Chapter 13 Model Shadow Zero Chapter · Zhong Lu

Zhong Lu is the first beauty in my memory, because a person can never see a few people who can truly deserve the title of "beauty" in his life, so my memory of Zhong Lu is as cherished as someone else's private possession of a famous painting. If I don't show it to others, I will easily not tell them about her.Unless it is a moment of pleasure that makes me boldly and excitedly tell a friend how I once saw a real beauty. When I was very young, I often heard stories about beautiful women who were unlucky, and this superstition has long been imprinted, as if beauties are always unlucky in their lives.In particular, it was a young woman with a very bleak life experience who first let me know that there are so-called beauties in the world.She is a relative of my family, and the family traditionally considers her the most beautiful person.Even though she had been dead for many years, when talking about her, everyone still had that kind of emotion, and only a beauty can make people feel that kind of emotion after death.Speaking of her, everyone always has some beautiful memories.What my aunt often remembers is that on the day of my grandmother's funeral, this man came to attend the funeral in a white shirt.Because she was a married woman—in fact, she had been widowed for more than a year at that time—according to our village custom, she wore a white veil around her head.Just imagine a face as quiet as a flower; a long and slim figure; a suit of plain clothes; how is it not a wonderful picture to cry about her own poor life experience through a painful funeral?When my aunt talked about her, she still didn't forget to mention how she walked with a unique style, and how sad and moving she was when she cried.At that time, because I was too young, I couldn't remember seeing this beauty in plain clothes on the day of the funeral, and I felt sad about it many times afterwards.Whenever everyone sits and talks about this person at night, it always makes me exhaust my imagination and meditate until late at night.

Maybe it's because I really don't remember very clearly about her, only relying on the family's legends from time to time, so this relative beauty is a beauty, and I have never doubted it in my heart.After some years, gradually, I am not as ideal as I was when I was a child, and I have doubts in everything, like sand.I always like to say: Peerless beauty, there should always be one or two in the world from time to time, but I have never seen it with my own eyes.This sentence was not canceled until I met Zhong Lu, and I changed it to another sentence: I feel lucky, and I have no doubts in my life, really, to see a beauty.

When I entered XX University in XX city in the United States, Zhong Lu was already an old student who had left that school, but after less than a month in the school, I often heard the name "Zhong Lu". Among the old students, Every time I mentioned the old things in the school, I always thought of her.Without a doubt, she was the most admired figure among them. There are also many myths about Zhong Lu's decency, her personality and family background.One classmate told me how rich Zhong Lu's family used to be, another told me how beautiful her father was as a military officer who died in a certain year, and another told me how beautiful Zhong Lu was and how his temper was different from others.Because of falling in love, someone told me that she broke up with her mother and went on her own to work and study hard, wandering around in many places, but she was always so arrogant and chic, and dressed so beautifully.Some people also said that Zhong Lu's mother was a Greek, a musician, and she was also very good-looking. She often lived in France and Italy, so Zhong Lu could speak several languages.More often than not, someone even told me the stories of many young people who fell in love with each other and almost went crazy.All in all, I have heard a lot about Zhong Lu, but at that time I only felt normal and not very enthusiastic.

There are only two incidents in the story, but I remember them very clearly and were deeply impressed. After that, I unconsciously became curious about Zhong Lu. One was told by the most beautiful female classmate in the same department.She said that that year the school held a grand artistic costume show, in which eight women would wear medieval nun costumes.She is the supervisor of the production department. Every piece of clothing is issued by the design department, and she finds someone to compare and cut, and then find someone to try on the clothes after they are finished.One night, she went out for dinner and came back a little later. When she arrived at the door of the garment department, she met a person in the garment department who told her that when many clothes were ready, she was looking for someone to try on. Unfortunately, the electric light was broken, and everyone was looking for wax everywhere. Point.

"Guess," she went on, "what did I see when I opened the door?" She took a breath and looked at everyone and smiled, (I was not the only one who listened to the story at that time) "Think about it, think about it in a room where several candles were lit high and low; shadows were cast everywhere; a table in the middle On it, silently, stood such a clock green—an unbelievably beautiful medieval nun, with her eyes slightly lowered, and a long lit candle held high in her hand. Simple and quiet, it really looks like a picture Religious painting! Pulling the door knocker, I was in awe for a long time, unable to say a word!... By the time someone’s laughter woke me up, I had already recorded this impression that I will never forget for the rest of my life.”

