【wedge】
August 11, 2016, midsummer.
One o'clock in the afternoon is the hottest time of the day.
The scorching sun baked the earth, the sound of cicadas from somewhere shook my eardrums, and from the distant playground came the sound of young people playing basketball on their summer vacation...
A girl with long curly hair, wearing a white dress and washed-out cloth shoes, hurriedly passed by the playground. Occasionally, a breeze blew from nowhere, blowing her soft hair. The trees planted beside the playground made rustling sounds in the wind. The girl stopped and looked up at the shadows of the trees not far away... She paused, stretched out her tongue and licked her cracked lips.
The sunlight shone on her pale cheeks. Her skin was almost white and transparent, and the blue blood vessels on her cheeks could be seen.
She reached out and touched her forehead which was scorched by the sun. After a moment's hesitation, she quickly walked to the stone bench under the shade of the tree and sat down. She raised her hand to wipe the sweat off her face and decided to rest for five minutes before continuing on her way. She took out her mobile phone as if by instinct, squinted her eyes slightly, unlocked the screen and saw several headlines pushed by Weibo in succession.
[Major publishing accident: "Yuan Yue Publishing House" announced that the first 450,000 copies of its annual key publication "The Last Whale of the Pacific" would be recalled! The relevant departments ordered it to suspend operations for rectification. ]
…
[Yuan Yue She spokesperson Weibo: I know who is behind all this, and I also believe that good things happen in return... Just wait and see, one day, you will get the retribution you deserve.]
…
[The decline of the traditional paper media industry - the publisher "Yuanyueshe", which once set a record for monthly sales in China, announced that its B round of financing had failed and accepted acquisition]
Passerby girl: "..."
Is the traditional print media industry declining?
Come to think of it, when was the last time I read the news on a newspaper? In junior high school? Elementary school? Or even younger...
Ah, I really can't remember.
It seemed that she was intrigued by the series of news push notifications for some special reason. The girl raised her hand to wipe the screen of her mobile phone. She was about to scroll down to see if there was any other news content when her mobile phone vibrated and she received a text message -
[Remember to come for your appointment at 1:30 pm. I'll be waiting for you. — Doctor Jiang. ]
It is 1:25 pm now.
The entrance door of the destination office building was just a few hundred meters away, and the sun was scorching. Despite this, the passerby girl still had to stand up from the slightly cool stone chair and jog towards the office building.
…
The empty office building corridors were deserted.
The air conditioner was turned on very high, and the sweat on the girl's forehead had disappeared. She raised her hand and looked at the mobile phone in her hand. It was exactly half past one... She raised her head and glanced at the half-open door at the end of the corridor. She let out a long breath, slowed down her pace slightly, put the mobile phone in her pocket, and casually tidied her hair with her fingers.
Coming to the half-open door, she pushed it open carefully, stuck half of her head in, and then saw a middle-aged man sitting on the sofa. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses and reading the news on his mobile phone.
"Doctor Jiang."
Passerby A girl shouted softly.
Doctor Jiang raised his head and saw the girl standing outside the door - her face was pale and almost transparent, and under her eyes were dark circles caused by lack of sleep and neurasthenia. She was wearing a white skirt, and her whole body was white.
"You're here," Doctor Jiang smiled, "Come in, what are you doing standing at the door?"
A passerby girl walked into the psychiatrist's office, and glanced at the words "Jiang's Psychological Counseling Office" with a calm look. Then, she sat down on the sofa opposite Dr. Jiang, looking at the phone in his hand, and asked softly, "Are you watching the news too?"
"Yes, I am reading it. It's about the decline of traditional paper media. It seems to be true. When we used to eat, there was always a pile of old newspapers on the table. Now I can't find them. After all, the news is all on the Internet. Not only is the information fast, but mobile phones are so convenient." Doctor Jiang smiled, picked up a notebook on the table, opened it, wrote a few words on it, and said casually, "Let's not talk about me. How are you doing recently?"
