Chapter 29: Wen Leyu's Anger

Li Ye was aware that his desk mate, the little "secret agent," was peeking at his writing, but he had no intention of stopping her. After all, he would be writing this novel for quite some time, and with Wen Leyu sitting right beside him, it was impossible to keep it hidden. Besides, why bother hiding it from a girl whose satisfaction rating was off the charts? It would only make things awkward and waste energy.

He would rather spend that energy smoothing out the historical discrepancies in "Lurk" to avoid unnecessary trouble. It was 1981, a time without the internet, and a 19-year-old boy in a northern town shouldn't possess the kind of common historical knowledge taken for granted in later times.

Take, for instance, the identity of the protagonist, Yu Zecheng. He was a graduate of the Qingpu Special Training Class of 1937, later worked in the Counter-Espionage Division of the Military Bureau in Chongqing, and was eventually transferred to the Confidential Section of the Tianjin Bureau of Investigation and Statistics. The mere mention of these three organizations was not common knowledge for an average person in the eighties.

If Li Ye copied every detail from the television adaptation of "Lurk," it would certainly pique the readers' interest, but it would also invite suspicion. "How do you know so much?" "You say you have a grandfather who fought in the war? Your grandfather is an illiterate old brute; how would he know this?" "What? In the end, Yu Zecheng even defected to the other side?"

Therefore, Li Ye had to handle these specific plot points and historical details with ambiguity, all while ensuring he didn't ruin the reading experience—a challenging task.

[Bang!]

[The gunshot alerted Yu Zecheng. At this moment, Zhang Mingyi, the telegraph surveillance officer who was supposed to relieve him, appeared... Zhang Mingyi was shot in the back...]

Li Ye had reached the climax of the first chapter. Just as he was writing furiously, he felt a light touch on his elbow from Wen Leyu. A writer hates being interrupted when their flow is in full swing, but who could get angry at this little mute? It was impossible!

Li Ye turned to look at Wen Leyu and found her expressive eyes filled with serious concern. A note was pushed toward him: "Is this Yu Zecheng the protagonist? If he is, do you realize this could bring you big trouble?"

The little girl had quite a sharp sense of self-preservation. Li Ye was pleased; it was rare for a girl to genuinely look out for him like this. Of course, Li Ye’s awareness in this regard was even keener than Wen Leyu's. Having seen the "Great Crabs" (censors) of the future, he knew how to carefully distinguish between sensitive political stances and mere narrative descriptions.

For instance, in the first episode of the TV show, the bureau chief’s aura was incredibly imposing—he was a powerful man, after all, and needed that air of authority. But if Li Ye were to describe that aura too vividly in his novel, it wouldn't just be a question of whether it could pass censorship; the trouble would be far greater. Conversely, when Zuo Lan appeared, he would have to use bold strokes to fully and thoroughly highlight the vigor and positivity of the youth of the new era.

This aligned with the values of the time. Plus, this was commercial writing; one had to balance profit and art. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't shameful either.

Seeing the worry in Wen Leyu's eyes, Li Ye wrote on the paper: "Don't worry, justice will surely triumph over evil."

Wen Leyu read his words, frowning slightly. A few seconds later, she wrote: "This Yu Zecheng, he's an underground Communist, isn't he?"

Little girl, are you trying to force a spoiler out of me?

Li Ye wrote back: "The quality of a novel's reading experience depends on the uncertainty of the plot, so I can't give you the answer."

Wen Leyu blinked, her little mouth pouting. She turned away, refusing to look at him, and even scooted to the other end of the bench to distance herself. She was angry—visibly angry. An angry beauty was quite an interesting sight. Li Ye sighed to himself, "It’s not that my self-control is lacking; it’s just that the beauty is too captivating."

Li Ye didn't make a conscious effort to coax her. He believed that a good girl would know how to regulate her own emotions. Sure enough, after Li Ye had written for a while, the angry Wen Leyu secretly "slid" back from the end of the bench. However, she didn't crane her neck to peek at the novel anymore, maintaining a bit of her own stubborn pride and temper.

Li Ye picked up the pages he had finished and pushed them toward her. "Help me out. Proofread this, and then make a copy. I need it for submission."

