A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 661 Wen Ju
Li Yu is giving a physics lecture at Peking University.

"Today's physics can be summarized as having only two kinds of forces, gravitation and electromagnetic force. However, there is no unified physical framework to describe the two, so 'unification' is just a philosophical point of view. What you can come into contact with in your daily life Almost all forces are electromagnetic forces.”

One student said: “Where is the inertial force?”

"It's a good question, but the academic community has not yet reached a conclusion. There are also questions about whether gravitational mass and inertial mass are equal. This happens to be a relatively important question."

"What about the attraction between the sexes?" a student suddenly asked.

Li Yu said: "What you call primitive instinct is to covet other people's bodies."

The students burst into laughter.

The student blushed a little: "What if you really like it?"

The students next to him started making noises even more: "Oh, who's a pretty girl?"

Li Yuze said: "Falling in love can indeed produce a substance called dopamine, which makes people happy, so love at first sight also has a scientific basis."

"Dopamine?" the student asked.

"This substance was synthesized in a British laboratory many years ago. If you inject it into a mouse, it will become extremely excited. If you install a button and inject dopamine every time you press it, the mouse will press it until it dies."

The students were shocked: "So powerful? Can it replace smoking?"

Li Yu smiled and said: "Young man, your thoughts are very dangerous. I suggest you go to the law school next door and take another semester of classes."

……

Li Yu always lectures in a carefree manner. He has no pressure anyway, and no one dares to control him. He can say whatever he likes, and most of what Li Yu says are novel things, so students from any university like Li Yu very much. of lectures.

After class, Li Yu saw Lu Xun. He handed Li Yu a post: "I am preparing to move to a new home. If Mr. Academician has time, come and have a housewarming drink."

"Congratulations," Li Yu said, "Where did Teacher Zhou buy a house?"

Lu Xun said: "Badaowan cost 3700 oceans."

"Teacher Zhou is very generous. With so much money, it seems to be a big yard." Li Yu said.

"It's much smaller than Mr. Academician's. I spent many years of savings on this yard." Lu Xun said.

Brother Xun is quite rich. At present, an ordinary worker only earns 240 yuan per month, and only yuan for a year without food or water.

He has been a civil servant in the Ministry of Education of the Beiyang Government for many years. In addition to spending a lot of money on books and smoking, his daily life is relatively simple. In addition, he has lived in Beijing by himself for many years and has no expenses, so he saves money.

Li Yu said: "The decoration will probably cost seven to eight hundred yuan, right?"

Lu Xun said: "Forget it, it's almost 800 yuan. It costs 80 yuan to lay the water pipe. What is most incomprehensible to me is that the water pipe has to pass through the Chen's house next door, and they actually asked me for 30 yuan for the passage fee." "

3700+800 is 4500 oceans.

"When they knew how good tap water was and started using tap water, Teacher Zhou asked them to get it back," Li Yu said.

Lu Xun said helplessly: "I don't know if they will ask me to borrow the toll to install the telephone line."

Li Yu said with a smile: "What if I buy a car and pass by their door every day?"

Lu Xun said: "Fortunately, I can't drive a car."

-

As a serious "turtle", Lu Bicheng is now invited to give lectures in schools from time to time, mainly for female students.

A few days later, the two of them finished class at Peking University and planned to go with Lu Xun to his new home.

Lu Xun said to them: "Wait a minute, my brother hasn't finished class yet."

"It's not over yet, is it a big class?" Li Yu asked.

Lu Xun nodded and said, "He lectures very slowly."

They walked outside the classroom where Zhou Zuoren was giving lectures, and saw Zhou Zuoren sitting on the podium, lowering his head at his desk and reading from the manuscript, his voice was small. Not to mention Li Yu outside the window, people sitting in the first row probably couldn't hear clearly. Fortunately, Zhou Zuoren's lecture notes were well organized, otherwise the students would really protest.

After class, Zhou Zuoren walked out of the door and Lu Xun said: "Li Yu and his wife are going to our new home today."

"Welcome!" Zhou Zuoren said, "I just want to set up a new village branch in this big house. We are worried that there are no people with a voice in the business community to participate. It would be best if you could come."

"Xincun?" Li Yu was stunned, "What is it?"

Zhou Zuoren said: "It is Japan's New Village Doctrine, where a group of equal people work together, and the daily food, clothing, housing and medical expenses when sick are all borne by the public."

Li Yu heard it. Isn't this the utopian socialism of the past in Europe?

So he asked: "Did you participate in it when you were studying in Japan?"

Zhou Zuoren said: "Of course! I am very fond of Mr. Mushakoji Sanetsu's new village movement and stayed in his new village for five days."

