Stills from the movie "Hello, Lee Huan Ying"
"Although your grandfather is good to me, Grandma has been doing 'Chen Li Yueying' for sixty years."
In the TV series "The Cultivation of Ordinary Women", a light and fluttering line left a sonorous sound in people's hearts. After marriage, Li Yueying changed from "Ah Yue" and "Yue Ying" to "Mrs. Chen", "Doctor Mother" and "Grandma". Among so many titles, only "Li Yueying" is not there. It seems that in the eyes of family, neighbors, and colleagues, it doesn't matter who you are, it's only important whose mother you are.
From the beginning of preparing to conceive a new life, many mothers want to be a 100-point "superhuman mother". Does the real "perfect mom" exist? Is a happy, self-consistent mom a "perfect mom" for a child?
In the young writer Zhang Tianyi's novel collection "Like Snow Like a Mountain", he uses several short stories to write about the representatives of thousands of mothers. Among them are single mothers who are difficult to raise, novice mothers who are deeply affected by postpartum depression, and middle-aged women who have lost their children but are still struggling in the role of "mother". At the end of the movie "Hello, Li Huanying", Jia Ling used a sentence "I also forgot that my mother was also a flower girl" to express the voices of many people. In the film, Li Huanying resolutely chose the life she wanted and became a good mother, so she said, "I am very happy in this life, why don't you believe me?" "It's so powerful and tear-jerking.
Loving children and being yourself are never contradictory. Motherhood is the right of all women, and being yourself is also the same. Although Mother's Day has passed, we always wish that every woman in the world who has experienced the pain of childbirth will finally live the way she wants to be. Because before a woman becomes a mother, she is first of all herself.
1
When she was discharged from the hospital the day after the baby was born, she was again wrapped in a quilt-like coat, and people joyfully forced her to be equipped with heavy armor, and then she stopped trying to take it off.
People thought she was asleep. In fact, she was thinking back, sleepily recalling the morning she put the plastic rod in front of him... He was eating breakfast in the house, and she was sitting on the toilet seat waiting. There was a "bang" at the door, and the people they shared with went to work before she walked out. Standing in the hallway from the bathroom to the bedroom, she looked at him nostalgically. There was the aroma of freshly baked bread in the room, and he forgot to take the spoon, picked out a handful of salad dressings with his fingers, smeared it on the bread slices, took a bite, cocked his finger as a tableware, and replaced it with another finger to slide the phone screen, staring intently.
What a lovely young man, who is still like a child, will fall into the snare of the word "father" in the next moment. She hid the plastic stick behind her, walked over, sat down in the chair opposite him, and waited for him to finish reading the latest news from the low-cost airline website.
Wait, where did they plan to buy cheap tickets? Switzerland and Italy. The trip was conceived in the mind for even longer than the October pregnancy, and every detail was ready to come out. She put the thing in front of him, it was pink and white, and opened a small window on her stomach, as if there were a group of little people living inside, and quickly finished the test, and drew the result on the small window with a red pen.
He blinked. She said half-truthfully: Do you want to keep it? What if I want to see the Cathedral of Flowers?
He lowered his head, cocked the tableware finger, deleted the travel tips APP, the German-Italian translation APP in turn, and said without looking up, we can wait... Wait until it's over.
At this time, there was finally a slightly late look at each other, and they laughed confusedly and with trepidation, and stretched out their hands to hold hands together. The morning light of spring, shooting from between the long skirts and shirts hanging high on the balcony, smeared on the back of the hand like salad dressings. From that moment on they all began to have expressions that I had never seen before.
I listed the next months and the age of the fetus on the paper, comforting her: Don't be afraid, you can still spend a light and normal summer, and you can continue to wear a crop top, shorts and a two-piece swimsuit. When it gradually expands, the thick coat of autumn and winter can be connected, so that you will not look too dazzling and too pregnant.
When other pregnant women were planning how to weave the fruits and vegetables of the four seasons into the fetal diet, she thought of herself in the four seasons. I have to be honest, she was indifferent to it at first.
