Xia Yan loved cats, and the old tanuki cat, who had been waiting for its owner for nine years, died the day after seeing him

The mother is an expert in silkworm breeding, and she has to raise "first silkworm" and "second silkworm" once a year. Before I went to the city to go to primary school at the age of eight, I had to raise three or four pieces of silkworm paper every year, and there was not enough labor, so I had to ask short-term workers to help pick mulberry leaves. I have been an auxiliary laborer since I was five or six years old, so from "dusting ants" to "going up the mountain" of silkworm babies, this whole old-fashioned sericulture process, I will do. Therefore, when I later adapted Mao Dun's "Spring Silkworm", in the studio of the star company, I was the only "technical consultant" who knew how to raise silkworms.

Rats are the enemies of silkworms, and in order to prevent rats, they have to keep cats, so my mother especially loved cats and passed on this fetish to me. I remember when I was very young, a yellow and white cat born in the same year as me slept in my bed. For the sake of cats, I often went to Chen Jiadang to go fishing, probably when I was six years old, and I lost my footing and fell into the water while fishing, and almost drowned.

In the summer of 1975, Yan Zhu walked out of prison on crutches dragging his disabled legs. His family will never forget what he looked like: his pale cheeks, his skinny body, his collarbone broken, his eyes badly damaged. He returned to his home after nine years of separation, and his relatives and friends were full of sorrow when they saw him return, and the old tanuki cat who had faithfully held out for nine years, foraging around during the day and always quietly returning to the day house at night to wait for his master, actually died the next day after seeing him.

In 1977, Xia Yan, Zhou Yang, Zhang Guangnian, Li Ji and others went to Guangzhou together at the invitation of the leaders of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. During the trip to Guangzhou, Xia Yan and Zhou Yang got along harmoniously, and Xia Yan also took advantage of the opportunity to write down " Although full of sorrow and suffering, I am old and strong, and I am proud of the past, for consolation", which attracted a round of applause from everyone. And when Xia Yan proposed that he wanted to go back to Beijing and say, "I miss my cat", Zhou Yang's tears suddenly filled his eyes again. Under the persuasion of everyone, Xia Yan still spent the New Year in Guangzhou.

(Xia Yan's "Autobiography of Xia Yan", Yan Ping's "Meditations on the New Chinese Literary Circle")