The Complete Works of Lu Xun's Novels

Chapter 28

new story
Preface
This small collection, from the beginning of handwriting to compilation, can be counted as a very long time: a full 13 years.

The first piece "Mending the Sky" - originally titled "Buzhou Mountain" - was written in the winter of [-].At that time, my opinion was that I wanted to use both ancient and modern themes to make short stories. "Buzhou Mountain" was the first story that took the myth of "Nu Wa refining stones to mend the sky" and tried it out.First of all, it is very serious, although it is only based on Frott's theory to explain the origin of creation-human and literary.I don’t remember why, I stopped writing halfway and went to read the daily newspaper. Unfortunately, I saw someone—I forgot the name now—criticizing Mr. Wang Jingzhi’s "The Wind of Hui". He said that he would beg with tears, please Young people should stop writing such words.This pitiful insidiousness made me feel funny. When I was writing a novel again, no matter what, I couldn't stop a little husband in ancient clothes from appearing between Nuwa's legs.That's where the seriousness fell into slickness.Slickness is the enemy of creativity, and I'm very dissatisfied with myself.

I decided not to write such a novel again. When "The Scream" was compiled and printed, it was appended at the end of the volume. It was a beginning and an end.

At this moment, our critic, Mr. Cheng Fangwu, was swinging an ax under the banner of "Adventure of the Soul" at the gate of the Creation Society.On the charge of "vulgarity", he killed "Scream" several times, and only recommended "Buzhou Mountain" as a good work-naturally, there are still some bad things.Frankly speaking, this is what made me not only unconvinced, but also despised this brave man.I don't care about "vulgarity", and I am willing to be "vulgar". As for historical novels, I think that those who have studied extensively and have evidence, even if some people ridicule them as "professor's novels", it is actually very difficult to organize. Just take a little reason, dye it at will, and spread it into an article, which doesn't require much skill; besides, "like a fish drinking water, it knows its own temperature", in vulgar words, it means "you know when you are sick": "Buzhou Mountain" The second half is very sloppy and can never be called a masterpiece.If the readers believed the adventurer’s words, they would be mistaken, and I was also mistaken. Therefore, when the second edition of "Scream" was printed, this article was deleted; I paid tribute to this "spirit"—I In the collection, only "vulgar" is domineering.

Until the autumn of [-], I lived alone in a stone house① in Xiamen, facing the sea, flipping through old books, almost lifeless around, and my heart was empty.The Weiming Press in Beijing, on the other hand, received letters incessantly, urging articles for magazines.At this time, I didn't want to think about the present; so the memories were unearthed in my heart, and I wrote ten "Collected in the Morning and Evening"; and I still picked up ancient legends and so on, and prepared eight "New Stories".But as soon as I wrote "Flying to the Moon" and "Forging a Sword"—the title was "Mei Jian Chi" when it was published—I rushed to Guangzhou, and this matter was completely put on hold again.Later, although I occasionally got some subject matter and made a sketch, I never sorted it out.

Only now has it finally been compiled into a book.Most of them are sketches, not enough for the so-called novels called "Introduction to Literature".The narrative sometimes has a little basis in old books, and sometimes it is just a slap in the face.And because my sincere respect for the ancients is not as good as for the present, so I can't help being slippery from time to time.After 13 years, there is still no progress, and it seems that it is really "nothing more than "Bu Zhou Shan""; but it does not write the ancients more deadly, but there may still be room for existence for the time being.

December 26, [-], Lu Xun.

mend the sky
一
Nu Wa suddenly woke up.

Yi seemed to wake up from a dream, but she couldn't remember what dream she had; she was just very annoyed, feeling that there was something lacking and something was too much.The turbulent breeze warmly blows Yi's strength into the universe.

Yi rubbed her eyes.

In the pink sky, there are many stone-green clouds floating in zigzags, behind which stars flicker on and off.In the blood-red clouds in the sky, there is a radiant sun, like a flowing golden ball wrapped in ancient lava; on the other side, there is a moon as cold and white as cast iron.However, Yi didn't care who was going down and who was going up.

The ground is all tender green, even the pines and cypresses that don't change their leaves very much are extraordinarily tender.

The peach-red and blue-white variegated flowers, which are still distinct in front of my eyes, turn into colorful mist in the distance.

"Alas, I have never been so bored!" Yi thought, and suddenly stood up, raised her very full and energetic arms, and stretched towards the sky, the sky suddenly turned pale and turned into a miracle. The meat is red, and for the time being, I can no longer tell where Yi is.

