Chapter 379 Xiaoyu, you are thinking wrongly again
July 21, 1985, Beijing, sunny.
Li Ye got up in the morning, ate breakfast slowly, and then prayed in his heart, "Don't call me, take a day off, don't call me, take a day off."
But at 8:15, the phone rang on time.
After the call was picked up, it was Wen Leyu calling as expected.
"Let's go, Li Ye. Today we're going to the Longtan Lake Railway Bridge. My brother said there's a flower, bird and fish market there. There are a few interesting alleys around Longtan Lake. It's a good opportunity to take some meaningful photos with Xiao Ruo.
Wear those blue pants and a short-sleeved white shirt today. Don’t wear sandals, just wear Huili shoes. If you sweat, I will wash your socks for you.”
Listening to Wen Leyu's arrangements one by one, Li Ye couldn't help but sigh secretly, feeling a little weak.
"Xiao Yu, why don't we take a day off? Look at the thermometer, it's 39 degrees. Look in the mirror again, you're almost getting tanned, you know that?"
"Are you tanned? Wait, don't hang up!"
Wen Leyu on the other end of the phone fell silent, and Li Ye guessed that she went to look in the mirror.
Sure enough, half a minute later, Wen Leyu replied to Ali, "You're talking nonsense. I took the photo carefully three times and I'm not tanned at all.
But you have gotten a little tan these past few days, and you look much better than before. If you could get a little more tan, it would be just right."
“.”
Even through the phone, Li Ye could hear Wen Leyu's expectations for him. She really hoped that she could be a little darker.
Li Ye couldn't help but touch his face, feeling very depressed.
[There are no oppas these days, but there are also fair-faced scholars, right? How come my type can’t compare to the black iron tower?
How about I give you a tan? I will definitely make you look like a tough guy. 】
However, Wen Leyu didn't have time to wait for Li Ye to think. When he heard that Li Ye had stopped moving, he immediately said, "Call Xiaoruo. I want to say a few words to her."
"Xiao Ruo."
Li Ye was just about to say that Xiaoruo hadn't gotten up yet, but he saw Fu Yiru tiptoeing towards him.
Li Ye had no choice but to give the phone to Fu Yiruo: "Here, your Xiaoyu wants to see you."
Fu Yiruo took the call with a smile, and said to Wen Leyu on the other end: "Sister-in-law, are you looking for me? Where are we going to play today?"
"Xiao Ruo, have you forgotten what I told you?" Wen Leyu said, "Except at home, don't call me sister-in-law. Call me Sister Xiaoyu. We have to keep it a secret now."
"Oh, I'll keep it a secret. I'll keep it a secret."
Fu Yiruo and Wen Leyu started chatting loudly, and took out a pen and paper to write down some things.
A few minutes later, Fu Yiruo put down the phone, raised the paper in his hand and said to Li Ye: "Brother, if you are tired, take a day off! I can take the bus by myself."
Li Ye sighed and was about to speak when Fu Yiruo asked, "But my sister-in-law told me to be careful of those who patted the mother-in-law on the road. What does patting the mother-in-law mean?"
“.”
"Did she tell you about the photo shoot?"
"Yes, I did."
Li Ye couldn't help but laugh and said, "Did she tell you that? She told me, right?"
There are many cuckolds in the capital city. In the 1980s, there were many young men who took pictures of prostitutes, and all of them were social leaders.
For example, at the bus stop, he would go over, take the girl's bag and hang it on his shoulder, and then start chatting with her.
"What are you doing?"
"What am I not doing?"
"Why did you snatch my bag if you weren't doing anything else?"
"How did I steal your bag? I just felt sorry for you because you were tired from carrying it, so I carried it for you for a while."
Girls in the 1980s were not as cunning as girls in later generations.
After being teased many times, she becomes familiar with the guy, and then is targeted and pestered again and again. There is always the honest and straightforward girl who falls for the teasing!
If you don't believe it, just look at how many once good girls around you are who ended up falling into the hands of street urchins.
"Then let's go! I'm not tired at all. I feel more energetic the more I walk around with you guys."
Li Ye had no choice but to go out with Fu Yiru, and he also helped Fu Yiru carry her small backpack.
Inside the backpack were some personal items and a Leica M3 camera.
Originally, after Li Ye confessed Fu Yiru's situation to Wen Leyu that day, this Leica M3 unexpectedly played a role in quickly bringing the two closer together.
After returning to Beijing, Wen Leyu owned a Hongqi 20 camera, which was a big toy given to her by her family. At that time in the 1980s, this big toy was definitely not something that ordinary people could afford.
Other children feel very happy if they have a football or a basketball. Who would dream of owning a Red Flag camera worth thousands of dollars?
How can you enjoy photography if you can’t even use film casually?
Wen Leyu was not obsessed with photography at first. She just wanted to leave a memory of each other when she took Li Ye to visit the capital.
