Chapter 143 Girl's Confession
Fang Wei moves very quickly!
Almost at the moment when Liu Zhiyi nodded in agreement in a daze, without waiting for her to change her mind, he quickly reached into the envelope with two fingers and took out the snow-white manuscript inside.
The girl finally reacted, screamed, and rushed forward to grab it.
Fang Wei raised the manuscript in his hand high, and she grabbed his arm, jumping up and down anxiously.
"Don't look! Don't look!"
"Hey, hey, how can you go back on your word so quickly? Didn't you just agree to it?"
"I-I didn't!"
"Don't make a fuss. I'll finish reading it quickly and return it to you after I'm done."
Liu Zhiyi was not willing to agree. She almost rode on him, shaking his shoulders and stretching out her little hands to pinch and touch him. She didn't look like the lady she usually was!
Seeing that she couldn't get it in her hands, the girl finally gave up, but she didn't give up completely. She was too embarrassed to stand where he could see her, so she stood behind him, pinching and touching him with her little hands, as if she would not stop until the manuscript was returned to her.
Fang Wei naturally didn't mind being taken advantage of by her. Seeing that she finally stopped snatching the manuscript from his hand, he walked slowly while being pinched by the waist by the girl behind him and reading the manuscript in his hand.
“‘Sea Breeze’ – South Wind.”
"..."
Fang Wei read out the title of the article and her pen name.
When I turned around to see her expression, I suddenly felt a pain in my waist. This girl really used all her strength!
"hiss--!"
“No, don’t read it out loud!!”
Just hearing her pen name being read out in front of her, Liu Zhiyi's pretty face immediately turned red with shame. She hid behind him tightly, not showing her head at all. If there was a sniper in front, there would be no chance to lock her head.
"Okay, okay, I won't miss you..."
"..."
"Nanfeng, Nanfeng knows what I mean. Not bad, not bad. This pen name suits you very well."
"..."
Liu Zhiyi remained silent.
If he hadn't felt the little hands on his waist, Fang Wei would have thought she had run away.
"What kind of prose are you writing?"
"..."
"Okay, okay, okay, if you don't tell me, I'll just watch it myself."
"..."
Fang Wei slowed down his pace a little and concentrated on the manuscript in his hand.
……
As a narrative essay, the article is naturally not long.
When Fang Wei first saw the title "Sea Breeze Blowing", he thought it was a descriptive essay, but after reading it, he found that it was not the case.
Liu Zhiyi tells the story in the first person about a junior high school girl whose family suffers a change and she returns from the big city to live on a remote island.
[When my father was alive, he would often tell me about that distant island.]
[That is where he was born and raised, with the clearest water and the purest beach. My father said he was a child of the sea, and so was I, his daughter.]
[But I didn’t grow up there,…]
There aren't many fancy words, and the story begins in a plain and simple manner with her own memories.
Fang Wei read it very seriously. Through this article, he was able to peek into the girl's heart without any concealment for the first time.
Perhaps to others, this may be a fictional narrative essay, but as Fang Wei read further into the article, she realized that what was contained in the manuscript were her personal experiences, her confessions, and her summary of the stages of her life at the age of thirteen.
The article is not long. It starts with her psychological changes before and after the family changes, and then writes about her current life on the island, the friends she met, and what happened on that Mid-Autumn Festival...
[After searching my whole body, I still couldn’t find anything called strength or determination, so I told myself many times - there’s no need to be strong, just make a choice, and my fate is not something I can decide.]
[I seem to have unconsciously stood on the edge of a cliff, but I have never been pushed down.]
When seeing this part, Fang Wei's heart tightened. He never thought that this silly girl actually had such a dangerous state of mind at the beginning?
Fortunately, such dark days did not last long. She wrote about the new friends she met on the island, including Awei, who would make an appointment with her to jog to watch the sunrise every day, and Xiaolin and Xiaosheng, who would make an appointment to go to and from school together. Most of them were small fragments and feelings.
It can be clearly felt that in the second half of the manuscript, the text becomes brighter and lighter.
[You never know what you can become, who you will meet, what kind of feelings and life you will understand.]
[This is the most interesting thing.]
At the end of the article, Liu Zhiyi summarized it with this sentence.
The full text has a total of 3,627 words. Perhaps it took her several nights to write it, but it is the path she has walked in her thirteen years of life.
……
Fang Wei held three pages of manuscript paper in his hand. The paper was light, but he felt it was heavy. He was speechless for a long time.
Seeing that he had stopped and stood there for a long time, Liu Zhiyi, who was hiding behind him, touched his back with his forehead.
"H-Have you finished reading it?"
"I've finished reading it."
As soon as he finished speaking, a small hand suddenly stretched out from behind him and opened its palm towards him.
"Give it back to me after you finish reading it!"
"I want to watch it again..."
"no!!"
Liu Zhiyi butted him with her head, so Fang Wei had no choice but to fold the manuscript in his hand and put it back in her hand.
The girl then gave up and quickly put the manuscript back into the envelope, still hiding behind him without showing up.
"Zhiyi, what you wrote inside is..."
"Fake! It's all fake!"
Before Fang Wei could finish his words, the girl was busy denying it, hesitatingly explaining:
"It can't be true! When writing an article... who would write their true thoughts? It must be made up! You, you don't think these are all my true thoughts, right?"
Liu Zhiyi, who was always quiet and calm, was rarely so anxious. To a certain extent, words can reveal the author's mood and thoughts more nakedly than language. Now that he had peeped into the girl's messy inner thoughts, she felt extremely embarrassed.
"But I think..."
"Don't think like that! I'm the author! Don't do the reading comprehension! It's inaccurate!"
"what?"
