Chapter 15 ZERO PART OF MOVIE·Wen Zhen

My family moved to another city under complicated circumstances, and I was an extra piece of luggage. I was about seven years old, and seemed to have grown up. Sister Huang discussed with the family to take me to live with her for half a year, and I was sent there. At first everything was so blurry, a pile of overlapping new impressions in one place; the big old house, I don’t know how many people, old and young, the building, the shadows of people upstairs, the noisy and strange voices, the rockery, the pool around the rockery , very particular about big potted flowers, vegetable garden, big stone well, red, green and green children, many women dressed nicely or rough around a square table playing cards, silkworms raised in empty rooms, and vegetables dried in the sun. It's so messy and complicated.I am always lonely, timid and lonely.Gradually, in the chaotic surroundings, I struggled to find a clue and recognized a solid center. When I was lonely, anxious or timid, I tried to find this center, grasp it, and revolve around it to ask for the protection that a child desperately needs. Warmth, and comfort.

The frozen center is a girl about seventeen years old.She has a slender figure, a very black braid, tied with a big red velvet rope; two nimble black crystal-like eyes; and a pair of white, soft and omniscient hands.Her name is Wenzhen.Everyone calls her Wenzhen, whether it's a woman with a slicked head, an old lady with a cane, "Sun Shao" who is just learning to walk, an old lady or a porter! Wenzhen followed the voice calling her, and sometimes she was playing around at the card table upstairs, and sometimes she disappeared through the corridor downstairs, and sometimes it was a child fishing in the back pond, calling her to find a fishing rod, or another child was forcing her to go to the garden. Climbing at the corner to pick the unripe mulberries on the partition wall.This braid tied with red velvet rope can be seen everywhere throughout the day, followed by those flexible eyes.Instinctively, I know I'm looking for the center I need, the same way a camel sees an oasis in the desert.Walking out of the yard lonely in the early morning, watching the silver-red sun shine on the vine leaves, but looking forward to the appearance of the braid tied with red velvet rope.Coincidentally, she came over; calico shirts are flat ironed, there are places for mending, and they are always cut into interesting patterns such as Ruyi or peach, with snow-white socks and blue shoes, walking briskly, holding a Looking at me, she smiled kindly:

"Why don't you go eat porridge?" Embarrassed, I lower my head. "Okay, I'll take you there. I'm afraid you won't survive!" Grateful, I followed her.At the back of the main hall, (there are already many people eating breakfast at the two Eight Immortals tables), she put the things aside, took my hand to the middle table, and shouted along the way: "Fifth Young Mistress, you got up really early!" When Fifth Young Mistress turned around, she said softly, "The little guest is still shy of strangers, playing outside by himself, and won't come in to eat porridge!" So Putting me on the square stool next to the fifth young lady, she went to the big pot to fill a bowl of porridge, took out a handful of fried peanuts from the plate in the middle of the table, picked a corner of the salted egg with a red heart and put it in front of me, and smiled He smiled and walked a few steps, then turned around and whispered in my ear:

"Eat well, after eating, go play with A Yuan, they are watching the gardener work by the back pool in the morning, you also go." Or, "Find me on the old lady's back porch, can you see how to hold the bird's nest? ?” The red velvet braids disappeared for a while. The sun was hot, and one day I fell asleep in the water pavilion, and when I opened my eyes, it was Wenzhen who came and pulled me up, "I can't sleep, I can't sleep, it's sunny and windy here, let me go in and have a drink." Hot tea." Scared, I followed her to the small kitchen, watched her make tea with boiling water, and listened to her humming a little tune.Sister Huang walked by and saw us and called out, "Wenzhen, what did you take her into the small kitchen in such a hot day?" I was really afraid that Wenzhen would be angry, but Wenzhen said with a smile: "Miss San, your little sister is really good. Afraid of life, she is always bored by herself, and today she fell asleep in the water pavilion, so you can find a way to relieve her boredom, it’s no wonder that she is here.”

