Chapter 135: , Cultural Bitter Journey (Please subscribe!)

For several hours in a row, Editor-in-Chief Liao and Zou Ping were like sculptures, maintaining the same rhythm, maintaining the same level of focus, lowering their heads to seriously, word by word, savor and read the new prose book.

Even if they went to the bathroom for a short time in between, they were counting the time, their minds full of the words they had just absorbed.

They were afraid of wasting it.

They were afraid of breaking the rhythm. According to Editor-in-Chief Liao's thoughts: I have never been this urgent before.

This state lasted from 8 o'clock in the morning until about 12 o'clock at noon. The petrified Editor-in-Chief Liao finally had some movement. The expressionless face he had been maintaining was gone, and the heavy seriousness was gone.

I saw Editor-in-Chief Liao finish reading the last word, put down the manuscript, take a deep breath, and say to Li Heng, "Good! Very good!"

After saying this, Editor-in-Chief Liao laughed himself, laughed with gratification, and shook Li Heng's hand with satisfaction, "The younger generation is to be feared! My trip here was not in vain."

Listen! Listen! How can one praise someone to their face like this?

He is, after all, an editor-in-chief of a magazine; if you want to praise, praise behind their back, praise hard.

Li Heng's face was praised red. He let out a sigh of relief and said cheerfully, "Thank you."

Zou Ping also let out a sigh of relief. Teacher Li's level was as high as ever, and he was even more full of expectations for the future.

While looking forward to it, a trace of envy inevitably appeared in Zou Ping's eyes as he looked at Li Heng. The other party was a whole circle younger than him, yet his cultural foundation had reached such a realm. He was truly amazed, truly convinced!

You have to be convinced. If it were him, he couldn't even write a single paragraph.

Editor-in-Chief Liao looked at the manuscript with love and couldn't help but ask, "How many more chapters are there?"

Li Heng had long had a detailed plan for this, "The whole text has 41 chapters in total. Currently, 6 chapters have been written, and there are about 35 chapters to follow. The word count is expected to be around 320,000."

Editor-in-Chief Liao said happily, "There are still so many?"

Li Heng nodded, roughly talked about the materials and literature he was currently researching on Zhao Jing, talked about his experience of flipping through local county chronicles every time he went to a place, and talked about some of his conceptions and ideas.

Finally, he said, "These were all decided at the beginning, and it is expected to be finished by November."

Editor-in-Chief Liao nodded repeatedly. No wonder Li Heng could write such profound articles; it turned out there was support from famous scholars behind him. Now he was completely relieved. Without hesitation, he asked, "How about handing this work over to our *Harvest*?"

Some things, both of them knew well; this was just a routine question.

At present, Li Heng could not leave *Harvest* magazine, and even more so, could not leave the full support of the old man Ba.

You must know that because of royalty reasons, those who sang against him and brought him down were still active, and the number was not small. If he had to carry it alone, he would probably follow the old path of old Wang from Jingcheng in his previous life and be forced to go far away.

Facing the eyes of Editor-in-Chief Liao and Zou Ping, Li Heng expressed his stance, "Of course, it will be handed over to *Harvest* magazine, handed over to you. Who told me I'm familiar with you?"

With this playful answer, the three of them smiled knowingly at each other, which was considered a formal agreement.

Editor-in-Chief Liao weighed the manuscript and solemnly stated, "The manuscript fee is the same as before, 30 yuan per thousand words. The royalty is the same. If it is published in the future, it will be calculated at 5%. How about it?"

Li Heng subconsciously wanted to refute. 5% was too damn a loss; at least it should be 10%.

But after weighing it, he changed his mind.

Now he couldn't be too hasty; he had to get through the immediate difficulties first. Moreover, the old man Ba supported him so much; he couldn't just leave the other party with a bad impression of being profit-seeking.

Although pursuing wealth is not shameful, and he has always believed in eating according to his ability, some things really have to talk about human sentiment, talk about incense sentiment, and give the other party enough face so that the other party can continue to support him and give himself face without sparing any effort.

Anyway, there are so many good works, he doesn't worry about exhaustion later. He immediately said happily, "No problem, let's follow the old rules."

With the most important thing settled, Editor-in-Chief Liao felt stable in his heart and pulled him to sit down and ask, "Does this prose have a title?"

Li Heng pondered for two seconds and asked, "How about calling it *Cultural Bitter Journey*?"

Editor-in-Chief Liao tasted the name, his eyes lit up, "Not bad, this title has an artistic atmosphere and is also appropriate for your writing style. Let it be that."

For the rest of the time, both of them were talking about the inspiration for *Cultural Bitter Journey*, about the creative direction, and discussing history and culture.

Seeing Li Heng talking eloquently and hearing Li Heng's long-winded arguments, Editor-in-Chief Liao felt very emotional: This is not facing a young man at all, but clearly facing an old pedant, and a very awesome one at that.

No wonder he had such achievements at such an age; he had real materials and was definitely not famous for nothing.

At this moment, Editor-in-Chief Liao recognized a sentence Zou Ping said after returning from Shaodong County No. 1 Middle School in the first half of the year: In front of the writer December, I feel like a clown, and my shallow knowledge has nowhere to hide.

Throughout the whole process, Editor-in-Chief Liao and Li Heng were communicating and talking freely, and they talked for 4 hours, which was damn long. The two of them felt like they met too late and were still not satisfied, which made Zou Ping, who couldn't get a word in, envious again.

When he learned that Li Heng planned to read more than 100 books in the next 3 months, Zou Ping was excited and secretly made up his mind to buy books when he went back, to buy a lot of books when he went back, and to make up for cultural knowledge, so as not to be unable to say anything in occasions like today, standing there like a wooden man, which was simply too damn painful.

