In 1937, the Japanese army captured Peiping.
At that time, Zhou Zuoren lived in Badaowan Hutong, and this time there was no exception, Zhou Zuoren's wife Yu Tai Xinzi, as usual, hurriedly asked the servants to remove the "Zhou House" plaque on the gate and replace it with the sign of "Yu Tai Yu", and also "ingeniously" planted a plaster flag on the door, indicating that this was a Japanese residence.
Before that, Zhou Zuoren's wife Yu Tai Nobuko had already received her parent Yu Taishi Nosuke from Japan to Beiping, and the family lived together in the Badaowan Hutong that Lu Xun bought that year, and at that time, Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren brothers had already turned against each other, Lu Xun chose to leave, as for the reason for the brother's anti-purpose, we will not repeat it here, many articles have said before, and it is a cliché.
"Now there is only one elder left in Badaowan Chinese, and he is so faint." After Lu Xun learned that Yu Taixinzi's family lived in Badaowan Hutong, he issued such an exclamation.
Zhou Zuoren may be a good writer in literature, but in terms of being a person and doing things, it is really difficult for people to raise any interest in him, only literature in his world, the nation, the country, and even his family do not seem to be so important in his eyes, and the "book anger" on him brews the tragedy of his life.
On October 19, 1936, Lu Xun died, and his mother, Mrs. Lu Rui, took Zhou Zuoren's hand: "I can only rely on you in the future." But Zhou Zuoren actually slapped his head and exclaimed, "I am bitter, I am bitter." Mother Lu's heart was on fire after hearing this, "Do you want to support me or what?" ”
In fact, Zhou Zuoren did not want to support, but felt "trouble". Because of the trouble, when he and his eldest brother Lu Xun's family lived together in Badaowan Hutong, he gave all the money to Yu Taixinzi to manage, and as a result, because of the contradiction between the money, the brothers were not happy and scattered; because he was afraid of trouble, he allowed the servants in the family to fill their own pockets without interfering, although he already knew; now because he was afraid of trouble, he wanted to shirk the responsibility of supporting his elderly mother...
It is not difficult to understand that Zhou Zuoren has been taken care of by his brother Lu Xun since he studied abroad, and after work, Lu Xun is still around him to help take care of it, and he has the care of Yu Taixinzi and his mother in life, he almost does not have to worry about any heart, he only needs to do a good job of "writing" This task can be done.
Now that the eldest brother has died, he as the second brother has to take on the responsibility of supporting his mother, which is equivalent to pulling him from the poetic prose world into the real life filled with all kinds of trivial chores, and Zhou Zuoren is difficult to adapt to, to be precise, he does not want to adapt.
Until the end of 1937, The living expenses of Mrs. Lu Rui and Lu Xun's wife Zhu An were all responsible for Lu Xun's wife Xu Guangping, until January 1938, when Zhou Zuocai took over, but the living expenses of 50 yuan a month were enough at first, but with social turmoil, prices soared, the currency system changed from time to time, and the living expenses of 50 yuan a month were not enough.
After the outbreak of the Pearl Harbor incident, the fixed remittance every month was directly cut off, Xu Guangping was also arrested by the Japanese soldiers, how did Mrs. Lu and Juan, two small-footed women, live a very miserable life, during which Juan even came up with the idea of selling Lu Xun's books in exchange for money.
At this time, what Zhou Zuo was doing, the daily banquet guests, the entrance door had a special car transfer, busy with various upper-class celebrities gentle conversation; in 1943, the old lady of Lu Rui died, Zhou Zuoren spent more than 14,000 yuan to do the funeral for his mother, whether he was filial piety or not filial piety, it is really not clear.
Zhou Zuoren's "book anger" has made him, let him think and create without distraction, and eventually become a generation of literary people, but it also harmed him, he has read too many books, he can see everything in the world very openly, but this "look open" mentality has not experienced the grind of life, it seems like "flowers in the greenhouse", can not withstand the devastation of life, he always lives in his own world, does not know what is happening outside, this until the later "shooting"!
On New Year's Day 1939, Zhou Zuo and the student Shen Qiwu were chatting idly in the bitter rain, chatting happily, when suddenly the maid came in and said that there was a guest surnamed Li outside who came to meet him, and Zhou Zuoren asked the servant to invite the guests in. As soon as Zhou Zuoren finished answering, the person who came immediately pulled out a pistol, which was a shot at Zhou Zuoren, and then fired a shot at Shen Qiwu, and after doing all this, the murderer immediately fled.
Very dramatically, the bullet hit Zhou Zuoren's button, only slightly injured, Shen Qiwu also suffered a shoulder injury; for the murderer, Zhou Zuoren insisted that it was the "Japanese military", and later learned that it was patriotic students who were not accustomed to some of Zhou Zuoren's behavior, so they wanted to kill him, what did Zhou Zuoren do?
In April 1938, Zhou Zuoren attended the "Symposium on the Construction of Chinese Culture" in Osaka, Japan, and a magazine in Shanghai published a photo of Zhou Zuoren's participation in the association. To Zhou Zuoren's own eyes, his actions seem harmless, "art and politics are separated", he is still living in his fantasy world, and he is finally awakened by this shot!
Unfortunately, Zhou Zuoren woke up and took another crooked path: in 1939, he took over Wang Jingwei's letter of appointment as a "preparatory clerk of the College of Literature", and later served as the superintendent of the Pseudo-Education Administration.
Since then, he was originally just lifting one foot, and he was finally dragged into this "sewage"...