Chapter 3 three

three At two o'clock at night, I was chatting with Xiao Song, and I suddenly remembered that last winter, when we went to play in Florida, we met a litter bug.With us was my brother.My brother studied Chinese classical philosophy in China, and he also came out to study for a Ph.D.He was free during the holidays, so I picked him up to relax.After a while, I went to Keywest, which is an archipelago at the southernmost tip of the United States. It is a tourist attraction, and every inch of land on the island is precious.Not to mention anything else, even the tents in the campsite are expensive. If you camp there for a day, you can live in a good room in another place.Even in such a place, there are many vacant houses... When we were wandering, we broke into an empty villa, rested in front of the door, and suddenly a person appeared and asked us if we knew the owner of this place.The man had a goatee, was about thirty years old, and wore overalls with a twist of grease.This is the garbage bug... He drives a rare medium-sized truck - I saw this kind of car in Beijing when I was four or five years old, it seems to be called Wanguo.This guy must be pretty good at fixing cars.

The garbage worm said that he saw several broken boats by the sea, and if the owner didn't want them, he wanted to move them away.Of course we didn't know the owner - he didn't walk away immediately after these few words and chatted with us - just like now.But it was not two o'clock at night.Guess what, philosophy.This person claimed to be a believer in Lao Tzu. He said that according to Lao Tzu's theory, everything should be used to the fullest and not wasteful; Americans are too wasteful and always throw away good things. Not used to this style of work.So he picks up what others throw away, repairs it, and sells it for money—I don’t remember Lao Tzu’s idea at all.I just thought he was talking nonsense to cover up his behavior of picking up garbage, but my brother thought he had a theoretical basis for what he said.Not only that, they chatted very speculatively.Seeing that the topic has nothing to do with the Wei, Jin, Qin and Han, and went straight to the pre-Qin period, I couldn't understand it after listening to it. This old beauty also came up with some Chinese, with strange accents, half intelligible and half incomprehensible.Strange to say, this guy can't speak Chinese, but he can read a lot of original texts - it is said that he recites them in pinyin.My brother's master's thesis topic is Gongsun Long and Hui Shi, and he can still flirt with him.If it was me, I would be stupid.It is this garbage bug who said: Most of the rich people in the United States live on this island (called Marathon Island as I remember), and there are countless houses that are vacant all year round.In the kitchen, Xiao Song and I talked about it.Xiao Song interrupted me and said: You have talked about this matter, I know it.Your brother also said that the trash worm was the most educated man he'd ever met.It is a bit embarrassing to tell him a story that others have heard.I shook my head and stopped talking.

Xiao Song has heard about this garbage bug, but you may not have heard of it.The man had a yellow beard, dirty hair, and a battered body. He looked like a homeless man—in China, he looked like a migrant worker on a construction site—but my brother didn't like him. Xueyang admired him very much. After we broke up with him, my brother became depressed. Halfway through the car, he sighed in the back seat: Why is it that people who study philosophy are like this!Later, my elder brother got his degree, instead of doing academics, he changed his career to do business.I don't do business, but I can't understand the style of the rich.Every morning when I go to school, I pass a rich man’s courtyard: the place is so big, it takes up a whole block, and there is a three-story stone building in the middle of the grassy courtyard.It’s been three years, I’ve been there every day, but I’ve never seen anyone inside, it’s really annoying to see this kind of thing...

My brother talked with the garbage collector for a long time, and he admired his insights, so he said: You can publish a book and talk about these things.The man casually brought out a fucking sentence, and said: Mr. Wang, you need to pay for publishing books.It seems that the income from garbage collection is limited and not enough to subsidize book publishing.Later, he said with a smile on his face: Isn't it good for us to talk like this—this kind of smile has a bit of bitterness in it.Now this believer of Laozi is probably still collecting garbage on Marathon Island, where the sea and sky are the same color. When he meets a wise man from China, he will talk to him about philosophy-no dispute with the world. This kind of life has a lot of cynicism.But I don't believe he is really so philosophical, because when it comes to publishing a book, he has "fuck" in his mouth.Although he is a follower of Lao Tzu, money is quite useful to him.I also want to say a damn thing now, I have several manuscripts under pressure in the publishing house. After several years of pressing, people in the publishing house are always talking about selling.They say the book is bound to get in trouble, and if it sells well, it's worth doing... At the end of the day, it's about making money.If I have money, I can say, I publish the book at my own expense, and you can print it out for me first—take the best paper and use the best binding, I don’t want those rags that go to the stalls.Everyone knows one thing: if a book is sold, the dignity of the author is lost.

More can be said about my brother. His original major was the history of Chinese logic—the name is weird.When he arrived in the United States, he studied symbolic logic.This class is very difficult, and the hair on his head is getting less and less every day.If at the beginning of this century, this science was highly valued, and people all over the world were concerned about the progress of logic, now, there are only a dozen people in the United States who are studying this science. I don't even know what symbolic logic is.Among the dozens of people, half a dozen are acquainted with my brother, and the remaining half dozen will also know my brother-in general, my brother is a person who adds glory to symbolic logic and is highly respected by people in the circle.But now he has opened a restaurant with more than 200 tables, using his mind that can add luster to logic to study various business experiences... Of course, this is also to add luster to logic.In ancient times, there was a philosopher named Thales, who once put aside philosophy and started a business, earning a lot of money.In this way, he proved that it is easy to get rich with the wisdom of a philosopher, but he usually doesn't bother to do it.I'm a novelist now, and it seems like I'm supposed to write crappy books that would sell a million and make novelists even more... There's no point in bullshit like this.Let's get back to business——

It was two o'clock at night again.I couldn't sleep, so I scribbled on the computer: I live in Apartment 51 of Peking University, a one-to-one apartment. This time, there are no cockroaches, but it is on the top of the sixth floor. There is only one prefabricated floor between the top of the head and the blue sky. It is hot in summer and cold in winter.It depends on whether I want to come to this house - thanks to my wife is a doctor, otherwise I have to live in the tube building.Now she has gone abroad as a visiting scholar, receiving 280 pounds a month for living expenses.This amount of money is really not much, it seems that she has to make a living on instant noodles.But it cannot be said how much money was given: the country is also very difficult.Compared with others, we are both in good condition.My wife has a Ph. D. and is doing a major. I am a master and I don’t do a major. I write some manuscripts to earn some pocket money.If both of us had PhDs, we'd be in a rather ugly situation.Anyway, I don't want to complain.Nothing to complain about.