Who would have thought that Zhang Ailing, the most legendary female writer in the modern literary world, would end so tragically.
Discovered a week after her death in the rental house, her body was already stenching with decay when the police arrived, and the room was cluttered, with garbage piled up in the kitchen and her used tissues strewn on the floor.
Zhang ailing
A brief will reads: "Immediately after death, cremation, ashes scattered to an open and uninhabited land, 2.7 million yuan and the copyright of the work will be donated to Song Qi and his wife."
Mr. and Mrs. Song Qi
It can be seen from the mess at the scene that Zhang Ailing should have lived a very miserable last few years.
Why did this talented female writer end up like this, and why did she give her entire inheritance to outsiders, while her only brother Zhang Zijing, despite being poor and unable to afford to get married, did not get a penny from his sister?
Zhang Ailing's coldness has been repeatedly criticized by later generations, and perhaps the answer is hidden in her unfortunate childhood experience.
Zhang Ailing and her younger brother Zhang Zijing
Zhang Ailing is from a famous family, grandfather Zhang Peilun is a famous minister in the late Qing Dynasty, and grandmother Li Ju is Li Hongzhang's beloved daughter, although in the era of Zhang Ailing's birth, the old and new worlds are alternating, and the family is not as brilliant as in the past, but with the residual shadow accumulated by the ancestors, it is enough to ensure that the family has no worries about food and clothing.
Zhang Peilun and Li Ju
Li
Helplessly, Zhang Ailing's father Zhang Tingzhong is a typical gentleman, and the greatest pleasure in life is to lie in a tobacco house and swallow clouds and smoke, and often go in and out of wine shops and brothels.
Her mother, Huang Yifan, was a progressive young woman who had received a new education, she couldn't stand her husband's lack of progress, and she still had a bunch of bad problems left over from the Qing Dynasty, and her marriage lasted only 3 years before she died in name.
Huang Yifan
When Zhang Ailing was 4 years old, Huang Yifan left her and her younger brother to follow her aunt Zhang Maoyuan to study abroad, and Zhang Ailing returned to China when she was 8 years old. Huang Yifan, who returned to China this time, tried to repair the relationship with her husband, but unfortunately, the conflict between the two became bigger and bigger, and when Zhang Ailing was 10 years old, they divorced and parted ways.
Soon Zhang Ting remarried Sun Yongfan, the daughter of Sun Baoqi, a family of eunuchs, but Zhang Ailing and this stepmother were incompatible, and every time she quarreled with Sun Yongfan, she would be severely reprimanded by her father, and even beat Zhang Ailing violently.
Sun Yongfan
Later, Zhang Ailing was framed by Sun Yongfan, and Zhang Tingzhong "imprisoned" her for half a year, and during the "captivity", she almost died of dysentery, until Zhang Ailing waited for an opportunity to escape.
When Zhang Ailing's life was dying, her timid and cowardly brother did not dare to plead with her father, which made her completely dead to her father and younger brother. At this point, that home and the loved ones in the family are no longer important.
The dark childhood and lack of love since childhood not only made Zhang Ailing indifferent and arrogant, sensitive and inferior, but also this sad background permeated almost all her works, and also affected her vision of picking men.
The several loves that have gone through can be described with a sigh, and the "Sea King" Hu Lancheng has hurt Zhang Ailing with a thousand holes.
Her 3-year marriage to Hu Lancheng made Zhang Ailing humble to the dust, even if it blooms, it doesn't matter. At the time of the divorce, Zhang Ailing's breakup letter to Hu Lancheng was humble in every word, and she generously gave him 300,000 cents, which shows how much Zhang Ailing loves Hu Lancheng.
Hu Lancheng family
In 1952, Zhang Ailing went to Hong Kong, and in the fall of 1955, Zhang Ailing got a "green card" in the United States.
Here, she fell in love with the down-and-out German writer Lai Ya, although he was 10 years older than Zhang Ailing, his writing qualifications were mediocre, and he was poor, Zhang Ailing still desperately married Lai Ya. However, 3 months after marriage, Lai Ya suffered a stroke, and Zhang Ailing could only write to earn money while taking care of her sick husband, and this marriage lasted for ten years.
Zhang Ailing and Lai Ya
Perhaps the world disappointed Zhang Ailing too much, in the last twenty years of her life, she became more lonely and silent, and less and less liked to get along with people, in order to escape the prying eyes of the outside world, Zhang Ailing rarely went out, only contacted Song Qi and his wife.
In her later years, Zhang Ailing suffered from a serious skin disease and always thought that there were fleas in the room, and in order to fight against fleas, she kept moving, moving more than 100 times in 3 years.
On September 1, 1995, 75-year-old Zhang Ailing had a premonition that her time was short, so she made her bed, tidied up her appearance, wrote a suicide note, lay down quietly, and left this world peacefully.
Zhang ailing