Soon she was forced to walk onto the rumbling forward conveyor belt, processed by the laws of nature into the most common pregnant woman. Did the ball of flesh that slowly had a decent amount of flesh in her body bring some joy? I think there is.
But the clouds in his eyebrows grew thicker. One night when she was tossing and turning because of bloating, he said in the dark, "We must buy a house." This is the final line of their optimism about life – no big loans, no high debt.
In the fifth month, he finally borrowed money from his parents, borrowed a lot, and couldn't do no more. In the sixth month they went for a walk in the park, and she stepped into the air and fell off the steps. Later, when I woke up, there was a middle-aged lady in the room, and the woman sat down and said softly that she would live with her in the future, take care of her, solve the house for them and all the other problems, everything.
Rejection is bad, it will teach others to be sad, and the lady has to live in a house that she pays half the money for, and she has to take care of her future grandchildren or granddaughters.
She smiled meekly, and she generally laughed at things she couldn't refuse. The lady unfolded a dress of strange material, softer than canvas and harder than cotton, and said, Come, couple, put it on.
She went in, her eyes dark and bright, and went to the mirror to see that the clothes seemed to be self-conscious, protruding another shape outside her body, and there was a bird embroidered with a strange smile in the corner of the clothes. She wanted to take off her clothes, and the lady came over and said softly and authoritatively, No, you can't use the microwave without wearing it, you can't go near the TV, you can't use your mobile phone...
Finally all she had was an eternal docile laugh, as if the day after her baby was discharged from the hospital, she was again wrapped in a quilt-like coat, and people joyfully forced her to be equipped with heavy armor, when she no longer tried to take it off. The baby was in the hands of someone else, and the man was walking vigorously, taking several quick steps, and she was burdened by the too heavy shackles of cloth, and she took a few steps forward, dragged a few steps.
I shouted at the man, wait a minute, why don't you let her hug? She hadn't seen the baby in the daylight yet! The man turned to comfort her again, don't worry... Isn't this going home?
—— Excerpt from Zhang Tianyi's "Like Snow Like a Mountain", "The Salt of Spring", People's Literature Publishing House, April 2022
2
"I grew up loving children, especially little girls, and from an early age I looked forward to having one myself."
"So, you've been waiting for me to be your child since you were a child?"
"Yes."
They looked at each other and smiled, and they all felt that they had nothing else to ask for in the world.
The first menarche of the grain occurs in a physical education class in the spring of the second year of the first year. She felt a stomachache and raised her hand to ask the teacher for leave to go to the toilet. The other girl raised her hand and said she was going too. They walked into the toilet in the corner of the playground, and one of them stepped into a pit to take off their pants. She took off her pants and was stunned to see that the panties were covered with ochre spots. The girl next to you said, you have diarrhea? She replied annoyedly, no! You don't understand.
She had learned about the inevitable development of this woman's body in the book, and she was not surprised, but she was sad that the new panties, the snow white bottom printed with the pattern of red roses, had been put on for a long time, and she was reluctant to wear them. But chagrin and frustration are accompanied by excitement. Back home in the evening, she pulled her mother from the kitchen to the bedroom, closed the door, and bent down to push the pants of her school uniform to her knees to show her.
The mother said "Oh" and then said, take it off, I rubbed it for you, and you washed it yourself. She turned to the left to get the enamel basin on the wooden basin shelf, turned halfway and shrank her hand, turned to the right, and first opened the small wardrobe and took the changed clothes. Her hands were raised in front of her and gently tapped, making all kinds of meaningless grasping movements.
Grain bare legs, waiting for her, the mother's helplessness made her relaxed, she smiled, Mom, what are you panicking?
Her mother laughed too, and finally recovered from her disorder and first mixed a basin of warm water and put it on the ground. When the grains were riding on the basin of water to wash, she walked to her closet, opened the cabinet door, pulled out the drawer in the middle of the cabinet, took out a bag of sanitary napkins wrapped in a long cube, and said, This bag is enough for you to use this time.
The grain lifted the new panties to the middle of the thighs. The mother sat down next to her, one hand in front of the other, flattened the sanitary napkin, pasted it to the bottom of the pants, and then grasped it in the palm of her hand and held it, holding it into a sink-like pit to ensure that the glue was secure, saying, in the future, I will do it myself, and finally remember to check whether the stickiness is firm.