Ever since I heard this story, Zhong Lu has also started to have a basis in my heart. Every time I hear Zhong Lu’s name again, a picture pops up in my mind.Faintly, I saw that ancient young nun, lowering her eyes slightly, walking by holding a piece of wax. The second time, I got a back view of Zhong Lu, which I vaguely imagined, which came from a story told by a male classmate.This pale-faced classmate usually doesn't like to talk, he is a melancholy and thoughtful boy--I heard that the classmate who went to South Africa for love and never came back is his good roommate.One day it was raining heavily, and I was working with him in the studio, and it was getting dark gradually. Although it was not time to light the lights, I packed up my things and sat under the window to watch the rain, when I suddenly heard him say:

"It's strange, when it rains heavily, I always think of Zhong Lu!" "Why?" I was a little curious. "Because there was a heavy rain the year before last," he also walked to the window, sat down and looked out the window, "it was much more rainy than today," he said to himself, squinting his eyes. "It was terribly dark, and many people were drawing pictures upstairs. Only Bosen and I stood downstairs and smoked under the eaves of the front door. There was no one on the street, and the trees were beaten by the rain like prisoners, bowing their heads and swaying. One kind of saying The bleakness and loneliness that can't come out enveloped the whole street with no business, and everything beside the street that didn't make a sound. Suddenly, I heard the knocker on the door behind me, the door opened, and a person slipped past me and went down the steps Rush out into the rain!...that's Bell Green...

"I recognized Zhong Lu's back, so slender and flexible, although she covered her head with a silk scarf folded into a triangle, and grasped the front two corners of the silk scarf with one hand under her neck, like a Russian village Aunt’s dress. Bosen said that Zhong Lu was crazy, and I couldn’t help but call her back. “Zhong Lu, come back and listen to me!” I seemed to be begging her earnestly, and when I heard the sound, she turned her head in the rain Come and have a look, and when she saw it was me, she raised her face and smiled slightly, showing a row of shell-like teeth." When my friend said, she turned her head and smiled at me, "You can't imagine that there is such a beautiful person in the world! No matter what anyone says , I will never forget how she turned her head and smiled in that violent storm, wearing a triangular turban like a village girl."

The picture moved powerfully through my consciousness as I looked from the rain to the shadowy studio. The friend crossed his hands and said solemnly: "I just like the simplicity of Zhong Lu. The taste of the city is always so untainted by her innocence! That day, my enthusiastic roommate also found Zhong Lu in the rain on the window of the building. Like a naughty country girl, a wild horse without a bridle, she yelled vigorously. When Zhong Lu heard it, she leaned over and ran away immediately. The thunder and lightning above, and the torrential rain all around, she disappeared in a short while In that misty mist..."

"Strange," he sighed, "I always remember this incident. It seems a natural memory of Zhong Lu in the storm." After listening to this interjection, another faint clock green was added to my imagination. Half a year has passed, and during the past six months, this Qinghuang friend has become more familiar with me, and often comes to tell me news about Zhong Lu in a soft voice.She is tossing and turning from one city to another, experience is constantly at her feet, fate seems to never cooperate with her, and many things are not smooth. In autumn, one day my friend showed me two letters from Zhong Lu. The handwriting was as elegant as someone else’s. I kept the letters and read them carefully and found them very interesting.At that time, I was looking for a job during the summer vacation for the first time. I gained experience in the hustle and bustle of the city several times, and I felt very sympathetic to this wandering Zhonglu.

