Chapter 29: Chapter Twenty-Nine: Angry Wen Leyu

Li Ye knew his desk mate, the little spy, was sneaking glances at his writing, but he made no move to stop her.

After all, he still had a long way to go with this novel, and Wen Leyu, sitting right next to him, was impossible to hide.

Besides, why hide from this girl who gave him a perfect twelve-point rating?

Being too distant would only waste energy.

Better to use that energy to smooth out and refine the temporal discrepancies in *Infiltrator*, avoiding unnecessary trouble.

It was 1981, without the internet; many common historical facts from the future had no place in the mind of a nineteen-year-old boy from a northern small town.

For example, the identity of the novel’s key character, Yu Zecheng.

Yu Zecheng graduated from the Qingpu Special Training Class in the twenty-sixth year of the Republic, later joined the Counterintelligence Division of the Chongqing Military Operations Office, then transferred to become Chief of the Confidential Records Section in the Tianjin Security Bureau.

Just these three organization names were not knowledge a regular person in the 1980s should know.

If Li Ye copied every detail from the *Infiltrator* TV series, it would surely ignite massive reader interest—but also attract intense suspicion.

How do you know so much?

You say you had a grandpa who fought in the war? Your grandpa was an illiterate brute—how could he know this?

What? Yu Zecheng ended up over there?

So on these kinds of facts and specific plot points, Li Ye had to blur them carefully, without ruining the reader’s experience—still a challenge.

[Pam~]

[The gunshot startled Yu Zecheng; at that moment, the surveillance operator assigned to replace him, Zhang Mingyi, appeared...... Zhang Mingyi was shot in the back......]

Li Ye had reached the climax of Chapter One, writing furiously, when his elbow was lightly nudged by Wen Leyu beside him.

A writer immersed in a flowing narrative hates interruptions—but what could he do? It was the little mute. He couldn’t get angry.

Li Ye turned to look at Wen Leyu and saw her expressive eyes filled with seriousness.

A note was pushed over: “Is Yu Zecheng the protagonist? If so, do you realize this could bring you big trouble?”

The little girl had good awareness.

Li Ye was pleased: a girl genuinely worrying for you—that kind of thoughtfulness was rare.

Of course, in this regard, Li Ye’s awareness was even higher than Wen Leyu’s.

He had seen the Great River of Censorship from the future; not just ideological issues, even certain descriptions in the novel required careful distinction.

For example, Director Dai in the first episode of the TV series had an extremely strong presence—he was a big shot, after all; he needed that aura of authority.

But if Li Ye now exaggerated his personal aura in the novel, it wouldn’t just be about censorship—it might bring serious trouble.

When Zuo Lan appears, however, he must paint her in bold strokes, fully and thoroughly showcasing the vitality and positivity of the new-generation youth.

This aligned with the era’s values—and after all, commercial writing meant balancing profit and art. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t shameful either.

Seeing the worry in Wen Leyu’s eyes, Li Ye wrote on paper: “Justice will always triumph over evil.”

Wen Leyu read Li Ye’s words, stared at his slightly furrowed brow, and after several seconds, suddenly wrote on the paper: “Yu Zecheng is a Communist underground agent, isn’t he?”

Little sister, are you trying to make me spoil it?

Li Ye wrote back: “The quality of a novel’s reading experience depends on how strong the plot’s uncertainty is—I can’t tell you the answer.”

Wen Leyu blinked, pouted her lips, turned away from Li Ye, and slid her little butt to the other end of the bench, putting distance between them.

She was angry—clearly angry.

An angry little beauty was amusing. Li Ye sighed inwardly: “It’s not that my willpower is weak—it’s just that beautiful girls are too tempting.”

Li Ye didn’t try to soothe Wen Leyu. He believed a good girl would regulate her own bad moods.

Sure enough, after Li Ye wrote for a while, the angry Wen Leyu quietly “slid” back from the other end of the bench.

But she no longer stretched her neck to peek at his novel; instead, she clung to her little temper, her little dignity.

Li Ye picked up the several pages he’d written and pushed them toward her: “Help me proofread these, then copy them—I’ll need them for submission.”

Wen Leyu was caught off guard, but quickly took them; the smile curling at her lips revealed her inner joy.

