In 1951, Weng Ruiwu's wife Chen Mingliu died, and his eldest daughter Weng Xiangguang ran to Lu Xiaoman's house with red and swollen eyes.
Entering the house, sure enough, he saw his father Weng Ruiwu, Weng Xiangguang could not suppress the raging anger in his heart, and yelled at his father: "Why didn't you divorce your mother earlier?" If she gets divorced early, she can still find a good family and live a comfortable life for a few years! ”
Weng Rui was stunned in the same place and did not reply. Looking at the father and daughter who were silently facing each other, Lu Xiaoman, who was dressed in plain clothes, stood aside, embarrassed and did not know how to deal with himself.
Unable to get his father's answer, Weng Xiangguang turned around and angrily asked Lu Xiaoman, "Why did you grab my father and hold on?" Why? Why? You said! You name it! ”
These doubts had been buried in Weng Xiangguang's heart for twenty years, and now that her mother had died alone, she could no longer care about her generations, and only wanted to ask for the poor mother.
In 1931, when she was only 12 years old, the big and tabloid newspapers in Shanghai prominently reported the death of the poet Xu Zhimo in a plane crash.
She knew it was her father's friend, but she didn't expect that the friend's death would completely disrupt her home.
In that year, in order to marry Xu Zhimo, Lu Xiaoman, who was already pregnant, did not hesitate to abort Wang Geng's child and signed a divorce agreement, but the abortion operation caused Lu Xiaoman to lose his fertility and fell ill.
Worried about Lu Xiaoman's body, Xu Zhimo prayed to heaven again and again in his diary after marriage, and entrusted people to look around for famous doctors.
When he learned that Weng Ruiwu was a disciple of Ding Fengshan, the founder of One Finger Zen Tuina, and was highly skilled, he invited him to his home to treat his wife.
Lu Xiaoman fainted several times, and Weng Rui arrived in time to save her from danger. For this reason, Xu Zhimo is very grateful to Weng Ruiwu and becomes friends with him.
In addition to his medical skills, Weng Rui sang Peking Opera Kunqu opera and shared lu Xiaoman's interests. The two often discuss opera and perform together on stage.
On December 6, 1927, the famous play "Yutang Spring" was staged in the Xia Ling Pingke Film Theater on Jing'an Temple Road in Shanghai. In this drama, The people's daughter Su San, played by Lu Xiaoman, and Wang Jinlong, the inspector of Shanxi, played by Weng Ruiwu, have gone through all kinds of difficulties and obstacles and finally become dependents. In order to please his wife, Xu Zhimo, who does not understand opera, also ran a dragon suit on stage.
After the performance, Lu Xiaoman and Weng Ruiwu became the focus of public and media attention.
Tang Ying, a famous woman in Shanghai, commented that Lu Xiaoman's performance on that day was a good performance in disguise and singing.
Writer Chen Xiaofei called Weng Rui's appearance fresh and handsome, and praised his tacit cooperation with Lu Xiaoman for making the stage colorful.
Compared with Lu Xiaoman Weng Ruiwu, Xu Zhimo is much inferior, and the "Shanghai Pictorial" even commented that Xu Zhimo in "Yutang Spring" as "like a robot, which makes people gimmicky".
With the performance receiving widespread attention, the ambiguous relationship between the three people has become the talk of people in the streets.
Xu Zhimo did not pay attention to the gossip, he believes that between husband and wife is love, between friends is love, and the love between men and women is so different, husbands should not prohibit wives from having boyfriends.
Figure | Lu Xiaoman and Weng Ruiwu
On November 19, 1931, Xu Zhimo went to Beiping to attend Lin Huiyin's lecture. Because he was not at ease with Lu Xiaoman's body, he specially asked Weng Ruiwu to take good care of Lu Xiaoman before leaving.
Unexpectedly, this entrustment became Xu Zhimo's dying trust.
A few days later, the news of Xu Zhimo's death in the plane came, and Lu Xiaoman was overly sad and fainted on the spot. Uddhav still remembers this scene many years later. He said that in Lu Xiaoman, who received xu Zhimo's bad news, he saw that the deepest sorrow was that he was frozen like a wooden chicken in an instant, followed by crying and weeping.
After you woke up, Lu Xiaoman lost his voice and cried bitterly, struggling to retrieve Xu Zhimo's body.
But she has always been weak, and at this time, she is so weak that it is difficult to walk, and her family has come forward to dissuade her. Finally, Xu Zhimo's ex-wife Zhang Youyi arranged for Xu Zhimo's son Xu Jikai to go to Shandong to retrieve the body.