Yi walked to the beach in this flesh-red world, and the curves of her whole body were melted into the sea of ​​pale rose-like light, until the center of her body became pure white.The waves were amazed, their ups and downs were very orderly, but the waves splashed on Yi's body.This pure white shadow wavered in the sea water, as if the whole body was exploding in all directions.But Yi herself didn't see it, she just knelt down involuntarily, reached out to scoop up the watery ooze, and at the same time kneaded it a few times, and there was a small thing similar to her in both hands.

"Ah, ah!" Yi thought that he made it himself, but he also suspected that it was in the soil like a sweet potato, and couldn't help being very surprised.

However, this surprise made Yi like it, and continued her career with unprecedented courage and joy, breathing and bragging, and sweating...

"Nga! nga!" ① the little things cried out.

"Ah, ah!" Yi was startled again, and felt that there was something flying out of the pores all over her body, so the ground was covered with a cloud of milky white smoke. Only then did Yi regain her composure, and those little things also stopped talking.

"Akon, Agon!" something said to Yi.

"Ah, cute baby." Yi looked at them, and stretched out his muddy fingers to touch his fat white face.

"Uvu, Ahaha!" They laughed.This is the first time Yi saw the smile between heaven and earth, so it was also the first time that she couldn't close her lips.

While fondling them, Yi continued to do them, and the things being done circled around her, but they gradually walked away, talking a lot, and Yi gradually couldn't understand, only felt that her ears were full of noisy shouts. , quite a bit dizzy.

In the long-term joy, Yi was already tired.Almost finished breathing and sweating, and Kuang became dizzy, his eyes dimmed, his cheeks gradually became hot, he felt indifferent and impatient.However, Yi still didn't stop working as usual, just doing it unconsciously.

Finally, the soreness in her waist and legs forced Deyi to stand up, leaning against a relatively smooth high mountain, looking up, the sky was covered with white clouds like fish scales, and the bottom was dark and dark green.Yi herself didn't know what to do, but always felt that things were not going her way, so she stretched out her hand impatiently, pulled up a wisteria that grew from the mountain to the sky, and the purple flowers were just blooming from house to house. With a wave of Yi, the vine lay horizontally on the ground, and half purple and half white petals were scattered all over the place.

Yi then waved her hand, and the wisteria turned over in the mud and water, splashing out mud mixed with water at the same time, and when it fell to the ground, it became like many small things that Yi had made before, but most of them were dumb. The purpose of the roe-headed mouse is somewhat annoying.However, Yi didn't care about these things anymore, just being funny and irritable, she just swung her hand with a mischievous hand, and the more she swung, the faster the vine rolled on the ground, like a red snake scalded by boiling water.The mud spots splashed from the vines like a rainstorm, and turned into little crying things while they were still in the air, crawling around and scattered all over the ground.

Yi nearly lost his mind, and swung even more, but not only his waist and legs hurt, but also his arms were exhausted, so Yi could not help but squat down, leaning his head against the high mountain, with his black hair resting on the top of the mountain, panting After a while, he sighed and closed his eyes.The wisteria fell from Yi's hands, and lay lazily on the ground as if in a state of exhaustion.

two

boom! ! !
Amidst the sound of the sky collapsing, Nu Wa woke up suddenly, and at the same time slipped straight to the southeast.Yi stretched out her foot and wanted to step on it, but she couldn't kick anything, so she quickly stretched her arms and grabbed the mountain peak, so that there was no tendency to slide down again.

But Yi felt that water and sand and stones were pouring over her head and sides from her back. Turning her head slightly, she took a mouthful of water and two ears of water. Yi quickly lowered her head, and saw the ground shaking again .Fortunately, the shaking seemed to have calmed down. Yi moved back and sat up firmly, then moved out her hand to wipe off the water on her forehead and around her eyes, and took a closer look at what was going on.

The situation is very unclear, there are waterfall-like flowing water all over the place; probably in the sea, there are even sharp waves standing up in a few places.Yi had to wait blankly.

But at last it was calm, the waves were not as high as the mountains before, and the rocky bones were exposed in places like land.Yizheng looked towards the sea, and saw several mountains rushing towards them, while whirling in the waves.Fearing that those mountains would touch her feet, Yi stretched out her hand to grab them. Looking at the valley, there were still many things she had never seen before.

