Meet you in the most beautiful years

Chapter 26 Meeting the Right Person at the Wrong Time (1)
Red Leaf Inscribed Poem Sending Acacia

Shi Pingmei and Gao Junyu are both romantic people.Although his life was full of revolutionary passion, she was on the contrary, although she was young, she often shed tears and pretended to be happy.

What connects them is each other's talents and the consensus on the new ideas of the "May Fourth Movement".He is a promising young man with lofty aspirations who shoulder the important task of saving the country, and she is a well-known female writer who is well-known in the capital.

When was the first time he confessed his love to her?Turning their stories forward page by page, I finally found the trace in a fiery red autumn leaf.

On the night of October 1923, 10.Shi Pingmei, who lives in the ancient temple "Mei Ke", reads a book of "Mochou Lake Chronicles" under the lamp.As early as the late spring of this year, Beijing Women's Higher Normal School organized a group to travel domestically. At that time, Shi Pingmei, a student of the Department of Physical Education who was about to graduate, participated in the second group of travel.After returning to school, she began to serialize tens of thousands of words of travel prose "Blurry Afterimage" in the newspaper.Reading "Mochou Lake Chronicles" tonight is also to write the relevant chapters of Mochou Lake.

A pot of white chrysanthemums bloomed proudly and brilliantly under the lamp.Although she is in her youth, at the age when the mountain flowers are just blooming, the background color of her life is cold, and her eyes are clear, but there is always an irresistible sadness.She loves white, white chrysanthemums, pure snow, and even in the future, she loves bone-like white ivory rings.

The autumn night in Huangzhai, Beiping, is quiet and lonely, refreshing and pleasant.The wind outside the house blows in through the screen window, and the fragrance of white chrysanthemums on the table is blown in, lingering faintly around the nose.The night was getting deeper and tiredness hit her, so she simply lay on the sofa half awake and half asleep.

At such a time, it is like a night intoxicated by the spring breeze, which is very exciting.She gallops wildly between half-dream and half-awake, sometimes it is the mountain city of her childhood hometown, sometimes it is the friendship of young gold and jade, and sometimes she thinks of the wonderful future like a flying dragon in the sky. Saw life flowing out.

A girl serving the faculty walks in and disturbs her fugue.It was around 10 o'clock at night.The girl handed her a letter and went out again.

She opened it, and inside was a piece of white letter paper without a word.Suddenly another fiery red autumn leaf fell from the paper. She picked it up in her hand and looked through it carefully.

A few lines of words on the leaves are clearly legible:
The autumn colors of the mountains can't be closed, and a red leaf sends lovesickness.

Junyu
Collected from Biyun Temple in Xishan on October 10
It was sent by Gao Junyu from Xishan. Before that, he suffered from an old illness and recuperated in Biyun Temple in Xishan.

The word "lovesickness", the bright red leaves like fire, and the heart of the passionate young man ignited by love are clearly in sight at this moment.Her mood was instantly chaotic.

He is a talented student of Peking University and a student leader. He has led and organized Beijing student patriotic movements many times, and he is full of patriotic ideals and revolutionary passion.Such a hot-blooded man tenderly expressed his love to her, and she suddenly felt unable to bear it.

The calm heart lake was quietly wrinkled by the night wind, and the waves surged like a sea ruled by a strong wind.I leaned over the table and thought quietly, and immediately many worries gathered on my eyebrows.I really didn't expect a casual acquaintance to have such an irrepressible enthusiasm for me.It's just that I can't stand him, I can't accept his red leaves.I couldn't bear it because of my Su Zhi, how I comforted him; because I didn't have a heart for him, how to deceive him.If I don't think for myself, how can I not think for him.Because of this I fell into a burning boredom.

