Chapter 291 Let’s get started
The plague god left, and the living room returned to its normal relaxed atmosphere. Everyone tacitly abided by the principle of "don't talk about state affairs" and talked about the two novels published by Wang Deming.

"If you ask me, the good thing about these two novels translated by Comrade Deming is that they truly reflect the current situation of Western countries including the United States. Many of our college students were fooled before and thought that the United States was good in every way."

"Cough!" Someone coughed loudly.

"Don't worry, I won't say anything else. I just want college students to take a look and see the United States and other Western countries as they are. Don't be brainwashed by some people who verbally shout liberalism but hide capitalism and foolishly charge into battle."

"Comrade Deming translated those two novels? I'll read them when I have time!" The person who spoke was Zhang Junqiu. This year he merged the Peking Opera Troupe 1 and 2 with Ma Lianliang, Tan Fuying and others to form the Beijing Peking Opera Troupe.

The Beijing Peking Opera Troupe has been touring other places for some time and is not very clear about what has happened in Beijing recently.

"One is called 'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn'; the other is called 'House of Cards'. It's strange, I seem to have heard of the former, but I have never heard of the latter, and neither has the author, but the description is very wonderful." Yang Shanquan, a professor in the Spanish Department of Peking University, read the original English version in order to answer students' questions.

At this time, domestic publishers paid considerable royalties for translating foreign literary works. For example, Wang Deming received more than 10,000 yuan in royalties. In just a few months, he could buy a courtyard house in Beijing, and it had to be a private house.

You have to know that after 56 years of wage grading, the average wage in Beijing was only 35 yuan.

"Comrade Deming, where did you find such obscure novels?"

Wang Deming touched his nose and said, "I have a friend in Hong Kong. He knows that I like reading, so he specially sent it back to me from Hong Kong."

He reversed the order. In fact, he wrote House of Cards under the pen name Michael Wang first, and then asked Mr. Huo to help find publishers in England and the United States to publish it. Once it was published, he would immediately give the Chinese version to Zhao Shouyan and ask him to publish it, so that both would not be delayed.

"Oh, Comrade Deming, can you ask your friends in Hong Kong to help buy some of the latest literary magazines?"

"Sure, I'll write to him right away."

"Thank you. As for the money, I'll bring it to Shouyan next time and ask him to pass it to you."

"These are all small matters. Didn't you see that I just received my royalties today? I'm very rich. By the way, why don't we go to Guoqiang Restaurant in Dong'an Market to have a cup of coffee, and then go to Wufangzhai to have a bowl of crab roe noodles? Now is the time when crabs are fat."

"Great! Great! I like the cream ice cream there the best!" As soon as he finished speaking, Zhao Shouyan's son jumped and clapped his hands.

"Okay, you go first, I'll call my nephews later. You are of similar age, so you'll have a playmate too." When Wang Deming saw Master Zhao, he instantly thought of his nephews Renchun and Yichun.

"Haha, then I'll ask the Jixiang Theater to reserve two private rooms for you. Mr. Tan Fuying and I will sing Wujia Po together tonight."

"Oh, that feeling!"

"Go quickly, go quickly."

Guoqiang Restaurant in Dong'an Market does not have big tables. The first floor is a bar-like scattered seating, surrounded by a circle of tables in the middle selling cold drinks and coffee; the second floor is a four-person and six-person table similar to the seats on a green train, separated by white gauze, and the chairs are covered with green velvet, with a layer of sponge under the buttocks to make the chairs less painful. As soon as Renchun and Yichun arrived, they immediately played with Zhao Heng, the son of the Zhao family. Because the weather was getting colder, they didn't dare to let them drink too much cold drinks, so they ordered a cup for each of them. After eating, they ran to Dong'an Market by themselves. Dong'an Market has a special area for selling toys, such as swords, spears, halberds, clay figurines, etc.

For this purpose, Wang Deming specially gave each of his two nephews two yuan pocket money. There was no other way, he had to adapt to the local customs. Zhao Heng is now studying at Yuying Primary School, and he only gets two yuan pocket money a day.

The two famous schools in the capital were Yuying for boys and Beiman for girls. Of course, they now recruit mixed students, and in terms of popularity, they are not as famous as the current Beijing No. 4 Middle School, No. 6 Middle School, No. 8 Middle School, Tsinghua Middle School, Renmin University Middle School and other schools.

Since the abolition of the special schools for children of cadres in 52, the latter schools have taken on the education of most of the children of cadres in Beijing.

The adults continued chatting over freshly ground coffee on the second floor of Guoqiang. After a while, Zhao Heng came over with a little boy in a white shirt and said to Zhao Shouyan, "Dad, I just ran into Baojiu at Fengshenggong. He said Mr. Mei is at Jishilin."

"Oh, then how about we move to Jishilin together?" Zhao Shouyan suggested.

"Okay!" Wang Deming had never actually met Mr. Mei, so this opportunity was rare.

Like Guoqiang Restaurant, Ji Shilin specializes in Western food, but has a better location, right in the middle of Dong'an Market, between Dangui Shopping Center and Nanhuayuan and Shengping Amusement Club, and next to the Zhongyuan and Chunming foreign language bookstores.

There is a billiard hall, bowling alley, dance hall and dental implant shop in Dangui Shopping Mall.

Shengping Amusement Club is a place inside the Dong'an Market where people perform crosstalk, storytelling and drum singing. For example, Hou Baolin often performed here. It cost 2 cents to listen for 10 minutes. There were people at the door collecting money, and 10 minutes was just enough time to listen to a whole piece.

Many professors and intellectuals come to foreign language bookstores to buy books.

Because of the good location and the large number of people, regular customers do not go through the busy main entrance, but go directly to the second floor from the small staircase at the back. Therefore, the waiters at Jishilin see that the people coming up the small staircase must be regular customers, so they are more casual in serving them.

The second floor of Jishilin is not wide from north to south, but very long from east to west. There are only two high-backed chairs with a glass-top dining table in between. It looks more like a train carriage, so many people simply call it: train seat.

At the east end of the restaurant is the counter for paying bills and a bar, and at the west end is a semicircular platform, about one foot above the ground, on which sits a triangular piano and an old-fashioned phonograph. The piano is reserved for diners to play, but few people actually go up on stage to play. The phonograph often plays music, but customers also have to bring their own records.

A group of people came up to Jishilin, found Mr. Mei, and introduced themselves to each other.

Mr. Mei had a clean complexion, neat sideburns, a common 3:7 hairstyle, wore a stand-up collar Zhongshan suit, and spoke in a slow and soft voice.

After learning that Wang Deming was actually a writer and translator, he kept humbly saying that he had long admired him.

Jishilin is too narrow to chat with everyone, so we just go to Wufangzhai first. If the kids like western food, we leave money on the counter and let them eat by themselves. In fact, the so-called western food in Jishilin is not all kinds of steaks, but the specialty is cream chestnut cake, so we don't have to worry about the kids eating too much.

So the group headed to Wufangzhai at the north end of Dong'an Market.

(End of this chapter)