Ji Xianlin described his "Cowshed Miscellaneous Memories" as "a small book" written with blood and tears, and this small book is actually not small at all, because it records the strange people and things that happened in a special era. As for how many strange things and complicated human nature can be in the human world, Mr. Ji Xianlin used his simple language and flat and direct way to write down his encounters and inner feelings after being beaten as a "counter-revolutionary".
The cowshed, as it is well known, is a simple shed built for cattle, giving cattle a place to cover themselves and rest. If a person lives in a place like a cowshed, he has lost his human dignity, just like a beast. However, this understanding of "Miscellaneous Memories of the Cowshed" is actually not profound enough, because after Mr. Ji Xianlin was beaten as a "counter-revolutionary", he called the "labor reform compound" where he was located a cowshed, and the most appropriate name for this place should be "gangster compound".
But this is the second meaning of "cowshed".
Its deepest or most deserved hell is actually the hell of the human heart, and Ji Xianlin does compare the cowshed to hell, and it is the most terrifying of all hells.
Ji Xianlin used the term "comparative hellology" to talk about the terrible hell of the cowshed, and to see how hell compares.
First of all, the hell in the West seems to Ji Xianlin to be very simple and superficial, and it is monotonous. Dante depicts the scene of hell in the Divine Comedy, and the verse is like "Huang Zhong Da Lu", but the imagination of hell is very lacking, and it is even ridiculous to read.
Dante's hell has 13 floors, and this hell is shaped like an hourglass, and the deeper you go, the greater the sin of the soul. Hell has entrances, aisles, and crossing rivers, the first prison is the Netherworld, the second prison is the Valley of the Black Wind, the third prison is the rainstorm, the fourth prison is the Rolling Stones, the fifth prison is the swamp, the sixth prison is the burning grave, the seventh prison is the three valleys, the eighth prison is the ten trenches, and the ninth prison is a four-ring, which is the first ring (Gaina Ring), the second ring (Antiola Ring), the third ring (Doromea), the fourth ring (Judy Gar Ring), and finally the center of the earth.
Dante's map of hell is like the logical thinking of Westerners, with Satan the Devil at the bottom of the hourglass.
Different levels of hell imprison people who have committed different sins, for example, the first layer of hell is to punish unbaptized babies and pagans, Greek poets, heroes, philosophers, scientists such as Homer, Plato, Socrates, Euclid and others are punished here.
The second layer of the Hell Black Wind Valley is to let the adulterers be swept in the air by the black wind and roll in the air and cannot land on the ground. Another example is the stinking snowballs and freezing rain in the third layer of hell, where overeating people are torn apart by the three-headed vicious dog Kerberos, and these sinners have to eat rats, poisonous snakes, and toads. The sixth level of hell is the place where heretics are punished, and those who do not worship God and do not obey God's teachings are imprisoned in fiery sarcophagus and suffer.
In fact, it still looks quite scary, but Ji Xianlin thinks that Dante's hell is too simple. Ji Xianlin believes that the Indian hell is already "broad and profound", but in terms of the vast and profound, Chinese has brought the Indian hell to the extreme, expanded and rendered it, and transformed the hell into a Seven Treasures Tower.
The ultimate depiction of The Hell of China is the strange book "Jade Calendar to treasure money". The book is said to have been written during the Qing Yongzheng period, and was taken out of the prefecture by a practitioner with the title of "Light Fool" who, after traveling through the Prefecture.
In the book, everyone is familiar with the knife mountain fire sea, there is the oil pot saw, the props are flawless, there are bull heads and horse noodles, and the characters are complete. Hell of Hades has ten temples of Yama, and the kings of different temples judge different sinners and sentence different punishments. Of course, the book describes in great detail what kind of punishment will be suffered for what crimes are committed.
The features of this book are said to be exaggerated and in line with the real life experience of human beings, which makes people read creepy. It can be seen that the imagination of hell in the Eastern Chinese is much more detailed than that of westerners, and the punishment combined with the actual experience of life creates an irreproachable psychological fear.
But even so, Ji Xianlin still thought that the cowshed was a place even more terrifying than the Ten Heavens Hell imagined.
So where is the real horror of the cowshed?
It is the torture of the soul.
For example, in the cowshed, the revolutionary young general will let the prisoners memorize the quotations and memorize the Buddhist scriptures, such as "revealing the truth, revealing the truth, revealing the truth", such as the unclear meaning of the Buddhist scriptures, if the memorization is wrong, a slap will come up, and the human soul will be greatly damaged.
Not only that, but at night, the cowshed is filled with vicious reprimands and crisp slaps, and not only that, outside the cowshed, there are people watching the scene in the courtyard, and the people who are trained have long been numb.
In hell, only the minotaur and horse face the body to destroy and torture, but in the cowshed, the soul of the prisoner suffers great torture, so that every moment, every second and second is in a state of nervous tension, the facial features are always pulled by the tense skin, instinctively greeting the thorns, bumps, and flying disasters that may come at any time.
Of course, the language used by Ji Xianlin is still very restrained, and there is no detail, but it can be imagined that a person has been in a state of high tension and anxiety for a long time, and how difficult it is to maintain the confidence to survive.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg, 24 hours a day in the cowshed, Ji Xianlin is worried, labor reform, criticism, interrogation take turns, whether it is body or mind without a moment of rest. At this time, everyone will want a savior, even the erudite research scholar Ji Xianlin has longed for this, hoping that the savior of great compassion and compassion will end this catastrophe with great kindness, because in this catastrophe, many people have changed from people to ghosts.