Chapter 2 Chapter Two

The reed flowers are like snow, and the autumn water is long.It is known that everything in the world has spirituality.The emotions of vegetation, trees, mountains and rocks seem to be more persistent, more compassionate, and more affectionate than human beings.Although grown in a humble corner, they are content with the ordinary and know how to be grateful. Life is like a dream, and a dream is a thousand journeys.We have been searching since the day we were born.Find stories in the landscape, find time in the text, or find the destination in the fleeting years.The originally long and tedious life just passed by so quickly, and the remaining days are very few.In the end, I actually forgot the original intention of coming to the world, and the agreement of past and present lives.

The ancients said: "The prosperity of the world is all for profit; the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit." Only when people are fully awake can they let go of their obsessions, let go of fame and fortune, and thus meet their true self.This process is like the metamorphosis of a butterfly, the opening and closing of a flower, and the waking up of a dream.But there are always some people who are willing to practice with the grass and trees, to be confidantes with the clouds, and to live and die with the sand and gravel.Their life has little to do with fame and fortune, and even ignores love, but they live a real life and it is worth living.

Sanmao is such a woman.All her life, she walked in the world of mortals and died alone.She came here just to take a free and easy walk in the world.Whether in troubled times or prosperous times, it doesn't matter. Sanmao was born in Chongqing on a firework March day more than 60 years ago.This place is called the mountain city, also known as the fog capital.Although Chongqing in March is not as colorful as those in the south of the Yangtze River, it is also the time when warblers, grasses, and willows are thick.But the raging flames of war completely shattered the tenderness of spring.At that time, China was invaded by Japan, and Sanmao's parents migrated from Shanghai to Chongqing in order to take refuge.

San Mao was originally named Chen Maoping. "Mao" is the ranking of her generation in the family tree, and "ping" is the mission of "peace" given to this child by her father, Chen Siqing, who hoped that there would be no more wars in the world.However, any war in the world will not stop because of a certain name or a certain person. Until later, when Sanmao was just learning to write, he couldn't write the character "悲" no matter what.She simply omitted it and changed her name to Chen Ping.That year, she was three years old.A young girl uses her precocious wisdom to tell the world that she decides her own life.What Sanmao changed was not just a name, but her future, her legendary and unrepeatable life.

The name "Sanmao" is the pen name she adopted when she was a little older.This little girl has been independent, indifferent, stubborn and out of gregarious since she was a child.It is such a lonely and sensitive personality that makes her have enough courage and determination to travel all over the world without fear of wind and rain when she grows up. "Because of God's unchanging love, I can learn to love every plant, tree, sand, and soil in this world." Before, I always felt that Sanmao's exile was for pure freedom and life experience.When I read this sentence, I suddenly understood that she walked because of her respect for nature, because of her silent love, and because of her compassion for vegetation.

There seems to be some reason for Sanmao's adventures in the rivers and lakes.Her grandfather Chen Zongxu, when he was fourteen years old, came to Shanghai Beach alone from a remote Chenjia Village in Dinghai County, Zhoushan, Zhejiang.This poor young man only carried a quilt, a few thin shirts, and a pair of cloth shoes with him, but he grew from a small apprentice to a wealthy businessman who owned several properties.From thinness to thickness, the efforts and hardships in between, if you don't experience it yourself, you can't understand it. only the guy drinking water knows it's cold or hot.The wealthy businessman Chen Zongxu returned to his hometown in his later years.Use the money you earn in your life to build hospitals, build schools, build bridges and pave roads.Finally, leave a little savings for yourself and spend the rest of your life in the temple.Sanmao respects his grandfather's kindness and generosity very much.

Many years later, Sanmao had the opportunity to return to his hometown and kowtow respectfully in front of his grandfather's grave.And that "Chen's Yongchuntang Genealogy" has also become the only token that Sanmao uses to recall the Chen family.No matter how many places she has been to or how far she has traveled, as long as she returns home, she will never forget to look through this family tree that carries history and warmth. Fallen leaves return to their roots.In my homeland, I still miss a fallen leaf, let alone a wanderer.Sanmao, a seemingly ruthless and unrestrained skywalker, has never really let go. Her walking is just for another kind of rebirth.She even said: "Later, I once became a woman who didn't believe in love, so I left and went to the desert, not to find love, I think it was probably to find a kind of nostalgia from a previous life .”

