Chapter 23 people without plot

In 1966, a 28-year-old male scientific researcher of an academy of sciences in S City I was stunned all of a sudden--I bought an English version of "Mao Zedong's Selected Works"--I carefully shaped myself, not to be a sinner or a celebrity--Zheng Banqiao's four characters are "rarely confused"--this time it is called Surprised - a very absurd feeling My experience was flat, with no great joy or sorrow, highs and lows.You need a plot to write something, but I have almost no plot.But I'm looking for you because I have a lot to say - there's no plot, I made it myself.Like some novels or movies, there is no plot on purpose.But in the great storm of the "Cultural Revolution", how easy is it to make yourself innocent?This requires very sober, very careful design.Let me start by telling you why I'm doing this --

I was born as a poor peasant. After liberation, I was valued. I enjoyed free stipends from middle school to university. I joined the regiment as a matter of course. I was good at everything, sunny and happy.Intellectuals like me grow up fast and have a smooth journey, and have no estimate of future political changes. They are relaxed, casual, and even presumptuous. In 1957 something went wrong.Let me say presumptuous, dare to say anything when it is released.I will say what others dare not say.Immediately, the director of the school magazine I served as was withdrawn, criticized, struggled, and inspected.Said that I have forgotten my roots, deteriorated, and rightist speeches.Thanks to the kindness of the class teacher, he insisted on saving me, so he didn't decide to be a rightist, but he was a rightist by default, and the regiment organization gave him a serious warning. In sunny days, there was thunder, and he hit me with a stick, which knocked me out of my head.In our generation, after five or seven years, our personality has undergone a big distortion.Originally cheerful and relaxed, it suddenly changed. Some people became more refined, while others became bored. It was a 90-degree turn.I am quite sober, and I realize that people will look down on me from now on, but what if I still want to do something?Start struggling to find a feasible way.If I just want to be myself, it's not too difficult. I just give up my ideals, volunteer, and just go with the flow and be mediocre for a lifetime.The difficulty is that you don't want to be for yourself, but also for the country.

Fifty-seven years later, I was sent to the countryside for a period of labor reform.I am the son of a farmer, and my work is no worse than anyone else's, and work is my family tradition.But once I got into business, I was in trouble.I read foreign language books during slack, which was troublesome.They caught me immediately and said that I was learning foreign languages ​​and wanted to take the road of capitalism. It was all in vain; the white flag was pulled out, and I was pulled out several times.But I can't be like those people, sleeping late, bragging about nothing, just dawdling around and ending up safe and sound!what to do?I am getting more and more sober every time I am criticized.I had an idea and bought an English version of "Selected Works of Mao Zedong" to read.The secretary of the brigade said, "Why are you watching this capitalist thing again?" I said, "Look, this is not capitalism, it's the English version of Chairman Mao's works." Chairman's work.This time, I won.I simply bought all the Marxist-Leninist works in English, "Beijing Weekly", "China Construction" and many other books to practice English.This victory led me to discover a wonderful way: to survive in the cracks.I can also live in the cracks of the rocks, of course it depends on whether I can find the cracks.

After the first stage of rural transformation, I went back to school to continue my studies.I major in botany. A teacher in the school used to make herbicides in the United States, but he did not need to manually weed and pull weeds. hardships.I am determined to develop herbicides in China, promote chemical weed control, and liberate farmers from the fields.However, China's ecology, soil, climate, and distribution of weed species are different from those in foreign countries. It takes a lot of effort to do research and scientific research, and even spend a lifetime doing it.This goal was firmly fixed in my mind.

