Chapter 261 260 "Love Before Dawn"
Fang Minghua was silent for a moment and shook his head.
“My home is in China. It’s okay to come out and have a look, but eventually I have to go back.” Fang Minghua said, “What’s more, I have a girlfriend waiting for me to go back.”
"I heard the writer from your visiting group said that she is very beautiful?" the girl asked.
"Yes, very beautiful and very capable." Fang Minghua said.
"Well, if I go to your country, I must meet her!"
"I will welcome you for her now, and then I will take you to visit our cities and countryside, which are equally beautiful."< br>
"Thank you. Hey, I heard you say that there are Terracotta Warriors and Horses in the city you live in. I checked the information and found that our current President Reagan and the previous President have visited China. Is it fun?" The girl walked around lightly. That topic just now.
“Yes, known as the eighth wonder of the world, the Terracotta Warriors and Horses are actually the burial pottery figurines of our country’s Qin Dynasty Emperor Qin Shihuang, which were fired in life-size sizes. Qin Shihuang was a great emperor in ancient my country, and that was still AD What happened 200 years ago.”
When Fang Minghua talked about this period of history, the girl listened carefully.
At around eleven o'clock in the evening, the surroundings were dark and the wind was much cooler.
“It’s getting late, let’s go back and rest.” Fang Minghua stood up.
After sleeping all night, Emily got up the next morning and drove him around the small town again, and even went to the elementary school specifically.
The school is not big. It has no walls. It has a few rows of bungalows and a large playground in front. The summer vacation is not over yet so the school is empty.
“I went to primary school here for six years.” Emily said: “I like it here very much and I also like to deal with children.”
"So you can become a very good teacher in the future." Fang Minghua said.
“But I want to be a writer more, like you.” Emily said: “You wrote that theoretical article on avant-garde novels. Our teacher said that it was very good and said that you are better than us. Everyone knows about avant-garde literature.”
Emily’s words reminded Fang Minghua of what he said to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the owner of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco.
He thought for a while and said: "Actually, the skills of writing novels are not the most important, but the touchingness of the story itself, such as Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" and Mrs. Beecher Stowe's " "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a famous story. First of all, the story itself is very touching, and then it is perfect with certain writing skills."
The girl nodded after hearing this.
"What about the book "Covered Bridge's Lost Dreams" you wrote?" Emily knew that he was writing a novel when he came back from the town of Winterset, and she also read part of it.
“That novel is definitely not a avant-garde work, it just uses a multi-angle narrative method.” Fang Minghua explained.
"By the way, Emily, you said you wrote a novel in summer school, can you let me read it?" Fang Minghua asked.
"Okay, I will give you the copy when you return to Los Angeles."
"OK!"
After lunch, Fang Minghua had to return to Los Angeles and take a flight back to Iowa City at seven o'clock in the evening.
The girl drove him to the station.
"Minghua, this is a straw hat that our locals often wear. I made it from palm leaves. I gave it to you as a souvenir. If it's not done well, don't laugh." The girl said, pulling from her back He took out a straw hat from his bag.
It is a black and white hat with a beautiful circle of patterns. Fang Ming remembers that Emily's father wore a similar hat.
"Thank you." Fang Minghua took it, thinking that he should give the other person a gift, but unfortunately he came in a hurry and didn't buy anything.
Suddenly I remembered that I still had an English translation of "150 Tang Poems" in my backpack, so I took it out of my backpack and handed it to the other person. "I don't have any gifts, so I brought an English translation of Tang poetry back from our country for you."
"Is there a moonlight in front of the window that you recited in the book? , I suspect it’s frost on the ground, a nice sentence like that? ”
“Yes. "
"Thank you, thank you. ”
The girl happily took the book and carefully put it into her backpack.
“This is my novel.” The girl took out another stack of manuscripts and handed them to Fang Minghua.
"Goodbye!"
"Goodbye!"
"Minghua, if I go to China, I will find you, bye"
After saying that, the girl got into the Beetle and quickly disappeared into the town.
Fang Minghua got on the minibus. On the highway, he took out the manuscript written by the girl and read it.
The name is actually "BeforeSunrise"!
Fang Minghua quickly started reading.
A girl named Isabella met a Chinese young man named Zhang Jianguo on the train to Chicago. The two chatted together about literature and life. Later, the young man went to Iowa City and the girl We also went to summer school at the University of Iowa and went to visit the covered bridge together.
Oh my god
Isn’t this writing about the process of getting to know myself and Emily?
There are also many fictional plots in it.
In the ambiguous night of Chicago, among the beautiful music on the streets of Iowa, on the wooden deck of the covered bridge, looking down happily As the river flows, love slowly grows in the hearts of the two, and the two hearts are attracted and moved by each other.
At dawn, the young man decided to follow the girl to Palm Springs, Los Angeles, her hometown.
The story ends abruptly.
Fang Minghua looked at the bound copy. There seemed to be some at the back but it had been torn off.
Fang Minghua sighed slightly, carefully put the manuscript into his backpack, and looked at the huge wind turbine on the roadside outside the window, silent.
This reminded him of an American love movie from the 1990s.
It’s called "BeforeSunrise"! The Chinese translation is "Love Before Dawn".
It tells the story of Jesse, an American young man, who encounters Selina, a French female student, on the train. The two have a great conversation. They tour the city and talk about each other's past. Finally, they agreed to meet again half a year later.
Before Fang Minghua came to this era, he once watched the subtitled version of this movie online. The storyline of Hollywood love movies almost did not exist in the film. What the audience saw was unrestrained talk: About parents, about music, about past boyfriends or girlfriends, about death.
The film was very heart-warming and was nominated for the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival.
The novel written by Emily is very similar to that movie, with a light style and everything is so natural and beautiful.
Is it an occasional coincidence, or is it?
But that's not important.
It was already four o'clock in the afternoon when Fang Minghua returned to Los Angeles. After dinner, at eight o'clock in the evening, he, Zhang Xianliang and others got on the plane to Iowa City.
Away from the bright lights of Los Angeles, the plane turned and flew northeast. Fang Minghua saw a few stars appearing on the dark ground from the window.
That seems to be Palm Springs.
Seeing Fang Minghua staring out the window blankly, Zhang Xianliang, who was sitting next to him, joked and whispered: "Minghua, I thought you would stay in Palm Springs and not come back."
"How could it be? This is against the rules of going out." Fang Minghua said half-jokingly and half-seriously.
(End of this chapter)