What's it like to suddenly change nationalities?
Thanks for the invitation. I'm in Yokohama, and I just witnessed a gang shootout.
Going from Chinese nationality to Japanese nationality feels like seeing the teacher who was tutoring you in Japanese just yesterday suddenly dye their hair in a garish delinquent style and join a gang shootout in the street. The whole thing feels completely unreal.
The day before yesterday, after bombing my final exam, I followed Teacher Li Bai's example and tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol. I got drunk and smashed most of the antiques at my mom Li Qingzhao's home. After Zhao Mingcheng appeared in a dream to warn me, I got so scared that I broke Teacher Wang Wei's pipa, the instrument belonging to my guardian.
I was afraid the two teachers would get mad and make this week's test questions really hard, doubling my homework. So I bribed Teacher Wen Tingyun to teach me a hundred ways to cheat, only for Teacher Ouyang Xiu to catch me red-handed.
But even if anyone was going to turn evil because I made them angry, it should have been Teachers Wang Wei and Ouyang Xiu. Why did Teacher Akutagawa and the others end up in the underworld? I don't get it.
Ah, I'm getting sidetracked. Back to the point. After changing nationalities, I was in a total panic. Not only did I instinctively think I was Chinese after losing my memory because my Japanese wasn't as good as my Chinese, but I'd also gotten shorter.
My System told me I'd shrunk because the Japanese literary greats in this world had all joined the underworld, leaving it short on energy, so I had to shrink. If I want to get taller, I have to work hard to publish books and inspire those literary greats to write.
Why are the Japanese literary greats in this world mixed up with the underworld when the literary greats from my great Motherland are still writing, even after changing worlds? My height!
Anyway, suddenly changing nationalities is a very strange experience. The kind that makes you shrink.
Theme: Literature is the candle flame before dawn. You shield it with your hands amid the dark blizzard, kindling that faint light for yourself and for others. Even if your flesh burns, you never regret it.
