Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 552: Encounter with Yu Hua
"Leave it to the Foundation?"

"Yes, three million is definitely not enough. If these courtyard houses appreciate in value in the future, wouldn't the foundation have money if we sell them?" Fang Minghua explained.

"Is it so troublesome? I said I might donate to your foundation in the name of the company, but you refused to accept it." Zhao Hongjun said.

"I've said before that all the funds for this foundation will be provided by me, and I won't accept donations from anyone else." Fang Minghua said with a smile, "You want to donate money? There will be plenty of opportunities in the future."

"Okay, okay, you'll go down in history."

Fang Minghua smiled and said nothing.

The next day, the two went to Manager Sun again, and after some bargaining, they finally bought the six courtyard houses for 265 million yuan. The average price was around 40 yuan, and the most expensive one was 60 yuan on Dongsi th Street.

Zhao Hongjun kept this courtyard house worth 60 yuan, and also had a better courtyard house near Houhai priced at 48 yuan. The rest was left to Fang Minghua, totaling 153 million yuan.

The next step was to go through the transfer procedures, which was rather complicated. Fang Minghua didn't have time to wait any longer, so he called Song Tangtang in Xijing and asked her to come to Yanjing to handle the rest of the matter, while he rushed to Shencheng.

It's more important to do business.

After arriving in Shanghai, Fang Minghua first visited Ba Lao, who lived on Wukang Road, and explained his purpose.

Ba Lao laughed and said, "The Lu Xun Literature Award has been in preparation since 86, but there is still no sign of progress. There are so many rules and regulations. I didn't expect that your Chinese Literature Award would be so quick to act. OK, I agree."

When Ba Lao agreed to this, Fang Minghua immediately felt relieved.

With the most prestigious figure in the literary world of this era in charge, the reputation of this literary award will be greatly enhanced. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be that Palladium has always been the chairman of the Mao Dun Prize jury?

After inviting Palladium, Fang Minghua did not rush to leave Shanghai. He also went to "Harvest" magazine and invited Xiao Dai, the deputy editor-in-chief of "Harvest" magazine, to serve as a judge.

Fang Minghua knew Xiao Dai very early, in 83, when Xiao Dai asked Fang Minghua to write a novel about stream of consciousness.

Fang Minghua wrote the book "The Legend of Sun Wukong".

Due to the domestic environment at that time, it was not published in "Harvest", but was published by "Ming Pao" magazine in Hong Kong under the suggestion of Xiao Dai.

The two have known each other since then.

As the deputy editor-in-chief of a top domestic magazine (the editor-in-chief had always been Palladium until his death), Xiao Dai's editing skills are obvious to all, and since he is here, inviting him in person shows his sincerity.

When they arrived at the Harvest magazine office on Julu Road, Fang Minghua met Xiao Dai, explained his purpose, and specifically emphasized that Ba Lao had agreed to be the honorary chairman of the jury.

Xiao Dai burst into laughter after hearing this.

"How can I refuse if Mr. Ba serves as the honorary chairman? Okay, I agree!"

Fang Minghua chatted for a few words and then said goodbye and left. When he came out of the corridor and was about to go downstairs, he saw a familiar man.

Wearing a jacket and with long hair, he looked a little rebellious.

"Yu Hua?!"

"Teacher Minghua!"

Yu Hua was also surprised to see Fang Minghua: "You came to Shanghai?"

"Yes, I have something to talk to Editor-in-Chief Xiao. Yu Hua, I told you not to call me teacher, just call me by my name. We were in Shencheng back then, but you pretended to be my second cousin!"

Yu Hua felt embarrassed and laughed when he heard that.

It turned out that in the autumn of 83, Fang Minghua was invited to Shanghai to attend the "Symposium of Some Young and Middle-aged Writers from Northwest and East China".

After hearing about the meeting, Yu Hua came to Shanghai from his hometown Haiyan with his newly written work "Stars" to find Fang Minghua.

It was already evening when he arrived in Shanghai. After going to the hotel for a meeting with writers, he asked the front desk clerk which room Fang Minghua was staying in. The clerk was worried that he would disturb the writers' rest, so she kindly reminded him.