After Xu Jikai rushed to Shandong, Weng Ruiwu also rushed to the scene of the air crash on behalf of Lu Xiaoman to assist the Xu family in handling the aftermath.
Xu's father blamed Lu Xiaoman for his son's death and refused to allow her to attend the memorial service, so she could only silently send her to lianhe.
Since then, the Xu family and Lu Xiaoman have almost cut off contact, Xu Zhimo's former friends also have a lot of resentment towards her, and they have less and less contact with her, and Lu Xiaoman has fallen into an unprecedented isolation situation.
Lu Xiaoman was unwilling to defend himself, so he closed the door and silently endured criticism and white eyes.
When Weng Rui returned to Shanghai at noon, Lu Xiaoman, who lived at home, was weak and confused, and only qian Shutie, Zhao Jiabi, Chen Xiaodi, Chen Julai and other friends were companions. He went to her door every day to treat her, carefully enlightened her, and stayed until night to return home.
As for how the two developed into a cohabitation relationship, Chen Julai later recalled that one day coincided with a car failure, and Weng Rui slept all night on the second floor of Lu Xiaoman's house. Since then, when it is difficult to go home late at night, he will sleep on the second floor and smoke.
When Xu Zhimo was alive, Weng Ruiwu often lived on the second floor, and Lu Xiaoman had become accustomed to it, so he went back to the bedroom on the third floor alone and let him sleep on the second floor.
Weng Ruiwu and Lu Xiaoman believe that they are frank, but Lu Xiaoman is too famous, and the cohabitation relationship between the two has become a hot topic of discussion after tea and dinner, so angry that Xu Zhimo's father, Xu Shenru, warned Lu Xiaoman to interrupt the monthly funding.
Figure | Xu Shenru with his daughter-in-law and grandson
After receiving Xu Shenru's warning, Weng Rui was furious and moved to the third floor. Since then, while bearing the livelihood of his wife and five children, Weng Ruiwu has taken care of Lu Xiaoman's life.
Every time Lu Xiaoman fell ill, he was a doctor and a servant, who not only grabbed medicine and decocted medicine, but also brought tea and water.
She had something she wanted to eat, and even if she had to stand up to the hot sun and the cold wind, he lined up to buy it home.
She didn't drink milk, only human milk, and he asked her back to her mother.
She was determined to learn to paint, and he spent a lot of money to hire her a famous teacher.
When he was shy, in order to maintain her high quality of life, he did not hesitate to sell the calligraphy and paintings and antiques handed down by his ancestors.
If companionship is the longest confession of affection, then Weng Ruiwu definitely has a deep affection for Lu Xiaoman.
However, Xu Zhimo has become the cinnabar mole in Lu Xiaoman's heart, and Weng Ruiwu's deep affection is destined to be wasted.
Although Weng Rui lived in Lu Xiaoman's house at noon and took good care of her, Lu Xiaoman insisted on sharing a different bed in the same room and made a three-chapter agreement with him: he must not abandon his wife and cannot marry himself.
During the cohabitation period, her reception room was filled with photos of her and Xu Zhimo from different periods, and none of weng Ruiwu's; her bedroom also hung a large portrait of Xu Zhimo and offered a bouquet of flowers every day.
She was determined to live as Xu Zhimo expected, so she lived in simplicity, immersed herself in painting, and dressed all her life.
For the rest of her life, the only thing she cared about was the compilation of the Complete Works of Xu Zhimo. In order to collect all of Xu Zhimo's works, she dragged the sick body and wrote letters to Xu Zhimo's relatives and friends over and over again, visited the library, and searched for collectors.
She once wrote in the article that in several serious illnesses, the belief in supporting herself to survive was to see the works that condensed Xu Zhimo's life's painstaking efforts published into a book.
After living together for 30 years, Lu Xiaoman's ambiguous relationship with Weng Ruiwu has been discussed by the outside world, but Lu Xiaoman believes that he is bright and upright: "What I have done, Shima has seen, Shima will understand me, will not blame me." Love is not real, not on the face, on the mouth, but in the heart. In the darkness, in my sleep, it was as if I had seen and heard Shima's approval. ”
Lu Xiaoman was immersed in the remembrance of Xu Zhimo, ignoring Weng Ruiwu's deep affection for him.
Weng Ruiwu paid for many years without a response, and finally betrayed Lu Xiaoman in his old age.
After the 1950s, a female student came to the door to learn painting with Lu Xiaoman. Because of their mutual affection, Lu Xiaoman recognized this female student as his daughter. The female students called Lu Xiaoman "sending mothers" and Weng Ruiwu "sending fathers". Unexpectedly, Weng Ruiwu actually came together with gan daughter and caused her to become pregnant.
