She was praised by Lu Xun as "the most promising female writer in China today" and praised by Liu Yazi as having "the will to lift the heavens and the talent of the world", but in the golden age of life, she quietly withered away, leaving behind nearly a million hot words written in blood such as "The Field of Life and Death", "The Legend of Hulan River" and the unfinished "Ma Bole". From the enlightenment stance of "May Fourth" to "ignorance of mankind", Xiao Hong has always walked in the valley of history with an independent posture. With her own sick and weak flesh and blood, she bore all the suffering of women, peoples and even human beings.
-1-
In the small town of Hulanhe lived my grandfather.
When I was born, my grandfather was in his sixties, and when I was forty or five years old, my grandfather was almost seventy.
I have a big garden in which there are bees, butterflies, dragonflies, grasshoppers, everything. Butterflies include white butterflies and yellow butterflies. This butterfly is extremely small and not very good-looking. It's a big red butterfly, covered in gold dust.
The dragonflies are golden, the grasshoppers are green, and the bees are buzzing and flying, full of fluff, falling on a flower, and the fat round ground is like a small hairball.
The garden is bright and dangling, red and red, green and green, fresh and beautiful.
It is said that this garden used to be an orchard. My grandmother liked to eat fruit and planted an orchard. The grandmother liked to raise sheep, and the sheep nibbled on the fruit tree. The fruit trees are all dead. As far as I can remember, there was only one cherry tree and one plum tree in the garden, and because cherries and plums did not bear much fruit, I felt that they did not exist. When I was young, I only thought that there was a big elm tree in the garden.
This elm tree is in the northwest corner of the garden, and the wind comes, and the elm tree roars first, and the rain comes, and the big elm tree smokes first. As soon as the sun came out, the leaves of the big elm glowed, and they shimmered like mussel shells on the beach.
My grandfather was in the back garden all day, and I followed my grandfather in the back garden. My grandfather wore a big straw hat, I wore a small straw hat, and when my grandfather planted flowers, I planted flowers; when my grandfather pulled grass, I pulled grass. When my grandfather planted and planted small cabbage, I followed behind, and slipped the soil nest that had been planted, and used my feet to smooth out one by one, where it would slip accurately, one foot in the east and one foot in the west. Some of the vegetables were not only not covered with soil, but also kicked the vegetables away.
The cabbage grew very quickly and sprouted within a few days. In the blink of an eye, you can pull it out and eat it.
Grandfather shoveled the ground, and I shoveled the ground; because I was too young to take the hoe pole, my grandfather pulled the hoe shaft off and let me take the "head" of the hoe alone to shovel. In fact, where is the shovel, but crawl on the ground, with the hoe hook for a while. I also don't recognize which is the seedling and which is the grass. Leeks are often cut off as weeds, and dogtails are kept as ears of grain.
When my grandfather found the patch of dogtail grass I had shoveled, he asked me, "What is this?" ”
I said, "Millet." ”
Grandfather laughed, laughed enough, plucked the grass and asked me, "Is this what you eat every day?" ”
I said, "Yes. ”
I saw that my grandfather was still laughing, and I said, "If you don't believe me, I'll come to the house and show you." ”
I ran into the house and took an ear of grain from the birdcage and threw it to my grandfather from a distance. Say, "Isn't that the same?" ”
My grandfather slowly called me over and told me that the millet had a mango needle. Dogtail grass is not, but the fur is really like a dog's tail.
Although my grandfather taught me, I didn't look at it carefully, but I just admitted it sloppily.
As soon as I looked up and saw a cucumber grown up, I ran over and picked it, and I went to eat the cucumber again.
The cucumber may not have been finished, but I saw a big dragonfly flying by, so I threw the cucumber and went after the dragonfly. How fast dragonflies fly, where will catch up. Fortunately, at the beginning, I didn't have the intention of catching up, so I stood up, followed the dragonfly for a few steps, and went to do something else.
Pick a melon flower heart, catch a big mung bean grasshopper, tie the grasshopper leg with a thread, tie it for a while, maybe tie the grasshopper leg off, and only one leg is tied on the thread, and the grasshopper is not seen.
Tired of playing, I ran to my grandfather to mess around for a while, my grandfather poured vegetables, I also snatched it up to pour, the strange thing is that I did not pour on the vegetables, but took the water scoop, tried my best, lifted the water into the sky, and shouted: "It's raining, it's raining." ”
The sun is extraordinarily large in the garden, the sky is particularly high, the sun is so radiant that people cannot open their eyes, so bright that earthworms dare not drill out of the ground, and bats dare not fly out of any dark place.
Everyone who is under the sun is healthy and beautiful, and even the trees will make a sound when they pat it, and if they shout, they will answer if they stand on the opposite earthen wall.
Xiao Hong personally designed the cover of "The Field of Life and Death"
The flowers bloomed, as if the flowers had woken up. The bird flew, as if the bird had gone to heaven. The bug barked, as if the bug were talking. Everything came alive. They all have unlimited skills, and they can do whatever they want to do.
Whatever you want, whatever you want. It's all free. If you are willing to climb the shelf, you will climb the shelf, and if you are willing to climb the house, you will climb the house. If a cucumber is willing to bloom a yellow flower, it will open a yellow flower, and if it is willing to bear a cucumber, it will bear a cucumber. If they didn't want to, not a single cucumber would bear fruit, not a single flower would bloom, and no one would ask about it.
Corn grows as tall as he wants, and if he wants to grow up to heaven, no one cares. Butterflies flew at will, a pair of yellow butterflies flew from the wall, and a white butterfly flew away from the wall. Whose house did they come from and where did they fly? The sun doesn't know this either.
