Mi Wu was invited to be a judge of the "Creative Elements" literary contest when she was slightly drunk. To be honest, she doesn't like this kind of work at all, but the organizer of the Creative Element Competition, Mingqian Culture Media Co., Ltd., is her owner. Previously, her two novels and one essay were all handled by Ming Qian Company. The company's literary director, Ah Yue, is also a good friend of hers.

Miwu is twenty-seven years old. He is a professional writer who has a good life, writes one or two books seriously every year, and it is of course best if he can sell the copyright, but it doesn't matter if he can't sell it. With royalties and the money to write a column for the magazine, she was able to make a decent living. Although he is not a popular author, he is very favored by modern urban female white-collar readers because of his gentle temper, beautiful appearance, and warm and relaxed writing. If it weren't for the fact that she wasn't a person who liked to promote herself, she would probably be worth a lot more than she is now.

Although she was tricked into agreeing to be a judge, Miwu felt that the trouble was that she had to read a lot of novels every day, which was contrary to her original intention of having a leisurely life. But Miwu is still very serious about reading the manuscript, thunder can't move for more than two hours every day, holding a tablet to read the submission, not only scoring according to the rules, but occasionally seeing a good one will also see Hunting Xinxi to write some comments.

I got up at 7 o'clock in the morning, warmed up with yoga, had breakfast, took a shower, and went to the living room. She lives alone, so when she works, she often turns on the TV and doesn't watch it, just because there is a noise in the room. Otherwise, it's really lonely.

There are another 20 drafts in the mailbox that passed the primary selection yesterday. The rough selection is really, really coarse. When Miwu first heard that there was a rough selection process, she thought it was a precursor to gold panning, mixing gold dust and fine sand materials into her hands to carry out the final selection. Unexpectedly, the rough selection process is to pile baskets of ore in front of them, and only the stubborn stones that are obviously empty are removed. Most of the time, it's good to be able to pick out some beautiful stones.

However, Mi Wu is not too angry about this situation. Although she is talented, she has also come from a rookie author step by step, and knows that these are the necessary paths for an author's growth stage.

However, there is a manuscript in the mailbox today, and the editor of the rough selection link actually wrote a comment.

"The plot is gloomy, but the reading experience is excellent. After reading the full text, the entire rough selection group was circulated, and it was unanimously agreed that the level was quite good. ”

This is the first time that there has been such a comment.

Miwu opened the email attachment. The title of the novel is: "Eight Minutes of Warmth"

"Have you ever heard? If the sun goes out at this moment, it won't be until eight minutes before the people of the earth know.

The eight minutes after the sun went out were as warm as usual.

No one is aware of its illusion.

Someday, everything will be a thing of the past.

Turning around and looking back, the distance between each other walking in opposite directions was so long. But there is no longer intense emotion in the heart, just the sadness is depicted in gentle language, and the past is gazed at with warm pupils. The wanton youth is accompanied by sweet sorrow, humming softly in the corner of the heart.

Can you still remember, when did you start saying that sentence in your heart?

- Na, I like you. ”

After reading the first paragraph of the novel, Miwu felt as if her whole body had been passed by electricity. Female authors' emotional perception often needs to be much more delicate than that of ordinary people, and only in this way can they capture all kinds of subtle emotions, brew, precipitate, ferment in their arms, and finally transform them into fine words. They are often the most meticulous and accurate people in their written statements. Male authors like to sprinkle dog blood, like to burn and heat, and like grandeur, while female authors are mostly somewhat alienated from these. If male authors are like architects and engineers, and write about palaces, temples, and museums, then female authors are like gardeners, creating delicate structures that change the scenery step by step.

And seeing this text, Miwu immediately realized the author's skills. Knowing the characteristics of the essay, the opening immediately creates suspense and grabs the reader, and the words are simple but the amount of information connected is sufficient. The concept of "eight minutes of warmth" suddenly made Miwu's whole person enter the scene of reading a novel.