However, after leaving school and being assigned to the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, from the "Siqing" to the "Cultural Revolution", I have seen through it--there is no place for real science in China, and everyone is involved in politics everywhere.But not politicians, petty politicians, little political answerers.It's not really about politics, it's about pranking people and each other.Today you come up and I go down, tomorrow I go up and you come down.It is in a ball, and no one can untie it, the more it is made, the more vigorous it is.If you want to fulfill your wish, you must think of a way like you did when you learned a foreign language.I analyzed myself: I have a good background, so I will not be the focus of punishment; but I have made mistakes, and I will not become a popular person.Well, I will grasp this point - not to be a sinner, nor to be a celebrity.You can't do anything if you become a sinner, and you can't do anything if you become a celebrity.I also thought, I have two favorable conditions. One is that I can hide in the countryside because I am a plant major. The other is that I was born in a rural area, and the life of a farmer is not difficult for me. Going to the countryside is equivalent to returning to my hometown.So I proposed to the courtyard that I wanted to go to the front line of agricultural production, take root in the countryside, combine scientific experiments with production practices, and at the same time receive re-education from the poor and lower-middle peasants, and earnestly reform my mind.This formulation is very fashionable, and I said it sincerely, and was immediately approved by the courtyard.

For more than ten years, I have been below. The countryside around City S almost made me travel all over.More than two hundred and fifty kinds of weeds seem to grow in my heart.The herbicides produced at the Plant Protection Station will be tested on farmland, and once they are effective, they will be promoted.The "Cultural Revolution" was going on in the courtyard, the two factions were fighting, and there were meetings. I tried my best to avoid it.I have a way. Whenever the courtyard asks me to go to a meeting or participate in sports, I ask the commune or the county to come forward and ask for leave for me.I have a good relationship with the countryside, and the herbicide development is really helpful to them, and they are willing to ask for leave for me.I set up experimental fields and held on-site meetings everywhere, and deliberately filled up my time every day.As soon as I got a call from the courtyard asking me to participate in the sports, the rural cadres here shouted on the phone: "No, we poor and lower-middle peasants are using him now!" and stopped me.I was also very careful. I kept a record of what I did every day. I had memorized ten books in ten years, just in case someone would check it.Once the hospital conducted a political investigation and sent people to the county where I was located to investigate my actual performance.The county people talked about how good I was, how I was re-educated by the poor and lower-middle peasants, how I was not afraid of hardships, fought hard for private characters, studied Chairman Mao's works, and compiled a large set.Rural cadres are also very shrewd, and they know exactly what words to use to fool these people who come to find fault.Then I put my densely written "Work Diary" on the table, and the people in the courtyard had nothing to say.In this way, we not only avoid sports but also do business.The countryside is my big political umbrella, without which I can't do anything. Of course, I have to work harder for them because of this umbrella, but this is exactly what I want to do. I kill two birds with one stone.Do you think I did a good job?

A person's time is limited, and his life and career cannot withstand setbacks, so he must be good at protecting himself.I'm very sober, and if I don't go to the meeting, I will be disgusted by the courtyard, and it will be troublesome if I annoy them.There are some important meetings, such as conveying central documents, studying Chairman Mao's latest instructions, general meetings or important meetings, I will definitely go.The proportion must be properly grasped.Sometimes when returning to the city, I would visit the homes of some comrades with good relations in the unit to find out the situation. You must know the big political situation, and if you don’t know it, you will have problems.Sometimes you don't look for it, it still looks for you!The key is not to get stuck.When you have to write a Daewoo statement, you must never mention the specific name of the person; you must pretend to be confused about personnel issues.Asked me to expose, I said: "I'm not close to anyone, I don't know how to expose the problem?" When the two parties were in conflict, someone asked me to join one party, and I said: "I am confused, if I can't fix it, I can't get things done. , to reflect your bad deeds." This also escaped.I try my best to make myself a dispensable and insignificant person. I always sit in a corner during meetings and rarely talk to people, and I seldom even look at people with my eyes. If you look at people, they will pay attention to you.Tell others to forget about me.I really give the impression that I am timid, confused, politically inactive, just right!This is exactly the image I carefully crafted and shaped myself.Zheng Banqiao has four words: rare and confused.Of course, this is a superficial act of foolishness.But quite a few people don't seem to be confused, they are very energetic, and they take up sports to express themselves desperately.But from the perspective of Chinese politics, this is just a moment of publicity.When you climb up, others will stare at you.When the wind changes in politics, you will inevitably try to shoot you down. The most powerful way to fight is to borrow political charges.If you encounter it once, it will be fatal, like a car accident, which will hurt your muscles and bones, and you will not be able to recover in a few years.Life is very short, three or two lifetimes will be scrapped, and nothing will be achieved in the end.

