Chapter 27 Xiangke

Newlywed life and Chinese New Year come together. Before graduating in three months, Shuchun still had leftovers in her studies, and she still went to Jinling University to attend classes.Taiming still continued to teach, but that was education for a living.And the chores at home are taken care of by the newly hired grandmother. Taiming is happy.In his contented mood like taking a warm bath, the habit of deep thinking or meditation or boredom on things before has disappeared, and he is just indulging in the life with Shuchun.As if all he asked for in the past was Shuchun, he was satisfied.However, the happiness that made him intoxicated did not last long.Shuchun graduated from Jinling University, and when she was deciding on her future direction, various opinions between the two began to confront each other.

Taiming hopes that Shuchun will be a housewife at home after graduation, but Shuchun hopes to work in society.She expressed her opinion on Taiming's opinion: "You too, once things come to an end, your mind is as feudal as an old man's. I don't want to be bound by the family.Marriage is not a contract, and I cannot abandon my freedom because of marriage. ' She spoke her own opinion, and said at every turn: 'Men treat their wives as long-term contracted whores! 'When she said such radical words, Taiming always felt an indescribable loneliness. According to her own opinion, Shuchun ignored Taiming's hope and was introduced by the school to work in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, finally stepping into the political road.Taiming felt that this might bring bad results to the family.And his premonition was not unfounded.Her life changed every day.On Sunday, there is no longer the usual interest in natural landscapes and a completely different direction.Sometimes when Taiming mentioned a good sentence or a poem in it as a topic, she no longer expressed interest as before, and her interest has changed to dancing or playing mahjong or listening to operas.

Lai, an overseas Chinese in Nanyang, later joined the government's Propaganda Department.Lai and some young officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs surrounded Shuchun.Before he knew it, Taiming's mansion turned into a club for these people.And Shuchun also prides herself on her beauty, as if she is a queen.Every night they come to play mahjong until late at night.At first, Taiming reluctantly socialized with them, because he already hated mahjong as an opium.And these people were like gentlemen at first, and they got used to coming here often, and they also said some obscene words in front of Taiming.Shuchun believes in freedom and equality like a religion, so of course she is not afraid.She said that men and women are absolutely equal in all situations.She is free to do what she wants, and has no need to worry about her husband.Her life gradually became luxurious.Her cosmetics, or decorations, are mostly gifts from the men surrounding her.

One night, Lai and those boring people gathered in the living room of Hu's house again.Lai bought them from Shanghai, and it is said that they were the latest popular Shanghai shoes as a gift to Shuchun.Shuchun was delighted to open it up in front of the guests.It is true that a woman like Shuchun who likes fashion will like it, gorgeous and craftsman shoes.Taiming watched the scene silently, Lai showed a smug smile, and Taiming felt angry when he saw it.It is completely obliterated to see Lai's obscene intention of gifting the shoes, showing Lai's unclean lecherous smile.In particular, Lai completely ignored Taiming, the head of the family, and blindly catered to his wife, which also made Taiming feel unhappy.

Mahjong was played that night until late at night.Taiming couldn't bear to be present, went back to the bedroom and went to bed.But the sound of cards and dirty jokes from the room ahead kept him awake.He suddenly remembered what his father said, and trembled with an ominous premonition.His father, Hu Wenqing, often said: "Dogs (gambling), whores (prostitution), and thieves", thinking that these are the most despicable. Unknowingly, his family has been infected with this kind of vice. When he thought this way, he still passed on Come the loud sensual laughter of his forgetful wife.

'We can't go on like this, we must find a way anyway. He thought, what must be done for his wife, for himself, and for the family.However, this requires the cooperation of his wife, but at the thought of begging her, Taiming felt very desperate.The wife will definitely not agree to change her style. If he insists on forcing her to change, she will probably file a divorce request on the grounds of disagreement between husband and wife (in China, only disagreement between husband and wife can constitute a ground for divorce. ).A person like her will definitely advertise this matter in the newspapers, and the courage to think about it like this is a setback.

