What story did Xiao Yin and Mo Zhusun bring to heaven?
Chan Ka Kee
In Xiao Yin's 68-year career, there is an almost mysterious friend, he is neither Xiao Yin's fellow countrymen (such as Zhang Hailang, Liu Qingcai and Luo Haiqing, etc.), nor Xiao Yin's comrades-in-arms who fought side by side (such as Lai Shaoqi, Wu Youheng and Lu Meng, etc.), let alone Yan'an Luyi, classmates and colleagues of North China Associated University and "Literature and Art Daily", and even the literary and artistic circles.
This person is Mo Zhusun, a geologist from South China.
Mo Zhusun was a friend of Xiao Yin's youth, studying at Sun Yat-sen University in Shipai in Guangzhou and living in the eighth dormitory of Sun Yat-sen University in Shipai. After Zheng Wensheng arrived in Guangzhou from his hometown in 1935 until he left Guangzhou at the end of 1936, he stayed in Mo Zhusun's dormitory every time he traveled from his hometown Longchuan to Guangzhou, and used Mo Zhusun's name and dormitory as his messenger and mailing address for foreign contacts.
In his later years, Xiao Yin's book "How I Embarked on the Road of Literature" has this passage about Mo Zhusun: "I asked Mo Zhusun, a student of the Department of Geology at Sun Yat-sen University, and as a result, I decided to live in a dormitory at CUHK. ”
On September 6, 1934, Xiao Yin (then known as Zheng Wensheng) wrote to Mr. Lu Xun, leaving Mo Zhusun's name as the messenger and Mo Zhusun's 8th dormitory as his mailing address for external contact. The original manuscript of the letter is in the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing. The following picture was published in Sun Yu, edited by Li Yana, and edited by Zhang Jie, "Lu Xun's Letters of His Contemporaries":
The original manuscript is a letter written by Xiao Yin to Lu Xun in the Lu Xun Museum in Beijing
Note the inscription on the right side of the letter: Correspondence: "Guangzhou Shipai, Sun Yat-sen University, Eighth Dormitory, Mo Zhusun Zhuan".
In "How I Embarked on the Road of Literature", there is also such a passage about Mo Zhusun:
"I remember one weekend in October, I walked to Chen Shuguang's house as usual. ...... When I rushed to the vicinity of Chen Shuguang's house, I found two policemen guarding the door of Chen Shuguang's house. I couldn't retreat, so I had to bite the bullet and walk nonchalantly through the alley, near her window, and I squinted and saw that the clothes were disheveled, obviously searching. I walked out of the alley, hired a rickshaw to drive back to Dadongmen, and then took the CUHK school bus back to Shipai, and told Mo Zhusun the news. ”
The author first found the name "Mo Zhusun" through Xiao Yin's memoir "How I Embarked on the Road of Literature", and the author knew very little about Mo Zhusun's personal situation at the beginning. From "Baidu Encyclopedia", I know that he is a native of Xinhui, born in 1916, the same year as Xiao Yin, and is a senior engineer. He graduated from the Department of Geology of Sun Yat-sen University in 1939. He used to be a technician of Jiangxi, Guangdong and Guangxi Geological Surveys.
According to an article published in the "Geoscience Forum" on November 3, 2022 about the compilation of the "Chronicles of the Geological Society of Guangdong Province", and the author's contact with the Geological Society, I learned that even the information of Mo Zhusun is not available to the Geological Society, and there is no photo of Mo Zhusun, not even a group photo.
This is a very strange phenomenon. It wasn't until in the process of compiling "The Complete Works of Xiao Yin" that a member of the editorial team found that there were online materials that wrote "Mo Zhusun" as "Mo Zhusun", so he tried to search for "Mo Zhusun", and found that on November 6, 2021, "[Xinhui Celebrity] Famous Geologist Mo Zhusun, His Life Dedicated to the Geological Cause of the Motherland", which not only has a detailed text introduction to Mo Zhusun, but also his photos and other information.
