Gu Cheng, a poet who knows Chinese characters.
In his 37 years of life, he wrote countless poems that influenced a generation.
But in October 1993, Gu Cheng suddenly hacked his wife Xie Ye with an axe on Waiheke Island in New Zealand.
On the same day, he hanged himself at home.
At the end of his life, Gu Cheng left 4 suicide notes, one of which was addressed to his son Xiao Mu Er (also known as SAM, Miki, Muer).
The letter ends with the words: Miki, please don't be too like me.
Why did he say that? What happened to this poet's family? How is this child doing now?
Turn back the time to the time when Gu Cheng began to write poetry.
It was the end of the turmoil and the time of going up the mountain to the countryside, and the child, who was born into a poet's family, suffered a huge shock in his heart.
"I'm fantasizing, I'm shattering" - "My Fantasies"
He becomes sensitive, painful, always alone, pursuing his own glassy ideal world.
In 1977, Gu Cheng published a poem in "Dandelion", and the "Obscure Poetry School" was formed, and Gu Cheng was considered to be a representative poet.
He probably didn't want to represent anyone at the time, but the kingdom of poetry was happy compared to the days when he cut the queue.
He can express himself by expressing the world as he pleases.
In July 1979, Gu Cheng followed his father Gu Gong back to Shanghai.
On the train, he met a young and beautiful girl who could speak foreign languages and was 2 years younger than him, Xie Ye.
The encounter between the poet and the schoolgirl does not need to be more vigorous, like "Rain Alley" -
"Your bright brilliance makes my gaze unable to stay" - Gu Cheng
"We didn't say anything, we all know that this is the beginning and not the end" - Xie Ye.
Just a note and a small poem, and the eye has been promised for life.
But in the eyes of the Xie family, the poet is only called "people", not "poets", which is obviously that he is unable to start a family.
And his daughter has a stable job, because of the hardships of her father's generation, she needs a stable life even more.
Such two people are not suitable.
But the more the Xie family objected, the more crazy Gu Cheng became, and he was eager to prove his romantic love for Xie Ye.
It's a bit like the interpretation in "Golden Fan Family", but Gu Cheng is not Jin Yanxi, and Xie Ye is not cold and autumn.
The mother was forced to divorce her father, and she had a disabled brother, but the mother did not feel bitter.
Such a family atmosphere makes Xie Ye naturally know how to take care of people, and it seems that taking care of others is taking care of himself.
How wonderful it would be if a man deserved to be as devoted as his mother was.
She decided that Gu Cheng was this person.
And Gu Cheng, he couldn't buy a house, so he brought a coffin-like box and put it in front of Xie's house, sleeping in it day and night.
When Xie's family wanted to go out, he self-harmed to stop it.
The Xie family judged that Gu Cheng was mentally ill, but Gu Cheng went to the hospital for an appraisal and proved that he had no disease and was "just a child spoiled by his mother."
In the end, the Xie family compromised, and Gu Cheng married Xie Ye.
Gu Cheng wrote a poem saying: "I saw golden light everywhere, and with rainbows, I didn't dare to imagine that she could come."
Xie Ye walked into marriage in a flash of light.
After marriage, Gu Cheng promised Xie Ye that he didn't need to do anything, read and write poetry, and lived a romantic life.
But in reality, behind the sweet romance is Xie Ye's nanny-style dedication, she is Gu Cheng's secretary, agent, and often plays the role of a mother who does housework.
Gu Cheng, who is twenty or thirty years old, often can't even button his clothes well.
However, this embarrassment was ignored by the two tacitly.
As it is written in "One Generation": The night gave me black eyes, but I used it to find light.
It is obviously hazy, but it exudes a firmness and conviction.
It is also the appearance of this poem that makes Gu Cheng the only poet in modern times who can be named "Long live".
Everywhere he went, he had a large number of fans following, including a female fan named Li Ying, who was even more fascinated by it.
Because of the criticism of Gu Cheng's poems in front of them, Li Ying and Gu Cheng became close friends without fighting.
The three often get together to talk about poetry and ideals, and inevitably talk about each other's love.
