CDJMM – Volume 1 – Chapter 29 Writing in the Republic Era (28)

The feedback for The Last Person Who Didn’t Take Drugs turned out to be somewhat different from what Le Jing had expected.

For the first two days, all the newspapers were eerily calm. The occasional comments that appeared were bland and toothless, so quiet that Le Jing even began to wonder if his essay had been written too poorly to draw attention.

Yang Jinglun, however, was relieved. He told Le Jing the truth: “As an editor, of course, I hope this article of yours will spark a reaction. But as a reader, I actually wish this piece would never be noticed, the fewer troubles it attracts the better.”

He raised his eyes and gazed at Le Jing earnestly, saying with deep feeling: “Sir, you are still young. Your future has only just begun. I truly don’t want you to meet an untimely end.”

Le Jing understood what Yang Jinglun meant. He was still young, with decades of time ahead to pursue the things he wanted to do. There was no need to be anxious or disheartened. But… was that really the case?

Ever since falling gravely ill, Le Jing had carried a sense of urgency. His transmigration had been sudden and uncontrollable, and he worried that one day he might wake up and find himself gone from this world altogether. That was why he was in such a hurry. He wanted to do as much as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Just as he was debating whether to write another article, the long-delayed feedback finally arrived on the third day.

Another established newspaper, Chaoyang Daily, published a response to The Last Person Who Didn’t Take Drugs. The author turned out to be none other than Principal Zhou Dezhuang. Considering Zhou Dezhuang’s vehement condemnation of the opium issue that day, it was hardly surprising that he would be the first to respond to Le Jing’s call for prohibition.

Besides Zhou Dezhuang, another heavyweight also spoke up for Le Jing in The Literary Gazette. This was Huang Qixuan, better known by his pen name Dream of Millet, a BOSS-level figure who dominated middle school Chinese textbooks. Every year, examiners setting reading comprehension questions for the secondary school entrance exams would treat his essays as a main target of study. Yet, more than his academic dominance, what later generations loved gossiping about was his stormy yet inseparable relationship with his wife.

Huang Qixuan had married Xiong Meidie, the fierce daughter of a military family, through an arranged marriage. She was strong in martial arts, while Huang Qixuan looked down on her for lacking education and failing to connect with him intellectually, so he had never been fond of her. Not long after their marriage, Huang Qixuan’s wandering heart began to stir, and he started flirting with his own female students.

Xiong Meidie soon found out. That very night, she kicked open the study door and flung a kitchen knife at him while he was reading. The blade whizzed past his cheek and embedded itself deeply into the wall behind him. As sweat poured down Huang’s face and his legs trembled, his wife, radiating murderous intent, threatened: “Huang Qixuan, you dog! If you ever dare mess around with some other little vixen again, I’ll castrate you myself!”

From that night on, the couple began living in mutual respect and harmony, and eventually became celebrated as a model pair in the Republic era.

Though Huang Qixuan was something of an oddball in his emotional life—constantly provoking his wife’s “domestic violence” by philandering, yet stubbornly refusing divorce—he was at heart a man of integrity and moral principle. In short, he might have his private faults, but he never failed in matters of greater importance. This was clear from the review he wrote in defense of Le Jing’s essay.

Huang wrote:

Reading The Last Person Who Didn’t Take Drugs — Am I the Madman, or Is It Society?

The first time I read this essay was on a sunny morning. Outside, my children were playing noisily, and my beloved wife was whispering with the servants. I sat in my sunlit study and suddenly felt as though I had fallen into an ice cave, my entire body trembling.

The author calls opium a “poison,” calls smoking opium “drug use”—and there could be no more precise description! At first glance, readers might find the story absurd. How could there exist a government that arrests its citizens simply for not taking drugs? The persecution of the protagonist by addicts might seem like the ravings of lunatics. But… is it really as it appears on the surface?

Every piece of fiction in this essay is built atop the towering foundation of reality! That country in the story that arrests healthy non-addicts and encourages its citizens to take drugs—that is our very own China!

To force peasants to plant more opium, certain provincial warlords have imposed exorbitant grain taxes to intimidate those who want to grow food instead! To expand opium fields, land annexation has worsened across the grain-producing provinces, concentrating land in the hands of landlords and capitalists. And with the tax revenue from this poisonous weed, the so-called “leaders” of China are fed effortlessly. Their purses swell, filled with the lifeblood of the common people. I cannot help but ask these so-called leaders—does this steamed bun soaked in human blood taste good?

And our people? I ask you all to take a look inside the opium dens scattered across every street and alley. How many idle men in China are puffing away their lives, doing no work, wasting their days in a fog of smoke?!

Does China still have arable land left?
Does China still have soldiers fit to fight?
Does China still have healthy citizens?

When natural disasters strike, besides opium, what else can our government give its starving people to eat?

To hell with this so-called “Celestial Empire”—it is nothing more than the delusion of a bunch of sick men of East Asia!

How much longer will this mad world ruled by lunatics continue to exist?

If China still wants to have a future, if the government still wishes its citizens to live in a land where they can fill their bellies, then ban this opium! Leave to our descendants a peaceful and prosperous age!