If Zhou Zuoren had stayed a few more days, he would have discovered that Japan's new village movement could not survive at all, and could only rely on donations from various places and Mushakoji Noji's own royalties to make ends meet. Even the farmers around this new village in Japan saw a group of strangers who secretly raised prices, making it not even cheap for them to buy an egg, making it impossible for them to be self-sufficient.

After Zhou Zuoren returned to China, he showed great enthusiasm for the New Village Movement. Didn't he write a very famous "Literature of Humanity", which can be called his masterpiece; Zhou Zuoren wrote many articles about the New Village, thinking that this movement It is "human life".

But he was apparently unaware that various earlier similar social experiments had failed.

Zhou Zuoren continued: "Our New Village Movement also established the Beijing Reading Mutual Aid Group to help young people in Beijing to study and work part-time, so as to achieve the integration of education and career."

"There don't seem to be many factories in Beijing. If it is a workshop, it will not only be difficult to reduce costs, but also face production capacity problems." Li Yu knows this better.

"As expected, Mr. Zhou Zuoren understands business," Zhou Zuoren said, "so the sales of our own socks and gloves are a bit poor. Shouchang (Li Dazhao's nickname) suggested buying some cheap land in the countryside and starting with farming."

Li Yu said: “When it comes to farming, it’s even slower to see benefits.”

Zhou Zuoren said: "After all, there is a future."

Lu Xun said: "I told you that you can never build a garden on dirt. Your idea is too idealistic and will not succeed."

Zhou Zuoren said solemnly: "Academician Li Yu once said that only idealists can accomplish unprecedented things."

"Yes, yes," Lu Xun stopped attacking him, "then you keep doing it."

Zhou Zuoren said: "Although new villages are not easy to popularize, this is my ultimate ideal."

Of course Li Yu knew the difference between idealism and utopia, but he couldn't clarify it directly, so he had to say to him: "I'm really sorry, I can't seem to be of much help. The overly idealistic new village is not so suitable for industry and commerce. Everyone is equal. Yes, equality of rights should be the same, but apart from this most basic demand, capital, income, and status cannot be the same for everyone." Zhou Zuoren felt a little regretful after hearing this, but still said: "If you don't try, you won't know what the result will be. ”

Zhou Zuoren will continue to work on this movement for a while.

During this period, some people were indeed affected by this and built a "Youth Village" in Henan. The goal was to build a rural paradise where everyone had work, every family had land to farm, the rich and the poor had food to eat, and men and women had authority. But a few years later, the looting failed because of bandits.

Hu Shi also disapproved of Zhou Zuoren's New Village Movement. He felt that it was the individualism promoted by Mencius that "if you are poor, you should be alone". It was no different from living in seclusion in the mountains and forests. It was a complete passive escape from the world. These people are dissatisfied with the current society, but they have no choice but to escape from this society and find an ideal life beyond the current society.

But it was not until the failure that Zhou Zuoren himself began to deny utopianism.

Li Yu drove a car and took several people to Lu Xun's house in Badaowan. ——A hundred years later, this place became the Lu Xun Memorial Hall.

In accordance with Wen Ju's tradition, Lu Xun took Li Yu around each room. The large courtyard he bought had more than thirty rooms and was quite large.

When he saw Lu Xun's bedroom, Li Yu asked curiously: "It's getting cold now, why is there no stove for heating? How difficult it is to stay at night like this."

Lu Bicheng said: "The bedding is so thin, Teacher Zhou, you will catch a cold."

Lu Xun smiled: "Thank you both for your concern. But I am used to it. I have lived such a monk's life in Beijing for many years. I don't even wear cotton pants in winter."

Qian Xuantong often visited Lu Xun's house and saw clearly that he called Lu Xun an ascetic. Because Brother Xun has been married for more than ten years and has never slept in the same bed as his nominal wife Zhu An. He came to Beijing by himself and did not bring Zhu An with him at all.

Back in the living room, Li Yu took out the gift - a large box of Zhonghua cigarettes.

When Lu Xun saw it, he said happily: "Those who know me well are sparing talents!"

Li Yu said: "I saw you smoked more than ten cigarettes along the way, but you never saw the cigarette box."

Lu Xun was a strange smoker. He always put his hand in his pocket, then took out a cigarette and stuffed it into his mouth without taking the cigarette case out of his pocket.

"I never care about the quality of my cigarettes when I smoke, so I don't care about the cigarette packs," Lu Xun said, then quickly opened a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes, "but to be honest, of course I prefer these more expensive cigarettes."