In the years that followed, every time she leaned over to arrange sanitary napkins for herself, at the end she would shake them like her mother, and every time she would float up in front of her eyes, the thin white hands would float up in front of her, the jade-like tendons on the back of her hands, and the small room at dusk of spring.
The mother went out and broke the dirty water. Grain said, unfortunately, that pair of underwear, which you bought for me at the New Year, was only worn for the first time. Mother said, it's okay, I'll see if I can wash it off. But she was still unhappy. Mother said, we women this thing, ah, like deliberate bullying, pranks, one day you wore the most expensive new dress, your favorite white pants, hey, that day came! Skirt pants give you a mess. Accurately, several of our female colleagues are, wearing new pants in the morning, they come to work, show a circle everywhere, and as a result, they do their work, and then they are printed...
My mother said again, the first time I came to this, I was very happy.
Why, she asked?
Because among the relatives on my aunt's side, there is a cousin who is a natural "stone girl" who has no menstruation since childhood and cannot have children when she grows up. The first time I saw myself bleeding, I breathed a sigh of relief and said to myself, this is good, I am not a stone girl, I will be able to have children in the future. I grew up loving children, especially little girls, and from an early age I looked forward to having one myself.
So, have you been waiting for me to be your child since you were a child?
Oh, yes. They looked at each other and smiled, and they all felt that they had nothing else to ask for in the world.
—— Excerpt from Zhang Tianyi's "Like Snow Like a Mountain", "Blood on the Ground", People's Literature Publishing House, April 2022
3
She must have thought: If Wu Tong did not die, it is likely that he would still be a pair with the witch boy today, and it was almost time for Zhang Luo to get married, he would try on a set of clothes that his mother helped him choose, leaning on his fiancée...
The woman raised her eyebrows, as if she were saying something a little nasty, a little disgusting, and pressed the corners of her mouth down. Why didn't you go? It's gone, it's not interesting. After leaving uncle Wu with you, people introduced me to one, and there was no child, and there was no girl in his family. Several years older than Tong Tong, almost the college entrance examination, late self-study to get late, originally the husband and wife two took turns to pick up, it happened that day her mother played mahjong smoothly, reluctant to get off the table, called her daughter to say you go back to it yourself. The result was so coincidental, there was an accident that night, let the car be touched, the driver hit and run, and never caught. Can you say her dad can't blame her mom? There must still be resentment in my heart. But blame it, her mother is also sad to cry every day, and she can't say it. Her father told me that there was really no way to get by then, and that I would go crazy looking at her and looking at that room. He was just like me, divorced, left his hometown, and wanted to start over.
The witch boy's face gradually changed as he listened. She looked straight at her eyes and said, Grandma, I don't dare to ask if you blame me...
She had only half a sentence spoken when the woman stopped her with a string of "no, no, no," and her two hands shook in the air, and the flesh on her cheeks trembled. Don't! Kids, good kids, don't think that. The situation of Tong Tong is different, and no one is to blame, only that her life is not good. I've always thought so. God wants to collect people, he wants TongTong, what do we have to do... Well, I'll tell you about the old stone! His surname is Shi, his name is Shi Shuyun, and he is really a good person.
She shook her head regretfully, her tone extremely calm, reviewing her defeats, and deliberately speaking lightly. At that time, people said that the two of you have pity for each other, live together, talk to each other about what others can't say, comfort each other, and warm each other. Who knows, the same disease is the same disease, the pain method is very different, the two of us can not say together than other couples.
How can it not be said together?
For example, Lao Shi said to me, Li Li, I really envy you. I said, how? He said, you Tong Tong thirteen is not, we are almost eighteen when we are not blooming, you have hurt your son for thirteen years, and I have lost five years more than you. I said, this is not right, what is white pain, I would rather Tong Tong grow up to eighteen, and leave me with five more years of memory. Besides, you at least know what you've grown up like, I've been a little boy with no hair all my life. Every day I walk down the street, I see a young man who thinks: If he is an adult, is this the case, with broad shoulders? Isn't that the hair on your legs? ......