Seeing the sun slanting west, Li Heng, who had forgotten to eat lunch because of the intense conversation, finally felt waves of hunger and immediately stood up and apologized:

"Editor-in-Chief Liao, Editor Zou, look at how careless I am. You came to Xiangnan, and I didn't think to treat you to a good meal. Let's go, let's go outside and find a restaurant, and talk while we eat."

Unexpectedly getting along well with Li Heng, Editor-in-Chief Liao was very happy and didn't stand on ceremony with him, "Okay, you are the host, I'll listen to your arrangements."

Zhang Zhiyong and Li Ran still hadn't returned. The three of them called the English teacher and left together.

Before leaving the hotel, Li Heng specifically asked the front desk attendant where there was a good restaurant locally. Unexpectedly, the attendant was so enthusiastic that she personally took them to a husband-and-wife shop 200 meters away.

The attendant introduced, "Don't look at this shop as inconspicuous, but we locals all know that the owner of this shop used to be the head chef at the Changshi state-run hotel."

As for why the head chef would go home to open a restaurant, the attendant also stammered and couldn't give a reason, so the few of them simply didn't ask.

Finding a table to sit down, Li Heng was too lazy to look at the menu and directly reached out to greet:

"Boss, bring up five or six of your shop's signature dishes. Be quick, I'm hungry."

The boss asked, "You are all from out of town, right? How about silverfish with three delicacies? From Dongtinghu."

Coming to Dongtinghu, of course, one must eat fish. Li Heng and the four others were naturally eager to try.

Under the boss's strong recommendation, Linxiang tea oil chicken, Junshan golden turtle, wind-dried wild duck, and vinegar tofu were served later.

Finally, a soup was served.

"Don't say, the fish here really has a unique taste, different from sea fish." As soon as the silverfish was in his mouth, Editor-in-Chief Liao praised it repeatedly. It could be seen that he was quite satisfied with this dish.

"Come, Editor-in-Chief Liao, Editor Zou, Teacher, let's have a drink." The four of them ordered strong sorghum liquor, and Li Heng took the initiative to raise his glass to toast.

Hearing Li Heng call this red-clad sexy woman Teacher, the look of surprise in Editor-in-Chief Liao's eyes flashed and disappeared, but some things couldn't be asked, and there was no need to ask more. After finishing a glass, he started to persuade them to drink like an old friend.

Because of Li Heng's talent, Editor-in-Chief Liao was determined to make friends this time, and the topics at the table were constant, and the atmosphere was explosive. Even the English teacher, who didn't speak much, opened her golden mouth to help Li Heng entertain the distinguished guests.

Drinking and talking, time passed very quickly. This meal passed in the blink of an eye for 2 hours. If it weren't for the two valuable big dishes added in the middle, the shop owner probably would have had the intention of chasing people away.

At the end of the meal, Li Heng entrusted Editor Zou with a matter, requesting the other party to use connections to get the 140-plus books and literature materials that Zhao Jing gave him to Hushi.

Zou Ping asked, "Where is this batch of books now?"

Li Heng said, "In Shaodong County, kept at an elder's place."

Zou Ping, who was satisfied with this trip, patted his chest and said heroically, "No problem, just leave this little thing to me. You can rest assured about the subsequent creation. I will go to Shaodong County tomorrow."

"Thank you!" Li Heng toasted the last glass of wine.

After checking out and leaving the restaurant, Editor-in-Chief Liao hurriedly returned to the hotel and happily made a call to the old man Ba's house.

"Dong dong. Dong.!"

The phone went through in three rings, and a voice came from the other side: "Hello, who is this?"

"Is this Sister Xiao Lin? I am Liao Hua."

Hearing that it was the old man Ba's daughter's voice, Editor-in-Chief Liao reported his name.

"Editor-in-Chief Liao, I heard from Dad that you went to Xiangnan. How was the harvest there?"

Li Xiaolin heard that Editor-in-Chief Liao specifically ran to Xiangnan for Li Heng and was immediately curious.

Editor-in-Chief Liao had drunk some wine and chewed his tongue excitedly, "Good! A rare boutique. This time, I really opened my eyes and knew what it meant to have heaven outside of heaven."

The old man Ba, who was reading the newspaper next to him, heard this, reached out and pressed the speakerphone button, and asked, "The prose written, is it really that good?"

Hearing that it was the old man Ba, Editor-in-Chief Liao's expression became a bit more serious, "Teacher, when have I ever bragged in front of you?

When reading this *Cultural Bitter Journey*, I was still pondering in my mind that if this book can guarantee quality in the future, it deserves you to write a preface yourself."

Hearing this, the father and daughter looked at each other, and the old man Ba became interested: "When are you coming back to Hushi?"

"There is a train tonight." He originally wanted to go back tomorrow, but Editor-in-Chief Liao felt that the teacher was so old and rarely had things he longed for, so he changed his words temporarily.

Sure enough, the next second the old man Ba said: "Come back and have a meal at my place first."

"Eh, good."

The three of them talked on the phone for a while. Finally, after Editor-in-Chief Liao hung up the phone, he returned to his room to start packing his things, then said goodbye to Li Heng and the English teacher, and rushed to the train station.

Sending off Editor-in-Chief Liao, Li Heng stood by the side of the road and asked, "Teacher, are you drunk?"

"It's alright, I'm used to drinking strong sorghum liquor." The English teacher crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the sunset about to set on the horizon.

"Then I'll accompany Teacher for a stroll? Digest the food?" Li Heng felt too full, so he made a suggestion.

The English teacher looked around, "Just walk around nearby. It's getting dark, don't go far."

"Okay."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 136 =====