Yi withdrew her hands, pulled closer to the mountain to look carefully, and saw that the ground next to those things was spit out in a mess, which seemed to be gold and jade powder, mixed with some chewed pine leaves and fish meat.They also slowly raised their heads one after another. Nuwa opened her eyes wide and finally realized that this is the little thing she made earlier, but the weird ones have already wrapped themselves in something, and some of them are still there. The lower half of the face has snow-white fur, although it is glued by the sea water like a pointed poplar leaf.

"Ah, ah!" Yi exclaimed in surprise and fear, his skin was covered with millet, as if he had touched a burrworm.

"Shangzhen ② help..." A man with white hair on the lower half of his face raised his head, vomited, and said intermittently, "Help...my minister...you are a student of immortals. Who would have thought that the catastrophe would come? It fell apart....Now fortunately...meet Shangzhen,...please save the ant's life...and give the fairy...the fairy medicine..." He then made a strange move with his head falling.

Yi Du was at a loss, so he had to say again, "What?"

Many of them also opened their mouths, throwing up in the same way, and just yelling "for real, for real" at the same time, and then they all behaved strangely.Yi was annoyed by their troubles, and regretted the pull, which caused an inexplicable disaster.Yi couldn't help but look around, and saw a group of giant turtles playing on the sea. Yi couldn't help being overjoyed, and immediately put those mountains on their backs, and said, "Hump to a stable place for me." Let's go!" The giant ao seemed to nod their heads, and drove away in groups.But before pulling too hard, a white-haired man fell from the mountain. Now he couldn't catch up, and he didn't know how to swim, so he fell on the beach and slapped himself.This made Nuwa feel sorry for her, but she didn't care, because Yi really didn't have time to take care of these things.

Yi breathed a sigh of relief, feeling more relaxed, and then turned his eyes to look around him. The flowing water had receded a lot, and vast earth and rocks were exposed everywhere, and many things were embedded in the cracks of the rocks, some were straight, some were But still moving.Yi caught a glimpse of one staring blankly at Yi with blank eyes; it was covered with iron sheets all over its body, and the expression on its face seemed to be disappointed and frightened.

"What's going on?" Yi asked casually.

"Woohoo, mourning from heaven." That one said pitifully, "Zhuanxu didn't know the way, resisted me, and I fought against the sky, fought in the suburbs, the sky didn't favor virtue, my teacher turned away,..."

"What?" Yi had never heard such words before, and was very surprised.

"My teacher went against me, and my queen touched the mountain of Buzhou with my head, broke the sky pillar, and my queen fell down. Woohoo, it's true..."

"Enough is enough, I don't understand what you mean." Yi turned her face away, but saw a happy and proud face again, which also covered her whole body with iron sheets.

"What's the matter?" Yi didn't know these little things could change their faces in such different ways until now, so she also wanted to ask a different and understandable answer.

"People's hearts are not ancient, but Kanghui really has the heart of a hog. He looks at the position of heaven. I will go to the sky and fight in the suburbs. Tianshi Youde, my teacher is invincible in battle, and I will kill Kanghui on the mountain of Buzhou."②
"What?" Yi Yao still didn't understand.

"People's hearts are not old,..."

"That's enough, that's enough!" Yi was so angry that her cheeks flushed to the base of her ears, she quickly turned her head away, and searched elsewhere, only to find something that was not wrapped in iron, naked, with a The wound was still bleeding, but there was also a piece of rag around his waist.He was taking off the rag from the waist of another straight thing, and hurriedly tied it around his own waist, but his expression was quite calm.

Yi guessed that he was different from those covered with iron sheets, so he should be able to get some clues, so he asked:

"What's the matter?"

"That's what's going on." He raised his head slightly and said.

"Then what happened just now?..."

"Did that happen just now?"

"Is it a war?" Yi had no choice but to guess for herself.

"Will you fight?" he asked, however.

Nu Wa took a deep breath, and at the same time raised her face to look at the sky.A great crack in the sky, very deep and very wide.Yi stood up and flicked it with her nails. It was not crisp at all, but it was almost the same as the sound of a broken bowl.Yi frowned, looked around, and thought for a while, then wrung out the water in her hair, separated it and put it on her left and right shoulders, and pulled out reeds everywhere: Yi has made up her mind." Let’s fix it and talk about it” idea.

