The life of Shen Congwen, a genius in the border city, has made countless readers sigh. He understands the truth and writes about love, but he has a bad life.
The fragile and sensitive and idealistic scholarly feelings in his bones not only hurt his wife Zhang Zhaohe, made marriage and love drift apart, but also indirectly buried the happiness of her little sister Shen Yuemeng, making her from a smart and lively girl like an elf to a female madman ...... wearing a white cheongsam and a hardcover book on the beach of the Wusu River
The Shen family of Xiangxi Phoenix has 9 children, the most famous being Shen Yuehuan, the fifth child. In 1923, the border city of Phoenix was ravaged by the war, the mountains and rivers were broken, and Shen Yuehuan, who had been in the army for many years, took off his military uniform, packed his bags, and decided to go to Beijing to find light. In order to make a decision, he changed an exciting name for himself - Shen Congwen.
The mother admired her son's courage, patted the fifth child on the shoulder, and said to her 12-year-old daughter Shen Yuemeng on the side: "Your fifth brother will definitely have a future in the future!"Listen to him. ”
Shen Yuemeng is Shen Congwen's ninth sister. Among the nine sons under the knees of the Shen family, only five grew up later, and Shen Yuemeng was the youngest. She is beautiful, intelligent, well-behaved and obedient, and has been the pearl of the whole family since she was a child.
Since parting with his fifth brother, Shen Yuemeng has been wandering with his family in the western Hubei border area. It was four years later that Shen Congwen saw her again.
In 1927, in the turbulent situation, Shen Yuemeng went to Beijing with his mother to join Shen Congwen. This year, Shen Yuemeng was 16 years old, and he was slim and elegant, with his clear and handsome eyebrows, eyes, mouth and nose, which made Shen Congwen seem to see another self in his youth, and he was cordial and happy.
It was probably from this moment that Shen Congwen intended to train his sister to become the second cultural goddess Lin Huiyin. At that time, Shen Congwen, who was born in the countryside, had just made a name for himself in the capital and was well aware of the importance of education.
He first wanted to enter the Chinese language class of Yenching University, but because he only had a primary school degree and financial constraints, he only obtained the qualification of an auditor at Peking University.
Later, Shen Congwen studied hard day and night, and published articles in well-known journals such as "Morning Post" and "Yuxi" in less than a year.
In order to make more money and better train his sister, in 1928, Shen Congwen took his mother and little sister to Shanghai to work.
During that time, he organized magazines with Hu Yepin, Ding Ling and others during the day, and supervised his sister's reading at night while working all night at night.
Shen Yuemeng has been able to speak well since he was a child, has an outstanding memory, and "at the age of three or five, he can endorse and fight with his brothers", it stands to reason that like Shen Congwen, he is also a good material for learning literature. But Shen Congwen, who wanted his sister to follow Lin Huiyin's example, chose a French major for her, which sounded lofty, but a bit flashy.
After all, Shen Yuemeng had never studied before, and his mother tongue was very poor, and it was difficult to learn Xi foreign language. Moreover, according to the economic conditions of the Shen family, it is impossible to send Shen Yuemeng abroad for further study. But the emotional Shen Congwen did not seriously analyze these, and he specially hired a fourth-year French student to teach his sister alone.
At the same time, he began to save money, telling his sister that as long as she studied Xi seriously, he would definitely send her to France in the future. After Shen's mother, who was already ill, learned all this, she didn't want to drag her children and daughters, so she found an excuse and went back to her hometown in Xiangxi. After her mother left, Shen Yuemeng, who was in a foreign land, became more dependent on her brother, and everything was based on her brother's idea.
From 1929 to 1930, Shen Congwen successively taught at Shanghai Public School and Qingdao University, and Shen Yuemeng, as a family member of the faculty and staff, could also enjoy special treatment for transfer and borrowing. But the direction is wrong, and no matter how hard you try, it is in vain.
Since Shen Yuemeng Xi learned French, she felt very difficult, but she didn't dare to tell her brother the truth, so she could only memorize it desperately. She hid alone in a small room and read "Don Quixote" with a dictionary, and forced herself to read it if she couldn't understand it. Because she believed what her mother said, she had to listen to her fifth brother, and she also believed that Shen Congwen told her that she would be sent to France in the future, and she would become a talented woman like Lin Huiyin.
It's just that her brother didn't tell her that Lin Huiyin was born in a famous family, was enlightened at the age of five, went to school at the age of eight, and traveled to Europe after graduating from middle school.