After playing mahjong, the guests returned, and it was past three o'clock.Taiming has not been able to sleep.He listened on the bed when his wife's footsteps approached, she opened the door, and flicked the light switch.She looked at Taiming and said, 'Ah, are you still awake?Two hundred yuan was drawn tonight just by "tapping". 'Her tone couldn't help but feel annoyed, too bright:'Stinky money! ' he said with a sneer, in a tone that he himself hadn't expected.Shuchun couldn't help staring at Taiming timidly after hearing this, but suddenly threw out the money: "It's too much, really, you treat people like pheasants!" ' She started to cry, Taiming saw her aggrieved look, and felt sorry for her:'I said too much.Well, don't cry! ' Taiming had no choice but to comfort her.

But her behavior has not changed.Because I always go to bed late at night, I often sleep late in the morning.Because Taiming had a regular life in the past, he couldn't fall asleep even if he really wanted to go to bed in the morning.Occasionally he woke up, deliberately still lying still, his body was almost aching, and she still didn't get up.So every morning, he got up early and waited alone for his wife to get up.Especially on Sunday.If something wakes her up she gets angry.Waiting and waiting for his wife who still couldn't get up, he was still waiting for that restless heart, which was really unbearable.When she came together, first of all, grandma brought water from the washbasin to help her wash her drowsy face.Rinse mouth, drink coffee, eat breakfast, everything must be done by fake grandma.Occasionally when grandma was away on Sunday, she would wait until grandma came back without washing her face.What's more, she leaned on the easy chair to read the newspaper, but the newspaper fell to the ground.She rang the bell frequently to call her grandma downstairs.Taiming watched from the side and thought she had something to do. She could pick up the newspaper by lifting her lying body a little, but asked her mother to come up and pick it up for her.Taiming was so angry that he couldn't speak.And what she said made sense: 'New Life Movement', 'Life Improvement', 'Gender Equality', 'Women's Liberation' and so on.

She raises her hands to resonate with all new sports that are popular in society, and she takes the lead in advocating them.But she doesn't practice it herself.Taiming found it inconceivable that she could talk about things she couldn't practice herself, but she herself didn't feel contradictory. Her mahjong fever has been transferred to dancing, and she goes to the ballroom of Confucius Temple to dance until late at night.Her dance partners are, of course, the men who surround her.Taiming didn't even like playing mahjong, and he didn't know much about dancing, so naturally he wouldn't go dancing with his wife.And she doesn't care about her husband's mood, doesn't fear anyone, and acts according to her own freedom, using this as her only pride.It doesn’t matter if these actions of hers are regarded as pre-dawn fads, but Taiming can think so. He is bitter and thin, waiting for his wife to come back alone every night.Sometimes at night he couldn't go to bed alone anyway, so his thoughts went to the ballroom, imagining the scene where she danced arm in arm with young men to the rhythm of jazz music, and he couldn't help feeling disgusted with her sensuality .He suddenly thought of Hezi, if he married Hezi, he wouldn't have to suffer such bitterness and live a happy life.One night, not knowing what Shuchun was thinking, she tried her best to ask Taiming to dance with her. Taiming was suddenly attracted by curiosity and followed her to the International Hotel in Confucius Temple.Four or five of her companions also came, of course Lai was one of them.

The various situations that Taiming saw there were, from the point of view of his ethical sense, the extreme of decadence that he could not tolerate.Men and women dance wildly to obscene melodies without any shame.And when the lighting in the arena goes out at the climax of the dance, the sound of kisses can be heard everywhere.If the atmosphere of the ballroom had nothing to do with him, he would be able to bear it as a bystander, but what he saw was his wife's lewd body, dancing with men in turn. Why on earth did Shuchun ask her husband to come here to see this scene?Is this the so-called new era? 'He finally couldn't stay there and went home at halftime.And from that night, I started to feel strange chills, and I was unable to stay in bed.During the more than one month of life in the hospital bed, he faced a question: Is the wife's current life acceptable as a husband?