It's just that the sky is blue and leisurely, high and far.
But when the white clouds came, the large white clouds, like sprinkled with silver, passed over my grandfather's head, as if they were going to press down as low as my grandfather's straw hat.
I got tired of playing and fell asleep in a shady place under the house. No pillows, no mats, just put a straw hat over your face and go to sleep.
There is a rose in the back garden. It blooms in May. Open until June. The flowers and soy sauce sauce are so big. It was very lush, full of trees, because of the fragrance of flowers, attracted a lot of bees, buzzing around the rose tree.
When I was tired of playing with everything else, I thought of picking roses, and I took off a bunch of straw hats and took them off and held them in the hood of my hat. When picking the flower, there are two kinds of fear, one is afraid of the stinging of the bee, and the other is the thorny hand of the rose. I picked a lot of them, but I didn't know what to do. Suddenly, a whimsical thought bloomed, how beautiful this flower would look if it were worn by my grandfather.
My grandfather squatted on the ground and pulled grass, so I put flowers on him. Grandfather only knew that I was playing with his hat, not what I was doing. I gave him a circle of flowers in his straw hat, twenty or thirty red flowers. I laughed as I heard my grandfather say, "It's raining heavily this spring, and our roses are so fragrant." Erlilu was also afraid to smell it. ”
Just laugh me up. I barely have the ability to support it anymore. When I finished plugging in, My Grandfather still didn't know. He also pulled the grass from the mound. I ran far and stood, I didn't dare to look at my grandfather, I wanted to laugh when I saw it. So I took the opportunity to go into the house to find some food, and before I could return to the garden, my grandfather came into the house.
The red flowers were all over the place, and as soon as I came in, my grandmother saw it. She saw that she didn't say anything and laughed. My father and mother laughed too, and I laughed the hardest, and I rolled and laughed on the kang.
Grandfather took off his hat and looked at it, and it turned out that the fragrance of the rose was not because of the heavy rain this spring, but because the flower was on his head.
He put his hat down, and he couldn't stop laughing for more than ten minutes, and after a while he remembered and laughed again.
Grandfather had just forgotten a little, and I was next to me and said, "Grandpa... It's raining heavily this spring..."
At the mention of it, grandfather's laughter came. So I also rolled on the kang.
Day by day, grandfather, back garden, me, these three things are also indispensable.
It was windy and it was raining, and my grandfather somehow was very lonely in me. Go to nowhere, play without play, feel that this day does not know how many days so long.
Xiao Hong's Hulan River
-2-
I remember that the house on the east side of the gate cave was a pig farmer, a big pig walking in front, and a group of small pigs following behind. One day a piglet fell into a well, and people hoisted the piglet up from the well with baskets carrying soil. Hang up, the little pig is already dead. There were a lot of people around the wellhead to watch the liveliness, and my grandfather and I were also watching the bustle.
As soon as the piggy was hit, grandfather said he wanted the piglet.
Grandfather took the little pig to the house, wrapped it in yellow clay, put it in the stove pit and burned it for me to eat.
I stood next to the kang rim, the whole piglet, right in front of my eyes, grandfather tore the piglet open, immediately burst of oil, really fragrant, I have never eaten such a fragrant thing, never eaten such a delicious thing. The second time, another duck fell into the well, and my grandfather wrapped it in yellow mud and burned it for me to eat.
When my grandfather burned, I also helped, helping my grandfather to stir up the yellow mud, shouting and shouting at the same time, like cheerleaders to help my grandfather.
Ducks are more delicious than piglets, and the meat is not very fatty. So I like to eat duck the most.
I ate, and grandfather watched from the sidelines. Grandfather does not eat. When I finished eating, my grandfather ate it. He said that my teeth were small, afraid that I would not be able to bite, so he first let me choose the tender one to eat, and he ate the leftover one.
Grandfather watched me take every sip and he nodded. And happily say, "This little thing is so hungry," or "This little thing eats so fast." ”
My hands were full of oil, and I wiped them on the placket as I ate them, and my grandfather was not angry when he saw it, but said: "Quickly dip some salt, quickly dip some leek flowers, eat it empty, and it will be disgusting..."
As I spoke, I pinched a few salt grains and placed them on the duck meat I was holding in my hand. I opened my mouth and went into my stomach again.
The more my grandfather praised me for eating, the more I ate. Grandfather didn't look good, afraid that I would eat too much. Let me stop, I stop. I clearly couldn't eat it, but I said, "One duck is not enough!" ”
Since then, the impression of eating ducks is very deep, waiting for a long time, the ducks do not fall into the well, I see that there is a group of ducks along the well, I take the straw and rush to the well, but the ducks do not go in, around the wellhead, and croak. I greeted the children who were watching the hilarity from the side, and I said, "Help me catch it!" ”
While he was arguing, my grandfather came and said, "What are you doing?" ”
I say:
"Catch the ducks, the ducks fall into the well, fish them out and burn them."
Grandfather said, "Don't hurry, Grandpa will catch a duck and burn it for you." ”
I didn't listen to him, and I ran after the ducks.
Grandfather came up and stopped me, took me in his arms, wiped my sweat and said, "Go home with Grandpa and catch a duck and burn it." ”
I thought: Ducks that don't fall into the well can't be caught, but how can they stick yellow mud to make it burn? So I struggled down from my grandfather's body and shouted, "I'm going to fall into the well!" I'm going to fall out of the well!" ”
My grandfather could barely hold me.
Excerpt from The Legend of Hulan River