret' where a branch of pear blossoms is wet with rain. I can't imagine how beautiful it is. That's how you look when you cry."
"Really? People say I'm a big, silly guy, and I don't look like a little bird."
"Yang Guifei is older than you, and she can still shed tears."
"Hate it~~~"
At this time, the little girl brought in cocoa cake and coffee.
He fed her cake, and the kitten looked up to eat, so he fed the kitten again.
Outside, the gray magpies chirped and called. Two magpies were feeding the three children in the nest. The little magpies tilted their heads back and opened their mouths. The big magpie put the food into their mouths one by one. It was a bit like him now.
I thought they had finally finished building the nest, but no.
He couldn't bear to see them suffer any more, so he built a nest for them. Finally, they had a house where they could hatch eggs and raise children.
The little white cat also climbed onto the bed and looked up at him, wanting to eat it too. He fed it a strawberry from the bed.
She whimpered, went up to him and kissed and rubbed him, leaving a light lip print on his face with the cocoa powder on her mouth. Then she whimpered again and changed her position, pressing her whole body on him, and the kitten also pressed its head on its mother.
He put the coffee to her mouth and fed her. She lazily leaned over and drank a few sips like a kitten drinking water.
The kitten looked at it and he smiled and said, "No, you can't drink it yet. You can drink it when you grow up."
The kitten didn't cry or make a fuss, but continued to lower its head and rest its head on its mother.
She nestled in his arms, thinking, and said, "The next chapter is still a long way off, so I better not rush into it. This time I need to think carefully about the character's personality."
"Good things can't be rushed. Focusing on the story is more important than anything else. You see, some filmmakers have great stories early on, but as they go on they become more obsessed with novel filming techniques, losing sight of the story. One person talks about the thrilling effect, the next about the number of frames, the next about how it can make people look younger. Gimmicks become mere techniques, and the all-important story is completely ignored. They're missing the point."
"Even an economics student like Miss Xiao can see that this is clearly a story about Tess, but they're trying to attract attention by turning it into a love triangle. Tess is a very good person. She wouldn't even look at someone who hurt her. How could she smile at him affectionately, or even force a kiss on him?"
He held the coffee cup in both hands, with her lip prints on the rim. He drank the remaining half cup of coffee to refresh himself before going out.
She just whimpered and acted coquettishly in his arms, and the vase of flowers was completely empty. After a while, she got up and went to the kitchen. The food was almost ready.
The servants saw her coming down from upstairs with a flower on her head and going to the kitchen to cook.
The pumpkins grown in the yard were ripe, so she cooked porridge for him with the pumpkins, and also made soup for him with pork ribs, eggplants, and potatoes, adding some kimchi to the mix, and asked the cook to add a few more dishes.
"This is my own creation. It tastes delicious."
"Hmm~"
The three of them had breakfast and lunch together. He ate very little and then fed the kitten.
He packed up and went out. He went out late today and came back early, in the evening.
In the past, he would handle official business at the yamen whenever he could, either at home or in person. He didn't like going home. Although staying at the yamen was depressing, it at least provided some social interaction. Even the most solitary and quiet person couldn't be completely isolated.
Back home, there were voices, the chatter of a group mingling with the hum of mahjong, playing from daybreak until late at night. Listening to them cheerfully chatter about diamonds, clothes, promotions, and getting rich, he felt his own pain was entirely his own, a stark contrast to the atmosphere of these merchants, who knew nothing of the sorrow of their nation's demise. Without mahjong, the house felt as quiet as a cemetery.
He had nothing to say to Mrs. Yi, and it would be better for her not to say anything.
Such a home is more suffocating than the government office, and he doesn't want to go back at all.
Ever since Wang Jiazhi came into being, how could the ladies not hate her? He actually liked going home. Actually, he only saw her once or twice, but he felt something different when she was in the house.
In a martial arts novel, the hero and heroine wander through life, never truly together. After middle age, they cultivate on the same mountain, each occupying a different spot. Out of spite, neither seeks out the other, though they can still see each other's spot from afar. The hero recounts how, in their youth, they longed for marriage, but fate has played a trick on them. After spending most of their lives together, they've lost hope and no longer care about marriage. He can't see her, but every day when he leaves his house, he sees her place, and knowing she's there is enough for him.