"Have you ever experienced the so-called industrial art?" She mocked in the letter, "You used to painstakingly teach me to adjust colors, draw ideal lines one by one, what to do, do you know?... I think you can never Guess that in the past two or three weeks, a dozen or so lively girls and I have lowered our heads and drawn something...you close your eyes, take a breath, let me tell you! Flower paper on the wall, good friend Can you believe it? Bouquets of pink roses fell from our hands, whole and half - because someone opened a factory just to make this beauty! … "No, no, why should I blush? Now we are all fighters in the industrial war--(what a beautiful war!)--and, you know, each paid differently; We stayed in two villas, we cut down our dinner the night before and went to listen to music, thank you for the bouquets of roses!..." Humorously, humorously she writes down such naughty complaints.Another one: "... well, it's autumn, thank God, artificial roses will wither. "This time, I am determined not to make any bouquet of flowers anymore. The kind of job that forces people's eyes to degenerate requires courage that I don't have. I failed, and I don't know which part of my heart is hurt... "I came to the village, this time to spread knowledge to the simple people in the village! XX Bookstore sent me to solicit business, children's books, general knowledge, I literally walked around with samples of 'knowledge'. That lovely The old lady asked me for the latest cooking book, and the thin woman who worked till she wanted a novel about urban life—you know that urban romance of falling in love in evening clothes! "I always find some contradictory smiles when I come back to the house at night. The old ladies in the country are ideal mothers. I have never eaten more milk in my life, and slept on softer eiderdown quilts. It turned out that I was carrying a hoe in my hand. Farmers are all the strength cultivated by the gentleness of such mothers. I love their simple emotions and lives, like day and night, sun and shadow, farming and eating and sleeping, husband and wife, son and mother, happiness and hard work They are evenly placed on both ends of the balance... "The charm of the countryside, the shade of the stream and the trees are all to my liking, and you can't even think of a treasure behind my house? A well, an old-fashioned well, sooner or later I go out to fetch water for the old lady. Really , this is the day, although there are no olive trees on the side of the mountain, and a loom for weaving at night, otherwise everything will return to my ideal past... "Go to the well to draw water, do you know what it feels like? God, my dress is blown loose by the wind, and the red leaves are swirling around my head. It's autumn. No nonsense, I'm going to the well to draw water. When I came back you watched me come back with the jug of water on my shoulder!" After reading the letter, a classic clock green came to my heart again. Around March, my friend came to my desk with a book in his hand, and asked me if I had read this newly published book, and I pulled out a copy from the drawer to show him.He laughed and said, you know this author is Zhong Lu's lover. I thanked him happily, and said, "Now I understand." I showed him a few more lines from the book, and he read it again, put down the book and recited it silently, saying: "He's right, he's right, this guy is really lovely, they totally get it." After that, another half month passed.The weather is gradually warming up, and I always open the window when I study in the house at night, and the grassland in front of the window is separated from the lights and horses of the city in the distance.One night, it was very late at night, and I felt cold. I just closed the window, but I heard someone calling me outside the window, and then someone threw sand on the glass. Friend, there is a woman standing beside me at my door.The friend said: "Can you come down, we have something to ask you." I tiptoed downstairs, opened the door, and heard my friend say in the shadows: "Zhong Lu, Zhong Lu, she came here too late, there is no place to stay, I think, maybe you can try, she will leave tomorrow morning." Let's go." He whispered to me again, "I know you would like to know her." This happened really unexpectedly, when I heard the familiar yet mythical Zhong Lu unexpectedly standing in front of me, the long figure was wearing a coat, half of the face was covered by a low half hat, I Seeing nothing clearly, I reached out to shake her hand and told her I heard her a lot at school.She promised me with a laugh that she hoped she would disappoint me and not be as bad as her friends said she was! In the dark night, her voice is like a silver bell, gently shaking, and at the end it is soft and gentle, with a little echo.She turned around to thank that friend again, put her arm on his shoulder and said frankly, "Bairo, you are always such a lovely person." She followed me up the stairs, I just felt strange, Zhong Lu has always been a classical figure in my heart, her actual existence at this moment feels absurd and unbelievable. I was a poor student at that time, and I lived in a small room with a classmate, and I happened to go home for a few days when we were in the same room.I still remember that night I was on her desk, turned on her very proud light