Sister Huang looked at me and said, "Why don't you go play with those children?" I didn't agree to come out, but Wenzhen winked at me from behind Sister Huang, and I fell silent gratefully.Sister Huang walked over, and Wenzhen took my hand and said, "It's okay, just come to me when you don't want to play with those children, and I will think of something for you. Do you like tearing down old clothes? I'll give you a handful Scissors, I will teach you." So face to face, the two of us sometimes sat under the shade of a tree and unpacked old clothes. When I couldn't, she asked me to help her pull the cloth. She cut it by herself, and told me stories at the same time.

Pointing to Dashijing, she said: "Wen Huan is two years older than me. She is very good-looking. Good-looking people don't have a good life, it's even more pitiful! My life is also bad, but I look good, and no one will bully me. Me." Wen Huan is the girl who jumped into the well and died, this happened before my future family, I knew that the children would tease each other at night, saying that Wen Huan's ghost often came and went by the well. "Is Wenhuan's ghost really coming?" I asked Wenzhen. "You have to ask Master Fang about this." I was stunned and didn't understand, Wen Zhen smiled, "Do children still believe in ghosts? Let me tell you, Wen Huan's death was all due to Master Fang's fault. If there were ghosts, she would not come to settle accounts with him. In my opinion, there are no ghosts." , Wen Huan died in vain!" I still didn't understand, and Wen Zhen stopped talking, and seemed to be overwhelmed with emotion.

After a while she suddenly said: "Master Fang's book lectures are very good. Let me give you an idea. You should listen to them when they talk about poetry in the morning. It's very interesting to recite poems. I'll take you to listen to them tomorrow." On the second day, she really took me to the East Study Room to listen to poetry lectures.When the eight or nine children saw Wen Zhen coming in, they all looked at Brother Fang's face.Wenzhen sat down nonchalantly, but Brother Fang's face was a little different, and he pretended to be calm and said to me: "Little child, don't make trouble if you want to listen." I looked at Wenzhen, who pursed her lips tightly, opened a cloth bag, put two books of Tang poems in front of me, and said softly: "I will give you all the books. You brought it."

Brother Fang selected some poems and asked the older ones to recite them, and the younger ones to follow suit; he also told the story of how Li Taibai could drink.Wen Zhen saw that I was already listening happily, so she walked out quietly.From then on, I learned one or two new poems every day, and at night I went to Wenzhen to recite them to her. She would remind me if I recited them incorrectly, and every time I recited a poem, she would copy it into a notebook for me——so Wenzhen did it. my teacher. The rice dumplings wrapped in Chinese treasures on the May Festival are good, and the sachets they make are especially excellent. Many people asked her to make them, some gave her satin shoes, and some gave her old cloth clothes. She smiled happily Accepted.One day when I was playing in her room, I saw a strange paper bag on her desk; I asked her what was in it, and she said very strangely that she didn't even know it.The two of us opened it together curiously.It turned out that the inside was an exquisite folding fan, with two or three chrysanthemums painted on it, and two lines of poem written carefully beside it.

"This is so strange," she shouted, then rolled her eyes, as if remembering something, she cursed softly, "Sent by the ghost!" When I heard the ghost, I thought of Wenhuan, and suddenly I understood who sent it!I asked her if she was Brother Fang?She looked at me, patted me lightly, and said with a good temper: "You are very sensible, but," she changed her tone, "You are too sensible, that's not good." After a while, she looked sad at me, and teased me with a smile: "You are so delicate, you can't bear a word! It's worth holding your mouth open for a long time just to say something about you! How can you be someone's daughter-in-law in the future?"

I blushed and quarreled with her, and half-understood the poem on the fan aloud.Now she was really in a hurry, she took the fan in her hand and said, "Look, I don't care about men's things! Is it not enough for a girl to die?" While talking, she tore the fan fiercely, and fell on the bed. Cried in bed. I never thought that Wenzhen would cry, so I panicked and climbed on her back and shook her until I was crying too, and she turned around and said, "My dear lady, what's going on, hurry up." Don't be like this." Wiped away my tears for me, and coaxed me for a long time.A total of two sachets were made before I was sent away.