"Eight Minutes of Warmth" is a campus story. Gu Xiye and Yan Ze grew up in the same family, and Gu Xiye was an adopted child of Yan Ze's family. But Gu Xiye is almost perfect in all aspects, such as appearance and figure, academic performance, treatment of people, etc., which makes Yan Ze extremely jealous. Yan Ze and Ji Xiao are in love, but He Xinliang, the prince charming recognized by all girls, has always chased Yan Ze, completely ignoring Gu Xiye's good impression and pursuit of him. However, in the novel, the emotional line is only a part of the event, just some trigger points.

The most fatal and important relationship is that when Yan Ze was jealous of Gu Xiye, Gu Xiye was also jealous of Yan Ze. Gu Xiye is at home, although everyone is undoubtedly a family, they can only call Yan Ze's parents "uncle and aunt", and their good impression and actions towards He Xinliang have also been rejected or ignored again and again. Yan Ze and Gu Xiye were intimate on the surface, but the gap in private became bigger and bigger, until the hearts of both parties turned to darkness...... The story of a girl who is jealous and tearing each other apart actually has a sense of reality in any era. But in "Eight Minutes of Warmth", it is to the point where life is endangered at the end.

The novel was written by Xia Mingyou, and it was originally a long story, with more than 100,000 words. However, there are more campus parts, and although the experience is delicate, it dilutes part of the sense of confrontation. But this version written by Yue Qingyan inherits the main line, focusing on the story from intimacy to contradictions, and the contradictions, hearts, and mutual jealousy are clearly written, and the others are just passing by. In the original book, Gu Xiye and Yan Ze were still in conflict, but Yue Qingyan made them blacken without hesitation, but in the end, whether the small trap that harmed people succeeded or not, he didn't write it, but put it at that moment to make an open ending.

"That's how it should be.

Every time I have a little heart, I feel uneasy in my heart.

In order to ignore this uneasiness, smile harder. ”

Reading this, the novel came to an abrupt end, and the judges' hearts seemed to be scratched by a lot of little hands: what happened?

Looking at so many submissions, there has never been an author who can make her feel this way. Writers of this level need to participate in the essay competition? Miwu even felt that this guy's story design ability was no worse than her own. She sent the manuscript directly to the printer, typed a paper version and read it again, and then poured herself a glass of water, ready to score and write comments.

Then, she opened the second attachment to the email: Author Registration.

Then I saw it, gender: male.

The pen name "Xia Li" is very feminine, although it looks like a neutral pen name, but the slight texture contained in it is indeed very feminine. But this author is really a man, and the writing is fine, but this grasp of the psychology of girls is really very accurate and meticulous. Could it be a sissy? That could explain some of the problems......

Mi Wu couldn't help but run the train in her head, and began to indulge in imagining why this was happening.

At this time, another judge of the competition, the young male author Du Xiao, sent a WeChat message.

"Have you read today's draft? There's a super good newcomer. ”

Miwu immediately replied: "Me too." ”

Each judge's manuscript is different, but with a good manuscript, everyone will communicate with each other.

"Print it out, bring it out. "Unlike Miwu, Du Xiao is a person who can't read books on a computer screen. Most of his reading is on paper or e-books. Writing manuscripts is basically handwritten and then typed into the computer. When he read the manuscript of the essay, he also printed it out and then started reading it, and he also made various annotations on the manuscript.

"Good. Old place. ”

"See you in the afternoon. Do you want to call someone else?"

"You look at it. ”

The two often make appointments like this. Du Xiao used to think about pursuing Miwu, but then gave up completely, probably because he felt that the two authors could not live together. But the two became good friends, often exchanging reading, writing, and various things in life.

Miwu took the printout, changed her clothes a little and prepared to go out. Just go to the café for a meal.

The café where they often meet is called "Youlian", in Xintiandi. It was opened by Li Zongsheng and Ashin, a place with a strong literary atmosphere, and the quality of food and drink is good. When Miwu arrived at the café, Du Xiao had already arrived, holding a notebook and holding a pencil to write and draw, probably preparing a new book again.

"Where's the manuscript?" Mi Wu took out a printout of "Eight Minutes of Warmth" from her bag and placed it on the table.