After the schoolgirl became pregnant, her mother made a fuss at the door, but Lu Xiaoman did nothing. When others talked about this matter, she lightly said that she only had feelings for Weng Ruiwu as a friend, there was no love, and she had no jealousy about this matter.
In 1961, Weng Ruiwu died of lung cancer, and before he died, he still could not let go of Lu Xiaoman, and specially entrusted her friends Zhao Qingge and Zhao Jiabi to ask them to take more care of Lu Xiaoman in the future.
Weng Ruiwu's children believe that their father has given everything for Lu Xiaoman and should set up a spirit in Lu Xiaoman's home.
Lu Xiaoman refused the Weng family's request, explaining:
"The reason why Weng Ruiwu appeared in my home was because Shima wanted him to treat my illness, he lived in my home for 23 years, but also to treat me, Weng Ruiwu was a good friend of my husband Xu Zhimo, so I was embarrassed to drive him away, so we were at most a concubine, not a husband and wife."
Lu Xiaoman's response seems to be ruthless, but it is actually because of his frank temperament and disdain for disguise. For her, only Xu Zhimo is her husband, and no one can replace her.
Countless talents admired her frankness, but she was also difficult to understand by the world.
After the death of Weng Rui, who understood her, Lu Xiaoman became completely alone.
Although she was already a full-time painter at the Shanghai Academy of Painting at this time, and was also rated as a "March 8" red flag bearer by the All-China Artists Association, she became the woman who Xu Zhimo expected to work hard, but when she met Wang Yingxia on the street, she said that she lived in loneliness as deep as the sea.
In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 1964, Lu Xiaoman was admitted to Shanghai Huadong Hospital due to emphysema and asthma. The following spring, she became more ill and coughed profusely.
In her last days, her most common words were, "I often dream of Shima, and we are about to meet again!" ”
As a result, she died in a hurry in April.
On the occasion of her death, she handed over the manuscript of the Complete Works of Xu Zhimo to Xu Zhimo's cousin Chen Congzhou, and never forgot to be buried with Xu Zhimo.
At the time of his death, Lu Xiaoman wore a torn cotton jacket that exposed cotton wool. His friend Zhao Qingge couldn't bear it in his heart, and changed into a new set of silk clothes and pants for her when she was buried, giving her the last decency.
What was even more unexpected was that Lu Xiaoman, who was extremely famous before his death, was extremely deserted in front of the Spiritual Hall. In addition to her close relatives, only her friend Chen Julai and Bang Lian only had one pair, or sent by her students.
After the funeral, her cousin Zhuang Chi wrote to Xu Zhimo's son Xu Jikai, hoping to fulfill Lu Xiaoman's last wish to be buried with Xu Zhimo.
Xu Jikai quickly wrote back to refuse, and listed three reasons for his refusal:
First, the grandfather never accepted Lu Xiaoman as the daughter-in-law of the Xu family.
Second, the last time the father met with Lu Xiaoman to say goodbye, a fierce quarrel occurred, and the two did not have a harmonious relationship.
Third, Lu Xiaoman and Weng Ruiwu have lived together for many years, and even if their father is alive, the marriage between the two will not last long.
In the end, Lu Xiaoman was not buried immediately after being cremated, but put a number and name on the urn and stored it in the funeral home. Since then, due to years of unclaim, the funeral home has been relocated several times, and her urn has gradually disappeared.
Figure | Lu Xiaoman in his later years
Since ancient times, China has emphasized that people are buried in the ground after death, and "death without a place to bury" can be regarded as the most vicious curse.
Lu Xiaoman, who had a smile and a smile, was once a superb beauty who amazed the entire Republic of China, but he was reduced to a place where he was dead. This fate is absurd enough for anyone to feel sad.
Many years later, the Lu clan tried to find Lu Xiaoman's urn, but unfortunately it was too old to return.
Until 1988, her cousins Lu Zongmudan, Lu Zongqi and her niece Lu Zonglin built a memorial tomb in Suzhou Dongshan Overseas Chinese Cemetery, which contained the items she used before her death, and a generation of beautiful people finally had a home.
Her tomb is located in an inconspicuous corner of the cemetery, surrounded by moss and weeds, and the tombstone is hastily inscribed "Memorial Tomb of Aunt Lu Xiaoman".
Before she died, she was like a burning rose, with countless admirers, but after death, she was only surrounded by moss, which was somewhat shabby.
However, since she could not be buried with her beloved, she would rather be like this lonely moss, not to attract attention, just as after Xu Zhimo's death, she was clothed, closed doors, and lonely for the rest of her life.
Text | Amcel