Seeing that another woman loved her husband so much, Xie Ye only felt that someone was praising her child.
Between her partner and "mother", she is more accustomed to caring for Gu Cheng like a loving mother.
"I was a child, a child spoiled by a fantasy mother. I am willful" - "I am a wayward child"
But Xie Ye didn't know that from the moment Li Ying scolded Gu Cheng to cry, Gu Cheng had feelings for Li Ying.
This feeling was brewing for three years, and in 1989, it finally exploded.
That year, the poetry world changed, the third generation of domestic poets rose, and Gu Cheng, Beidao, and Shu Ting were all not popular.
Gu Cheng had to focus on foreign poetry exchanges, and he took his wife Xie Ye to Germany, to Northern Europe, to the United States, and finally to New Zealand.
There is a Waiheke Island in New Zealand, which is relatively primitive, and Gu Cheng fell in love with it at a glance.
After immigration, he built his own house and lived an idyllic life.
He also sewed a hat himself, and Gu Cheng said that he would feel safe with a hat.
And Xie Ye called Gu Cheng in a hat "Khan", and Gu Cheng called himself "Khan" after that.
He didn't allow Xie Ye to cook because it was too worldly.
To eat, stew all the dishes in one pot.
The people on the island speak English, but Gu Cheng does not speak it, because it will destroy the environment of Chinese poetry.
Usually he needs to deal with each other, so he takes Xie Ye with him.
He will never let Xie Ye wear revealing clothes, do not let Xie Ye work, and what to wear is up to him.
But there was always a need to make a living, so Xie Ye had to make some handmade or planted things to sell.
This kind of "yang and yin" has happened several times, but Gu Cheng did not pursue it.
Gu Cheng's house on the island is said to have 999 years of property rights
In a certain sense, Xie Ye had long been regarded as another aspect of himself by Gu Cheng, so that he could reject the world while living in the world.
Strange days passed day by day, and Xie Ye became pregnant and gave birth.
It was a boy named Little Fungus.
As a woman who grew up in a traditional family, Xie Ye is undoubtedly happy.
Maybe at this point, I feel that I have truly become a perfect woman, a woman who has dedicated herself to poets.
But unexpectedly, Gu Cheng was furious.
He believes that with children, this life is no longer purely ideal, and he is no longer the only child, the only boy.
Fatherhood began to remind him that he could no longer write poetry like a child.
He hated the kid.
Several times, Gu Cheng threw the little fungus straight to the ground, and often cried with the little fungus while waiting for Xie Ye to take care of it.
It was not until Xie Ye was forced to send his 2-year-old child to be raised by the aborigines on the island, and Xie Ye was not allowed to visit.
On the left is Xie Ye, and on the far right is Shu Ting
And when the child left, Gu Cheng felt that he was living a pure life like glass again.
He also liked Xie Ye more, and asked her to always appear in his line of sight, and she must be.
Of course, in the end, these are also "yang and yin".
Xie Ye often left his sight to visit his son, but Gu Cheng still didn't care.
If from the current point of view, what kind of mental illness these eighty percent have, Xie Ye is afraid that it is to PUA.
But they really don't have diseases, and our eyes aren't qualified to evaluate them.
How to say, maybe this is poets and Wen Qing, in the face of a concrete thing, they often do not care about the truth, only seek a kind of soul touch.
Although it is not clear what exactly touched the soul.
Or perhaps, there is no truth and no soul at all, and the poet's world is always fantasized and then disillusioned, and then fantasized again, bursting into bursts.
So in the memories of many Gu Cheng's friends later, Gu Cheng will also be a loving father figure.
On Xiao Mu'er's first birthday, it was Gu Cheng who accompanied him.
At that time, Gu Cheng, who did not distinguish between grains, actually rolled the dough for his son for a whole day.
That rolling pin was still made by Gu Cheng himself.
In addition, Gu Cheng also makes standard Shanghai onion oil cakes, which many friends have eaten.
"Gu Cheng is a very good father, he looks at Xiao Mu's gaze like a loving father."