'I still can't get rid of the feudal concept that has become a thing of the past. Does this hinder the understanding of new things? ' he thought so.Judging by the standards of the past, it is inevitable to take a defensive or confrontational attitude towards the things of the new era, whether consciously or unconsciously.New things, of course, must be understood with new moral laws and cultural sense, he thought.So Shuchun's seemingly outlandish behavior is actually an unavoidable phenomenon in the process of social evolution before the emergence of new things. In this sense, Shuchun is also a victim.Thinking like this, he felt that he could forgive Shuchun a little bit.However, in this situation, even though he could restrain himself theoretically, Taiming's feelings were not so enlightened.Even if he could tolerate his wife's attitude now, Taiming had a premonition that his wife's chastity would be in crisis in the near future.Even this kind of wife's infidelity has to be sacrificed in the process of social change. Does the husband have to endure it?He was very confused thinking about it like this.So I feel that now I have to come up with an attitude to be a husband when something happens. Taiming finally got up from the hospital bed. After a long period of psychological struggle, he felt a sense of stability.He thought: 'A wife is a wife, I am myself.You should recover the self you forgot because of marriage. 'It's been a long time since he felt the desire to be close to books.He read "Spring and Autumn" or "Hundred Schools of Philosophy".So I felt that my past troubles were all insignificant common people's troubles. Ever since Taiming stopped interfering with her actions, Shuchun has been content with herself, and she never tires of pursuing new stimuli.But when winter came, her body developed abnormal symptoms and was no longer full of energy.One night, Taiming heard his wife tell him that he was pregnant, and it looked like it was five months old.When Shuchun told him, there was a kind of feminine tenderness that she had never shown before, and she acted like a baby to her husband.Taiming also sensed another personality in his wife's heart, and his view of her changed.And that night, the two talked late at night with the intimacy of husband and wife, which was rare for a long time. "After giving birth to a child, my wife may become a woman who loves the family..." This is Taiming's hope.Soon in the summer of that year, Shuchun gave birth to a girl named Ziyuan because of Zijin Mountain.However, Taiming's hope of Ai'er's birth was dashed as the sun and moon passed.Shuchun recovered physically after giving birth, and the child was taken care of by her mother, and she became a 'new woman' again. 'There is no way, let her go! ' Taiming no longer has any expectations of his wife. Unable to find comfort at home, Taiming turned to reading and concentrating on school work to vent his enthusiasm.Especially at that time, people's enthusiasm for learning Japanese was surging, and the work of Japanese language schools echoed and inspired people.His own position is that the status of the school's backbone teachers has not changed, and the weekly teaching time has increased to six hours. People who come to Japanese language schools to learn Japanese are not only young people, but also people from all walks of life, including government officials and businessmen. One of them, the Counselor of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs surnamed Zhang, was also a Hakka, and he was very close to Taiming.Zhang often talked to Tai Ming about social phenomena or news from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.One day, Taiming drank tea with Zhang.After Zhang asked Taiming about Japan, he told Taiming some interesting news about the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with his charming eloquence as a young diplomat. What happened recently: the press corps in Nanjing focused on pro-Japanese diplomacy from all aspects, and the reporters raised aggressive questions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An official surnamed Huang from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs came forward. It was really bold and strange to answer: "Anyway, China is on the verge of perishing. Since it will perish sooner or later, why not benefit from each other before it perishes!" His pungent sarcasm made everyone dumbfounded...Huang is aware of the sad historical turning point and expresses it with self-deprecating words, but isn't this anger at the sad state of China?He broke out in this way to awaken everyone's introspection. This is exactly the tragedy of China. Zhang said with a sigh.Taiming listened with a gloomy mood, and deeply reflected in his heart.Since then, he and Zhang have become bosom friends.We are together on Sundays and holidays. The following Sunday coincides with the Double Ninth Festival.On this day, literati and poets in Nanjing gathered in Beiji Pavilion for a poetry meeting.Taiming wanted to attend and walked out of the house. He was a little timid to go alone, so he went to make an appointment.Zhang was at home, but he was not interested in Chinese poetry, so he proposed to go to Jiming Temple to watch the temple fair.Taiming didn't have to go to the poetry meeting, so he followed Zhang's suggestion. When the two of them walked to Hongye Zhengmei's examination center, there were many beggars lined up on both sides of the road, begging to others.There are a lot of beggars, their appearance and begging methods are different and varied, their hair is white and their faces are as dirty as paper, old people who have been sun-baked, bump their heads against bricks when someone walks by, and beg for blood on their foreheads , some with broken legs, some crying with children in their arms, and some little beggars who look more like living rags than people, men, women, old