——(Shi Pingmei "A Red Leaf")
So bored, she got up and walked around the room.The night outside the window was dark and cold, and the sound of bats flying up and down at night seemed to be close to my ears, which added a little anxiety and panic to the quiet autumn night.She lifted a corner of the window screen and raised her face to look at the moon in the night sky.Outside the house, the moon is shining all over the ground, and the shadows of the trees are mottled.She simply put on a kimono, opened the door and went to the yard, blowing in the cool night wind, and sat in the thatched pavilion quietly watching the moon for a while.

When she returned to the room, the night wind had blown her awake.She sat at the table, filled the pen with ink, and wrote stroke by stroke on the reverse side of the red leaf:

The withered flower basket dare not bear this bright red leaf.

—— Plum

After finishing writing, she wrapped the red leaves in white paper, wrote an envelope, and mailed it back to Gao Junyu in Xishan the next day.

The withered flower basket did not dare to bear this bright red leaf—this was obviously a refusal, but the tone was sad and self-pitying.If she hadn't known Wu Tianfang and hadn't embraced celibacy, then she might have accepted this precious love.

It seems to respond to the poem: once the sea was too difficult to be water, except that Wushan is not a cloud.If that's the case, it's fine. What's unbearable is that she gave her heart, but ended up being cheated.However, her heart has never escaped from that shadow, so that her heart is like still water, and her sorrow is like dry orchids.She made an oath to herself, determined to be celibate, and lived her life peacefully.

Even if an exceptionally good young man shows love to her, she still has to calm the tide in her heart and reject it indifferently.

A few days later, Gao Junyu's reply arrived.

Comment on Mei:

When you were busy, I frequently disturbed you with letters, and I should really apologize.The returned Hongye was received.

Needless to say, I know myself very well, and I know you quite well.Its beginning was very ordinary and unobtrusive, from a very small juncture, but it has been lingering like a monster for three years.This may be a thing that has left the field of your memory, that is, a text message you sent me after we met for the first time in the fellowship.Although that letter was a usual inquiry, I felt a sense of ease that I had never felt before.Since then, I can't help but have the desire to know you.Yet I am often anxious, for I was chained by my father, and it would be a great infidelity to know you.For three years until recently, I have always been so worried!Therefore, in your pessimistic letters, I had to suppress the consolation of sympathy, and I could only offer intellectual persuasion in vain.And it is extremely reluctant to suppress this kind of emotion in my heart, but I always feel that it is a sin to do otherwise.So I only correspond and don't see you, because I am afraid of showing this kind of emotion.The red leaf inscribes a poem, which is the child that has been conceived in one soul for a long time.

However, my friend, please don’t put your heart on Hongye’s sake. Understanding is mutual. It’s my fault that I haven’t been able to make you understand me better, but there are also objective reasons. I have to ask you to forgive me.But please rest assured, and please believe me, I can devote all my heart and energy to the cause I desire, if the mission given to me by history is unchangeable.

Good luck, Pingmei!

Junyu
April 1923

There are too many stories in this letter.He told Shi Pingmei that he had been in love with her for three years since he met at the first hometown meeting.However, half of his destiny has been locked under iron chains by his father, so he cannot go beyond the barriers of morality and ethics, and be a disloyal person to offend her virginal feelings.He suppressed his love for her, restrained himself from seeing her, tried not to disturb her, and only wrote to her when he missed her, or sent a red leaf with a poem.

From this letter, she read sincerity.She understood what the iron lock he was talking about was the marriage arranged for him by his father in his hometown in Shanxi.She understands his pain, understands that his situation is fundamentally different from Wu Tianfang, but she cannot accept his love.

At that time, she was just 21 years old, but it had been four years since she came to Beijing.In the past four years, she has grown from an excellent and diligent female student at the Women's Normal University to a teacher at the High School Attached to the Normal University. This kind of life should be happy and happy, but the era she lives in is facing political chaos, old and new changes, and the frustration of her first love. , exacerbated her sentimental sadness.

Gao Junyu later asked her distressedly: "Mei, when will your tears run out?"