…

The entire essay was stirring and impassioned, but Le Jing couldn’t help laughing at that one line from Elder Huang, who, in his strong will to survive, added “and my beloved wife.” After the laugh, he sincerely felt grateful toward Elder Huang. Though he had no idea how his essay had caught that man’s attention, having both Principal Zhou and Elder Huang—two senior figures—stand behind his writing meant it was destined never to remain obscure again.

And events unfolded just as Le Jing had expected.

The words of those two towering figures landed like a massive boulder crashing into a lake, sending up enormous waves, shocking the world like thunder on a clear day. It was as if countless people suddenly awoke from a dream and discovered The Last Person Who Didn’t Take Drugs printed in The Literary Gazette. The once-calm surface was shattered—then came a boom, and the powder keg completely exploded.

At first, The Watchman, who had only revealed his talent through a handful of articles, wasn’t taken seriously by most in the Republic’s literary circle. When The Last Person Who Didn’t Take Drugs was first published, the overall attitude of the cultural scene was indifference.

But once Zhou Dezhang and Huang Qixuan threw their weight behind him, it was different. Unlike the previously obscure Watchman, both of them were long-established names, each with their own following, and both were notoriously tough characters. The opposition wasn’t stupid—they knew to pinch the softer fruit. And after all, wasn’t The Watchman the true culprit behind all this?

Thus began an unprecedented war of words in the newspapers, all directed at The Watchman.

His opponents were: opium enthusiasts, the lackeys of warlords, government-hired pens, thugs working for drug traffickers, and literati hailing from the landlord and capitalist classes…

The opium lovers cursed The Watchman as a liar distorting truth, insisting that opium was their muse of inspiration and posed no harm to health.

The warlords’ lackeys declared that the opium tax was crucial for the nation’s livelihood: only through that revenue could the impoverished China afford planes and cannons, only then could armies be mobilized to resist foreign troops. And besides, the people grew opium voluntarily—this way they could grow, smoke, and sell at low prices, reducing the burden on the common folk. If the government banned opium, the people would be forced to buy at high prices from foreign traffickers! The Watchman must have taken bribes from foreign dealers to advocate domestic prohibition. How was this different from treason?

The government’s official literati claimed that opium tax had already become a vital part of state revenue—bridges, roads, schools, foreign goods, national defense—all depended on it! Taxing opium was only to encourage the poor to quit and the rich to smoke less, thus achieving prohibition without outright banning. Moreover, domestic opium was different from foreign opium—our soil’s essence neutralized its toxicity, making it harmless to Chinese bodies. The Watchman’s proposal was shallow and laughable; if anyone actually followed his ideas, he would surely be nailed to history’s pillar of shame as a criminal to the Chinese nation!

……

Though many vested interests tried desperately to smear Le Jing, China has never lacked for clear-headed people, nor for unyielding ones.

As a great writer once said: “Since ancient times, we have had those who toiled in silence, those who fought with all their strength, those who spoke up for the people, and those who gave their lives for the law… Even the so-called ‘official histories,’ written as genealogies for emperors and nobles, could not bury their brilliance. They are the backbone of China.”

And so Le Jing saw one after another—some destined for the history books, others to die nameless—step forward, writing articles in the papers to support him, arguing for him in the streets.

This debate over banning opium dragged on endlessly, escalating from the initial “gang beating” of Le Jing to becoming a battlefield where prohibitionists and opium defenders clashed across all of China. Countless people were drawn in. Some lobbied for the interests they served; others waved flags and shouted for the sake of fairness and justice in their hearts.

Le Jing was merely the spark that lit the powder keg. How long this great explosion would last, and with what outcome it would end, remained a mystery to everyone caught within it.

Perhaps this grand debate would leave a bold mark in the history books, and as its spark and initiator, Le Jing’s name would also be remembered. He didn’t know how posterity would judge him, but he knew all he had done was true to his heart.

Then, one noon, Yang Jinglun pounded furiously on Le Jing’s gate, his voice cutting through the serene beauty of late autumn:

“Sir, sir, hurry—open the door!”

Le Jing sat at his desk, capped his pen, and placed it into the pen holder.

In the courtyard came Yang Jinglun’s stumbling footsteps, along with his broken, hoarse cries:

“Sir, come quickly with me, the police are on their way!”

“What?! Why would the police arrest my brother?”

“No time to explain! Where is he?”

“In the study! I’ll take you there!”

Le Jing rose slowly, smoothing out the slight wrinkles on his white robe with great care. Only when the study door was broken open did he turn around. To the panting Yang Jinglun and Li Shuran, he flashed a radiant smile.

How to describe that smile?

Bright as the rising sun, free and open as a clear breeze and bright moon, steadfast as a seeker unbending through a hundred trials.

Yang Jinglun froze for a moment before finding his voice again, shoving aside the strangeness in his chest to blurt out urgently:

“Sir, the police will be here any moment—I’ve prepared a car and tickets for Japan, we must leave at once!”

Le Jing shook his head gently with a smile. “I won’t go anywhere.”

Yang Jinglun’s eyes widened in shock. “Sir?”

Le Jing said with a laugh: “Is there any news more sensational than the leader of the anti-opium campaign being arrested by the police? That’s why I must not leave.”

Let his imprisonment throw yet more fuel onto this raging fire—let the flames burn even brighter.