The witch boy listened quietly and clasped his hands. The lights were shining, too bright, and in this glass detention room, the lights of the whole world were shining on her. The headless clenched their fists to prevent her from hit-and-run.
The woman said that she could not say it together on this, and slowly she could not say it together. After three years as a couple, they broke up. The two of us have never dropped a tear egg in front of each other, when we first got married, we said well, whoever cries children, goes outside to cry, there must be a smile in the house, and we must live well. As a result, on the day of receiving the divorce certificate, the two of us came out and cried a lot, but I felt that I had never kissed so much in three years. I said, brother, why is it so hard? He said, Li Li, it is difficult, you don't look for it again in the future, I don't look for it, we are disabled people, we can't live with anyone, don't bother others, if you admit this life, you may be able to live well. Later, I was really dead hearted and didn't want to find any "companions". I don't want to go back to my hometown, and I am relaxed outside. Anyway, I can still do it, make my own money and spend it myself, enough, watch movies with the girls I know here on Saturdays and Sundays, eat buffets, and be quite happy. Sometimes it's too happy, the brain buzzes a little, thinking, do you deserve to be happy? Little witch boy, you don't think that your grandmother has no heart, do you?
The witch boy said, how, how! I...... As soon as the curtain rang, the horse broke out, and both of them closed their mouths and looked at him, this time in a navy blue flat lapel suit with a black turtleneck and blue and white checked trousers underneath.
He strode over in high spirits and asked, "What do the ladies think?" Women and witches said, good looking, good looking!
He walked to the mirror, straightened his chest, put his hands in his trouser pockets, and withdrew his hands, hanging on either side. The woman was beside him, tiptoeing her feet, extending her arms, and turning over the back collar that was nestled in it. Little witch boy, you see, the pony wears navy blue and is handsome, and you will buy him more clothes of this color in the future. The witch boy replied, Okay.
She also looked into the mirror, and the three of them were reflected in the mirror, like a framed family portrait. The woman's eyes looked at her in the mirror, and then at Ma Chuang, and showed a loving smile.
Wu Tong had a chill on his back, and suddenly understood, what "a friend's son is about to get married", what "tall, fat and thin is almost like you", there is no such thing, there is no such person, she is thinking of Ma Chuang as Wu Tong. She must have thought: If Wu Tong did not die, it is likely that he would still be a pair with the witch boy today, and it was almost time for Zhang Luo to get married, he would try on a set of clothes that his mother helped him choose, leaning on his fiancée... The horse broke into jokes and struck straight.
—— Excerpt from Zhang Tianyi's "Like Snow Like a Mountain", People's Literature Publishing House, April 2022
"Like Snow Like a Mountain" by Zhang Tianyi
Published by The People's Literature Publishing House in April 2022
Be a signature book for authors
No woman is insignificant
Their secret joys and loves and hatreds are so different and interconnected
Li Jingze, Liang Yong'an, Zhang Li, Di An Many famous artists sincerely recommend
Young power writer Zhang Tianyi New collection of female theme novels
In life, "snow" and "mountains" are extremely common things that cannot be ignored. The snow-like daily life and the mountain-like bone-like past run through almost every woman's life memory. "Like Snow Like a Mountain" is a metaphor for the story of women's survival told from a female perspective.
The author Zhang Tianyi combs through the life sections of seven female protagonists through the life sections of seven female protagonists: she may be a quiet female student standing opposite you on the Spring Festival train, or she may be a couple who rubs shoulders with you in the hospital and embraces a baby and is suffering from postpartum depression, or it may be Li Li, a lost mother who has entered old age next door to your house... Their burdens and struggles arrive at the reality of existence with a thorough and intense penetration.
All women have the same puzzle hidden in them, and their secret sorrows, joys, and loves and hatreds are so different and interconnected. In this book, we may find the answer to "how to live, how to love, how to face the sleepless self at night, how not to lose courage when the future comes."
Preliminary review: Ouyang Jingyi, Ma Linxiaoluo
Manuscript review: Wang Wei
Final reviewer: Wang Qiuling