Fang Wei was both angry and amused. He wanted to turn around to see her expression, but she seemed to be stuck to his back. No matter how he turned around, she would hide behind him and not show her head.
"Okay, okay, of course I believe you!"
"..." "I'm leaving soon. Are you going to send a letter?"
"..."
Seeing that Fang Wei no longer mentioned the things she wrote in her manuscript, Liu Zhiyi finally breathed a sigh of relief.
After a while, when the blush on her pretty face faded away, she finally stood from behind his back to beside him.
Liu Zhiyi turned her head and looked at him, her little mouth opening and closing like a koi in a pond, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated. Her already fair face began to blush a little bit.
"What? What do you want to say?" Fang Wei looked at her and asked.
"…After you read it…um…what do you think?"
Liu Zhiyi asked in a low voice. Before Fang Wei could say anything, she added tremblingly: "I'm not asking about the content of your article. I'm asking how well it's written..."
This is indeed a difficult question to answer.
After all, Fang Wei is not a professional editor, and he is not very clear about the manuscript acceptance requirements of "Mengya".
Despite his not-so-high literary literacy, he felt that Liu Zhiyi's article was really well-written. The emotional expression was very natural and the writing was quite sophisticated, showing strong literary skills and narrative abilities. At least among junior high school students, her writing ability and talent were top-notch.
Not to mention that this is almost a confession from a young girl...
As a good friend of Liu Zhiyi and a character that appears in her article, although Fang Wei had no contact with the first half of her life, he participated in her life after she came to the island. Fang Wei was really touched by her confession. It was as if he got to know her again through these words she wrote, and this understanding was from the inside out.
Fang Wei turned his head and looked into her eyes, and said very seriously:
"Zhiyi, I think your article is very well written. From any angle, I think it is excellent!"
"..."
Liu Zhiyi was stunned for a moment, and it was hard to tell from his expression whether he was happy or troubled, but it was obvious that his tense body relaxed a little.
"Really..." She gave a vague answer and looked into Fang Wei's eyes.
“Really, very good!”
Fang Wei once again enthusiastically explained, "No matter whether your manuscript can be accepted in the end, what is certain is that you have gained a loyal reader!"
"……who?"
"its me!"
"~~~"
Fang Wei was unable to describe the girl's expression at the moment. She made a voice that was extremely moved, but said nothing. She just quietly hid behind him like a little snail. When Fang Wei could no longer see her, she began to giggle.
"Okay, then I'll believe you~~"
"I'm speaking from the bottom of my heart!"
"~~~"
Liu Zhiyi felt that she might have felt five years of happiness.
Just as Fang Wei said, she still doesn’t know whether the editorial department can approve the manuscript, but at least she has gained her first loyal fan!
"Then, if I have a new work in the future, I will show it to you..."
"You said it! I heard it all!"
As expected, people cannot make any decision when they are emotional. After Liu Zhiyi calmed down, he immediately wanted to regret it, but Fang Wei had already insisted on this agreement.
……
After much hesitation, the two finally arrived at the post office.
The post office is not far from the school, and there is a lottery shop next to it. Now that the Olympics are over, the lottery shop is deserted.
Fang Wei took Liu Zhiyi into the post office.
At this time in the millennium, sending letters is still a relatively common form of communication.
Fang Wei took Liu Zhiyi to the post office to buy a stamp. The style of the stamp was very beautiful and many people are interested in stamp collecting.
Many people don’t know that the cheapest and most effective way to protect their intellectual property rights is to send it through the post. The postmark on it is the date when the intellectual property rights take effect, and it is recognized by courts across the country.
Fang Wei borrowed glue from the staff. Instead of doing it himself, he handed the glue to Liu Zhiyi and asked her to put the stamps and seal the envelope herself.
Liu Zhiyi pasted it on very carefully and straight. If there was a place that was slightly crooked, she would carefully straighten it and finally blew gently on her cheek.
Letters can be handed directly to the counter or placed in the mailbox at the entrance of the post office.
Liu Zhiyi did not hand the letter to the counter. Instead, she went to the mailbox at the door with Fang Wei. She held the envelope in both hands and stuffed it into the mailbox in a very ceremonial manner.
If there were incense or something nearby, Fang Wei thought she might light some and worship.
"Done?" Fang Wei said with a smile.
"Done!" Liu Zhiyi breathed a sigh of relief. From now on, he can concentrate on preparing for the final exam.
Fang Wei was not as clear as she was about submissions, so he asked curiously, "After the magazine receives the manuscript, how long will it take for them to respond?"
"Well, at least one or two months. If you don't pass the first round of review, the magazine usually won't respond. If you pass the second round, the magazine may give you some revision suggestions when rejecting the manuscript. If you pass the third round... then there's a chance it will be published."
When he said this, Liu Zhiyi's eyes were a little absent-minded. If he could publish his own article in his favorite magazine, it would be a blessing just thinking about it!
But she didn't dare to have too many extravagant hopes. After all, the best result of her previous submissions was only making it to the second round.
She still remembers that day when she received a call from the editorial department at home, she thought her manuscript had been accepted. At that moment, she felt so mixed up that she didn’t know what to feel…
Seeing the girl's thoughts, Fang Wei smiled, patted her shoulder and said:
"Don't worry! This is a work you put your heart into. I think it has a good chance this time! Because it's really good!"
"Uh-huh!"
Liu Zhiyi nodded vigorously. "If I fail this time, I'll try again next time! It's not the first time anyway, and I'm not that easily defeated!"
The seemingly fragile girl showed unexpected tenacity.
Fang Wei felt relieved.
She continues to nurture her dreams on this remote island.
And he supported her in pursuing her dreams.
"Zhiyi, I will always support you."
"Okay~~!"
Liu Zhiyi looked at him and smiled sweetly.
(End of this chapter)