"Sam, there are a lot of people in the world laughing at me, laughing at your dad's hat and looks, and there are people who hate me because I hate them. Sam, only you should do this, but you don't laugh at me, you don't hate me, when you were a kid you just said: naughty dad. —Gu Cheng's words to Mu'er, October 7, 1993, the day before he killed his wife)
The last poem written by Gu Cheng is called "Going Home", which is also written for his son, and there are a few sentences in it that can feel the delicacy of a father——
Sam, I have a word to you, Sam, I like you, this sentence is only for you, no one hears it.
Love you, Sam, I'm going home, you take me home.
Lift you up little by little, Sam, you are in the sun and I am in the sun.
It feels very screwed, and the idyllic song is even more screwed.
Because this kind of life is not only with Xie Ye, Li Ying also joined.
She remembered Gu Cheng, and Gu Cheng also remembered her.
Li Ying once said: "If I were before Xie Ye, maybe I would be better than her?" ”
At first, Gu Cheng was shocked when he learned this, but then he wrote a letter in front of Xie Ye to ask Li Ying to live on the island.
And Xie Ye, probably out of habit or perhaps love, took the initiative to help Li Ying sort out the visa and also included the travel expenses.
In the end, even Li Ying's clothes were washed by Xie Ye.
And Li Ying only needs to talk about love and soul with Gu Cheng.
Seeing the two women loving themselves, Gu Cheng said: "I have used up the love of two lifetimes. ”
But Gu Cheng would never know that Xie Ye was really tired of being both a wife and a mother.
Xie Ye's friend said, "My face was full of tiredness when I saw her again."
Gu Cheng's sister Gu Xiang also said that Gu Cheng once pinched Xie Ye's neck.
He took the woman who loved him the most and domestic violence.
Gu Cheng will not know that Li Ying, another woman who loves herself, actually has a lover who is more than 20 years older than her.
And when I was with this lover, I was just to improve my life, and now with Gu Cheng, I naturally have this meaning.
So during a meal, Li Ying told Gu Cheng that he was going to find a job and to earn money to buy a big house.
Gu Cheng directly got up and smashed the chair after listening to it, he couldn't understand this kind of self-reliance, and he didn't allow people who loved themselves to love other things.
He will think that it is "the world bullying me."
But Li Ying is not such a person, of course, she does not really want to stand on her own.
After that conflict, Li Ying began to secretly contact his former "lover", and at the same time hooked up with a more powerful new lover to prepare for immigration.
Xie Ye knew, but she neither stopped nor reported it, only saying:
If you go, he may die, can you wait?
Perhaps here, Xie Ye had already foreseen his fate from Li Ying.
Just like this place called Waiheke Island, it looks very large, in fact, the area is very small, and it is not rapid, the government agencies above are very strict and conscientious, and there are certain restrictions on the number of chickens, which is not as free as before going abroad.
But for some reason, she didn't do anything.
In 1992, Gu Cheng was invited to Germany to give a lecture, and he took Xie Ye with him, leaving Li Ying behind.
Then Li Ying ran away and soon married someone else.
On January 8, 2014, Li Ying died of cancer in Sydney at the age of 50.
At that time, Gu Cheng, who learned the truth, collapsed to commit suicide, and often suspected that someone was going to kill himself.
He wrote to his parents:
"After Ying's accident, they have been waiting for me to commit suicide or kill Ying, they arranged well, and they can live a good life when I die."
He committed suicide several times, but it was Xie Ye who saved him.
But at this moment, Xie Ye also had something in mind, during that trip to the German lecture, a man named Big Fish confessed to her.
Big fish is completely the opposite of Gu Cheng, he can't write poetry, but he can live, there is no wild imagination, but he is more in line with a normal person.
Judging from his sister Gu Xiang's book, Gu Cheng knew.
Gu Cheng's letter to his parents wrote: "Ye has been hiding many things from me. She was kind, reasonable, and planned to destroy my life. ”
It was also this year in Germany, and a friend asked Gu Cheng after seeing the haggard Xie Ye: "How are you doing?" ”
Gu Cheng affirmed, "I'm going to kill Xie Ye sooner or later." ”
Back on Waiheke Island, Xie Ye wanted to leave.