In addition, during this period, Shen Congwen was falling in love with Zhang Zhaohe and couldn't extricate himself, and he had no time to care about whether his sister's education was reasonable. The smooth sailing on the literary road only increased his self-confidence as the head of the family.
After a few years, Shen Yuemeng has not improved in his studies, but he has been contaminated with the common disease of literary and artistic youth - fragile, emotional and stubborn.
In September 1933, 32-year-old Shen Congwen finally became a family with 24-year-old Zhang Zhaohe after chasing the goddess for a long time, and co-edited the "Ta Kung Pao Literary Supplement" with Yang Zhensheng in the same year. In the matter of marriage, the ninth sister, who has grown up, has her own ideas, and is no longer like in her studies, only her brother is the first to look forward.
Shen Congwen and his wife once introduced a good object to Shen Yuemeng - Xia Yun, who teaches in the Department of Psychology of Yenching University. Who knows that Shen Yuemeng is deeply influenced by European and American literature, and has high expectations for love. When Xia Yun proposed to her, she flatly refused. In Zhang Zhaohe's words, she was "too high-minded", so the affair was not resolved later.
Until 1934, a young man named Liu Zuchun walked into the living room of the Shen family, bringing Shen Yuemeng's love, and also creating a lingering emotional shadow in the second half of her life.
Liu Zuchun is also a native of Phoenix, Hunan, similar age to Shen Yuemeng, and he did not meet in his early years, and later with the generous help of Shen Yuelin and Shen Congwen, the eldest brother of the Shen family, he finally realized his dream of Peking University and became a famous writer in the future, but he had no fate with Shen Yuemeng.
Liu Zuchun and Shen Yuemeng had a good impression of each other when they first met, and they fell in love with each other almost at first sight. At that time, Liu Zuchun would go to Shen's house every weekend to visit and have a long talk, and after a long time, Shen Yuemeng also asked to join, and occasionally expressed his own opinions. Shen Congwen and his wife knew that they also intended to match the two young people and create opportunities for them to talk alone.
A hazy and beautiful love spread out and infiltrated during this time, rendering the best years of the ninth sister.
In a blink of an eye, in 1937, Liu Zuchun graduated from Peking University. It's just that at this moment, he is no longer the pure literary youth he was back then. After the outbreak of the all-out War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the family and country were in chaos, as a patriotic young man who had received advanced education, Liu Zuchun, who had a resolute temperament, resolutely decided to put pen to paper.
Before leaving, he found Shen Yuemeng and confessed his determination to go to Shanxi to join the anti-Japanese team. What a tragic heroism. But for Shen Yuemeng, a girl who fell in love, her first reaction was that her lover was going to **, so she raised her head and told Liu Zuchun: "I'm not afraid of anything, I'm not afraid of going to **." ”
This answer shocked Liu Zuchun, and he was deeply moved by the deep love of the nine girls. But at the same time, he was soberly aware that revolutionaries must be ready to throw their heads and spill their blood at any time, and an innocent and simple girl like Shen Yuemeng actually does not have the same firm revolutionary ideals as himself, and it is completely unnecessary to take risks for love.
Coupled with the fact that the two were not engaged at the time, Liu Zuchun thought that he had no power and no courage to take such a little girl to do the revolution together.
This is how the misunderstanding arose. No matter how Liu Zuchun explains, Shen Yuemeng, who is a little woman in her bones, can't understand this grand family and country feelings, she always thinks that "Liu Zuchun loves the revolution more than herself", and the tense situation does not allow Liu Zuchun to have any more fetters in the relationship between children and daughters.
On July 27, 1937, Liu Zuchun hurried to Shen's house and left in a hurry after borrowing 20 yuan from Zhang Zhaohe. He suppressed the surging feelings in his heart, and after all, he didn't say goodbye to Shen Yuemeng, so he drew a hasty end to this relationship.
In 1938, Shen Congwen went south to Kunming and taught in the Chinese Department of Southwest Associated University. During that time, Shen Yuemeng, who had just fallen out of love, was in a very bad condition, and often hid in the room alone and cried.
Shen Congwen arranged for her to work in the library of Southwest Associated University. The first is to let her have a job to support herself, and the second is to hope that the little sister can have more contact with the outside world and get out of the emotional wounds as soon as possible.
But Shen Yuemeng, who grew up being cared for by the stars since she was a child, suffered this kind of setback, and she was mentally fragile, but after only this time of falling out of love, she was disillusioned, and she no longer believed in love.
Shen Yuemeng in life has no ambition. After falling in love, she gave up on herself, no longer studied foreign languages, and regarded the thousands of books in the library as nothing. In her spare time, she just eats fasting and recites Buddha, looking for a spiritual sustenance to live like a walking corpse.