The girl hesitated when asked a question. She nodded and shook her head. Then she raised her finger and pointed at the phone in Dr. Jiang's hand. She said slowly, "I know the person that the Yuanyue Society spokesperson mentioned."
Doctor Jiang: “Who?”
Passerby Girl A: "The one who caused the massive recall of Yuanyue Publishing House's books and now the entire publishing house is in a lack of successors——"
Doctor Jiang: “Oh?”
There was a hint of hesitation in the black eyes of the passerby girl. She bit her lower lip and glanced at Doctor Jiang cautiously: "It's her."
Doctor Jiang hesitated for a moment, then smiled and nodded: "The friend you mentioned before."
Passerby A The girl lowered her head and clenched her hands on her knees. She lowered her head and showed a struggling look: "This time she did such a bad thing again. The book was recalled, her reputation was damaged, and the publishing house suffered a major blow and faced a huge financial crisis..."
Dr. Jiang looked at the hesitant and tense girl sitting on the sofa opposite him, and said in a gentle voice: "You know, in the previous two chats we had, you spent a lot of time talking to me about your friend - she is an editor, passionate, persistent, just, decisive and energetic, and you envy her very much."
The girl raised her head and said, "But she... also did a lot of bad things, and she didn't suffer any retribution."
Doctor Jiang smiled and said, "This conflicts with my righteous personality."
Passerby girl: "..."
Doctor Jiang's eyes flashed behind his glasses. "Kid, you just frantically brought in everything you thought you could fit into the story. You imagined that she was the editor of Yuanyue Society who pushed the news and suffered. It was she who caused the Yuanyue Society's current decline. But the truth is, according to your description, your friend's personality is not consistent, and her image keeps changing... So, do you know what I think?"
In the room, the air conditioner made a buzzing sound.
Outside the window, the cicada's chirping seemed to become blurred.
The girl's black and white eyes looked into Dr. Jiang's eyes with a gentle smile. She heard him say, "I think this person doesn't exist."
Cold sweat broke out.
The passerby girl widened her eyes slightly: "No, I——"
Doctor Jiang lowered his head and wrote something quickly on the notebook in his hand. Without looking up, he said, "Bipolar disorder makes you envy life in the sun. You yearn to be passionate, persistent, and just with others. You hope to be decisive and energetic in doing things. But at the same time, you can't hide the dark side of your evil heart, so you fictionalized such a person: he did a lot of evil, but he didn't get any retribution, and he was full of contradictions-"
Passerby A The girl stood up from the sofa with a swish, her voice sounding a little panicked and anxious: "I, I, I... I'm not making this up! I can call her, I have her phone number, I'm not lying, I can prove it, I'm not hallucinating, my condition is not getting worse—"
Dr. Jiang: "I'm not saying that your condition has worsened. I just want to say that if such a person really exists, then she is nothing more than one of the causes of your burden. If possible, I think you can invite her to do a 'couple therapy' together..."
"I can. I'll call her right now."
Passerby Girl A said this as she anxiously took out her cell phone, dialed a number, and hurried out the door - the phone rang a few times and was picked up. The person on the other end of the phone said "Hello", and the voice sounded cold and deserted.
The girl's back suddenly tensed up.
"Hello? Is that Chu Li? It's me. I'm at my psychiatrist's place. I told him about you. You were the one who did the Yuanyue Society thing, right? If not you, who else could it be! - What should I do if my psychiatrist said you don't exist anymore? Do you have time to come and have a 'couple therapy' with me..."
【no.】
“…”
There was a sneer of contempt from the other end of the phone.
[You, a psychiatrist, have such a rich imagination, why don’t you write a book? You can submit it to me after you finish it.] The voice that echoed in my ear was frivolous and mean, like a touch of coolness in the summer. [I will donate 10 cents. Can you change to a more expensive doctor instead of just finding a barefoot doctor from the street to treat your bipolar disorder?]
“…”
[That's it. I'm in a meeting. I'm busy. I'm hanging up.]