Even though I was sober and cautious, I had an accident once.In 1975, the head of the city’s agricultural office suddenly said that loosening the roots and loosening the soil was proposed by activists who studied Chairman Mao’s works, and it was the policy of the proletariat to govern the land. Weeding, not plowing the soil, who did it?Check and check to find me.This is what I said earlier, if you don't look for it, it will look for you.I was so scared that I couldn't sleep for several nights, thinking that it should be over this time.Thanks to the county government who came forward and said that the herbicides were made by the working class. Although they don’t weed, the fields have no weeds after using herbicides, and the yield is very high. We poor and lower-middle peasants welcome it!The city sent people to take a look, and it was indeed the case, so nothing happened.This is the only time in ten years that I've had major trouble.But there is no danger, and it is not a "plot"!

Now it is said that I am the luckiest scientist. During the "Cultural Revolution", there was no rectification and no business interruption.Now is a good time, good luck.This is looking at me from the outside and not understanding my heart.In 1979, my country's science returned to the right track. I went abroad to see it, and I was shocked by how far it was from the developed countries in the West!80% of our country's population is tied to the fields, and the number of people engaged in agricultural research is pitifully small.In many areas, farming is still dependent on the weather, experience, and primitive production methods.The agricultural population in western developed countries only accounts for 8% to 5%, and the rest are engaged in scientific research and technology, art, and education.From my professional point of view, my country's current arable land is 1.6 billion mu, including some areas that produce twice a year, almost 2.1 billion mu.Three labors are needed to weed three times a year, and six billion labors are needed for manual weeding in the whole country every year. Calculated at five yuan per labor, it is 18 billion yuan.What a fortune this is. Doesn't the waste of this huge wealth weigh on our scientific researchers?

However, during the "Cultural Revolution", how many scientific researchers came here smoothly?Except for the protection of a group of scientists by national defense missions at that time, almost everyone in society has become the target of attack.Some have been devastated and sinking; some have been out of business for many years and have no information, and now they can’t catch their breath.I admit that I am "lucky", but this is not a special gift from the god of fate, but a life path carefully designed by me after learning the political lessons of the 1950s.Although I didn't stumble, and I'm still a "successful person", how sad it is for an intellectual who wants to do things for the country to be forced to figure out such a path!I have to distort myself, I have to pretend to be stupid, incompetent, and confused, so that people look down on me and have no interest in me.Polishing the edges and corners of my character every day, I wish I could hide myself in my own shadow.There is no plot. Take your novel writing as an example, there is no climax, no ups and downs, and no changes.This kind of life is very boring and depressing.Sometimes I feel that I don’t have myself, as if I have been digested by a powerful thing: my career has been completed, but I have disappeared.Have you ever tasted what it's like to be "not yourself"?This is a very deep inner bitterness.But only in this way can you continue to do things, otherwise you will be involved, become a victim of politics, and make no contribution to society or the country for the rest of your life. Wouldn’t it be even more tragic!Why are we trying to do something for our country, so hard to understand, always in this pathetic situation?Oh country, I have a strange feeling about it.For a while, I felt it was very specific and sacred; for a while, I felt it was empty and heartless... Once, I also had a very absurd feeling, that the country was divided into small pieces and grasped in layers. In human hands, there is a distance between you and it.Do you agree?Why?

***In the feudal tradition, the ruler of the country is the country. ***