Chapter 64 Section five

Some commentators call Lu Xun "the most painful Chinese", first of all, it means that his profound vision has insight into the ignorance and numbness of the spiritual world of the Chinese people, and he has deep despair and sadness in his heart.The second is his pain in real life: 1. His family has fallen, and he has tasted the warmth and coldness of human beings since he was a child; 2. An arranged marriage ruined most of his happiness; , Frail and sickly, entangled in various diseases throughout his life. What I want to talk about here is his family affair that is more painful than an arranged marriage-brothers are against each other.

Lu Xun and Zhou Zuoren, also known as the "May Fourth Double Star", are a pair of outstanding brothers who cannot be avoided in the history of modern Chinese culture and thought, so this family matter has become a public case. Literati are people who value their life experiences and emotions very much, and they are also good at expressing themselves.According to common sense, this major life event that caused the brothers' lifelong estrangement would be written in various words by the Zhou brothers, who are also great literati, or accuse, or defend, or be angry, or sigh.However, the parties concerned could not mention this, and remained silent for a lifetime.The deep secrets in it are reserved for serious researchers and curious bystanders.

On July 19, 1923, the public case of "The Zhou Brothers Disharmony" officially took place.This morning, Lu Xun returned to his home in Badaowan Hutong.His younger brother Zhou Zuoren walked over with a livid face, handed him a letter to Lu Xun, and then turned away. The most direct and detailed document on the discord between the Zhou brothers is this letter: "Mr. Lu Xun, I just found out yesterday—but there is no need to talk about the past. I am not a Christian, but fortunately I can afford it, and I don't want to blame—everyone is a poor person, my previous dream of Qiangwei It turned out to be an illusion, and what I see now may be the real life. I want to correct my thoughts and re-enter a new life. In the future, please don’t come to the back yard again, nothing else. May you feel at ease and respect yourself. Seven On the eighteenth day of the lunar month, Zuoren"

In this letter, which has been preserved to this day, Zhou Zuoren called his brother "Mr. Lu Xun", and asked him not to come to his residence again, and told him to "respect himself"! Such unfeeling, sad and contemptuous language can only be written when Lu Xun committed an extremely disgusting crime. No one knew what expression and mood Lu Xun, who had become a leading figure in the New Culture Movement and a youth mentor at that time, read his brother's letter. Lu Xun, who had maintained the habit of keeping diaries all his life, wrote a few words in his diary that day: "Qimeng (Zhou Zuoren's words) sent a letter in the morning, and later invited him to ask, but he didn't arrive."

Lu Xun's diary is full of simple sentences. Even Xu Guangping gave birth to Zhou Haiying and became a father for the first time at the age of forty-eight. He only dismissed it with one sentence: "Guangping gave birth to a boy." From Lu Xun's diary that day, it can only be seen that after receiving Zhou Zuoren's letter of renunciation, Lu Xun wanted to ask him for an interview, but was rejected, and his younger brother did not communicate with him at all. The next day, Lu Xun got up early to look around the house; two weeks later, on August 2, he borrowed 800 yuan and brought Zhu An into a temporary residence in Zhuanta Hutong.

The spacious courtyard house in Badaowan was bought by Lu Xun with years of savings and selling his ancestral house in Shaoxing, and then spent more than half a year transforming it into a structure suitable for a family to live in, especially suitable for the Japanese living habits of his younger brother’s Japanese wife, Nobuko Yuta ; When Lu Xun was working hard on renovation and decoration, Zhou Zuoren went to Japan to visit his parents-in-law.Now, he has been forced out of the home he built with his own money and hard work! Faced with his brother leaving, Zhou Zuoren wrote in his diary on August 2: "L and his wife moved to Zhuanta Hutong in the afternoon." Naturally, L was Lu Xun, and he didn't even want to mention his brother's name.

By June of the following year, the brotherhood had deteriorated to its apex. On June 11, Lu Xun went back to Badaowan to retrieve his books and some utensils, and a more serious situation occurred.According to Lu Xun's diary that day and eyewitness accounts, as soon as he entered the west chamber, Zhou Zuoren and his wife, Taixinzi Yu, rushed out of the room, pointing at Lu Xun and swearing at Lu Xun with obscene words, which were unbearable; A relative or friend, the couple sang together and scolded Lu Xun in public.At the point of scolding, Zhou Zuoren picked up a one-foot-high lion-shaped copper incense burner and threw it on Lu Xun's head. Fortunately, others caught it and blocked it, so they missed; Zhou Zuoren.After everyone fought and persuaded, Lu Xun was able to take his own things and leave.

A pair of brothers, two top cultural figures in China at that time, staged such a lively drama. Those present were Zhang Fengju, Xu Yaochen, Zhang Tingqian and Yu Taixinzi's younger brother Chongjiu.Taixinko Yu's filthy words were most likely in Japanese. Except for Zhang Tingqian, the other six people present knew Japanese, but they all kept secrets about Taixinko Yu's words. This feud lasted until Lu Xun's death, and the two severed their brotherhood for life. What is it that causes almost mortal hatred between brothers?Lu Xun, who claimed to "forgive no one" to his enemies, spent the last ten years mainly writing "swearing" essays, but never mentioned his younger brother Zhou Zuoren, who once wanted to kill him; and Zhou Zuoren also avoided talking about it.

Two days before he handed over the letter of renunciation to Lu Xun, that is, in the diary on July 17, 1923, he cut out about ten words with scissors, which were obviously related to the brother's betrayal. If these ten or so words were there, the truth might have been known long ago. Until 1964, the 80-year-old Zhou Zuocai reluctantly talked about it when evaluating Zhao Cong's "May 4th Literary World" published by Hong Kong Youlian Publishing Company. He said: "... I wrote a note to him at the beginning. Just ask him not to come into our yard again." The reasons for the discord between the Zhou brothers were speculated by many acquaintances at the time, and there are different opinions in later generations. Because the parties involved kept secrets and kept silent for a long time, there is no conclusion so far.