Chapter 17 17
In her previous life, Jiang Qi passed the civil service exam. She had a lot of free time at work, so she started writing in her spare time. Unexpectedly, her first work was noticed by the editor and published. She also came into the leadership's sight. When the leadership changed, she was transferred to the leadership office and became the secretary of the new leader.
Before, she wanted to go to the town to find out if there were any old magazines like this. After finding the address, she copied it down and then submitted it to the address.
Now that she has money, she wants to buy a few more copies. Through the works in them, she can find the writing style that suits the magazine and reduce the risk of rejection.
For example, if an article in the Zhiyin style is submitted to "Youth Digest", it will definitely not work, and vice versa.
After buying the magazines, Jiang Xi tied the rope of her straw hat tightly to her chin and rode her 28-inch bicycle away from the neighboring city.
On the way, she encountered crayfish in a ditch in the countryside, so she caught two buckets and brought them back. When she got home, it was already evening.
Jiang's father had returned with the boat a long time ago. Seeing that she came back so late, he was very anxious. While catching crayfish, he walked towards the city, all the way to the ferry, and kept looking at the embankment on the other side of the river. When he saw a figure riding a bicycle rushing back, he finally felt relieved. He got on the boat without asking the ferryman to pull the boat himself, and shouted to the ferryman: "It's my daughter, I'll go pick her up, you go about your business!" The
ferryman was fishing at the ferry, and he smiled when he heard it: "Okay, you pull it yourself."
Few of them who grew up by the river didn't know how to row or support a boat. The ferry boat didn't need oars. A long rope connected the two banks, and the people on the boat just had to pull the rope to cross.
Jiang's father pulled the boat to the other side and quickly went over to help her carry the bike down: "Why did you come back so late? Are you lost? If you are lost, just ask people. The way is right before your mouth. Don't be embarrassed." He felt that the weight of the bike was wrong and asked her: "Did you not sell the lobsters? It doesn't matter if you didn't sell them. We can eat them ourselves when we go back tonight." Jiang
shook her head: "We sold them all. The bucket contains lobsters caught on the road. There are also many lobsters in the neighboring city."
After selling lobsters twice in the market, many people now know that lobsters are edible. It is estimated that next time, more people will go to sell them. Jiang's father was worried about what to do if the lobsters were caught by others. Unexpectedly, there were also lobsters in the neighboring city. He said happily: "That's perfect. If we sell them here for another two days, I guess someone will follow suit."
During the days when the water pump at the hydropower station was pumping water, Jiang's father and mother had already planted the rice seedlings. The double rush was over. Not only Jiang's father had some free time, but others also had some free time.
Farmers who did not go out to work would find ways to make some money.
It was still half a year before the Chinese New Year. In previous years, he would have taken Jiang's mother out to work. But moving bricks and doing manual labor on the construction site was not an option. He was a high school graduate after all. He had a lot of debts before, so he had no choice but to do hard labor to earn money. Now that he had finally paid off his debts, he wanted to find a proper job.
He originally wanted to hire a few laborers to be a contractor, but Jiang's mother was unwilling. Jiang's father saw that every household was building a house in recent years, and building a house required stones, melon seeds, and stone powder. They didn't have a quarry here, so they had to go to a far place to use a boat to pull them, so he wanted to open a quarry in his hometown. He
hadn't told Jiang's mother about this until now, for fear that she would disagree.
After all, buying equipment costs money.
It is definitely not okay to stay at home all the time without making money, as there are three children in the family who are studying.
Jiang's father rode a bicycle with Jiang Xiao, thinking about the problem of making money in the future.
The crayfish can only be sold until October at most, and there are still a few months to go. I definitely can't stay idle at home. Regardless of whether I can open a quarry in the future, I can't stop making money.
When Jiang Xiao got home, Jiang's mother saw her coming back, and the first thing she asked her was: "How much did you sell today? Show me."
As long as Jiang's mother saw it, the money would be Jiang's mother's.
Jiang Xiao understood too well.
She held a pile of books and said, "I used all the money to buy books."
Jiang's father had seen her holding a pile of books before and thought that she bought some high school tutoring books to prepare for her to go to high school. Now, after seeing the colorful cover of the book, he knew it was not a tutoring book.
He reached out to take the book: "What kind of books did you buy? Let me see."
Jiang Yu avoided his hand and turned back to her room.
Jiang's mother was surprised. She didn't plan to let her go to school, but she still bought books. It was just a waste of money.
She couldn't help but mutter loudly outside: "She's not good at studying, but she knows how to spend money. Selling so many crayfish should make at least a few dozen yuan, right? I don't believe there's nothing left!" She walked over and knocked on the door: "Take out the money, I'll keep it for you."
Jiang Xi's mother kept the money she gave her when she grew up, saying that she would give it to her when she grew up. Anyway, she had never seen a penny.
