CDJMM – Volume 1 – Chapter 55 Writing in the Republic Era (54)

Le Jing’s planned two-week trip to Shanghai ended up stretching to over three weeks because he had to write articles in response to Li Jingliang’s sudden attacks.

As a result, Rise of the Dynasty was left on hiatus for three weeks. During that time, Beiping Novel Gazette was practically sending telegrams every day, urging Le Jing to return and continue updating.

When they finally came back from Shanghai to Beiping, it was just in time for New Year’s Eve. The reporters who had once crowded in front of their residence were long gone, and the streets were thick with the festive atmosphere of the New Year.

Le Jing didn’t return to the Li family ancestral home in Fengtian. Instead, he and Li Shuran spent the New Year in their little courtyard in Beiping, a holiday that belonged solely to the two of them.

Winter was the best season for hotpot, so on New Year’s Eve, as the siblings stayed up to keep watch through the night, they set a steaming hotpot on the table.

They sat around it, watching the milky-white broth bubbling away, green vegetables and red slices of beef and lamb rising and sinking in the pot, a sight both lively and appetizing.

From outside came the playful laughter of Xiao Ni and Zhou’s eldest son. Ever since Le Jing had sent her to school, Wang Xiaoni had become livelier. Even her eyes, which sometimes appeared dull and spiritless, now seemed much brighter.

Li Shuran lowered her gaze, chopsticks in hand, staring expectantly at the fragrant hotpot. When Le Jing finally said, “Alright,” she happily picked up a large slice of beef, blew on it a few times, then stuffed it into her mouth and chewed with relish, her cheeks puffed like a greedy little squirrel.

Le Jing smiled faintly at her gluttonous look. Over the past year, if anyone had changed the most, it was Li Shuran.

The once-shy and timid young girl had grown rapidly through her studies, transforming into the brave, passionate, intelligent, and decisive person she was now—one who dared to love and hate freely.

“Shuran, what’s your New Year’s wish?”

Li Shuran swallowed what was in her mouth, thought for a few seconds, then smiled. “I wish that you and I can both stay healthy and safe, year after year, just like today.”

Le Jing smiled but replied, “My New Year’s wish is different from yours.”

He gazed at the white snow outside, with the sounds of firecrackers and children’s laughter ringing in his ears. His eyes narrowed slightly, hiding their complexity. “My wish… is freedom.”

Li Shuran stared blankly at the young man across from her, dressed in a red Tang suit. “Freedom?”

“Yes, freedom.”

Amid the rising steam, his face blurred. His voice seemed to come from somewhere far away, tinged with profound loneliness and unyielding determination:

“I have trudged along the river of time, and all I seek are those two characters—freedom.”

“Freedom is transcendence, ease, wandering, solitude. It is climbing alone to the western tower and gazing at the endless horizon. It is also rushing forward, unwavering even in the face of death, because the heart cannot regret what it loves.”

Li Shuran’s heart suddenly pounded furiously. She looked at her brother’s hazy face through the mist, unable to utter a word.

Though she didn’t fully understand what he meant, she couldn’t help but sense a kind of eternal loneliness hidden within his words.

It was as if the food before them, the laughter outside, the joyous Spring Festival, even she herself—none of it truly belonged to the young man sitting in front of her.

The youth had his mountains and seas, his towering shadows of peaks, his surging waves across ten thousand miles.

If possible, let the wind belong to him, the desert belong to him, the sky belong to him.

The unrestrained wind, the desert where rain might fall, the sky filled with stars.

Let everything belong to him—so he can be free.

Li Shuran sat in silence for a long time. Long enough that the hotpot grew cold, and the sound of midnight firecrackers erupted outside. Only then did she finally look up at Le Jing, tears in her eyes but a smile on her lips.

“Brother, I wish you freedom.”

Outside, firecrackers roared, fireworks blossomed across the sky, casting mottled shadows on the young man’s face. His complexion was fair as jade, his eyes bright yet shadowed, his smile intertwining with the fireworks outside. His lips moved, but his voice was drowned in the explosions of firecrackers.

