Chased by "poor ghosts" all his life, 43-year-old Lu Yao coughs up blood. Why does he keep writing like a crazy hungry wolf?

1. A Hungry Childhood

In 1991, Lu Yao won the third Mao Dun Literature Award.

The embarrassing thing is that he has no money to buy a ticket to Beijing.

So, he called his brother, who was a reporter at the time, and borrowed money for travel expenses.

When his younger brother saw him off at the train station, he said: "Don't win any prizes in the future. If you win the Nobel Prize later, I won't be able to earn any foreign exchange for you."

Lu Yao replied: "Go to literature." Then he got into the train.

The word "poor" can be regarded as running through Lu Yao's entire life.

In December 1949, Lu Yao caught the last train and became a child of the same age as his motherland.

To commemorate his birth in the same year as his motherland, his father gave him the name Wang Weiguo, which is full of the flavor of the times.

When Lu Yao was 7 years old, his family could not afford the expenses for a dozen people, so Lu Yao’s father took him to beg for food and came to his brother Wang Yude’s house to adopt his eldest son. Got him.

On the day his father was leaving, he told Lu Yao that he was going to the market. Lu Yao knew that his father was leaving.

So he secretly followed his father to the entrance of the village, watched his father's figure slowly disappear, and then returned to his uncle's house crying.

Although the situation in the uncle's family is not as miserable as Lu Yao's family, they are still poor. Lu Yao wears rags every day and is often pushed into the crowd by some bad boys to make people laugh.

When he didn't have enough to eat at home, he went to the wilds to find some random things to fill his stomach. It can be said that during Lu Yao's childhood, he had no idea what it felt like to be full.

As an adopted child, his uncle only wanted to use him as a labor force, but Lu Yao knew that he could not stay in this poor place all his life, so he secretly took the middle school exam without thinking about it. I went to the best local middle school in Yanchuan County.

My uncle did not agree with Lu Yao going to middle school. Even if he didn't want the labor force, he wouldn't want to waste the money.

So, on the first day of school, Lu Yao threw away the woodcutter and ran all the way to the county town to go to school.

The family did not bring him food, so Lu Yao had no choice but to find a way on his own. He finished three years of middle school relying on the help of his classmates and "scavenging".

But God did not favor this student. In the year when Lu Yao graduated, bad luck caused him to lose the opportunity to continue schooling.

But just when Lu Yao was disheartened and ready to return home, he was accidentally elected to the Revolutionary Committee of Yanchuan County. In this position, Lu Yao went smoothly, and even served as Position of Deputy Director.

Just when Lu Yao thought he was going to move forward on the political line and do a "big business", his dream collapsed and he was driven back to his hometown to farm.

During those days, Lu Yao did everything. In addition to doing farm work, he also worked as a primary school teacher for a year, as a publicist, drew the team newspaper for the team, and occasionally wrote poetry.

Lu Yao has a famous saying: "Work like a cow, give like the land." This is what I learned from this experience.

2. The bumpy creative road

In 1973, Lu Yao, as a relatively educated group of young people among workers, peasants and soldiers,

Finally, Yan'an The leader of the Chinese Department of the university resisted the temptation and made the decision to accept him.

This became a turning point that changed Lu Yao's life.

In college, Lu Yao systematically studied literary knowledge. After graduation, he was assigned to be an editor in the "Yanhe" magazine sponsored by the Shaanxi Writers Association.

At this stage, Lu Yao began to write short stories. Gradually, short stories began to fail to satisfy him, so he began to write novellas.

In 1980, Lu Yao wrote a novella called "A Shocking Scene". The article contained some sharp and sensitive topics, so many magazines did not dare to publish it.

After publishing articles again and again, the result was rejections again and again. At that time, Lu Yao thought, if this article cannot be published again, I will burn it.

Finally, Qin Zhaoyang, the editor of "Contemporary" magazine, took a fancy to this article and took the risk to publish the novel in the magazine. Unexpectedly, it aroused a warm response. Lu Yao also relied on this article to The novel successfully won the first National Outstanding Novella Award.

After experiencing this success, Lu Yao continued his efforts and went to a guest house and wrote for 21 days and nights. During this period, his face ulcerated due to endocrine disorders and he had difficulty in urination and defecation, which frightened everyone in the guest house. I can't help but panic.

After learning about Lu Yao's situation, the staff advised him to feel at ease: "That's just for creative work."

After finishing writing, Lu Yao began to submit papers everywhere and was rejected from everywhere manuscript life.