Jiang Xi said: "I bought all the books!"
"Then give me all the money you make from the sales tomorrow, not a penny less!"
Jiang Xi said nothing.
After Jiang's mother went to take a shower, Jiang's father came over and knocked on Jiang Xiao's door: "Xiao Xiao."
Jiang Xiao opened the door, and Jiang's father walked in and locked the door. Then he said to Jiang Xiao: "What book did you buy today? Let me see it."
The book was on the desk. Jiang Xiao was reading one of them, studying the writing style.
Seeing her frown, Jiang's father lowered his voice and said, "I thought you would buy some tutoring books, why did you buy these? Are these things readable? I won't say anything about you wasting money. You finally got into No. 1 Middle School this time. If you don't study hard, your grades will drop quickly." Jiang's father said, "Your grades are usually not very good. I was surprised that you got into No. 1 Middle School this time. It's hard to get into this good school. If you waste your time reading these miscellaneous books and waste those three years, you might as well listen to your mother and go to work."
Jiang's grades in school were really average.
She didn't live in the school dormitory during high school. The school was far away. She got up at four o'clock every morning and walked to school under the stars. When she came back from school, the dishes they had finished eating were placed on the table, waiting for her to come back and wash them.
Others were studying in the morning and studying in the evening, but she was rushing back and forth.
But surprisingly, she performed exceptionally well in several important exams in her life.
Middle school entrance exam, college entrance exam, civil service exam.
Later, Jiang's father often felt amazing about his daughter's exams.
Every time relatives in the family talked about her, they said she was lucky.
Jiang Xi took the book from Jiang's father and looked at him: "I won't go to work. I know what I am doing. I will study hard."
Jiang's father looked at the books she bought and was still worried.
His mind kept echoing what Jiang's mother said to him yesterday.
Now that three children are in high school, the pressure is really great.
Seeing that his daughter was still reading these miscellaneous books, he said nothing more and went back to the kitchen to cook.
The light in the room was very dim.
Jiang Xi sat at the desk, studying the writing style of the magazine in her hand under the dim light in the room.
She has some talent in writing. After she became the secretary of the leader, she wrote less because of her busy work. She wrote more work reports, but in her spare time, she never gave up her hobby of writing. She wrote some from time to time, and they were all published. She also wrote an official article anonymously on the Internet, but it was a pity that it was censored because it was too popular and the subject matter was too sensitive.
For her, the easiest magazines to read are magazines like Youth Digest and Reader. She doesn't need to adapt to the writing style. She can just read a few articles, get a feel for them, and then write articles that are consistent with the style of these two magazines.
After she finished writing two short stories suitable for these two magazines, Jiang Xi went to read Zhiyin.
Zhiyin is a very interesting magazine. Its writing style was specially called Zhiyin style on the Internet in the past.
It is the so-called "read the cover first when reading a book, and read the title first when reading a newspaper". Zhiyin magazine can be said to have taken the point of "reading the title" to the extreme.
Jiang Xi opened the first page of Zhiyin, and the title was "Selling Wife! A Vicious Divorce Conspiracy!" ”, and then “A Mother’s Struggle between Love and Hate for the sake of Justice”, which fully captures the readers’ psychology of reading curious stories. Not only is the title eye-catching, but the content of the story is also very exciting.
After reading a few articles, Jiang Xi finally found the feeling, and directly adopted the shocking style of the UC department of the previous life network as the title, and began to conceive a story that fits the style of the Zhiyin magazine.
The light bulb in her room is only 20 watts, and the light is very dim. Jiang Xi was afraid that it would affect her eyesight, so she didn’t dare to write for too long. After conceiving the general plot of the story, she turned off the lights and rested, and continued to write the next morning.
Jiang's father thought she was going to sell lobsters today, but she was writing something in the house. When he asked her, she said she was not going today. Jiang's father said, "Then I'll go to the market to sell them. There is no market in the town these two days, so no one is around. There are so many lobsters at home. If I don't sell them, they will die."
He was talking about the lobsters that Jiang Liu had caught yesterday.
Jiang Liu knew what he meant, so he turned around and said, "Catch as many as you can for me, and I'll sell them in two days."
Jiang's father smiled and said, "Okay, I'll catch some for you in two days!"
He also went to the field ditch in the neighboring city to see if there were many lobsters. If there were, he would catch some there on his way back.
Jiang Xi spent two days writing manuscripts for all the short story magazines she bought, such as "Zhiyin", "Story Club", "Reader", etc., and prepared to send them to test the waters to see which one is easier to accept and which one pays more.
The day before she was going to send the manuscripts, Jiang Xi reminded her father: "I'm going to sell lobsters tomorrow, don't forget to catch more today."
It happened to be a market day, and Jiang's father asked: "Are you still going to the market to sell? Why don't you go to the town to sell it?"
