Almost at the same time as I loved literature and blindly read literary works, I learned that there was a publishing house in Beijing called the People's Literature Publishing House, which was repeatedly deepened from the spine and title page of the Chinese and foreign literature books I had read.

With the enrichment of life experience and literary life, this feeling has become more and more profound. For an amateur author, this high gatehouse is tantamount to a temple of literature, and he almost does not dare to dream of publishing a book there.

In this state of mind that there is no extravagant hope but calm and practical, one day, He Qizhi came to me, marked with the sign of the People's Literature Publishing House.

The memory of this incident is profound, and it is too unexpected to be strong. In the middle of winter in 1973, it was very cold in Xi'an.

I went to the meeting of the district party committee in the suburbs of Xi'an, and I have no memory of what it was. At the end of the meeting, I was stopped by a stranger in a deep voice in non-standard Mandarin (as is the standard for a radio announcer) and I knew it was an outsider before he introduced himself.

Among the bosses, peers and people I worked with and interacted with, the main ones were the eastern Guanzhong accent spoken and spoken, followed by the people from northern Shaanxi who were always suspected of having a cold and flu and had a nasal congestion and a strong nasal voice.

As soon as the person looking for me opened his mouth, I smelled the scent of outsiders. He said that his name was He Qizhi, and that he had come from Beijing, from the People's Literature Publishing House in Beijing, to talk to me about things.

I called him Lao He according to my habit. For more than 20 years, I kept calling him Lao He and didn't change my words.

The place where Lao He and I talked was on the corner of Xiaozhai, where the suburban district party committee is located. On behalf of the People's Literature Publishing House, which had just resumed its publishing work, he came to Xi'an to organize the manuscript, and he came to me only after receiving a recommendation from the editorial department of Shaanxi Literature and Art (formerly Yanhe), which was also founded by the Shaanxi Writers Association (at this time called the Shaanxi Provincial Literary and Art Creation Research Office, to show the difference from the old literary and artistic system).

He had read a short story I published in Shaanxi Literature and Art, "After the Succession", and thought that this short story had the structure or foundation of a long novel, and could be written into a long novel of about 200,000 words.

I stood by the street of Xiaozhai, completely at a loss, and there was no need to be startled by such exaggerated idiomatic expressions.

The 20,000-word short story "After the Succession" published in the third issue of the original "Yanhe" and now the bimonthly "Shaanxi Literature and Art" that I have just republished is the first novel published in my life, and it is also the first important leap since I became obsessed with literature in the second grade of junior high school (and I am not here to reflect on the epochal illustrated concept of this novel).

I explained to Lao He that this was almost a matter of tigers eating the sky. Lao He patiently encouraged me, saying that this novel has the foundation to be expanded into a long novel, and it can be completed according to my long-term work and life accumulation in the countryside.

In the end, he did not hesitate to bring up the precedent that the two educated youths he was tutoring in Yan'an had written a novel to prove to me.

First of all, I was very moved, not only the content of Lao He's words, but also his tone and look, I felt sincere and also felt basic trust, even if I can't write a novel, it's good to be a literary friend, I should be the first Beijinger I have known since my literary career.

More than 20 years have passed, we have met many rounds, the world has been turned upside down, literature has been turned upside down, and every time we meet, whether in Beijing or Xi'an or other cities, we continue to be honest and sincere on the streets of Xiaozhai, and continue and deepen that trust.

I said yes against my will

"You can think about it," and then I parted up and went back to the countryside in the eastern suburbs of Xi'an, where I worked. Soon after Lao He returned to Beijing, he wrote a long letter, which was still the content of encouraging the writing of novels, expressing the conversation on the streets of Xiaozhai in a more organized text, and opening up my thoughts from the aspects of concept, structure and life materials.

I could hardly find any more reasons to excuse myself, but I couldn't move the slightest bit to write a novel.

I think the writing of novels is too difficult, and it must be the psychological feeling caused by my long-term reading of novels.

I often wonder again and again when I read those excellent novels, what kind of head this writer has, how can he write unexpected stories and almost touchable characters!

Fortunately, at this time, my superiors suddenly informed me to go to Nanniwan Wuqi Cadre School for labor training and reform, and I shirked this incompetent pressure on this ground.

After I went to Nanniwan in northern Shaanxi, Lao He wrote that he had also been transferred to Tibet for a period of three years, but he continued to mobilize and encourage me to write novels.

As he devoted himself to his new job in Tibet, the letters about life and work in Tibet took up the main content, and the topic of novel writing was still being said, but only to mention it.

It's the spring and summer of 1974,

The "Criticism of Lin and Criticism of Confucius" movement has swept up a new whirlpool of class struggle...... This is how the matter of writing a novel was resolved.

That's why I got to know a friend, Lao He.