In the end, Lu Yao's novel was successfully published in "Harvest" and won the second National Outstanding Novella Award.

This novel is what Jack Ma called "Life" that influenced his life.

With the award-winning "Life", the copyright of this novel was quickly bought and adapted into a movie of the same name. The name Lu Yao also began to be known to insiders and gained a certain reputation.

But Lu Yao was still not satisfied at this time. After winning two awards for his novella, he felt that the novella could no longer accommodate his ideas. In his plan, he wanted to write A longer novel.

In 1981, Lu Yao returned to a small county in the hinterland of the Loess Plateau, preparing to implement his great idea: writing a million-word novel.

In order to create this epic novel, Lu Yao consulted a lot of literature from the 1970s, read a large number of Chinese and foreign classics, and went to mines in various places to experience life, and then put all the The information was integrated and more than a dozen notebooks were written.

Before he even started writing the book, he was almost tormented to death. It took Lu Yao nearly three years to complete this whole set of operations.

Finally, Lu Yao felt that the time was ripe and began his creation immediately.

3. The peak is the end

When creating "The Ordinary World", Lu Yao entered an almost fanatical state.

When writing the first draft of the first novel, Lu Yao ran to a remote coal mine hospital and started writing day and night. He was writing when others were sleeping, and he was just writing when others were getting up. Lie down.

Because of his extremely irregular schedule, his body was severely overdrawn, but he just couldn't stop.

Finally, after three difficult years of creation, the first part of "The Ordinary World" was successfully released.

But what makes Lu Yao even more chilling is that his work has not been appreciated.

With the promotion of reform and opening up, many new foreign ideas have poured into the country, and young people have become keen on reading post-realist and romantic works, and Lu Yao’s profound realist work , as if no one cares.

Next, there was another endless process of submissions and rejections. When "The Ordinary World" was finally published in a magazine called "Flower City", what awaited Lu Yao was not like the previous "Life" 》The pursuit, but the endless neglect.

The humiliated Lu Yao went to Jia Pingwa and said: "Those who are stupid don't understand literature."

During the most depressing period, Lu Yao ran to Liu Jia Pingwa. In front of Qing's grave, he talked to himself for a long time, and then burst into tears.

He doesn’t understand why people no longer have literary faith? What exactly can you gain by reading those false and empty things?

After the collapse, Lu Yao finally felt relieved: Just do whatever you love! Whether you like it or not, I will still write mine!

Back in a remote county on the Loess Plateau, Lu Yao locked himself up again and began to create day and night. After years of torture, his body finally became overwhelmed and he began to suffer from all kinds of diseases. She was suffering from a severe illness and relied on decoction every day to maintain her condition.

Lu Yao likes smoking very much because cigarettes can inspire him. According to rumors, Lu Yao could even smoke one cigarette a day when he was at his most terrifying.

In the later stage of creation, Lu Yao's physical condition was so bad that he could only lie on the table to create. The reason why he was able to persevere was all because of his "martyr" will.

On May 25, 1988, Lu Yao scalded his cramped hand with hot water and finished writing the last line of the book. Then, he threw away the ballpoint pen that had been with him for three years. He stepped out of the window and let out a breath of relief.

In 1991, Lu Yao's efforts were finally recognized. With his million-word masterpiece "The Ordinary World", Lu Yao successfully won the third Mao Dun Literature Award.

But before Lu Yao could fully enjoy this glory, he was caught up with the physical debt he had owed before and was admitted to the hospital.

In November 1992, Lu Yao died due to ineffective treatment for liver cirrhosis.

Lu Yao’s legendary life has come to an end.

4. Martyrs of Literature

Before his death, Lu Yao could not escape from poverty.

When his younger brother Wang Tianle was sorting out his inheritance, he found that he only had more than 10,000 yuan in savings, but he still owed more than 10,000 yuan in debt.

The two offset each other, and Lu Yao basically left no property at all.

Although "The Ordinary World" won the award, not many young people still like to watch it. Except for those in the industry who will buy it, there is basically no sales.

In Lu Yao’s own words:

“A writer’s work is not only to please the contemporary generation, but more importantly, to give a profound explanation to history.”

Lu Yao’s vision is far-sighted, and that is exactly what happened. Twenty years later, this novel was not only adapted into a TV series, but also became popular among young people.

The spiritual wealth that Lu Yao left behind is much more than the actual wealth that he left behind.

For Lu Yao's life, it was very short; but in terms of the quality of his life, he was undoubtedly brilliant.