They both have limited experience in love and cannot understand why it is easy to fall in love but difficult to get along with each other.
Wang Jiazhi believes that if two people love each other enough, how can they bear to separate? If there are things that need to be adjusted, if you love him enough, of course you will learn to accommodate him.
If he loves you enough, he'll certainly learn to accommodate you. Mutual tolerance and tolerance can lead to a relationship. If he's unwilling to make sacrifices, then he doesn't love you enough. At first, she'll accommodate his temper; he'll accommodate her nervousness.
Because they are of the same type and not complementary, they cannot understand each other and think that this is tolerating each other and it is easy to do.
Mrs. Yi was also full of grievances. She felt that the poor relationship between her husband and wife was not her fault, but rather her fate. Unlike the wives of her colleagues, who were born into wealthy families and had attended university, it was not her fault that her family was poor and that the whole family had to sleep on the same kang.
Of course, people only want to believe what they want to believe. Like Kuang Yumin and his scumbag friends, they think they're university graduates with a bright future. They're worse off as spies than illiterate people, simply because they're unlucky and their talents are never fully realized.
Many men of Old Yi's generation married their wives at the behest of their parents, especially those from impoverished families who married illiterate women. Yet, there were several women who were not only illiterate, but also came from impoverished families and were not particularly attractive. Yet, they were able to manage their families, support their husbands and raise their children, and serve as both wives and military advisors. Even if their husbands asked for a divorce, they would refuse, even to the bitter end. How did they manage this?
It is not known whether Wang Jiazhi can be a military advisor or not, but no matter how sad he is, she can iron out all his worries in a few seconds like a big iron.
He remembered someone once told him that with someone like that by his side, no matter how great the hardship, it would not be too terrible.
He was afraid of death, and he felt her life was more meaningful than his own. His own life was already irreversible, and she was still so young, only twenty-three. He remembered his own twenty-three years, so full of vigor and ambition, so filled with longing and hope. If she had lived, her talent would surely have left a brilliant legacy of glory on earth, an eternal legacy that would last for thousands of years. He, too, would have left behind an eternal legacy, a legacy of infamy that would endure for eternity. No matter how much he hated it, history would have to record him.
No matter how he thought about it, he felt that it was impossible for them to be together. One was a traitor, the other a patriotic student; one would be infamous forever, the other would be remembered for eternity. But even so, he still wanted to find her, and she still wanted him to find her. Who could have imagined that the two of them would be buried together?
He finished his work in the study and looked up to see the lotus pod in the lotus pot had grown larger. The lotus flower had fallen, leaving behind a lovely lotus pod. Just then, the door gently opened, and he turned to see the lotus flower transformed into a human, carrying its small lotus pod on its back.
She carried the child on her back, with its two heads poking out and the kitten smiling at him with its mouth wide open. In her hand was a plate filled with diced fruit and a lovely golden cake.
"Have a snack. It has oranges and orange peels."
She was sitting on his lap with a big cat on her back.
"Orange peels taste so good when roasted."
He ate the cake and fed some to the kitten. The orange peel was very fragrant and delicious after being roasted, and the taste was milder than that of lemon.
Wang Jiazhi was flipping through the pile of documents on the table, even though she couldn't understand them at all.
There is no way. The study, which was once a forbidden place, is no longer a big deal.
She sighed and said, "Mrs. Liao's daughter called me this afternoon and told me why there's no serialization today. She likes reading this one the most."
I hugged my child to sleep in the afternoon. When I woke up, I received an indignant call from Sister Liao, complaining about the novel.
"I don't know what happened. Anyway, the writing is substandard."
"What? I think this one is the best."
She felt even colder after hearing this.
As expected, this novel was so poorly written, yet Mrs. Liao's daughter actually liked it so much and wasn't dissatisfied at all.
"Do you have any stories you can share with me?"
"What are you interested in?"