Du Xiao handed the copy he had printed out to Miwu. "It's amazing, a science fiction novel, it's very small, but the pattern is really big. ”

Miwu sat down, took her coffee, and began to read slowly.

The novel, titled "The Story of Your Life," is about a communication between Louis Banks, a linguist, and an alien creature, the Barrel of Seven Limbs. The seven-limbed barrel spaceship came to Earth and was distributed in major cities, causing a great panic among mankind. Everyone is trying to communicate with the Seven Limbs Bucket, learn each other's intentions, and seek a peaceful solution. And Louis Banks gradually mastered the language of the seven-limbed bucket in the process. The language of the seven-limbed barrel is a graphic language with extremely complex mathematical principles and mechanisms, and as he mastered it, Louis discovered the peculiarities of this language. The seven-limbed barrel script is quite similar to the Chinese hieroglyphs, but the difference is that the seven-limbed barrel does not rely on words with independent meanings to express the meaning, but unifies all the meanings that need to be expressed in one word. The more complex the semantics, the more complex the word. Behind the seven-limbed barrel language is a very unique way of perceiving the world: human beings perceive the world in a sequential order, understanding the relationship between various events as cause and effect, while the "seven-limbed bucket" perceives all events at the same time, and can look at both "cause" and "effect" first.

And the protagonist, through this language, can begin to perceive the world and communicate with his unborn daughter in a unique way through his own life, other people's lives, and even the context of all things. The best thing about this short novel is that some parts are written in the second person. And any author can understand the difficulty......

Seeing that Miwu finished reading, with a shocked look on his face, Du Xiao put down the manuscript in his hand. It's been a while since he'd finished reading "Eight Minutes of Warmth."

"Look at the author's information. Du Xiao said in disbelief.

Mi Wu saw the name she saw in the morning: Yue Qingyan.

Two works that shocked the two authors, or works with completely different tones, were actually from the same author.

"It can't be some old friend in the circle playing with us, right?" Miwu asked.

"Probably not. The completion of these two works is too high, and the quality is too good. And this Yue Qingyan has indeed never heard of it before. The old man in the circle, even if you want to play, you can't use a work with such a high degree of completion, otherwise you won't be able to tell it in the future. Du Xiao thought for a while and said, "But this kind of quality is too surprising." ”

"Not surprisingly, both of them can win awards. Miwu said: "The award is based on the work, not the author. ”

"And there won't be any controversy. This strength is simply crushing. Du Xiao smiled bitterly: "This is a problem." Although this situation is not forbidden, the Ming Qian side will not appreciate this situation, right?"

"Definitely ......" Mi Wu: "I want to verify his identity." At this level, if it's plagiarism or something, that's a big problem. ”

"Ask him out?" Du Xiao nodded, agreeing with Miwu's thoughts.

Miwu nodded. Since he wanted to make such an appointment, Du Xiao also made an appointment with Ah Yue of Mingqian Company by the way. Ah Yue has also read Yue Qingyan's two manuscripts. To be honest, the literary literacy of the rough selection group is indeed far worse than that of the judges. But they were not badly shocked by this kind of good work. What's more, after reading countless garbage works, two of them suddenly came with such high quality, it was impossible not to make a sensation within their company.

Any author, editor, always has a limited amount of reading, and there are too many things that are impossible to read. Sometimes the publishing industry says that plagiarism is such a thing, and why the editor is responsible for what he eats, why he didn't find out in advance, in fact, he wronged people. How is it possible for a responsible editor to read all the books? There are more than 100,000 publications in the country a year, and according to a person's normal reading speed, reading 100 books can be regarded as diligent. There are also various online reading platforms and jokes circulating on social networks. There is really a limit to what one person can relate to.

The main reason for asking this Yue Qingyan to come out is to see his personality and character, as well as to understand his reading and writing through conversation. It is very important for the author to build this understanding and trust. As for Yue Qingyan, he had no idea that his submission had actually suppressed the judges, and the time for him to be introduced into the literary circle and meet more authors and other friends would be greatly advanced.