Wen Leyu was taken by surprise, but she quickly took the papers, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth that revealed her inner joy. She had thought Li Ye didn't trust her as a friend because he wouldn't tell her the "answer," but now that he was asking her to proofread, she realized she had been overthinking.

Proofreading involved finding typos and improper word choices, which tested one’s literary foundation. Wen Leyu’s command of language was actually better than Li Ye’s. While Li Ye was good at test-taking, Wen Leyu’s breadth of reading and accumulation of vocabulary truly surprised him. It seemed that over the years, not only had Teacher Ke put effort into her education, but the girl herself was a diligent student.

What Li Ye didn't know was that this little honor student would soon be completely won over by his writing. After taking his draft, she began to proofread and copy carefully, but before she even finished the first page, she forgot her task and became deeply immersed in the plot.

[Zhang Mingyi collapsed to the ground, the gunshot wound and bloodstains on his back shocking to behold. But Yu Zecheng didn't look at him again; he quickly retreated to the blind corner on the right side of the door, drew his gun, bent his arms, leveled the weapon, and aimed... This posture allowed for flexible adjustments of the shooting angle and made it difficult for an attacker to knock the weapon away...]

Wen Leyu had never seen such a novel way of writing. Just by reading the words on the page, she could imagine a vigilant agent performing sharp tactical maneuvers in the face of sudden danger.

In 1981, the market already had pirated martial arts novels from Hong Kong, but whether it was the masters like Jin Yong, Gu Long, or Liang Yusheng, or more common authors, their writing styles were vastly different from the refined web novels of forty years later. The masters had impeccable literary foundations, and their classics left readers with endless aftertaste. Web novels might lack that deep foundation, but they excelled in fresh plots and wild imagination.

Wen Leyu read rapidly. She finished the three pages of letter paper quickly, then went back to read them from the beginning. Once she finished again, she habitually nudged Li Ye with her elbow and asked excitedly, "Li Ye, have you ever fired a handgun? How do you write about it so skillfully?"

*Well, I am quite skilled; whenever my favorite teacher releases a new episode, I certainly practice skillfully.*

"Ahem, my grandfather once killed dozens of enemies, so I heard him talk about some of this when I was a child..." Li Ye quickly improvised an excuse, took a deep breath, and silently chanted "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" to regain his composure. This body was too innocent and upright; he couldn't even let his mind wander.

Wen Leyu was an equally pure girl and didn't notice Li Ye’s strange reaction. She leaned in closer and asked, "Will there be more scenes like this in the future?"

"Not necessarily," Li Ye said, "but there will certainly be similar ones."

Since he was downplaying the sensitive background information, he had to compensate in other areas. He decided to emphasize tactics and deduction in the field of special operations. In the future, spy novels would emerge in endless succession, and many of the common-sense deduction techniques used in them would be absolutely breathtaking in this era.

For example, in a novel by a master of the genre, there was a plot about catching a Japanese spy. The protagonist had already determined the target was a woman and found out she had made a public phone call at a grocery store. The shopkeeper couldn't describe her appearance. However, the protagonist used the competitive psychology of women to question the shopkeeper's wife. Women look at other women from a different perspective than men; while men look at... well, other things, women notice clothing, hairstyles, perfume, shoes, and other external features. Sure enough, the shopkeeper's wife provided an accurate description of the woman’s clothes and makeup and even pointed out that the fabric of her qipao was very expensive. The protagonist then deduced the target's exact traits and identified the hidden spy among the VIP customers of a high-end clothing store.

Such deductive plots would draw applause even from readers forty years later, let alone in 1981. If people in this era could be awed by a spy thriller where a radio was hidden in an ice cream box, imagine how they would be enthralled by the intricate deductions, foreshadowing, and "cliffhangers" of the future.

Wen Leyu was completely captivated by Li Ye. Without realizing it, she had leaned right up against him. Watching Li Ye write his novel slowly, word by word, the anxious little girl wished she could pry open his head to see the rest of the plot. But when Li Ye looked over and prompted her, she was startled to realize she hadn't finished her work.

"Are you done copying? Let me see!"

"What? Oh... I-I'll finish it right away."