Wang Jiazhi thought that there must be a lot to write about his romantic affairs, but she didn't want to know. After Shelley's death, his wife carefully compiled all his love poems to other women into a book, which was really amazing.
After he left, she cuddled the kitten to sleep and woke up to find a bed full of fallen jasmine flowers. During the night, she discovered two more were still there, and the bed was filled with a strong scent of jasmine, as if she were sleeping in a vanishing cream bottle.
Not long after, he published an article under a pseudonym, "Tan Zhenli's Articles", in which he wrote: Literature should move from politics back to the human world.
Articles that discuss current affairs can only create a stir for a while. Politics is ever-changing, but human emotions are eternal. Only things that carry common human emotions can be passed down forever and truly remain untouched for thousands of years.
Even though it was written under a pseudonym, anyone familiar with his writing style would know it was written by him. Rumors of an affair between the two of them had already existed, and now there was even more evidence.
Once, Mrs. Liao's daughter said to Sister Xiao, "I think Wang Jiazhi seems to understand Zhenli's novels so well because they know each other."
"Um?"
"Zhenli and Uncle Yi must be close friends, so they know each other and exchange ideas."
"That's impossible. Who would discuss literature with a love rival?"
"That's not necessarily true. Wang Jiazhi seems to have a good temper and is so respectful to the first wife. Maybe, just like what's described in the novel, she gets along very well with her other lovers. Doesn't the novel say that Qianlong's Concubine Ling had very good relationships with several concubines, asking them to help raise their children and even go for walks together when they have nothing to do?"
"That's different." Mrs. Xiao's daughter said helplessly while biting the butter biscuit.
Nonsense extra:
RDR: "What do you think about your work being brought to the screen this time?"
Zhang: "Um... I'm still very happy that a scoundrel in a movie falls in love with me..."
RDR: "And then?"
Zhang: "There's nothing more to say."
RDR: "Tell me more."
Zhang: "Since you want me to say it, I might as well say it directly. Just treat it as someone else's personal opinion. It has nothing to do with my work."
RDR: “It’s based on your novel.”
Zhang: "But besides the names, is there anything else that shows respect for the original work? I clearly wrote myself as very majestic and powerful."
RDR: "What about an example?"
Zhang: "Wang Jiazhi was a near-perfect beauty, with countless suitors even in her teens, yet she was unsuccessful. She was a rebellious girl who was never accepted by any of them. She was once the leading actress, the center of everyone's attention. How did she become timid, barely acting in the drama club, and only fit for minor supporting roles? She was retaliated against simply because she was too dazzling, and the other girl was jealous but couldn't surpass her. Why was it set up as if she stole the other girl's leading actress position, or was it the vicious female supporting actress who initially brought her up? It's clearly a case of turning the powder upside down, turning the fire-making girl into a young lady, and the young lady into a maid. The evil in people's hearts is inherently unfounded, and finding a reason to justify the female supporting actress's viciousness is naive. It's like another recent movie that had to find a reason for the fishermen to jump into the water to save people. Wouldn't they not save people if the village was being massacred? The kindness in human nature needs no reason. And..."
RDR: "Yeah."
Zhang: "How can the supporting actress's looks and temperament be the leading actress of the women's drama club? Are you blind? At least find someone who is similar to the female lead. I don't mean to criticize the actress herself."
RDR: "There's nothing we can do. The story is almost at a standstill."
Zhang: "But this story is irrational."
RDR: "That's not the only thing that's irrational."
Zhang: "Now that you put it that way, it seems so."
RDR: "For example, what do you think?"
Zhang: "I wrote about her determination to sacrifice, and her willingness to do so. Early on in the film, the heroine acted like a fool. Since she knew it was a makeshift group, and since those vicious tools were going to treat her like that, she should have left. Why did she agree to do that? She's a fool, it doesn't make sense. It's as if she owed that group of scumbags something, and she grudgingly agreed to whatever they did to her."
RDR: "To show how history coerces individuals. It can't be voluntary."
Zhang: "There has to be a rationale for the coercion. I just wanted to write about my husband and I, but why do you have to bring up history, national politics? I've never cared about politics in my life. And you've made such a mess of it. How can you see politics in my novel?"