He didn't know at that time that her inexhaustible tears would flow freely on his tombstone in the future.

From the mountain city to Beijing

Pingding County, Shanxi Province is located at the western foot of Taihang Mountain.Qiqianzhai Mountain, the highest peak in the territory, and Niangziguan, Mianhe River, the lowest valley, open up a deep and wide land. Two rivers, Wenhe and Taohe, flow continuously through this land.This mountain city in eastern Jin is the hometown of Shi Pingmei.

September 1902, 9, the 20th day of the eighth lunar month in the 28th year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, was the birthday of Pingmei.At No. [-] Gugu Temple in Pingding County, Shi Ming, a nearly fifty-year-old Juren in the late Qing Dynasty, had a new daughter.

Although Pingding County is a remote mountain city, it has a mellow style of study and a large number of talented scholars. There have been more than a hundred scholars and hundreds of scholars.Shi Ming was one of this group of outstanding scholars in the late Qing Dynasty. He served successively as a Confucian instructor in Wenshui and Zhaocheng counties, and later served as a librarian of the provincial library and a teacher of Chinese in several middle schools in Taiyuan.

The daughter's mother is his continuation.At his age, it goes without saying that he is able to have another little girl around his knees for joy.He called his daughter his heart bead.It is said that a daughter is the jewel in the palm of his parents, and his daughter is even more the jewel in his heart.At the age when she was about to enter school, people in the late Qing Dynasty searched the classics of Chinese studies again and again, and painstakingly gave Xinzhu the scientific name "Ru Bi", hoping that she would be as precious and flawless as jasper in the future.

The name Shi Rubi didn't stay with her for long. As a young girl, her mind became more and more careful. She fell in love with the solitude and purity of plum blossoms, so she used plum blossoms as a metaphor for herself and changed her name to "Pingmei".

She has a well-educated Juren teacher as her father, and the young Shi Pingmei was nourished by her family studies, playing piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, covering a wide range of subjects, and has laid a solid foundation in literature. She has been a well-known talented woman since she was a child.

Since elementary school, Shi Ming sent his daughter to study in the provincial capital.After graduating from the primary school attached to Taiyuan Normal School, Shi Pingmei entered Taiyuan Women's Normal School with honors.In the Taiyuan female teacher, her father's influence made her talents fully displayed. She was excellent in poetry, calligraphy, painting, music and sports. Her reputation as a talented girl was envied among the students in the provincial capital.

In 1919, after graduating from Taiyuan Women's Normal School, Shi Pingmei wanted to go to Beijing to apply for the Chinese Department of Beijing Women's Normal School.Her father fulfilled her wish, and asked his student, Wu Tianfang, who was studying at Peking University at that time, to take care of Pingmei in Beijing on her behalf.

Wu Tianfang came to her just like that.

Wu Tianfang is handsome and elegant, with a good conversation style, and among the talented scholars of Peking University, he looks more and more handsome.The appearance of Shi Pingmei also added a moving scene to his life.

In fact, Shi Pingmei is not a charming beauty. At the age of [-] or [-], Fangxin Nianhua, not only does she not have the charm and beauty of a girl, but she has a withdrawn and cold personality that is not commensurate with her age.In the black-and-white images of her that have survived to this day, almost none of them are smiling, with her dark eyebrows always tensed, her eyes clear and calm.However, her uniqueness is just like a little bit of ink, plain and cold, which constitutes her clean and clear temperament. The bookish atmosphere that cannot be concealed escapes from her brows, making people faintly think about it.

It was this glamorous and impressive temperament that moved Wu Tianfang.

On the train to Beijing together, they talked happily.He never thought that this unattractive girl would have such profound talents. The book fragrance and girlish fragrance emanating from her whole body made him smell the breath of early spring, and he was involuntarily attracted to her.So he thought, he shouldn't miss such a woman.