And yet, Li Shuran read the silent words.

He was saying: “Shuran, you must live well.”

Amid the crackling firecrackers, one year ended, and another began.

The 14th year of the Republic officially came to a close.

The 15th year of the Republic arrived.

Li Shuran was 14, and Le Jing was 17.

In this single year since he had come to this era, he had gone through countless storms and hardships. Yet that year had been more exciting and fulfilling than the previous sixteen years of his life combined.

Indeed, what matters most in life is its breadth, not its length.

The Spring Festival of the Republic’s 15th year was the first New Year Le Jing had spent since coming to this era. Compared to later generations, this era’s Spring Festival carried a much stronger festive atmosphere.

Red lanterns hung everywhere, dragon and lion dance troupes roared down the streets, the air was filled with the faint scent of gunpowder. Children in new clothes roamed from house to house, while the faces of people carrying New Year goods shone with happy anticipation.

Walking among them, Le Jing felt a faint sense of absurdity and dissonance, as if he had stepped into an old photograph.

Even now, he still couldn’t quite adapt to this era. Often, upon waking in the middle of the night, he felt as though it had all been nothing more than a dream.

The days passed by in an orderly and steady manner.

After nearly a month-long hiatus, The Rise of the Dynasty finally resumed serialization. The story had progressed to the point where Xu Wangmu had raised his banner in revolt, calling upon righteous armies across the land to resist foreign invaders.

Some sharp-eyed readers had already guessed what might happen, and in recent days, Le Jing received many letters asking whether Xu Wangmu would proclaim himself emperor. Book reviews voicing similar speculations began appearing in the newspapers.

Chiyan even published an article in the papers, writing:

“In the Records of Xiang Yu, it is written: when the First Emperor of Qin toured Kuaiji and crossed the Zhejiang River, both Liang and Ji witnessed it. Ji said: ‘That throne could be taken and replaced.’ Now, the current Emperor of Dahua is muddleheaded and incompetent, lacking even a fraction of the First Emperor’s vision and ambition. Why shouldn’t Xu Wangmu follow Xiang Yu’s example and take his place?”

This article stirred up a storm. Suddenly, three camps—the “Pro-Emperor Faction,” the “Loyalist Faction,” and the “Heroic Overlord Faction”—erupted into heated debates in the newspapers.

Le Jing ignored all the commotion, simply continuing to follow his outline and write steadily.

Although his pen name Wheatfield had been exposed, the authorities strangely remained silent about it and did not mention anything about banning him. Most likely because The Wandering Adventure did not touch upon any sensitive issues. So Literary Gazette pretended not to know anything and continued serializing the story.

Defined by him as a children’s story, The Wandering Adventure ultimately became an adult fairy tale. Later, Fu Kemao once wrote a letter to Lin Zhongqi, asking why he had been mentioned in the preface of The Rise of the Dynasty. After thinking for a few seconds, Le Jing mischievously replied: “I am watching you.”

This line, which had the flavor of a stalker’s words, was instead taken by the letter’s recipient, Fu Kemao, as a sign of Lin Zhongqi’s deep expectations and encouragement for him. Overjoyed, he became even more convinced that he was a young prodigy destined to shine brilliantly in the future, and this belief led him down a lifelong path of charity. Of course, that is a story for another time.

The filial-piety debate triggered by his The Path of a Beast, published under the pen name “The Watchman,” was still raging fiercely in the papers.

When Zhou Dezhang and Zheng Yiliang came to visit him, they laughed and said that Le Jing had practically poked a hole in the heavens.

Even Zhang Xiguan, when coming over to collect manuscripts, looked at him with a complicated gaze. From Zhang’s eyes, Le Jing could see disapproval of The Path of a Beast, yet he ultimately said nothing and silently took away the latest The Rise of the Dynasty manuscript.

Le Jing still attended school as usual. Only this time, he had completely become a celebrity on campus.

