Sometimes I would buy books with the money I made from selling the firewood, and afterwards, realizing that we did not have rice for the next day, I would then rush back to the used bookstore in a flurry.  But this was still the most spiritually carefree time of my life.
It was during this time that I was finally able to finish some of my half-written stories.

     At that time Dr. Lai was an associate of the Shinminpô (New People's Press) arts and literature section;  and so I sent him some of my finished manuscripts.
One of them was written in colloquial Chinese, but I do not remember the title.  Anyway, it was about the distress of poor farmers, and I used a descriptive expression connoting worn to tatters" to describe their clothing.

     It was the very first time I had used colloquial language.

     Thinking about it now, I am embarrassed to have written with such audacity.

     A few days later my manuscript was returned to me.

Among many considerate corrections and critical remarks, a red line was drawn right through the description of tatters, suggestive of beggary, where I wrote about the poor farmers' distress, and just one phrase was written: "Torn, mend it again."

     When I saw this I jumped for joy.

     For the poor farmers that I endeavored to describe were not slovenly beggars.  What I wanted to write about were poor farmers who did not submit to their hardships but worked persistently and tried doggedly to recover themselves.
To the theme of my story, Dr. Lai's words "Torn, mend it again" --- it keeps tearing and you mend it --- added great weight.

     Godfather

     This also happened at that time. I cannot exactly remember which happened first, so often would Dr. Lai kindly pick up his red pen for me then.
I had always disliked the Chinese character 'kuei

' 'precious' that my parents had chosen for my name.

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