Mo Zhusun (1916-2001)
Mo Zhusun's National Sun Yat-sen University student list
In the introduction materials, Mo Zhusun's name is "Mo Zhusun", and the same is true in the student registration form. In Zheng Wensheng's letter to Lu Xun, the name of the recipient is also "Mo Zhusun". It was only in the post-liberation address book and Xiao Yin's memoir "How I Embarked on the Road of Literature" in his later years that his name became "Mo Zhusun". And the information on the Internet is also written as "Mo Zhusun". As for when it began to be written as "Mo Zhusun", it is not yet known. For the sake of narrative convenience, the name "Mo Zhusun" will be used below.
From the introduction information, it is known that Mo Zhusun was born in a poor family in Xinhui in March 1916, and his father would rather work hard himself than let his children study hard and have a good future in the future. Mo Zhusun's academic performance is very good, and when he graduated from high school in the 24th year of the Republic of China (1935), he was exempted from the examination and directly entered the Department of Geology of National Sun Yat-sen University.
After graduating in July 1939, Mo Zhusun stayed in the geology department as an assistant professor. Lecturer at Sun Yat-sen University. From 1947 to 1949, he studied at the University of Michigan and received a master's degree in geology. After returning to China, he successively served as an associate professor of Sun Yat-sen University, a researcher and acting director of the Liangguang Geological Survey, the chief engineer of the Central South Geological Bureau, and the chief engineer of the Guangdong Provincial Geological Bureau. Senior engineer, the 32nd director of the Geological Society of China.
In 1957, Mo Zhusun was branded as an ultra-rightist and sent to work because of his active opinions. may be because of this, he has not been in contact with Xiao Yin for a long time.
It is estimated that after the Cultural Revolution, the two resumed contact. In Xiao Yin's two address books, Mo Zhusun's name and mailing address are recorded.
Xiao Yin's address book contains Mo Zhusun's name and mailing address
After Xiao Yin's death on August 31, 1983, on September 1, the next day, Mo Zhusun, who learned of Xiao Yin's death, immediately rushed to Xiao Yin's home in Meihua Village, expressed his condolences to Xiao Yin's family, and left his name in the autograph.
On September 1, 1983, Mo Zhusun immediately rushed to Meihua Village to express condolences to Xiao Yin's family.
Zheng Wensheng, who was born in poverty, met Mo Zhusun, who was also born in poverty, and soon the two became good friends, and Xiao Yin lived in Mo Zhusun's student dormitory at Sun Yat-sen University in Shipai. Mo Zhusun has quite a good literary accomplishment, and it can be seen from his autobiography that he wrote many very literary seven-character poems. Perhaps, he and Xiao Yin, who loves literature, have many topics in common.
During his studies, Mo Zhusun participated in the school's progressive student movement. On January 6, 1936, he participated in a protest demonstration in Lychee Bay where students from various colleges and universities in the provincial capital gathered to protest against the reactionaries' non-resistance to Japanese aggression.
At the beginning of 1937, Xiao Yin evaded the pursuit of the reactionaries and left Guangzhou to wander in Shanghai. The later life trajectories of Xiao Yin and Mo Zhusun do not seem to coincide at all. One became a writer and literary critic who went to Yan'an to join the revolution, and the other became a geologist who studied abroad and knocked on the door of the Department of Geology.
Did they know each other because of their love of literature? Why did Mo Zhusun let Xiao Yin live in his dormitory? In the letter Xiao Yin wrote to Lu Xun, he left Mo Zhusun's name and address, and Lu Xun kept Xiao Yin's letter and the manuscript essay "Change," but did Lu Xun reply to Xiao Yin? If he replied to the letter, would he not have received it for some reason? Why did Xiao Yin "tell Mo Zhusun" the news that he had almost been arrested? After the liberation, there was contact between the two of them, and what did they talk about?
These questions are only known to Xiao Yin and Mo Zhusun, and these "secrets" were brought to heaven by them with their deaths.