Li Ye hadn’t told her the “answer,” so she thought he didn’t trust her as a friend—but now he was asking her to proofread? Had she just been imagining things?

Proofreading meant finding typos and inappropriate word choices—it tested one’s command of language.

Wen Leyu’s Chinese was actually stronger than Li Ye’s; Li Ye excelled in exam skills, but Wen Leyu’s breadth of reading and linguistic accumulation genuinely surprised him.

Clearly, over the years, not only had Teacher Ke poured effort into Wen Leyu’s education—she was also a diligent, studious girl.

But Li Ye didn’t know that this little academic prodigy would soon be utterly awestruck by him.

After taking his draft and the manuscript paper, she began carefully proofreading and copying—but before she finished a single page, she forgot her task, utterly lost in the novel’s plot.

[Zhang Mingyi collapsed to the ground, the gunshot wound and bloodstains on his back horrifying—but Yu Zecheng didn’t spare him another glance; instead, he swiftly retreated to the right corner behind the door, drew his pistol, and leveled it straight ahead with a bent arm......]

[This firing stance allowed flexible adjustment of shooting angles and was hard to ambush or disarm......]

Wen Leyu had never seen such a fresh novel-writing technique; through mere text, she imagined in her mind a vigilant secret agent executing sharp, tactical gun maneuvers in the face of sudden danger.

In 1981, pirated wuxia novels from Hong Kong were already on the market.

Whether it was masters like Jin Yong, Gu Long, and Liang Yusheng, or more ordinary authors, their writing styles differed greatly from today’s premium web novels.

Jin Yong and Gu Long’s literary foundations were undeniable; their classics could leave readers savoring them endlessly.

Premium web novels might lack such depth, but they excelled in fresh plots and wild imagination.

Premium web novels might be looked down upon by traditional wuxia—but traditional wuxia, placed on a web novel site, would also fail to take root. (The wuxia channel on certain sites was truly cold.)

Wen Leyu read quickly, finishing three pages of manuscript, then went back to read them again from the start.

After reading them a second time, she instinctively nudged Li Ye with her elbow and asked excitedly: “Li Ye, have you ever fired a pistol? How do you write so convincingly?”

Hmm, I’m very familiar—I love my teacher, and whenever he releases a new episode, I definitely practice firing once.

“Cough, cough—my grandpa once killed dozens of enemies, so when I was little, he told me some stories......”

Li Ye quickly covered up, took a deep breath, and silently chanted “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” finally regaining his composure.

This body was too kind and innocent—a pure virgin. Just thinking about it was dangerous.

Wen Leyu was also a pure girl, completely unaware of Li Ye’s odd reaction, and even moved closer, asking: “Will there be more scenes like this later?”

Li Ye said: “Not necessarily, but similar scenes will definitely appear.”

Since Li Ye had softened the sensitive historical background for this novel, he needed to compensate elsewhere.

So he decided to emphasize tactical and deductive elements from special operations; many common-sense deductions from future spy novels would be astonishing in this era.

For example, in the spy novel *The Evergreen Ivy*, there was a plot about capturing a Japanese spy.

Ning the Reaper had confirmed the target was a woman and traced her to a public phone at a general store.

But the store owner couldn’t describe her physical features.

Ning the Reaper instead used women’s competitive psychology to question the store owner’s wife.

Women observe women differently from men; men notice xxx, while women notice clothes, hairstyles, perfume, shoes—external details.

Indeed, the wife accurately described the woman’s clothing, makeup, and hairstyle, even noting the fabric of her qipao was extremely expensive.

Thus, Ning the Reaper deduced the target’s precise profile and found the hidden spy among the VIP customers of a high-end clothing store.

Such deductive plots could still draw cheers from readers forty years later—how much more so in 1981?

Look at spy films from this era: hiding a radio in an ice pop box could cause gasps—how could readers not be dazzled by future-level details, hidden clues, and cliffhangers?

Wen Leyu was captivated by Li Ye; without realizing it, she pressed close beside him.

Watching him slowly write word by word, the impatient girl longed to rip open his skull and read the next scenes outright.

But when Li Ye turned to ask her something, she snapped back to reality—she hadn’t finished her task.

“Have you copied it? Let me see!”

“What? I... I’ll copy it right away.”