yellow light, and used the red bathrobe shared by the two of us to spread it on the big chair next to it, and prepared to cover it on my lap as a blanket when reading .The layout of the room was very simple, but we tried our best to tidy it up a bit more interestingly. In front of the closet, we used a large black tapestry with gold thread to hang it, and above it hung a pair of pictures carved by my friend himself. A golden beauty mask, next to the wall are placed two sleeping couches, covered with dark yellow bed curtains and some cushions, and there is a tulle oriental screen between the two couches.There is a desk on one side of the window, each has a bookshelf, and a few cute antiques. The air of the whole house is still very comfortable, and the color is also a little dark and mysterious.When Zhong Lu came into the room, I asked her to sit on the only big chair we had. She took off her hat and coat, put her red bathrobe on her body and said, "Can you really let me occupy the only throne in this room?" For some reason, when I heard this, I froze for a moment, and looked at her in the red dress under the lamp.It can be seen that she was originally wearing a bronze-colored dress, with a wide soft copper belt around her waist, and two or three pairs of thin copper bracelets on one arm. Under the cover of the red bathrobe, black ancient brocade Before, I only felt that she had a kind of charm from face to heel, a kind of precious breath and brilliance, which was beyond the usual so-called beauty or beauty. Her face is slightly oval, her eyebrows are clear, and she has a taste of Nan Omandana; her eyes are clear brown, although they are very large, they are slightly shy.Her head, face, ears, nose, lips, front neck and two hands are all like carved figures!Each side and her side are so clear and soft, allowing light and shadow to move on it. Tea was burning in my little copper pot, so I poured out a cup and handed it to her.This time she was stunned and said: "I really didn't expect someone to give me tea at this time. I really went to China this time." I smiled and said: "Bai Luo told me that you like to draw water from the well, okay, I just like to make tea. Everyone has her traditional hobby, and it is not easy to get rid of." At that moment, her lips were slightly pressed together, like a flower, from budding to opening, gently opening without any trace Open, showing the row of shell-like teeth, I said silently in my heart, I can always say that I have seen a real beauty in my life. "You know," I said, "everyone in school likes to talk about you, you are simply a mythical figure in my heart, no, it is simply a classic figure; today you came, I still can't believe the reality of this matter! " She said: "Most of the things in my life are like dreams. In the past two years, I have been used to wandering. Most of the things today and tomorrow are not continuous; the reality itself is a series of absurdities that may not be continuous but continuous. What? I can believe everything now, especially at this moment, so late at night, I interrupted the tranquility of a person I have never met, sitting in her room, drinking tea sent by her thousands of miles away!" That night, she not only drank my tea in my room, but also moved my books and many of my photos on my bookshelf, asked me a lot of questions, and told me that she had a friend who liked Chinese poetry ——I knew it was the young writer, her lover, but I didn't ask her. She was moving happily under the small light in the middle of my room, standing in front of Motuo, a statue of Luoyang, silent for a while, stopping for a while and then walking past, softly rubbing down the outline of the golden mask with her fingers, She moved the Tang pottery figurines and seals on my desk.Ask me about the inscription on the bronze sword on the wall. Pure shapes and lines seem to arouse her interest. After a while she was tired, she inadvertently stretched herself, and slowly untied the belt around her body. Naturally and lively, she took off her clothes one by one, revealing her astonishingly sculptural beauty.I watched her patiently and meticulously remove the brass bracelet on her arm, brush her fine hair with a brush, walk back and forth into the bathroom to wash her face and come out again.Needless to say her beauty, I was surprised that all her actions, the whole body, are so individual and rhythmic.I thought to myself, the body-sculpting students in the nature dance class, and the two most proud models in our body painting class, Mindy and Susie, their beauty is nothing more than superficial softness and beauty. Green really can't compare.I couldn't help but smiled straightforwardly with interest and said to Zhong Lu: "Zhong Lu, you look so beautiful, do you know that?" She suddenly turned around and glanced at me, smiled good-naturedly, and sat on my bed. "Do you know that you are a very weird child?" After she reached out and stroked my head, (my head was lowered at the time, I seemed a little embarrassed.) "To tell you the truth, when Bailuo told me , When I was asked to live in a Chinese girl's room, I was a little scared, I wondered how much Confucian morality and Eastern politics we were going to talk about; I was afraid that my behavior might offend your prudent Buddhism!" This time she finished speaking, but I yawned and fell