Many classmates had personally witnessed his earlier quarrel with Li Jingliang. Later, Li Jingliang exposed Le Jing’s school and class in the newspapers, so anyone with half a brain could figure out what was going on.

Thus, the moment Le Jing entered school, he was immediately surrounded by classmates.

“Le Jing—no, I should call you Li Jingran now. I can’t believe you’re actually The Watchman!”

“I really admire you! You’re our age, yet you can write such outstanding works. Genius is the only word for you!”

“I’ve read your The Path of a Beast too. After reading it, I got goosebumps all over. The sun was shining, yet I felt as if I were standing in an icy wasteland.”

Someone even asked, “Will you keep publishing under the The Watchman pen name?”

Le Jing smiled good-naturedly as he answered all their chattering questions. Only when Mrs. Bai entered the classroom did the crowd finally disperse, leaving him a moment of peace.

This fiery wave of attention lasted for over a week. Once his classmates’ curiosity was somewhat satisfied, Le Jing’s surroundings gradually quieted down again.

Then, one day after school, Cao Wanying shyly approached him and said: “I have a friend who’s also a fan of your books and wants to meet you.”

Her earlier words—“You de, informer, dead dead de, you de understand?”—had stirred up long-buried memories in Le Jing. That line appeared far too frequently in later-era anti-Japanese war dramas.

Of course, he also understood that most likely it was just a common Xiehe speech of this era. Xiehe speech referred to the hybrid language that emerged during the early 20th century when the Japanese army occupied Northeast China, introducing Japanese vocabulary and grammar into Chinese.

Still, for a Beijing girl to suddenly utter that line, he couldn’t help but feel a flicker of anticipation. So, he tested her. The result proved that Cao Wanying was nothing more than a perfectly ordinary native of the Republic of China, not the time-traveler he had hoped for.

Yet because of that experience, their relationship had become inexplicably closer. By now, the two could leave school together without drawing strange looks.

So, Le Jing readily agreed to her request.

On the way, Cao Wanying briefly introduced her friend: “He’s from the East, but he admires Huaxia culture so much that he traveled all the way here to study. He can even speak fluent Chinese.”

Le Jing raised his brows but said nothing.

Naturally, he harbored no narrow-minded nationalism. Though Japan had committed countless crimes in China during wartime—atrocities beyond description—there were still some Japanese with conscience and a sense of justice.

Japan and China, two neighboring nations separated only by a strip of water, had always influenced each other’s histories.

For instance, the founding of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance in Tokyo sounded the death knell of the Qing dynasty. Or how, in the Party’s army, there had once been Japanese soldiers fighting among the ranks of the Eighth Route Army and the People’s Liberation Army. In the early years of Red China, young Japanese voices shouted, “Rebellion is justified, revolution is no crime,” as Red Army forces swept across the islands.

Cao Wanying added with a laugh: “My friend is the strangest Japanese person I’ve ever met. For some reason, he’s always hated his Japanese identity and dreamed of becoming a citizen of Huaxia. But since his parents disapproved, he had to give up.”

Inwardly, Le Jing mused: In modern terms, wouldn’t that make him a “jingzhong”—an ultra-Sinicized Japanese?

The two chatted and laughed as they walked. Soon, they reached the school gates, where a short-haired boy in a gray Zhongshan suit was waiting.

He looked about the same age as Le Jing—barely in his teens. With thick brows, big eyes, and handsome features, he gave off an air of elegance, though a faint shadow of melancholy lingered between his brows.

The moment he saw Cao Wanying, his eyes lit up. His gaze couldn’t help drifting toward Le Jing, and he stammered nervously:

“Th-this one is…?”

Cao Wanying laughed: “Didn’t you say you wanted to meet him? I brought him here. How do you plan on thanking me?”

The boy’s face flushed crimson with excitement. Moving stiffly, almost like a drunk, he stepped forward, stretched out a sweaty hand, and stammered in a daze:

“Lin… Lin Zhongqi, sir! H-hello! I… I’m your… diehard fan…”

Le Jing: …???!