The influence of religion gave Shen Yuemeng a temporary peace and tranquility in her heart, but fate played a joke on her in a blink of an eye.
The flames of war soon spread to Kunming, and the library of the Southwest Associated University, where Shen Yuemeng worked, was also bombed indiscriminately by enemy planes. In the earth-shattering artillery fire, Shen Yuemeng and his colleagues rescued books together, busy with everything. But when the alarm was lifted, she returned to her apartment, only to find that the room had been ransacked.
Love is gone, and the only "bread" to survive has also been snatched away, under the second stimulation of this spirit, Shen Yuemeng couldn't tie the knot, and went crazy from then on.
After that, Shen Yuemeng's job in the library was not guaranteed, the Shen family had two children to take care of, not to mention, and now there was another patient. In addition, Shen Congwen has unpragmatic shortcomings in his life, and often spends money indiscriminately without planning, which makes Zhang Zhaohe complain more and more about him, often accusing him of "slapping his swollen face and becoming fat" and "pretending to be a gentleman instead of a gentleman".
The little sister has not been cultivated to become a talent, and his wife is full of complaints, all of which stimulate Shen Congwen's proud and sensitive heart as a literati. He could have sent the ninth sister to live with other brothers to solve his urgent needs, but the good-looking Shen Congwen still couldn't save face at the critical moment.
Until one time, Shen Quan, the sixth brother who joined the army abroad, came to Kunming to visit him and his little sister, but found that the former smart and childish ninth sister has now become a stranger with a sluggish expression and dull eyes. This made it difficult for Shen Quan to accept, he was emotionally out of control for a while, and he had to fight with Shen Congwen when he pulled out his gun.
It was also under the pressure of the sixth brother that Shen Congwen wrote a letter to his eldest brother Shen Yuelin, begging him to take his little sister back to Yuanling County to take care of. But the ninth sister's madness has not improved.
She had nothing to do every day, her routine was disordered, and when she was in a good mood, she would teach foreign languages to the children in the village on a whim, and then suddenly fell ill and disappeared for several days. Shen Yuelin had no choice but to lock her in the house.
In this year-round loneliness, the ninth sister made a mistake and met a mason named Mo Shijin. That day, he went to Shen's house to pick up tiles. When the tiles on the side house were uncovered, they stumbled upon a woman sitting underneath. Mo Shijin was curious, so he talked with the ninth sister, and the two became acquainted.
Later, when the construction period ended, Mo Shijin received the salary and was ready to say goodbye to the ninth sister, but who knew that she jumped down from the window and wanted to elope with the mason.
Perhaps in the chaos of thinking, the ninth sister regarded Mo Shijin, who had only a few faces, as her first love Liu Zuchun, so she quickly had "love" with him, and even desperately wanted to chase the "lover". And Mo Shijin, as a bachelor from a poor background, naturally would not refuse such a woman sent to the door to live with him.
He didn't discuss it with the people of the Shen family, so he took Shen Yuemeng back to his home in Wusu Village, where he was. In 1947, 36-year-old Shen Yuemeng gave birth to a baby boy for her husband, named Mo Zilai.
It is said that the ninth sister, who had children, became much more cheerful, began to talk to people, and sometimes taught the village children to sing and dance. It's just that every sunset, she often sits alone by the water in a daze.
When the Shen brothers found the ninth sister, they were infinitely sad, and everyone found that she had already been like snow and sideburns like frost when she was not confused, and wrinkles hung all over her face, as if she had been destroyed by life.
What's even more helpless is that although she found her long-lost sister, because the Shen brothers have been impacted one by one in the torrent of history, they are unable to give her a better life.
As a housewife, although Shen Yuemeng was able to survive under this historical background, due to her lack of self-supporting living ability, she could only eat wild vegetables to survive, and finally died tragically in the Great Famine of 1959, buried in the barren grass of the Wusu River beach.
Throughout Shen Yuemeng's life, except for Shen Congwen, no one actually regards her as "Lin Huiyin's second". What's even more ironic is that the only article "My Second Brother" left by Shen Yuemeng in his life was ghostwritten by Shen Congwen.
Shen Congwen's original intention of cultivating Shen Yuemeng into Lin Huiyin is good, and every brother hopes that his sister-in-law will have a bumper harvest in love and career and obtain a complete life. It is a pity that Shen Congwen only forgot to add the most basic ability of human beings to live in the world in the romantic textbooks he wrote, that is, tenacity, rationality and pragmatism.