After returning home, Yu Qiu took a shower. His resistance was weak, and he was prone to catching colds, so after the hot shower, he also drank some Banlangen1a traditional Chinese herbal. He sat around for a while before remembering that he needed to cook.
Yu Qiu’s cooking skills relied entirely on cooking apps. Yesterday, he downloaded a new cooking app and selected three dishes that looked decent.
Stir-fried wood ear mushrooms, bacon with bamboo shoots, and tomato scrambled eggs.
Not too difficult, but after finishing them, Yu Qiu was covered in sweat.
When he placed the dishes on the table, he noticed the manuscript lying alone in the trash can.
Yu Qiu fell silent for a while, then bent down and picked it up. The manuscript was clean and not dirty. He gently wiped the cover with his thumb and placed it in the drawer of his desk.
This was his seventh year of writing.
He first started writing in high school. While the teacher was giving a lecture, he secretly wrote in a small notebook, filling it with words. The first piece he wrote carried the unique fervor of a teenage boy. It circulated among his classmates, and even the seniors in their third year of high school knew that there was a junior in their first year who loved writing.
He had been writing like this ever since.
He was now twenty-two years old.
For most people at this age, they should be busy with graduation papers and preparing for postgraduate entrance exams on campus. But for Yu Qiu, it was not the case.
He didn’t go to college.
He loved writing but didn’t enjoy studying. He had always been passively studying. During the college entrance examination, his grades were pretty good, exceeding the cutoff for a first-tier university. When Yu’s mother looked at the report card, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes increased as she smiled. She asked with a smile, “Which city do you want to go to?”
Yu Qiu looked at her hopeful gaze and said softly, “I don’t want to go to college.”
The report card dropped to the ground, making a faint sound. But in that instant, it was like a thunderclap that exploded. Amidst the roar, there were arguments and shattering sounds. They all turned into the bright and dazzling sunlight of that day. Yu’s father said in a deep voice, “Either go to college or get out!”
How could one not go to college?
In China, to succeed, you either need a high level of education or powerful connections, but unfortunately, he had neither.
Yu Qiu thought, “I don’t want to succeed. I just want to write.”
Yu’s father would have loved to hold a knife to his throat and force him to fill out university applications. He didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent. Silence was like a soundless flame, burning the stalemate. In the end, all he had left was a suitcase—he was kicked out of the house.
At eighteen, he arrived alone in this second-tier city, relying on writing, and had achieved some success. He had even had his articles published in major magazines. At that time, a book reviewer had commented on him like this: “The young writer exhibits a unique charm in his writing, radiating brilliance like a dazzling star in the literary world.”
“Yu Qiu’s writing had a kind of fervor like summer, yet it was romantic, carrying his unique sincerity, telling stories in a straightforward and gentle manner.
He could write about anything, and he dares to write about anything.
Heterosexuality, homosexuality, platonic love, adventure, fantasy, criticism, literary appreciation, and even children’s books—he loves writing all of them. Among them, he favored children’s books the most, but he wrote them the least.
Since he left home, he felt that he couldn’t write such innocent words anymore.
When he wrote for a living, he was not suitable for writing clear words.
He still remembered the first book he wrote for children, titled ‘Your Rose.’
The opening sentence was, ‘I compare you to a rose, for a simple reason: roses are beautiful and fragrant, the most beautiful flowers in the world—and I really like you. I hold you carefully, avoiding your thorns, and as long as you don’t hurt me, I’ll stay with you forever.’
In that book, in the author’s introduction, it said: ‘Yu Qiu, novelist.’
On the day he received the sample book, Yu Qiu held that book and looked at it for a long time, then pressed his head against the hard cover, surrounded by the fragrance of the book.
He cried for half an hour.
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