But seeing Gu Cheng's heartbreak because of Li Ying's pain, Xie Ye hesitated again.
But in the end, she was firm, and she planned to help Gu Cheng do the last thing and leave.
It is Gu Cheng's oral narration, Xie Ye's typed "Ying'er", a book that describes Gu Cheng and Li Ying's lingering exchanges, love and companionship.
After writing, Xie Ye filed for divorce and took back his son Xiao Mu'er.
In Xie Ye's letter to her mother, she confessed as follows:
"There's one more book to finish recently, and I hope that's the last thing."
"I am a good person and there will be good rewards."
And Gu Cheng's letter to his mother was:
Mom: Today I can't get by, Ye wants to go with others, and I can't get Mu'er. Mom, I can't bear it, I'm sorry.
On September 26, 1993, the two had their first and last quarrel.
Gu Cheng said, "I didn't lie to you. You can decide to divorce. But you just can't call before the divorce. I don't know what you're going to discuss, I can't trust you that much."
"I'm your mother!" Xie Ye replied angrily: "It's not your wife." ”
On October 8, 1993, a peaceful day, Gu Cheng picked up an axe and hacked Xie Ye to death.
After that, Gu Cheng calmly hanged himself.
It is also like the general scene of "I am a wayward child" that he wrote that year:
"She will always look at me, always, look, and will never suddenly turn away."
If you die, you can never turn back.
Brilliant and absurd, sad and hateful.
Remembering a quote from Roe Browning, love, hope, fear and faith make up human nature.
Each of these properties is beautiful on its own, but taken together, it is really difficult to disassemble.
Marveling at Gu Cheng's talent, he really couldn't accept that paranoia.
Touching them such a partner from spirit to flesh, it is also possible to pity such a Xie Ye who has been created from beginning to end.
Even after Gu Cheng's death, public opinion praised the sincerity of the man, questioned Xie Ye's worldliness, and admired Ying'er's sobriety.
But in the whole thing, it was obviously Xie Ye who paid the most, and it was Xie Ye who was hurt the most.
Xie Ye's friend said that after 1992, Xie Ye began to try to write novels and essays, and his literary style was very high.
But for a long time, her works could only be attached to Gu Cheng's back and could not be published separately.
After 1992, it was the moment when her heart was shaken.
Presumably, at that time, she lived herself, but complex human nature, a multi-faceted life, and finally fell to a doomed fate.
Just like Gu Cheng's name, the pursuit of romance is in vain, and Qingqi has not been able to get out of a besieged city in his life.
Known as the greatest spiritualist romantic poet, Gu Cheng's brave life background has also become their sorrow.
The last little fungus was adopted by his aunt and left Waiheke Island to live in New Zealand.
In order to forget his parents' past, his family consciously asked him not to learn Chinese, nor did he allow him to return to China to visit his relatives.
There are fewer people who know him abroad, so he can be protected.
In 2006, it was reported that Little Mu was admitted to the University of Auckland, New Zealand's best university, at the age of 19, majoring in engineering, and stayed in New Zealand to marry and have children after graduation.
There has been no other news since.
Until some time ago, the little fungus was recognized.
He should be around 35 years old.
He already knew that his father was Gu Cheng, but he was very cheerful, not at all like his father.
Probably, he never knew or understood the father very deeply.
This is his regret, but also his luck.
The two generations of the Gu family went from Wen to Mu'er, interrupted, and no one connected a science student with poetry.
Nor is he required to bear the sins of his father and the "ideal of the poet" he represented.
He embraced the world independently, completely and completely.
I think this is also "One Generation" - the night gave him black eyes, and he used it to find light.
-Finish-
Image and data source:
"Xie Ye said, Gu Cheng is very jealous of his son", Phoenix Network Culture, 2017.10.08 2
"Died in 1993: The Last Days of Gu Cheng and Xie Ye", Past Char Siu, 2020.12.09
""Giant Baby" Genius Poet Gu Cheng - Complex Human Nature, Multi-faceted Life", Young Poet, 2021.08.06