Unexpectedly, Yu Hua replied: "I am Fang Minghua's second cousin!"

In this way, under the watchful eyes of the waiter, Yu Hua swaggered upstairs. Yu Hua later attended the Luyuan training school and talked about this incident with his classmates while drinking and bragging. Later, it reached Fang Minghua's ears.

Fang Minghua couldn't help laughing after hearing this, and the two of them even compared their ages. It turned out that Yu Hua was born in April 60. Although they were the same age, he was a month older than Fang Minghua.

So, some classmates joked with Yu Hua behind his back and said, "Your little cousin is here for class."
Now when Yu Hua heard Fang Minghua talking about the embarrassing incident from that year, he smiled embarrassedly.

"Yu Hua, have you graduated from the graduate class of Yanshi University?" Fang Minghua asked again.

“Yeah, well, I’m graduating in March, and I wrote a novel during my studies and submitted it to Harvest, and the editor Cheng Yongxin asked me to come and talk about it.

"novel?!"

"Oh, it's a novel, not a novella, it's called "Crying and Drizzling Rain,"" Yu Hua hurriedly explained.

Well, that's about right.

According to the Great God Agreement signed at the Xijing Conference in 85, all short and medium-length novels must be submitted to "Yanhe" first!

Novels are not included in this scope.

But, "Crying and Drizzling" should be called "Crying in the Drizzling", right?

I heard that the name was changed later.

This is Yu Hua's first novel. The individual loneliness emphasized at the beginning of the novel through a woman's "lonely and helpless cry", and the narrative about individual loneliness and its transcendence throughout the novel are all narratives about the ties of various social relationships.

The writing is quite good, and Yu Hua was awarded the Knight of the Order of Arts and Literature of France for this novel.

Of course, its literary value is not as good as his work "To Live".

"Okay, Yu Hua, you go talk to the editor, I'm going back." Fang Minghua said and was about to leave.

"Minghua, don't be in such a hurry to leave. Since you are in Shanghai, I want to show my hospitality as a host." Yu Hua said hurriedly. "Wait a moment, I'm going to meet the editor. How about we have a meal together later?"

"Okay, you go ahead and do your work, I'll wait for you outside." Fang Minghua agreed and thought to himself: Okay, I'll find a chance to talk to you about your next novel.

After leaving the magazine, Fang Minghua estimated that it would take some time for Yu Hua to discuss the manuscript with the editor, and he himself had nothing to do, so he just took a walk.

Going east along Julu Road, there are private residences all along the way. "Ju Fu Chang" (the abbreviation of Shanghai's three roads - Julu Road, Fumin Road, and Changle Road) is a concentration of old villas from the Republic of China period.

It is said that on this road, in later generations, a garden house changed hands, with a total transaction price of about 3.1 million yuan! The transaction price was about 100 million yuan per square meter, setting a new record.

Of course it’s very cheap now.

How about taking the opportunity to buy one?
However, Fang Minghua doesn't like the climate in Shanghai very much. It's too humid, cold in winter, and sauna-like in the rainy season in summer. It's not as dry and refreshing as Xijing in the northwest.

At the end of Julu Road, going west, you will find the famous Pudong New Area. However, the Pudong New Area was not established in 90. Although the new area had not yet been established, the opening up had already begun.

After walking around for a long time, Fang Minghua returned to the magazine office and saw Yu Hua standing at the door waiting anxiously.

Yu Hua saw Fang Minghua coming over and hurried over to greet him: "Minghua, I thought you were leaving without saying goodbye?"

"Am I that kind of person? I was just wandering around the neighborhood." Fang Minghua replied.

"Then let's take a bus to Hengshan Road." Yu Hua said.

Fang Minghua was somewhat puzzled:
"And take the bus? We can just find a small restaurant nearby and order two dishes. Why go so far?"

"Hey, isn't Li Hongying studying at Fudan University? She hasn't graduated yet. I just called her school and got in touch with her. She heard that you were coming to Shanghai and wanted to meet you. So we agreed to meet at the southeast gate on Hengshan Road."

This guy.
Fang Minghua glanced at him.

"Okay, let's go to Hengshan Road."

(End of this chapter)