RDR: “It’s a rebellion against patriarchy.”
Zhang: "Why do we have to resist patriarchy?"
RDR: "The director has been fighting against patriarchy all his life."
Zhang: "That's not what I meant. No one has ever been able to coerce me!"
RDR: "It's about her losing a loved one and needing comfort. The director said your ability is to lack love. What do you think?"
Zhang: "I am lacking love, but I don't want any random feelings. I wouldn't even want the love of a rotten person for free. I only want the love of someone I care about. If I don't have that, I'd rather live without love."
RDR: “The director said he saw his own reflection in the heroine.”
Zhang: "How am I like him? I became famous at a young age, excelled academically, and received the highest scholarship. I didn't fail the exams repeatedly, so I'm a late bloomer. Oh my god, I think I understand why he made the dazzling heroine so self-deprecating."
RDR: "Calm down."
Zhang: "The personalities of the characters in my novels have been changed beyond recognition. Why did they make it into a love triangle? How can I stay calm?"
RDR: "It's a commercial film. To attract box office, it has to be clichéd."
Zhang: "He's clearly a vicious tool who doesn't say three words. Why does the heroine have to have feelings for him even though she sees his viciousness? Is he that despicable?"
RDR: “The director liked this character and said it resembled himself when he was young.”
Zhang: "The heroine in my novel clearly dares to love and hate. She only has a good impression of him, not even love. She draws a clear line after seeing his true face!"
RDR: "Calm down."
Zhang: "No wonder he was asked to behave rudely towards the heroine. I shouldn't have written my own autobiography. I've been ruined."
RDR: "Calm down."
Zhang: "Why didn't the heroine's sufferings all get filmed? What was filmed wasn't what I wrote."
RDR: "The second male lead turned out to be too bad, so they were trying to beautify him."
Zhang: “Ah!”
RDR: "Calm down."
Zhang: "Forget all of this..."
RDR: "And then?"
Zhang: "What's going on?"
RDR: “Not to respect your original work.”
Zhang: "I was just quoting "Getting a Woman's Heart"... but then they quickly added that I was against this disgusting rogue's remarks. Why take it out of context, as if I were some lewd person? Ah!!!"
RDR: "There's nothing we can do about it. The West loves to use this kind of plot to attract attention."
Zhang: "Just say what you think, don't put the blame on me!"
RDR: "Calm down! I'm not just dumping you."
Zhang: "So many people are saying I'm weak and lewd. This is a reputational issue. How despicable!!!"
RDR: "Alas!"
Zhang: "Don't we have to shoot it like that? There are so many ways to express it."
RDR: "The beginning was too long-winded. It was the only way to attract attention. Otherwise, the movie wouldn't sell and the audience would leave early."
Zhang: "Why are you dragging your feet?"
RDR: "To give the second male lead more scenes."
Zhang: “Ah!”
Zhang: "At the end, he even said he understood me the best. Ah!!! I feel like I've been sold and forced to count money!"
RDR: "Calm down. That's why he's very similar to the second male lead."
RDR: "But the relationship between the male and female protagonists is still okay."
Zhang: "I didn't write about romantic feelings like that. I wrote it, but I don't know if I really like him."
RDR: "Because you know he doesn't love you, I feel it's too embarrassing to write that I love him, right?"
Zhang: “No…”
RDR: "It seems like what was written in another article. I dreamed that I had a home with him and many children. When I woke up, I would be happy for a long, long time."
Zhang: "Hmm...it's just that the love scenes between them in the movie are too thin. The movie is so long."
RDR: "There's nothing we can do. Giving the second male lead more scenes takes up too much time."
Zhang: “Ah!!!”
RDR: "I hope that 'A Little Reunion' will never be remade. Even if it is, it will be very satisfying."
Zhang: "I have given up hope. None of the remakes have been satisfactory."
RDR: "Uh..."
RDR: “What are your thoughts on the movie?”
Hu: "I think the male lead is very good. I am just like that."
RDR: "Uh..."
RDR (inner OS): He is indeed a rogue...
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