The market is really far away, unlike the town, where there are boats and it's easier.
Jiang Xi said: "I'll go to the market."
There is only a rural credit union in the town, and she wants to open an account at a bank in the city.
Jiang's mother probably had the idea of letting her drop out of school and work, and immediately after her high school entrance exam, she took her to get an ID card.
Here, children as young as 13 or 14 can get an ID card. In order to let their daughters go out to work, they would write a few years older on the ID card. At that time, the ID cards were all old-fashioned, and the information on the ID cards was still handwritten.
She put the ID card away, copied the address and postcode of various magazines, took the lobsters that Jiang's father had roasted early in the morning, got on the bike and rushed to the neighboring city, straight to the bank.
The last time she came to sell lobsters, she saw the location of the bank and the post office.
She went to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which was the closest to the People's Shopping Mall. When she arrived at the neighboring city, it was a little after eight in the morning and the bank was not open yet. She waited for a while at the door until the staff came and opened a passbook. She deposited the money from the crayfish she sold a few days ago and the notes her grandfather gave her into the passbook.
The number on the passbook was not much, and it could even be said to be pitifully small. However, no matter how small it was, she no longer had to be trapped in that small village, unable to move, and dependent on others because of the one-cent ferry fee.
Jiang Xi also felt a sense of security in her heart because of the little money in the passbook.
This time, even if she was dragged onto the tricycle by Jiang's mother again, she could get off halfway and register for school by herself.
But this little money was not enough!
After handling the passbook, Jiang Qi rode to the post office again, and bought stamps, envelopes and a stack of letter paper at the post office. She bought more stamps and envelopes, so that she wouldn't have to go so far the next time she sent the mail. She could send it in town.
She added the account number of her passbook to the end of several manuscripts, put them into envelopes, filled in the corresponding address and zip code on each envelope, and after confirming that they were correct, she put all the manuscripts into the mailbox.
She didn't expect all the manuscripts to be accepted, but just thought that it would be good if two of them could be accepted. She would continue to write and send them. If they were accepted, she would have some income in the future.
After sending these short stories, it was almost ten o'clock. Jiang Qi did not delay any longer and rode her bike to the People's Shopping Mall to sell lobsters.
While selling lobsters, she kept thinking about the magazines that could have serialized novels.
Although there are many magazines that can serialize novels, the style of each magazine is different.
For example, "Yangtze River Literature and Art" and "Science Fiction World" require not only works that conform to their publications, but also correct values that conform to the mainstream of society.
Others such as "Science Fiction World", "The King of Mystery", "Boys and Girls", "Bud", and "Martial Arts" require works that are easy to understand.
Jiang Xi was originally considering writing a campus romance novel, similar to the timeless classic plot of Cinderella and several princes on charming horses in "Meteor Garden", when he suddenly heard a song in the audio-visual store next to the mall: "There is a Bao Qingtian in Kaifeng, who is impartial and can distinguish between loyalty and treachery."
Suddenly, it occurred to him that this was the time when the 1993 version of "Bao Qingtian" was the most popular. Almost everyone in the streets and alleys would sing the line "The heroes of the Jianghu come to help, and the kings and the generals are by my side." Because of this popularity, Jiang Xi decided to write a detective novel about a modern female forensic doctor who traveled to the Song Dynasty and became a female police chief with strong martial arts skills.
The first work she wrote in her previous life was a modern detective crime novel. The leader of her unit was a literary youth. When he knew she was writing a novel, he was very supportive of her. He made a special contact with the public security unit and sent her to the public security agency to study for two months. She observed closely how the police investigated and solved cases, and also let her look through many past files. Later, her work was made into a crime drama. This was also the reason why the new leader transferred her to be the leader's secretary when he took office.
Because there are many cases in my mind, I just need to arrange these cases to be more story-like and in line with the ancient environment.
As soon as the idea came out, Jiang Wu's thoughts suddenly surged like a spring, and several cases suddenly came out of his mind. He conceived how to link these cases one by one, and finally pulled out the big case of Wang Ye's rebellion.
Now martial arts are popular, Jiang Wu decided to mix in some descriptions of emotions, rivers and lakes, and martial arts.
After that, it's the personality setting of each character.
After Jiang Wu sold two buckets of lobsters, Jiang Wu basically sorted out the basic thread of this long novel in his mind. At this time, he wanted to find a quiet place immediately to write down all the ideas and sort out the outline.
As he was in a hurry to write the outline, Jiang Xi did not go fishing for lobsters on the way back this time. Instead, he rode his bicycle very fast. He returned home at about 1:00 p.m., picked up a pen and began to write out the general structure of the ancient version of the criminal novel he had conceived, and then wrote the biographies of the characters, writing down the personality, life experience, appearance, iconic movements, martial arts, etc. of each character who would appear one by one in his notebook.