The night was eerily silent, and in the distance came only the occasional lazy cry of cicadas, intermittently.
It's the twilight of summer, and the chill of autumn is gradually coming. The shadow of the candle flickered on the wall, reflecting the dim yellow of the hut and the lamentations of the women, swaying left and right, as if they did not know the suffering of the world.
The letters on the table seemed to have magical powers, and she couldn't help but flip them over and over again, reading them word by word. The pain of the drill heart after reading, the sweetness of the bone, the incompatible love and hate of water and fire were intertwined, stirring her heart and unable to rest at peace.
Zhao Qingge and Lao She
If she could, she hoped that a fire would burn away these long words of love and never ask him anything again. But she couldn't help it. What is reluctant is love, a rare sincerity, a long-awaited concern and dependence, and a collision of two souls who love literature. The dried grass needed the moisture of the rain, just as she could no longer do without him.
She hated her cowardice, and even more hated the injustice of heaven. Why let her have and then lose, let her be the last person she wants to be.
She was just an ordinary woman who wanted to have happiness, but she didn't want to be a third person to anyone else. Since then, I have tasted the white eyes of the world and condemned my heart.
Her name is Zhao Qingge, and she is in love with a man, his name is Lao She.
When she was a teenager, Zhao Qingge had magnificent dreams, but she would always be splashed with a basin of cold ice water to wake her up from her dreams.
The greenery in front of his home is Zhao Qingge's favorite place. The tender green grass buds are delicate and soft, but they do not lose the tenacity of life. No amount of wind and frost can stop its growth. In the summer when the sun is shining, they will eventually become a greenery.
The original Zhao Qingge was a delicate flower in the manor, but due to the early death of his mother and the remarriage of his father, his life has undergone earth-shaking changes since then.
As a daughter, Zhao Qingge was not favored by her father, and in her childhood, she always hid in the corner, watching her younger siblings laughing and playing, this laughter was hearty, and how harsh it was in Zhao Qingge's heart. She was not allowed to play with everyone.
Her stepmother always made things difficult for her, and even the tuition fees she had to go to school every year were what she begged for. She didn't know how long such a day would last, so in the limited time, Zhao Qingge always squeezed out time to study. She loves to read, and in the world of books, she is so relaxed and happy that she can temporarily climb over the high walls erected by her family and embrace the outside world. This is an extremely happy thing.
It all came to an abrupt end at the age of 17. She was "sold" by her stepmother to a next-door neighbor to arrange a rich marriage for her.
Souls that have been awakened, where will be willing to sleep again. Zhao Qingge escaped.
She stepped on the train to Kaifeng alone. On the train heading for the future, Zhao Qingge curled up in the corner, quietly watching everything outside the window, and she knew that her life was about to begin.
In the days outside, Zhao Qingge has always insisted on work-study. In the end, she was admitted to Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts with excellent results.
In 1938, when the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression had already broken out in full swing, Zhao Qingge, a woman in the war, founded the magazine "Bullet Flowers", which means "the bullets of the War of Resistance, the flower of victory", and Zhao Qingge was 24 years old.
24-year-old Zhao Qingge, thin and beautiful, but there is no lack of bravery and perseverance. She is the editor-in-chief and the magazine typeset and illustrators. She devotes all her attention to her work.
She hadn't noticed that inadvertently a man would creep into her life. Since then, the two people have been entangled like vines.
In the years of war, love is not easy to meet, it is not easy to protect, and it is even more difficult to forget.
That year, Zhao Qingge became Lao She's assistant. In the process of sorting out the manuscript every day, the hearts of the two young people gradually came together, and everything was so natural and natural.
There is no one who does not admire the genius mind, the brilliant talent; there is no one who does not love the moving style, the tenderness like water.
Lao She is not as mercurial as Hu Shi, and can play around with women. He was just a quiet man of letters. I am not good at words, and the only words I have are often quiet for a long time because they are written in books.
No one seems to be able to penetrate deep into his heart and sense his joys and sorrows.
But there is one person who can, she is Zhao Qingge.
They are all lonely literati, and they use words to hug each other for warmth.
In those years of war, they gradually came together because of their love of literature. They co-write scripts and take care of everyday chores together.
When Lao She was sick, Zhao Qingge took care of him incomprehensibly.
The flower in the heart blooms, but it will eventually break it, because Lao She is a person with a family.
At this time, Lao She's family stayed in their hometown because of the war. His wife, Hu Yuqing, single-handedly handles the affairs of the family, work hard and complain, and carefully take care of their small family.
What she didn't know was that unconsciously her husband's heart had left her and was with another woman. That process was the same as when they were in love, they didn't know what to do, and they always fell in love.
Zhao Qingge finally chose to leave. When she was a teenager, she gambled on her future and fate to sneak out of the house, and wanted to pursue more than just a love that could not be seen. Let her go to the wider world.
Zhao Qingge left Wuhan for work, and she went to Chongqing, where she carried out anti-Japanese propaganda activities.
Lao She and his wife Hu Yuqing
Originally, she thought that she could slowly forget the throbbing of the past in the new environment, but she did not know that fate had secretly written the script of life.