The person on the other end of the phone finished his harsh words and hung up before the girl could even say anything.
Call again, turn off the phone.
The girl put down her phone and walked back to the counseling room. She looked at the middle-aged doctor sitting on the sofa and said in frustration, "She turned off her phone."
The smile on Dr. Jiang's lips became clearer: "Of course, the cell phone of a non-existent person will never be turned on."
“…”
The passerby girl was speechless.
I looked back at the half-open door of the psychological treatment room behind me.
This seems to be the doctor with the highest rating of 4.7 in public reviews!
Very expensive!
……………………I’m not some barefoot immortal on the street.
I was silently complaining in my heart, at this moment, the news notification sound in the hand of the passerby girl vibrated. She grabbed her phone and took a look, and found two new news pushed in continuously -
【The writers of the magazine collectively left and announced the termination of cooperation. The best-selling magazine "Moonlight" under "Yuanyueshe" announced that it would officially cease publication next month. 】
…
【The original serial writer of "Moonlight" magazine, the famous domestic oriental fantasy writer "Zhu Chuan" took the lead in making a statement on Weibo: If you don't want to write, don't write. Although it is a serial, it is strange that there is no requirement to sign a so-called serial contract at the beginning, so you can come and go freely. In line with the attitude of being responsible to readers, the next story originally serialized in "Moonlight" magazine will be written on Weibo as a platform. Please rest assured and look forward to it. 】
Passerby girl: "..."
really.
This is what the novitiate does.
It can be the icing on the cake.
It can be a timely help.
Or maybe...
Kill them all.
=================
March 2013.
A drizzle was falling, and the winter in the south seemed to be particularly cold this year.
Just after the Spring Festival, major companies and units started a new round of new recruitment - and for most students majoring in Chinese language and literature, the most explosive recruitment news is that the leading domestic publishing company "Yuan Yue Publishing House" has actually released a large number of recruitment vacancies this year. So on the day of the interview, even though it was a weekend and a non-working day, the science and technology business park where the Yuan Yue Publishing House is located was inevitably crowded with people and a very lively scene.
"Hey! Have you heard that Yuanyueshe is expanding this time? It seems that the company is going public, and in order to have a good valuation, they need to expand the staff size."
"It seems that the business scope will also expand, so so many new positions have been added. In the past, Yuanyue Publishing House tended to focus on traditional literature, but now it actually wants to get a share of the novel-related reading market..."
"Oh my god, hasn't the novel category always been handled by Xindun Publishing House? Yuanyue Publishing House is trying to steal our business—"
"Hush! Keep your voice down. I heard that Yuanyue Publishing House has also published a new monthly youth fiction magazine called Moonlight to match the traditional literary monthly magazine Star Track. Ah, I heard that it has been published for several issues and they have invited Zhuchuan..."
"Oh my god, is it the same Chu Chuan I know, the one who wrote "Eastern Charming News"?! He has collaborated with Yuanyue Society!!!"
"Yes, yes, yes..."
A large group of young people had gathered outside the Yuanyue Society Hall. They were holding interview number cards in their hands and were obviously just getting to know each other. They were gathered in groups of three or five and whispering to each other - such conversations were interrupted by the "whirring" sound of wheels rolling on the ground at the end of the corridor!
Everyone looked up curiously, and saw at a glance a short-haired, slender young girl in her early twenties at the end of the corridor. She had fair skin, and her cheeks were slightly red from running. The tip of her small, straight nose was also frozen red. Her facial features were delicate, but surprisingly perfect together. Only her eyes, with distinct black and white and unusually bright, showed a hint of cuteness and liveliness.
In such cold weather, she wore high-heeled boots, a short skirt, and only a long windbreaker on the outside. She looked so thin that she seemed not as strong as the suitcase she was dragging behind her... At this time, she held a completed resume in one hand and dragged a huge suitcase in the other. She hurried to the Yuanyueshe staff who was handing out interview number cards, stood still, let out a long sigh and smiled: "Sorry, there was a traffic jam on the way to the train station. I am a recent graduate of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature who came for an interview. Please give me a number card."