Li Yu said: "This box should be enough for Teacher Zhou to smoke for a while."

Lu Xun counted: "There are ten cigarettes in a box, five boxes a day, enough for me to smoke for more than a month."

"Fifty cigarettes a day?" Li Yu asked in surprise and reminded him, "Teacher Zhou, it's very bad for the lungs."

Lu Xun said indifferently: "Although I sucked a lot, I didn't swallow it in my stomach. There's nothing to worry about."

As a die-hard smoker, Li Yu couldn't possibly ask Brother Xun to quit smoking, even if he smoked less.

The first thing Lu Xun did when he woke up every day was to lie on the bed and smoke a cigarette. Over the years, the white curtain on the bed was smoked yellow.

The teeth of old smokers are certainly not much better.

However, he said he smoked 50 cigarettes a day. In fact, at least half of them were burned while holding them in his hand while working.

Brother Xun had already lit one and praised it: "Familiar taste."

The more he meets with guests, the more Brother Xun smokes.

The person in charge of cooking is Zhou Zuoren's Japanese wife Nobuko Haneda. She has learned how to cook Shaoxing dishes, such as stewed duck with dried bamboo shoots, braised meat with molded dried vegetables, and braised green fish. Japanese women are really good at being housewives.

Looking at a table of local dishes, Lu Xun said: "I am going to take my old mother and my wife over from Shaoxing after the New Year."

Lu Bicheng said: "This is the best!"

"After all, we have a house, so there is no excuse not to take them to Beijing anymore," Lu Xun said without much joy, and then said, "I may never see Run Shui again in the future."

Runshui is the prototype of Runtu.

Lu Xun murmured: "Last time I went back, I saw that Run Shui had a sixth child. His family's tax burden is so heavy. I don't know what will happen in the future."

Nobuko Haneda said: "Poor people live like poor people. Even in our powerful Japan, farmers are still just farmers."

"The same goes for Japan in this regard," Lu Xun said, and then reminded, "Since you have married into China, you don't need to always mention 'our Japan'."

Nobuko Haneda was dissatisfied: "Why can't it be mentioned? Japan is now the beacon of the entire East Asia."

Zhou Zuoren smiled casually: "Just mention a few sentences."

Lu Xun was unwilling to continue arguing with her on this issue, "Since I don't have any objections as a human being, I don't have any objections either."

Lu Bicheng said: "When Mrs. Zhou comes from Shaoxing, we will come and drink Shaoxing Huadiao. I think, even if it is not a free marriage, since a woman is married to Teacher Zhou, she should get the respect she deserves."

Lu Xun said: "Madam, you deserve to be the pioneer of the feminist movement. I can't refute what you said. But now I understand one thing. It is not only women who are injured in arranged marriages, but sometimes men as well."

Lu Bicheng was stunned and immediately said, "I'm sorry, I ignored Teacher Zhou's feelings."

Lu Xun took another puff of cigarette, waved his hand and said, "It doesn't matter."

Lu Bicheng said: "I suddenly remembered a story that Brother Yu told me. It was very exciting."

Lu Xun said: "Madam, please speak."

Lu Bicheng immediately told the story of Journey to the West.

"It's a bit interesting. It turns out that there is this kind of story in the shell of Journey to the West." Lu Xun was not very disgusted. In fact, there have been many adaptations of famous works, and "Jin Ping Mei" is one of them. Whether the adaptation of a classic will be criticized depends on the level of the adaptation. Westward Journey is considered a success.

Lu Xun went on to say: "This story tells about love but not getting it, so it is sad; some people get it but don't love it, and they are equally sad."

Li Yu said: "The Supreme Treasure in the story has two different marriages."

Lu Xun said: "It is really a sad and happy story, with a tragic core, because comedy is about tearing apart all worthless things for people to see, and tragedy is about tearing apart valuable things for people to see."

Brother Xun’s words have been quoted often since then.

But he didn't expect that the first time Li Yu heard it was after he heard Lu Bicheng tell a fictional story.

But Brother Xun's marriage was quite a tragedy for both Lu Xun and Zhu An.

Lu Bicheng admired Lu Xun's summary just now and said: "Teacher Zhou is a meaningful person and his words are really good. I went to Beijing Women's Higher Normal School some time ago. They are also short of teachers now. I think you very suitable."

"Women's Higher Normal School?" Lu Xun was also stunned. "Ji Fu (the name of Lu Xun's friend Xu Shouchang) was the principal there and he also invited me."

Lu Bicheng said: "Teacher Zhou can choose to work part-time."

Lu Xun nodded: "I will consider it. In the future, if there are more people in the family, the financial burden will be heavier."