Chapter 8 fourth quarter

If Li Juhou is compared to Li Wan of the class, then Sun Yongfan is Xifeng who wields power, and he is also Wang Xifeng in the episode of "Sister Feng who turns jealous". Since the day he married into the Zhang family, Sun Yongfan has been constantly reminding everyone of his status as the mistress, stepping on others to elevate himself—maybe it’s a kind of compensatory psychology, it’s already low , If you don’t look up again, how can you see your original dignity? The first important thing to be the master of the house is naturally money. She not only paid close attention to daily expenses, but also greatly reduced the number of servants. Some of Zhang Ting's reused servants and Huang Yifan's former maids were fired-this is the first person who entered the door. To get off the horse, let people see her shrewd, capable and good at housekeeping.

She likes to compare with the former hostess of this house, and often says: She likes to paint oil paintings, and she knows Jiang Biwei, so what's the big deal, Lu Xiaoman and I are still friends. ——In the living room of the house, there are always Lu Xiaoman's oil paintings and vases of flowers. But she also has the same thing that Zhang Tingzhong cares about—that is, she has a "good couch" with Zhang Tingzhong, and she is also an old smoker for many years, who has practiced the skill of burning cigarettes.The tenderness at this moment is worth all kinds of pungentness at other times.

Moreover, she is just a pair of children left by her ex-wife, and she is very generous to Zhang Ting's money for eating, drinking and entertainment. Like him, she likes to eat canned asparagus imported from foreign countries, drink duck tongue soup, and like fresh cars. .My daughter didn't have enough money to pay tuition for piano lessons, but the money to replace the old car with a new one was just right.Zhang Tingzhong is very satisfied, this new wife is really kind, she won't stop herself from smoking, and she won't be too ambitious to look at the western scenery, she's really virtuous.Gradually, he became obedient to her.

She clamored to move again—to move back to Li Hongzhang's old house on Medhurst Road.On the eve of the Revolution of 1911, Li Hongzhang, Sheng Huaixuan, Bei Runsheng and others started to purchase real estate in Jing'an District since the concession in the territory. Not only that house, but also the whole alley belonged to Li Hongzhang. The address is No. 313, Huai'an Road.It was an old foreign-style house in the style of the early Republic of China, with many rooms, empty and old, deep and dark.Living with only four people is actually a bit gloomy and uneconomical, but Sun Yongfan insisted on moving, because she married a descendant of Li Hongzhang, so she naturally wanted to live in Li Hongzhang's property.

In 1912, Li Juku died here; in 1915, Zhang Tingzhong and Huang Yifan got married here; in 1920, Zhang Ailing was born here; the next year, she had her younger brother. ——The wall bricks of this house are the chronology of the Zhang family.It records both life and death, the first marriage of Xiao Qiao, who was peachy, and the second plum blossom in late spring—only this house knows whether the magpie occupies the dove's nest, or the Li replaces the peach. Eileen Chang described the house in this way: "I was born in that house. There are too many memories of our family in the house, like repeated photocopied photos, and the whole air is a bit fuzzy. The sun makes people drowsy, and the dark place has ancient tombs. Cool and cool. The blue and black heart of the house is sober and has its own weird world. And at the edge of the boundary between Yin and Yang, you can see the sun, hear the bell of the tram and the cloth shop with a big sale over and over again. Playing 'Su San Don't Cry' over and over again, there is only drowsiness in the sunshine." ("Whispers")

Zhang Zijing described the house in more detail in "My Sister Zhang Ailing"—— "It is a house built in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. It imitates Western-style buildings. There are many and deep rooms. There is a circle of houses in the backyard for servants to live in; there are more than 20 houses in total. Below the house is a basement of the same size. The ventilation holes are all round, facing the servant’s room in the backyard. Normally, there are only some magazines in the basement, which can be regarded as a storage room.” In order to move and arrange furniture, of course, it will cost a lot of money.At that time, Zhang Tingzhong was still working in the bank, and his 40th birthday was about to pass. Sun Yongfan was frugal elsewhere, but now he was very generous. Show off to relatives and friends, let everyone see how well she manages the family.

The power of the family is more and more in the hands of the stepmother day by day, and Zhang Ailing is also more lazy to go home every day, and when she comes back occasionally, she hears that her younger brother and her nurse are being bullied. She is very upset, but she has no choice but to hide away. Far away, invisible to the eyes and pure to the heart; poor brother Zijing but inseparable, can only live in that house all the time, grow up, and barely survive - the brother she feels most powerless to help. Under the pressure of her stepmother, Zhang Zijing became more shy and pale, weaker and sicker.I have been studying in private schools for many years, and I have seen limited world experience, and the distance between me and my sister is getting bigger and bigger.

This was Huang Yifan's mistake. He originally thought that Zijing, as the only male, would have no problems studying in the Zhang family, which favors boys over girls.Unexpectedly, Zhang Tingzhong hated the new style of teaching, ignored family affairs, and turned a blind eye to the two children for a long time. He didn't ask how much they grew, whether they needed new clothes, where the curriculum was, and how their knowledge was.When he briefly mentioned the matter of going to school, he said: "Even the alley primary schools impose heavy taxes, and buying handmade paper is so expensive." In short, it is because of money.

Zijing has been studying with her husband for many years, and has even memorized the "Book of Books" of the Four Books and Five Classics, but she still has not entered school.I used to listen to Mr. Private School's lectures with my sister. My sister likes to ask questions and create a lively atmosphere. Now that my sister is in school, he is the only one left. He also hates class even more, often dozing off, or skipping class pretending to be sick. One year when Aileen came home from vacation, she was surprised when she saw her younger brother—it had been a long time since he had seen him. He had become tall and thin, wearing a dirty blue blouse, and rented a lot of comic books to read.At that time, Zhang Ailing was already reading Mu Shiying's "The North and South Poles" and Ba Jin's "Destruction", thinking that her younger brother's taste needed to be corrected, so she painstakingly told him her experience.However, Zijing was still as inattentive as she was used to when she was a child, and disappeared in a blink of an eye.Everyone told Ai Ling about the young master's misdeeds, such as truancy, disobedience, and lack of ambition.