The sound is clean and crisp.
The staff member who issued the number tags was stunned for a moment, raised his hand to check his watch, and found that she had not exceeded the specified interview time, so he readily handed her the number tag at the back, and when handing her the name tag, he quickly glanced at the resume in her hand... He glanced so hastily that he only had time to see two huge words written on the name column: Chu Li.
——This slim and harmless-looking girl has a name that matches her image: Chu Li.
Chu Li received the number tag. Under the silent gaze of the people around her, she smiled clearly and nodded to the staff who issued the number tags. Then, she walked to the corner with her box as if no one was around, found an empty chair and sat down.
The moment she sat down, the smile on her face disappeared, replaced by excitement and nervousness in her eyes. Chu Li took out her mobile phone, logged into QQ, and quickly found a guy named "The Disappeared Mr. L". Her fingers were typing quickly -
[The navy hired by Monkey: I'm at the interview unit! That damn driver pretended not to know the road and tried to take a detour, causing me to almost be late. I just turned on the navigation and turned up the volume of my phone amplifier to the maximum volume - turn left 300 meters ahead - hahahahahaha, let's see where he dares to drive - ahhh but now everyone around me is looking at me like a monster...]
As she spoke, she raised her head and glanced around calmly.
The few furtive glances were then retracted.
Chu Li curled the corners of his lips, feeling satisfied, he lowered his head and continued typing——
[The monkey's hired navy: It's like they've never seen a beautiful girl wearing a windbreaker. ]
[The Monkey’s hired naval forces: Do you think there could be some big shots like the editor-in-chief of a publishing house among those who are secretly watching me? They pretend to be interviewers, infiltrate the interviewees, and then select the good candidates they like - that’s what Chicken Soup Magazine wrote...]
At this point, Chu Li seemed to have thought of something. She cleared her throat, straightened her back, and looked around pretending to be calm... Chu Li waited patiently for a while, but did not receive a reply from the man named [Disappeared Mr. L]. She curled her lips in boredom, guessing that the other party might be busy again. She curled her lips and put the phone back into her pocket.
Sitting upright on a chair, Chu Li's position was facing the conference room used for interviews, which made it convenient for her to stare with her black and white eyes at the batches of interviewees coming in and out.
This person took a stack of resumes and distributed them as flyers?
Oh, this girl is pretty, why would she be an editor? If she acted in a TV series, she would be more popular than Liu Yifei in a minute...
What the hell is in this box—it’s actually a box of “Star Orbit” magazines—my goodness, brother, he’s really cunning, a strong competitor!
…
When Chu Li continued to evaluate the 32nd interviewee with an expressionless face, who was more like a bodybuilding coach than a text editor, an hour and ten minutes had passed. The staff member who had just given her the number tag finally called her number. Chu Li stood up, and then she realized that the surroundings were eerily quiet. The only person participating in this round of interviews was... her.
Chu Li smiled awkwardly at the staff member who called her number, then raised her hand and knocked on the closed door of the conference room. When she heard the voice of "Come in", she pushed the door open and walked in...
When I handed in my resume, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that all five interviewers present were not interested, with an impatient look on their faces, as if they were tired of working overtime on the weekend and were in a hurry to get home for dinner.
Chu Li: "..."
The indifferent interviewer...Is this how all Japanese dramas start?
Stay calm and don't panic.
Keep your head high and your chest out.
Chu Li sat down on the chair, her eyes rolling around as she looked at the interviewers sitting opposite her. She quickly went through their possible identities in her mind - but it was useless, because in her eyes, everyone was a big shot.
Chu Li could only stare at one of the big guys who still had a slight smile on his face and began to introduce himself. After the basic information, he began to sing about how deeply he loved traditional literature and "Star Track" magazine. When he got excited, he stood up and announced to the interviewers with great enthusiasm: "If I can have the opportunity to work in Yuanyue Society, even if it's only eight... no, fifteen hundred yuan! I will do it with all my heart!"