Sanmao's grandfather Chen Zongxu had two sons, the eldest son Chen Hanqing and the second son Chen Siqing.The two brothers are both practicing lawyers and have a deep brotherhood.Over the years, this big family has always been reunited, lively and warm, and never separated.Sanmao called her eldest aunt her mother since she was a child, and called her mother her mother. His father, Chen Siqing, was born in Shanghai and graduated from the Law Department of Fudan University.In his life, although he worked at his desk for a long time, his greatest ideal was to become a sportsman.The mother, Miao Jinlan, is a contemporary woman who went to a foreign school, lively and hearty.She met Chen Siqing when she graduated from high school at the age of nineteen. She gave up the opportunity to study in the Journalism Department of Hujiang University in Shanghai and married.

Soon after Chen Siqing got married, he went to Chongqing alone to bid farewell to his pregnant wife.After the birth of the eldest daughter Chen Tianxin, Miao Jinlan traveled from Shanghai to Chongqing alone in the midst of the war, holding her newborn baby in her arms.This extraordinary experience of my mother gave Sanmao great courage to wander around the world later.The Sanmao sisters and brothers always listened to this story tirelessly when they were young. Sanmao's parents were decent and loyal, and the couple held hands all their lives and loved each other.They educate and understand children with tolerance and love.In that era of restraint, Sanmao's mother gave her rare freedom.Therefore, Sanmao is happy. With her personality, if she does not get the understanding of her parents, she will inevitably develop a more serious rebellious psychology.

Among the siblings, Sanmao was the only one who was thin and frail since childhood, with an independent and aloof personality.In the eyes of his parents, Sanmao is a sensitive and rebellious child.She is smart, but also eccentric.She is proud and humble.She is kind and indifferent.In her body, there is an inherent wildness and loneliness.And this kind of temperament is different from her parents, and also different from her siblings. Sanmao’s mother, Miao Jinlan, recalled her daughter’s childhood, and once said: “Sanmao, a child who is less than a month old, has been elf, stubborn and headstrong since he was a child. Although he doesn’t talk much, he likes to ask questions. He likes books and crops, but he doesn’t like dolls. New clothes. You can stay alone without crying or fussing. Your companion is not allowed to pinch ants, and the apples hang on the tree. She asks: Is it painful?"

This withdrawn little girl disdained to play girl's games or play with other children.She likes to be alone, and likes to play with mud alone in a barren cemetery.She was very interested in the scenes of slaughtering pigs and sheep during the Chinese New Year, and she always watched the whole slaughtering process calmly.Of course, this does not mean that she likes cruelty, but that she understands the helplessness and tragedy of life at a young age. From unknown worlds, to unknown worlds.Whether it is a human or an animal, it has no control over the arrangement of life and death.A girl like Sanmao who is out of touch with the world must have questioned the origin of life thousands of times.But we know that she respects life and loves life.Otherwise, she would not have thrown herself into a desolate corner, and would not have written the words so realistically. Sanmao once said that from her eyes, everything is a story.The words she writes are all about what happened around her.Her works do not need to be fabricated, because life has given her inexhaustible themes.This woman who refused to accept the shackles of tradition wrote all the joys and sorrows of the world with her sensitivity and literary talent.In her eyes, the original ordinary things have thousands of reasons to be surprised. Father Chen Siqing wrote about Sanmao in the article "My Second Child": In Chongqing, every family's large water tanks are buried in the kitchen floor, and we don't allow children to get close to the water tanks, but San Mao is disobedient.One day when the adults were eating, they suddenly heard the sound of fetching water. Sanmao was not at the table at that time.When we rushed to the side of the water tank, we found Sanmao with his head down and his feet kicking hard on the water.The water tank was very deep, and this little child actually supported the bottom of the tank with both hands, so that she could be a little higher, so that her little feet could hit the water surface and make a sound.When we pulled her out, she didn't cry, she said, "Thank you Jesus Christ," and then spat out. From then on, Sanmao's little accidents kept happening, each time, she resolved it in her own way.Her unique and detached personality, ingenious ideas, and sudden decisions have been with her all her life.In fact, she is not a cynical woman, she thinks everything in the world is beautiful and natural.However, due to his casual personality, Sanmao could not integrate into the public, and was forced to isolate the crowd and go away. Sanmao is independent, and her heart is always unstable.She can't follow the rules and refuses to go with the flow, so she is doomed to exile in this life.From the mountain city of Chongqing, moved to the ancient capital of Jinling, and then drifted to Taiwan.These few times of migration, I followed my parents and family members, and after that, I traveled alone. Half of that short childhood, which cannot be deeply remembered, was blocked in Chongqing, and the other half was packed into her luggage to Jinling.The young Sanmao still doesn't know the reason for migration and what it's like to part.When she boarded the ferry, looking at the Taotao Jialing River, she never thought that she would never return in this life. This fog city is surrounded by majestic mountains, and until the moment of parting, it is impossible for people to really see its face.