One evening in summer, everyone went out to the pool to enjoy the shade and watch lotus flowers. The children were busy catching fireflies in the back garden. in front of the door.A Yuan said that the family living there was a revolutionary party, and we all asked what the revolutionary party was like.Climb on the rockery and look over there.Wen Zhen went up first, and A Yuan pushed me up next.When my feet were able to stand on their own, I saw a young man with haircut in the courtyard next door, looking up at us and smiling.Wen Zhen was in a hurry to get down, but A Yuan was blocking her way.A Yuan went up to the top of the mountain and asked the man rashly: "Hey, hey, let me ask you, are you a revolutionary party?" Wenzhen got angry and said that A Yuan was too naughty, so she went down first and followed me. After a while, I found out that this neighbor of the revolutionary party had become a close friend with A Yuan. He often invited A Yuan to play over the wall, and he himself also came over the wall to play with the children once or twice.He was a foreign student studying abroad, and he came home from summer vacation. Naturally, I noticed that he paid attention to Wenzhen, but everything was blurred to me at the time, and I couldn't understand why.Wenzhen has so many things to do in a day, and sometimes she can't be bothered by the children, and she always hides upstairs to pick flowers and make shoes, and it's not easy to see her coming to play in the garden. But suddenly the air in the whole family suddenly became tense, and the older children were sent to question by the second young lady; They all insisted that they would not say that Wenzhen was with them.After hanging around in that kind of big family for so long, I have gradually understood how being a girl is different from us, although I have never seen Wenzhen being beaten. After this incident, Wen Zhen gradually became silent, not as lively as before.Most of the time, they are in the main hall and ear room, in the old lady's room or on the south building, watching young ladies playing cards.Only when Sister Huang gave birth, she came to play with me at night to cut patterns and write two letters home for me.She looked very unhappy. A few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, A Yuan came over and told me that the family wanted to marry Wen Zhen, and it had already been agreed upon. He was a businessman, an account manager in a small bank on Long Street, and he heard that Wen Zhen could read, so he was very willing to marry her. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, I asked her to come over. I was anxious that Wenzhen would marry away, but on the other hand, I was happy that this matter was fresh and exciting. "Wenzhen is getting married!" Words spread among the children.But when I saw Wen Zhen, I didn't have the courage to ask her.Subconsciously, I also felt that this matter was not good; a gloomy mood hung over the news that Wen Zhen was going to be married away.I remember the day Wen Zhen cried when she tore the fan, and I remembered the story of Wen Huan that she told when I first met her. These memories were intertwined and seemed to make me very uneasy.In the end, I couldn't bear it any longer. Two nights before the Mid-Autumn Festival, when I saw Wenzhen sitting on the stone steps outside our courtyard amidst the full moon and the fragrance of sweet-scented osmanthus, I went up and sat next to her, and asked her without thinking: "Wenzhen, let me tell you, are you really going to get married?" Wen Zhen looked up at the moon among the branches: "They want to marry me!" "Would you like to?" "Whoever wants it or not, everyone has to marry when they grow up, right?" "I said, are you willing to marry such a family?" "Why not? Anyway, people here are nice, so what's the matter with me? I'm not a girl, I don't dress well, if you say I don't like to be decent, dress neatly, then gossip about me, say I'm well-dressed, and want to be a man!  … Tell me..." She didn't go on talking, and I didn't know what to say in silence. "Anyway," she went on to say, "the girl was pitiful when she was young, but it was so easy for her to suffer when she grew up! If you don't marry, you always struggle there, and if you marry, you don't know what you should suffer! I deserve my own life, Born in an unlucky year... my parents recited it and sold it to others!" I thought she was crying again, but she didn't, she stood up suddenly, went up a small hill, kicked her feet up and broke off many sweet-scented osmanthus branches, holding them in her hands and sniffing them. "I'll marry!" She said with a smile, "I'll marry whomever they have agreed upon for me! Whatever it is, if a drunkard beats me to death, wouldn't it be easier? Anyway , Wen Huan died in this well, I can no longer hang myself in their house! This and that treat me well, but I can serve enough, I will not do a lot of other things? If you don’t treat me well, do you still want to beat me? " "Wenzhen, who beat you?" I asked. "Okay, didn't Wen Huan jump into the well, who is still beating people now?" She answered like this, then threw the sweet-scented osmanthus in her hand over a wall, thought about it, and laughed.I am completely baffled. "Now that I'm an adult, it's my turn to gossip," she said and laughed, "Let them talk, she's a girl anyway, I'm not afraid!... I'll run as soon as I want, with the cloth seller, the sugar cake seller Yes, the wonton seller, the stinky tofu picker shouted along the street, and left the door! Who can control me?" She laughed loudly, playing with my forehead braid with both hands. I saw her happy and felt relieved.Ordinary girls can't talk about marriage by themselves, and she actually said that she would run away with the stinky tofu seller. I secretly felt that she had the courage to speak, and I also said crazy things: "Wenzhen, you ran away with the wonton seller, will you have a child and also sell wonton?" Wen Zhen's face suddenly turned pale, and she remained silent. The account manager of the ×× bank came to worship the festival, and someone led him to the main courtyard, and all the children saw him.This man was wearing a blue gown and a green cloth mandarin jacket, his face was dark, he looked like he was in his forties, his back was a bit hunched, his nails were long, his hands were in the sleeves, and he was naughty. The older children looked at him with staring eyes and called him the groom softly. I knew that Wenzhen was in the room and I could see him through the panes of the window, so I ran in to look for her, but she turned to get things from the old lady's bed, and I followed, but she kept silent.Suddenly she turned her head and gave me an affectionate smile, and softly whispered behind my ear, "I'll go with the wonton seller, have a baby, and sell you small wontons." After speaking, she laughed a little louder.I was so happy that I ran out.But the so-called "groom" has already left. I only heard that people are still drinking tea next to the outer living room, discussing the tea ceremony for marriage, and I didn't go out to see it. In the next few days, I often found Wenzhen going to the garden, but several times, I couldn't find her, only once I saw her coming back from the path behind the rockery. "Wenzhen, where are you going?" She didn't agree to me, she just put a lot of mixed flowers in her hand to her mouth and sniffed, then dragged me to the pool and said to dress me up as a bride, but when I refused, she went back. A few days later, someone from my family came to pick me up, and at night Wenzhen came to my room to help Sister Huang pack my things.Seeing that there was no one in the room, she lowered the kerosene lamp a little, came to the bed and said to me: "I thought I was leaving soon, but now you go first, do you remember Wen Zhen when you get home?" Tears were streaming down my face, I was sobbing and unable to speak. "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," she said, "I'll come to your house to see you." "Really?" I asked, leaning on her shoulder. "Then who knows!" "Are you going to marry the bank manager?" "I have no idea." "If you want to marry him, you must become a rich man. Can you really come to my house?" "I do not know either." I cried again.Wenzhen shook me and said, "It's no use crying. May I write to you?" I nodded and lay down to sleep. When I got home, I often looked forward to Wenzhen's letter, but she didn't write to me.There was a real revolution, and many people went to live in Shanghai. Sister Huang came to our house and said that Wenzhen had run away after the Mid-Autumn Festival and before she was about to get married, and she was never found.The news was like thunder in my ears, and I couldn't express how much I cared and worried about her.I mustered up the courage to ask Wenzhen if she ran away with the same wonton seller. Sister Huang asked me in surprise: "Does she often talk to the wonton seller?" I shook my head and said no. "I think," Sister Huang said, "it's still running with that revolutionary party!" A year later, I was still trying to find Wenzhen's lover in every revolutionary album.Wenzhen never wrote me a letter.