Leaving Pingding, a mountain city surrounded by green mountains, and far away from the arms of her parents, the peach blossom water and the Guanyin Hall in front of the house and behind the house, a huge world without friends suddenly flooded in front of her eyes.Beijing has become her second hometown.

Unfortunately, the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, which I was supposed to apply for, did not enroll students this year.As a last resort, she changed her exam to the Department of Physical Education, and was successfully admitted, becoming a freshman at Beijing Women's Higher Normal School that year.

At that time, not long after the May [-]th Movement was launched, the New Culture Movement and various associations developed rapidly.Lu Xun published new literary works one after another, vernacular Chinese has gradually replaced classical Chinese, and progressive thinking has become the new banner.

The city of Beijing is the forefront of the gathering and dissemination of new trends of thought. The young students of Peking University and institutions of higher learning have keenly felt the pulse of the times, and are excited about it. Push to the depths of spring.

In the women's high school, Shi Pingmei met Lu Yin, Lu Jingqing, Su Xuelin and Feng Yuanjun, and became Jinlan confidants with Lu Yin and Lu Jingqing.They often compose poems and admire the moon together, give speeches and drink freely, echoing the new culture spiritually and yearning for a new world.

During this time, she was the happy Shi Pingmei.However, some personnel events she experienced later dug a deep well of disaster behind her.

She fell in love, fell in love with the handsome and elegant Wu Tianfang.

Such things are not uncommon.A girl who is just in love, like a sunflower, blooms when the warm wind blows.

Wu Tianfang is the warm wind, no, he is hotter than the warm wind, he is more lingering than fine wine.

For a girl who is not deeply involved in the world, the beauty of first love is a mouthful of honey. When she drinks it, she will fall into a gentle and soft abyss. The more drunk she is, the more painful her heart will be.

Wu Tianfang is a meticulous and caring man. He is good at catching girls' thoughts, and he also knows Pingmei's preferences. He will always appear in front of her inadvertently, bringing a bouquet of flowers or some small gifts to accompany her. She recited poems, took walks, watched movies, and talked about some current and new topics. Even when she wrote letters to Pingmei, she also ingeniously chose plain and elegant plum blossom paper.He set up subtle scenes and details, bringing her one small surprise after another.

Many years later, Shi Pingmei Xiangxiao died, and her friend Lu Yin used "Qinzhu" and "Wu Nianqiu" as pseudonyms in the documentary biographical novel "Ivory Ring" to record her relationship with Wu Tianfang.

I saw a young man in his 20s squeezed through the crowd. He combed fashionable parted hair, with a square forehead and a pair of thick eyebrows; ...

...She put the letter from home in her pocket, and then carefully opened the letter Wu Nianqiu gave her, and saw two pieces of light green flower paper inside. "Only plum blossoms know this hatred, and when they meet at the end of the month, they are speechless." There is another line of small characters printed next to it: "Notes for reading autumn." Only this letter has deeply stimulated the girl's feelings.At this moment, Qinzhu's eyes shot out a rare brilliance, and two red clouds sneaked onto her cheeks.

——(Lu Yin's "Ivory Ring")
He tentatively developed a sweet imagination - one day, he hoped to live in an elegant house with a girl who could understand him, recite poems and write every day, criticize each other, and cherish each other for the rest of his life. "Do you think my imagination can only be imagination?" He asked Shi Pingmei, who was just in love.

She smiled and replied: "Maybe it is possible! Because this is not a difficult attempt, is it?" In his sketches and descriptions, she began to look forward to a happy life accompanied by Prince Charming.

At this time, Shi Pingmei first tasted the sweetness of love, and also gained precious friendship.With the passage of time, she became familiar with the city of Beijing from being unfamiliar, and more and more new faces gradually appeared in her life and social circle.

By chance, she met Gao Junyu from her hometown.At that time, Gao Junyu was one of the well-known leaders of the "May [-]th" student movement and a student leader of the higher education institutions in Beijing.

(End of this chapter)