But after Li Ye shot an advertisement for Fenghua Clothing, and once wore heavy armor and wielded a spear in the Lone Army Literary Society, Wen Leyu was impressed by Li Ye's ability to pose, and his interest in photography increased immediately.
Her purpose was very simple and pure, which was to try to make Li Ye look more handsome in the photos.
On the second day after meeting Fu Yiru, when the three of them went out to play, Wen Leyu took out his Hongqi 20 camera to take a picture of the brother and sister, while Fu Yiru took out his Leica M3.
Hongqi 20 is a replica of Leica M3. The two immediately found a common topic and discussed the differences between the replicas and the originals, as well as the experience and techniques of photography.
This discussion is not important. It turns out that Fu Yiru had his own camera when he was ten years old, and he has not stopped learning in the past seven or eight years.
So Xiao Ruo can’t be called a professional photographer! But she is definitely a master among amateur photographers. Just the topic of “aperture” can make her and Wen Leyu chat for half a day.
So for several days in a row, Li Ye was used as a model by the two men.
The physical exhaustion was fine, but the constant demands of "raise your chin a little higher, tilt your shoulders two centimeters to the left" and so on really made him lose interest. If it wasn't related to the harmonious relationship between the aunt and the sister-in-law, Li Ye would have turned the table and quit long ago.
The same thing happened today. When Li Ye and Fu Yiru arrived at Longtan Lake, they saw Wen Leyu, with a Red Flag 20 hanging around his neck, standing on a step and waving at them gently.
When the three of them gathered together, Wen Leyu took out a camera from his bag.
"Look, Xiaoruo, this is a high-grade optical glass lens I just bought. It is said to be made of lanthanide rare earth materials. Compare it with your Leica after we finish shooting today."
"A high-end lens!" Fu Yiruo said in surprise: "The quality of your camera is not worse than mine. If it has a better lens, it will definitely be better than my Leica."
Wen Leyu shook his head and said sadly, "Xiao Ruo, don't always say nice things. To be honest, my Hongqi 20 is not as good as your Leica.
I have carefully compared the photos taken by the two cameras. Although the difference is very small, it is there. It is okay for us to admit that we are behind and we just need to work hard to catch up. "
Fu Yiru was a little stunned. Her experience in Malaysia taught her how to communicate with people in a pleasing way. Now, facing the pragmatic Wen Leyu, she was very surprised.
Fu Yiruo had no choice but to say, "Sister Xiaoyu, I have actually compared your Hongqi 20. Among the several imitations of Leica M3, it is only slightly weaker than the British one, and better than the imitations of several other countries."
Wen Leyu then looked at Fu Yiruo in surprise and asked, "Have you ever compared this?"
Fu Yiru nodded and said, "I once had a teacher in Malaysia who liked to collect cameras. After the Leica M3 came out, there were at least more than ten imitations in the world.
Among them, Britain has the highest level of imitation, and Japan also has its own highlights. Your Hongqi can rank third, which is the third in the world!
My teacher once said that only developed countries can copy the Leica M3, and ordinary countries don’t even have the ability to copy it. At least no one in Southeast Asia can copy Leica. "
"Is that so?"
Wen Leyu was a little surprised after hearing what Fu Yiru said.
In the early 1980s, after seeing the outside world, the shadow of "backwardness" weighed heavily on the mainland, making people like Wen Leyu, who were "still full of vigor", feel suffocated.
But Fu Yiru now says that the mainland is a "developed country". Isn't this surprising?
"What Xiao Ruo said is not right, but it is not wrong either, because ordinary countries do not have the ability to copy Leica."
Li Ye explained: "Cameras are high-tech products among industrial products. To a certain extent, they represent the industrial level of a country. The per capita income of the mainland is that of a poor country, but the industrial level of the mainland is there, at least there is."
There was no way that Li Ye could promote the idea that China would become the world's factory in 1984. If he did, people would think he was mentally ill.
However, it is a fact that the mainland has the most complete industrial classification in the world and a sufficiently comprehensive industrial base.
Of course, it just exists and is far from becoming competitive in the market.
For example, the Hongqi 20 was designed and developed jointly by the Institute of Optical Precision Machinery and Instruments of the Academy of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Shanghai Camera Factory No. 2.
This kind of cooperation has only produced a few hundred products, and it does not have the ability to be launched on a large scale.
But it exists, and the potential is much greater than those so-called "developed countries" that cannot even muster a full range of industrial categories.
Especially in the mainland, there is a group of engineers who refuse to give up.
In order to achieve Leica's performance, they also produced a small number of high-grade optical glass lenses. This is why many people insist that the quality of the "Hongqi 20" lens is higher than that of the Leica lens.
Li Ye believes that this spirit of never giving up is the confidence and reason for the ultimate rise of the mainland.
Although decades later, mainland cameras have not yet reached the world's top level, who dares to say that the mainland is "backward"?
No one dares to believe that mainlanders will never be able to produce a hit product that will make the whole world bow down to them.
They just hope to avoid provoking the mainland as much as possible and avoid any "technological blockade" so that this time can come later, the later the better.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