Lao She also came to Chongqing. Wuhan was captured by the Japanese, and he moved to Chongqing with Wenlian.
This is the arrangement of fate, the fate that they cannot break free.
Since then, they can no longer suppress the love in their hearts.
Even if the fire burns their bodies and destroys their reputations. They still fell in love without hesitation. Since you can't hide from it, embrace it!
They lived together. This was the peach news that everyone in Chongqing knew at that time.
This matter also reached Hu Xiaoqing's ears. No one knew what Hu Haoqing was sitting alone in the courtyard that night thinking. All you know is that she sat from dawn to dark that day, from dark to dawn. She may have thought they were different from others.
They fortunately avoided the shackles of arranged marriages, and on the campus of Beijing Normal University, they met for the first time under the recommendation of friends, and they had a good feeling for each other, and the two young people entered the palace of marriage step by step.
But now, he had betrayed his promise, betrayed his wife, who loved her husband deeply, and betrayed the small family she had struggled to support. Everything is still the same as it was then, but it is no longer what it was then.
The next day, Hu Haoqing took his children and carried his baggage to Chongqing. In that war-torn era, she stepped into the occupied area alone with her children, took a train, took a ship, and finally arrived at the place where Lao She was located.
When Lao She heard the news of the arrival of his family, he was shocked. He hurriedly arranged for Zhao Qingge to move out of their house, pack everything up, and then welcome his wife.
Hu Xiaoqing did not ask, she just silently helped Lao She to do housework, clean the laundry, and swallow all the pain into her stomach.
Zhao Qingge's dream woke up. She looked at the home she had thought she had, and the smoke rose again, and her heart finally burned to ashes.
It wasn't her home, the man wasn't her husband, and no matter how much they fell in love, when the titular wife appeared, she could only hide in a dark corner, hiding herself. What a terrible and shameful thing.
Zhao Qingge was fed up with the tricks of fate, and this time she admitted that she had failed, and she chose to leave and go to Shanghai alone. If you want to hide, hide in the city, and she will not be that shameful third party again.
Lao She did not interrupt his love for Zhao Qingge because of the arrival of his wife.
On the contrary, such a miserable love and unavoidable grace further aroused his cherishing of this feeling. What can't wait, is always in turmoil.
Lao She turned his love into pages of letters and lines of poetry, and sent them to Zhao Qingge's hands. He told Zhao Qingge about his love and pain, and he hoped that Zhao Qingge would hold on a little longer and not give up the love between them.
It's just that Lao She can't make a decision, between the family and Zhao Qingge, he wants to take care of both, no matter which side does not want to give up. This also made Zhao Qingge choose not to reply to the letter and no longer be involved with him.
She wrote her story into a novel, and a female student fell in love with a professor with a family, and finally tearfully cut off the wrong relationship.
Desire eventually broke through the intellect, though only for a short time. Lao She came to look for her, and he couldn't help his own thoughts of breaking the dike.
Only this time Hu Xiaoqing also came with him. Again and again, she chose her husband's betrayal. Lao She, who had no determination, finally chose the family.
Zhao Qingge, who was cold-hearted and cold-hearted, wrote such a sentence on a rainy night: "We live in reality, and reality will continue to torment us!" Unless we go to the river together, we can avoid reality. ”
It's just that Lao She stubbornly never wants to give up, and after he went to the United States, he felt the romance and openness of a foreign country, and he wrote to her, hoping that she could come to Manila, where they could have their own house, their own lawn and undisturbed love.
It's just that this letter eventually sank into the sea.
They each had a city and never saw each other. This is their love and their destiny.
In 1959, Zhao Qingge lost his job and encountered a great crisis in his life. She has not been married since she left Lao She, she has no family, no lover, no friends. So she could only write to Lao She and ask him for help.
When Lao She saw the letter, he was ecstatic. He deceived his wife that he was going to visit his sick relatives and took 800 yuan to personally send it to Zhao Qingge. As everyone knows, this lie is like a sharp blade, a knife stuck in the heart of his wife Hu Xiaoqing.
Her silence, her forbearance, her sacrifice, all came to naught. Her hatred poured out irrepressibly, and she didn't understand why she would have been confined to this besieged city for the rest of her life if she didn't love herself. Her helplessness, her grief, why didn't he understand! Do you not understand or do not want to understand?
Love eventually turns into hate. Hu Criticized her husband's betrayal. Lao She could not resist this menacing accusation and chose to commit suicide by throwing himself into the lake.
At that time, Zhao Qingge's words were now a proverb.
In her later years, Zhao Qingge had no children and no daughters, and only the couplets written by Lao She hung on her desk and accompanied her.
Those letters became the support and only companion of faith in the long night of silence.
No one knows whether she, with gray hair, sits quietly in a rocking chair and looks out the window in silence, whether she regrets the encounter she once met and gave her life for this love.
All we know is that on her deathbed, she burned all the letters that were once cherished. Whether it's letting go completely or leaving with memories, it doesn't seem to matter anymore. The love and hatred that was once there, eventually drifted in the wind and disappeared.