on the bed, laughing. She said, "It turns out that you live here really freely." I asked her if she meant our unrestrained actions at the moment.I said it was because it was midnight after all, and the landlady couldn't interfere in her dream. In fact, she was a very religious believer. I used to surprise her with her shyness when I brought home my very ordinary sketches.My boyfriend has only ever been under my stairs, even if she sat on the edge of the stairs, she must have a cough at half past ten. Zhong Lu smiled and said, "You mean there is not much distance between the Temple of Confucius and the God of Liberty!" At that time, I was sleeping on the bed and chatting with her, and there was only a small lamp in the room.She put on her pajamas, opened the window for me, and then returned to the bed to hug her knees and smoke. Under a small flash of light, she puffed out smoke rings one after another, and I suspected that I was dreaming again. "I really hope to come to China one day," she said, moving my cheongsam in front of the bed. "I haven't seen what the lotus in the east looks like. I love sailing very much." I said, "I made an appointment with you. When you come in a few years, pick a season when the camellias are blooming everywhere. I will put a robe on you. I will definitely invite you to sit on the most romantic sailing boat in my hometown." "If it's a moonlit night, I can play a Greek lyre for you." "Maybe then you'd rather die in your lover's arms! If yours comes too." I teased her. She suddenly said seriously but with the softest voice: "I hope to have this blessing." Just talking and laughing like this, I fell asleep dimly. When it was dawn, I felt someone push me, and I opened my eyes to see that she had already put on her clothes, packed her purse, and bent down to say goodbye to me. "Goodbye, good friend," she stroked my head mischievously again, "let's count it as a dream. Now do you believe that you promised someone last night that you would take her on a sailing boat?" It's not like a dream, I squinted my eyes and asked her why she got up so early.She told me to catch the 6:10 bus to go to the countryside, maybe come back in about a month, and then she will definitely come to see me again.She wouldn't let me get up to see her off, but wanted me to promise her that I would close my eyes and go back to sleep as soon as she left. So in the twilight, I only saw her tilting her hat, leaning against the screen and smiling charmingly, then turned and walked out.A month later, she didn't come back. In fact, when I left ×× a year and a half later, she didn't come to this city again.My friendship with her was limited to such a short midnight, so that night was the first and last time I met Zhong Lu.But even if I did not hear all the sad news about her afterwards, I knew I could never forget her. After that night, when I heard from her again, about half a year later, Bai Luo told me: "Zhong Lu is about to get married. Her kind of love can really make people believe that there is still some meaning in life, and there is still a little beauty in the world. It is indeed God's glory for this pair of lovers to go to church." I laughed at the melancholy Bai Luo who said this, but privately I really believed that Zhong Lu would be a beautiful bride in a long veil.At that time, I also knew a little about the appearance and temper of the groom, and I knew more about the emotions he left for Zhong Lu from the works, and I felt that Zhong Lu was happy in private.As for their marriage, I think it is very ordinary; I sigh from time to time, imagining Zhong Lu unconditionally following the laws of nature, slowly becoming a wife, a mother, gradually leaving her current appearance, getting old, ugly, When it comes to us, we can no longer see the sculptural miracle she is now from her face and body. Who knew that things would not have happened like this, Zhong Lu's lover died suddenly a week before the wedding, I heard that Zhong Lu was trying on the wedding dress at that time, when he got the phone call, he didn't change the clothes, so he fainted in the hospital The past was on the breast of her bridegroom.When I got the news, Zhong Lu had already been to France for two months, and her lover had also been buried behind the chapel where they were supposed to get married. Because of this news, I often think of the story of Zhong Lu trying to pretend to be a medieval nun, and I am a bit superstitious about omens.It seems that there is evidence for the words of beauty since ancient times.But the news that saddened me the most came more than two years later. When I returned to China and was traveling in my hometown, I received a long letter from Bailuo. I really didn't expect Zhong Lu to die on a sailboat.Regarding this point, I have always been suspicious of this scene. It is not necessarily entirely by chance that Ouyang Lu's own arrangement is more or less accidental.Facing a clear river that night.In the twilight, I was alone on the bank and hillside, watching countless small sailboats drifting by with the wind, I couldn't help but burst into tears, so I sat down and cried. I still seem to hear a gentle voice like bells, greens and silver bells saying in my ears: "Even if you had a dream, now do you believe that you promised to invite someone to take a sailing boat last night?"