Chapter 656 - 384: The Meaning of Literature (2)

"Absolutely not!"

Yu Hua leaned on his hand and smiled, "You can consider it, I’m recruiting doctoral students right now."

Li Peifeng chuckled, avoiding the topic of pursuing a Ph.D., and instead said ’I’ve been reading your books since I was a child,’ and then enthusiastically praised Yu Hua’s works one by one to change the subject.

"Strictly speaking, I started reading your books with ’Bloody Plum Blossoms.’ I remember back then I was just starting junior high, and my dad’s bookshelf was filled with many books, mostly serious literature or academic books on philosophy and social sciences. Kids are usually not interested in these; I liked popular martial arts novels at the time, but unfortunately, my dad’s bookshelf had none. Later, I unintentionally flipped through the books and found this ’Bloody Plum Blossoms,’ the title instantly attracted me, and then I glanced at the text, mentioning Daoist Qingyun, Rouge Girl, Black Needle Hero. I thought to myself, this is exactly what I want!"

"After finishing it, I realized I had been fooled; it’s not a martial arts novel at all. It uses the guise of martial arts to talk about how unpredictable fate and life’s emptiness and desolation are. You can imagine what a blow this was to a twelve-year-old kid, it was practically a scam!"

"Since then, I internally labeled Yu Hua as an author who ’sells dog meat under a sheep’s head,’ and vowed never to read his books again. But not long after, I found excerpts from ’Xu San Guan’s Blood Selling Record’ in my language textbook. Well, there was nothing I could do about it..."

Li Peifeng recounted his experience reading Yu Hua’s works from childhood in a relaxed and humorous tone, naturally adding some artistic embellishments, like going from resisting reading to actively seeking out Yu Hua’s books, which was an embellishment to make the experience more interesting and dramatic.

Finally, Li Peifeng mentioned a line from Yu Hua’s book.

"A person’s life is only lived once, but in writing and recalling, one can not only repeat life infinitely but also choose how to live it. Thus, reading and recalling are tantamount to living again, and can fill the regrets of life... At the time, I thought this sentence was really well-written, very wise, and it greatly influenced my development of a reading habit."

"I myself forgot about this sentence. Was it in that book?"

After Li Peifeng finished speaking, Yu Hua made a couple of jokes. Upon Zhao Qingge’s inquiry, he also joined in the praise, "I liked martial arts novels when I was younger too. I read through all one million words of the draft you sent of ’Sword and Law’ yesterday, and it brought back the feeling I had reading martial arts novels back then. Hmm, I’ve been reading online literature in recent years too but always wait for updates; sometimes I forget about it halfway through. So, in the realm of online literature, yours is the book I’ve read the most words of, and once I started, I was very eager, abandoning food, drink, and sleep, just wanting to keep reading."

"But after reading martial arts novels, you just feel excited and pumped; reading ’Sword and Law’ is a different experience, very fresh, very surprising, kind of like... kind of like the first time I tasted chocolate, with a peculiar taste, bitter, fragrant, and very sweet in aftertaste, making me want more."

"And initially, I read it as a popular novel, but these two days I’ve thought about it, and feel your book is a fusion breakthrough between online literature and traditional literature, it includes topics like religion, philosophy, politics, race, etc., though the manuscript you sent isn’t complete, so I can’t be sure, and I’d like to hear it from you..."

Following this, Li Peifeng began to articulate his psychological journey in the creation process, and the two genuinely started discussing literature. Zhao Qingge seldom interjected, only occasionally asking questions in response.

About half an hour later, the pace of the dialogue between Li Peifeng and Yu Hua slowed down, and Zhao Qingge spoke, acknowledging Yu Hua’s ideas, explicitly recognizing that ’Sword and Law’ indeed achieved some breakthroughs, while also raising the original issue, which is that traditional literature hasn’t changed lately, and asked what Yu Hua’s perspective was.

Her expression remained calm and composed, but her words were sharp:

"When online authors can create works with excellent commercial value, then aiming to impact people’s thoughts, they write the stories with highly romantic, mysterious, dreamlike colors, expressing intense emotions, astonishing people, making them feel as if they are truly in it."

"When online authors set the book’s backdrop to the universe, aliens, alternate dimensions, containing elements of war, immortality, will, gods, original sin, demons, the collision of different races and thoughts between humans and non-humans... yet traditional authors are still depicting people and matters from the last century..."

"Perhaps online literature, in catering to the masses, has gone too fantastical, too elusive, possessing imagination but lacking in literary quality. But doesn’t contemporary traditional literature appear somewhat petty, excessively realistic in reminiscence while being disconnected from the public?"

Zhao Qingge was indeed daring in speech and genuinely held this belief; she was the one who most agreed with the notion that contemporary literature is dead, or else she wouldn’t have set aside traditional contemporary literature to explore online literature.

Literary critic Zhao Qingge, fearless!

And faced with Yu Hua’s slight bewilderment, she continued speaking.

"I find that this excessive reminiscing leads our literature into a lowbrow predicament, appearing grimy and dispirited. There’s little literature engaging in philosophical and human nature reflection, overly focused on depicting various issues of past reality, which admittedly isn’t wrong, but failing to explore current problems, not imagining the future boundlessly, not delving into the complexity of human nature and the human spiritual world, it robs literature of the depth it ought to have... Teacher Yu, what do you think?"