... In this crappy city, 1,500 bucks a month is only enough to live in a sewer.
But this is all routine.
How could a publishing house as big as Yuanyueshe be willing to pay its employees only 1,500 yuan a month?
Chu Li thought that according to the routine of Japanese TV dramas, the interviewer should be moved by her enthusiasm by now. However, she didn't expect that as soon as she finished speaking, she heard the interviewer sitting on the far right, who had the most ruthless expression from beginning to end and Chu Li even suspected that she had fallen asleep, asked casually: "1500 is too low, would you do it for 1800?"
Chu Li: “…………………………?”
As soon as the female interviewer said this, maybe Chu Li was caught off guard and didn't have time to retract the confusion on her face, anyway, the remaining four interviewers burst into laughter -
Chu Li suddenly felt that none of the people he met today, from the driver to the interviewer, were good people.
But that didn't stop her from nodding and smiling as she said a few words that might have a different meaning: "Eighteen thousand? Damn it."
…
Ten minutes later, Chu Li, as the last interviewee, walked out of the conference room. At this time, it was even quieter outside than before she entered the conference room. The staff were packing up the number plates and props or water used in the interview, and the interviewers also walked out with the interviewee information, chatting, and dispersed in twos and threes.
Chu Li walked forward a few steps and turned back to find that she was the only one left in the corridor.
On a weekend, the entire office building of Yuanyue Society was so empty that you could catch a ghost in the corner. Based on the basic idea of "since I'm here now", Chu Li did not rush to leave. Instead, she slowed down her pace, dragging her suitcase and preparing to read all the publications of this publishing house that had accompanied her growing up, from "Little Story King" in elementary school to "Star Track" in college.
——A lot of what she said during the interview was just nonsense, but she wasn’t lying about liking Yuanyue Society.
Chu Li looked here and there, poking his head out, and even excited himself when he passed several offices with "Star Track" magazine posters. He walked and looked, and unknowingly came to the end of the corridor - there was an office there, and in this office, the lights were on and the door was half open.
Is there anyone inside?
Chu Li shrank her neck, thinking that it would be impolite to disturb others at work. She was about to turn around and run away with her suitcase, but she accidentally caught a glimpse of a huge blackboard at the door. There were all kinds of posters for magazines named "Moonlight" on the blackboard, and there were also messy slogans written in chalk on the blackboard, such as "Eastern fantasy master 'Zhu Chuan' joins, the luxurious author lineup cannot be missed", "Zhu Chuan's annual masterpiece", "The "Star Track" series of books "Moonlight" is coming" and other messy slogans...
Zhuchuan?
I met this person at Chuli, and not only did I know him, I was also his little fan.
This guy became famous at the age of 17 with his book "Eastern Charming Records", and officially became the top writer of oriental fantasy themes in China at the age of 21. He is young, handsome (legend has it), and rich. It is said that Chu Chuan was born in a traditional literary family, a son of a well-educated family, and his father is a famous figure in a provincial writers' association. The most terrible thing is that he has everything he wants at this age, and his personality is also very good...
People call him Gentleman Chuan, who is as gentle as jade.
Thus, the great writer Chu Chuan conquered a carload of young female fans with his legendary handsome face and gentle personality like a golden retriever, and then conquered another carload of young boys with his writing skills.
Chu Li liked this author, and thought that if she could really join Yuanyue Society in the future, she might be able to see the true face of Master Chu Chuan and get an autographed photo or something... Thinking of this, Chu Li chuckled twice while holding the box, and was about to turn around and leave after her YY. However, at the same time she turned around, she heard a full-throated roar coming from the office -
"First print 32,000 copies to test the waters? Test! Test! Waters! Are you brave enough to say that again?! Do you think I'm a beggar?!"
First Li: “???”
Chu Li: "..."
Black question mark face.