Listening to Aileen, her heart felt chilly, and her younger brother's cute and sweet face always appeared in front of her eyes, like a portrait of Angel - she can still clearly remember that when she was young, her elders saw that boy who was like a powder ball , always like to make jokes about his big eyes and long eyelashes, teasing him: "Can you lend me your eyelashes? I will pay you back tomorrow." He always categorically refuses.He knew very well that he was beautiful and desirable, and because of his illness and weakness, he developed a character of self-pity.Whenever someone mentioned that XX was beautiful, he would ask: "Is it more beautiful than me?" It made everyone laugh.In his eyes, he is the most beautiful and lovely person praised by everyone.

——But now, Angel, who was loved and pitied by everyone, has become a bad child who is slandered by everyone.What did he do wrong? That day, for Zijing to practice signing on a canceled check, the mother-in-law, Sun Yongfan, leaned into Zhang Tingzhong's ear with a smile and said something. Zhang Qian jumped up and slapped his son hard on the mouth, crisp and sharp. Very familiar.Zijing froze, his originally pale face became even paler, and then a blush appeared, but he didn't say anything, just lowered his head and continued to eat.Zhang Ailing, who was sitting by the side, was shocked suddenly. She felt as if she had been slapped on the face by the slap, and she felt like a needle was being pricked in her heart.Sun Yongfan sneered disapprovingly: "It's not about you, why are you crying?" Aileen raised her head suddenly, and looked at her stepmother in disbelief—she looked thin and smart in an old black cheongsam, her hair was combed back smoothly, a low and flat bun was tied on the back of her flat head, and her big oblong eyes were full of It's a smile.Aileen couldn't bear it anymore, dropped the bowl and rushed into the bathroom next door, crying for a long time in front of the mirror.She cried for her father's indifference, for her stepmother's harshness, for her younger brother's weakness and numbness, and for her own helplessness. Her face was reflected in the mirror, distorted and wet, like a Picasso painting.She remembered playing with her younger brother when she was a child, and she always asked him to participate in the questions, but he was often disobedient, and the two siblings would quarrel.Because he can neither order nor order.But he is really beautiful and lovely, and sometimes she asked him to make up a story to listen to, and he would tell the story with gestures: a man was chased by a tiger, chasing, chasing, running like the wind, whining behind him Hurry up... Before he could finish speaking, Aileen had already collapsed from laughing, and kissed him on the cheek, treating him like a toy. How indifferent and shameless the once pretty and lovely little thing is now. "I stood in front of the mirror, looking at my own stricken face, watching the tears streaming down like a close-up in a movie. I gritted my teeth and said, 'I'm going to have revenge. One day I'm going to have revenge.' "The glass window in the bathroom was on the balcony, and there was a snap and a ball hit the glass and bounced back. My brother was playing on the balcony. He had forgotten about it. Things like that, he I'm used to it. I didn't cry anymore, I just felt a cold sadness." ("Tongyan Wuji") Many years later, Zhang Ailing wrote "Children's Words Without Judgment", and there is a subtitle in the middle that is "Brother". At that time, she was 24 years old and the most popular writer in Shanghai; her younger brother Zhang Zijing was 23 years old. It is not good to drop out of the economics department of St. John's University and have not yet formally worked. It is the time when I am numb.Seeing her sister's praise and teasing of herself in the article, she was neither happy nor angry, nor did she feel any "cold sadness", just as Eileen Chang said in the article-"This kind of He's used to it." However, half a century later, on the Mid-Autumn Festival on September 9, 1995, Zhang Zijing, a 74-year-old old man, was in a trance for several days when he heard the news that his sister had passed away. The person sat blankly, not knowing what he was thinking.One day he suddenly turned out "Brother" to re-watch, only read one line, tears could not help but flow down.Who can I tell that kind of grievance, that kind of loneliness, that kind of despair that will never be gone again? From that day on, he decided to write something for his sister. Later, he wrote "My Sister Zhang Ailing".Among all the "Biography of Zhang", I always think this is the best one.Because others are only "scouring the well", but he only needs to "look in the mirror" - polish the mirror of memory a little brighter, and see the long-forgotten past. "On September 9, I heard the news that my sister Eileen Chang had been found dead in her American apartment for several days. I was deeply saddened. I really didn't expect that some foreign elderly people who lived alone died at home and no one knew about it in the newspaper. What was discovered happened to her as well. Although she slept peacefully and never woke up, it always made me feel indescribably sad and desolate." "Since she went abroad in 1952, we, my sister and my brother, have been far apart. We haven't seen each other for more than 40 years, and now we have a farewell. We are separated by oceans. I can't go to Los Angeles to say my final farewell, so I have to write this article." It’s a very decent essay, and it should be regarded as a memorial essay in memory of her, expressing my condolences." ("Remembering My Sister Eileen Chang" published by Zhang Zijing in 1995) "For so many years, I have lived alone like my sister...but I am not alone in my heart, because I know that my sister is still on the other side of the world, living with me. Especially when I read her I feel even more close when I read the article. My sister treats me like an ordinary person, and she is always inattentive. I understand her personality and the difficulties in her later life. I only miss her and have no complaints. No matter how the world changes, I We are of the same blood and brotherhood with her, and this kind of root cannot be changed forever." ("My Sister Zhang Ailing" published by Zhang Zijing in 1996)