and young...it looks like a sore nose. hell map.It's like the reality of the Eighteen Hells that Taiming saw when he went to the temple with his mother when he was a child.Taiming gave them change one by one and passed by, but Zhang ignored them and walked quickly.Soon the two went to the top of the mountain and rested in a tea shop next to Jingyang Tower, where they tasted the fragrant Longjing tea while looking at the scenery of Xuanwu Lake, feeling the coolness of late autumn as if they just discovered it now. Looking at Xuanwu Lake, Taiming recalled the situation before his marriage with Shuchun, and his heart aroused nostalgia.It has not been a long time since then, and now the two married people even have children, but there is a helpless gap between them. "If the two hadn't been married at that time..." He thought like this, with a faint sadness in his heart.But Zhang, who came with him at this time, was not sentimental when facing the lake view. He seemed to be waving a sharp knife, and he used his sharp arguments.He sipped Longjing tea to moisten his throat and said, "Mr. Hu, recently, among intellectuals in Nanjing, it is very popular to use Qin Hui as an example to criticize traitors. What do you think?" ’ He first asked for Taiming’s opinion, but it was not so much asking for Taiming’s opinion, it was more like an opening statement to express his own opinion. He immediately went on to say: “Anyone who is beneficial to the enemy can be called a traitor, but a traitor The types are not the same.In my opinion, all the traitors in history can be roughly divided into three types: the first type is the ignorant and incompetent people who unknowingly committed the same behavior as traitors for their own lives, and the second type is those who are greedy for profit , for the sake of more positive interests, tending to where the interests lie. Most of these people are middle class or intellectuals. They seem to have ideas, but in fact they are opportunists without ideas and integrity.The third type is those who have sufficient knowledge and ability, but forget the history of their own country, and decisively and actively assist the enemy. This kind of person is the so-called traitor.The first and second types of people are insignificant, and it is the third type of people who are truly worthy of being called traitors. ''The only way to save China is to rely on the innocence and enthusiasm of the youth. This is what actually happened recently. The students of Fudan University were dissatisfied with the foreign policy. Stop driving in front of the locomotive.The desperate zeal to stop things by shedding blood on the rails, this is the source of the power to save China! Zhang's voice became hoarse at the end of his speech because of being moved.Taiming couldn't help being moved by his words.He thought of himself worrying about his personal affairs and escaping by reading classical books, and deeply reflected on himself.Afterwards, Zhang also still got together with Taiming. So Zhang gradually had a deep influence on Taiming, and Taiming was unknowingly assimilated by his passionate thoughts. Taiming thinks that what he can do is to promote patriotism through the education he is doing now.And Zhang put forward a revolutionary opinion on the upbringing of reading classical books recently.For example, he said: Chinese culture is like the Yangtze River, a turbid current flowing through the past and the present.Chinese culture has a lot of debt because of its legacy from the past.Wouldn't it be better to simply give up his inheritance?Chinese culture is entirely a culture enjoyed by the nobility, a culture that exists for a few people, and lacks popularity. First, its writing is difficult, and it takes ten years to learn it.Then its culture is not universal.The general public has its own life, and has no time to learn that incomprehensible words for life.Therefore, since Chinese characters are used, the public will become illiterate as a result.In short, Chinese characters are no longer in line with the times. If there is no simpler writing, it will fall behind other civilized countries and cannot compete with it.If it takes half a lifetime just to learn characters, there will be no room for science and culture to be introduced.In a sense, Chinese characters are the walls to protect autocratic politics.If Chinese characters are used, it will inevitably increase fools.Therefore, Chinese characters should be abolished and phonetic symbols should be used.Although this is a bit inconvenient for our generation, it should be done decisively for the sake of future generations.If our era is lazy about reform, it will be difficult for future generations to learn from it. Second, it is not worth it, because of the literature produced by its words.Due to its incomprehensibility, it is "noble" that ordinary people cannot understand.Therefore, knowing words can become a great man.So scholars rule the world for a long time.The general public therefore cannot even write letters.If we are obsessed with Chinese characters, we will not be able to build a new Chinese culture.Without a new culture, China will never be independent and so on.He said things like that. Tai Ming felt that he couldn't keep up with his leap of reasoning, but Tai Ming had to admit that there was some truth to his argument.However, if one accepts Zhang's view as generally correct, how can it be implemented in practice?Is it okay to just abolish the characters built on the long tradition, live in the national character, and are rich classical books that are worthy of boasting to other countries?Is it poisonous to people like opium?Taiming didn't have the courage to assert, but he came to the conclusion that this should be handed down to experts, scholars, and those who can appreciate it in classical books and knowledge.He is a thoroughly moderate reformist.