From then on, Yi piled reeds day and night, no matter how high the firewood pile was, Yi became much thinner, because the situation was not the same as before—the crooked and cracked sky was on her back, and the dirty and tattered ground was on her head, and there was nothing pleasing to the eye. .

When the reeds piled up to the gap, Yicai went to look for the green stone.At first I wanted to use pure bluestone that was the same color as the sky, but there were not so many on the ground, and Dashan was reluctant to use it. Sometimes I went to busy places to find some scraps, and when I saw them, I sneered, scolded them, or snatched them back, and even bit them. hand.Yi had no choice but to add some white stones, and if there was not enough, he put together some red, yellow and gray-black ones, and finally filled up the gap with what he could, only needing a little fire, and once it melted, the job would be completed, but Yi was too tired to see it. Ear ringing, unable to hold on.

"Alas, I've never been so bored." Sitting on the top of a mountain, holding her head in her hands, Yi said out of breath.

At this time, the fire in the ancient forest on the Kunlun Mountains had not been extinguished, and the western sky was all red.Yi glanced to the west, determined to take a big burning tree from there to light the reeds, when she was about to reach out her hand, she felt something prick her toe.

Yishun looked down, as usual, it was a small thing he had made before, but it was even more strange, he hung all over his body with something like cloth, more than a dozen pieces of cloth were hung around his waist, and his head was also covered. I don't know what, on top of it is a small black rectangular board②, and I am holding an object in my hand, which is the object that stabbed her toe.

The one with the rectangular plate stood between Nuwa's legs and looked up. Seeing Yi Yi's eyes, he hastily handed over the small piece.When Yi took it over to look at it, it was a very smooth piece of green bamboo with two rows of fine black spots on it, which were much smaller than the black spots on the oak leaves.Yi also admired the delicacy of this method.

"What is this?" Yi couldn't help being curious, and couldn't help but ask again.

The one with the top rectangular board pointed to the bamboo piece and recited like a stream, "Naked clothes are obscene, immoral, contemptuous and corrupt, and beasts. The state has permanent punishment, but it is forbidden!"

Nuwa glared at the small square board, and laughed to herself that she was asking too much. Iben already knew that talking with such things would not make sense as usual, so he stopped talking, and casually put the bamboo piece on top of his head. On the square board above, he returned his hand and pulled out a burning tree from the forest of fire, intending to light it on the pile of reeds.

Suddenly, she heard whimpering, but it was an unheard of thing. Yi glanced down again, but saw two tears smaller than mustard seeds in the small eyes under the square board.Because it was very different from the "nga nga" cry that Yi was used to before, so she didn't know that it was also a kind of cry.

Yi went to light the fire, and more than one place.

The fire was not strong, the reeds were not completely dry, but they were still scorching. After a long, long time, they finally stretched out countless flaming tongues, stretching and shrinking to lick upwards. After a long time, they formed heavy flame flowers. ①, became a pillar of flame again, overwhelming the red light on Kunlun Mountain.A strong wind suddenly rose, the pillar of fire whirled and roared, and the blue and mottled stones were all reddened, flowing like caramel in the cracks, like an inextinguishable lightning bolt.

The wind and fire swept De Yi's hair into four directions and twirled, and sweat flowed like a waterfall. The great flames set off Yi's body, making the universe show the final flesh-red color.

The pillar of fire gradually rose, leaving only a pile of reed ash.Yi waited until the sky was all green and blue, and then stretched out her hand to touch it, but felt that there was still some unevenness on the surface of her fingers.

"If you regain your strength, let's do it again..." Yi thought to herself.

Then Yi bent down to hold the reed ashes, and filled the handfuls of them into the big water on the ground. The reed ashes hadn't cooled completely yet, and the water boiled with steam, and the gray water splashed all over Yi's body.The strong wind wouldn't let up, and brought ash with it, making Iraq the color of dust.

"Woo!..." Yi let out her last breath.

In the blood-red clouds in the sky, there is a radiant sun, like a flowing golden ball wrapped in ancient lava; on the other side, there is a moon as cold and white as cast iron.But it is not known who is going down and who is coming up.At this time, Yi Yiyi used up all his body, and lay down in the middle, and stopped breathing.

Above, below, and in all directions is the silence above death.

three

One day, when the weather was very cold, a noise was heard. It was that the Custodians had finally arrived, and they arrived late because they waited for the time when they could see no fire or smoke.They had a yellow ax on the left, a black ax on the right, and a huge and ancient banner behind them. They dodged and attacked the side of Nuwa's dead body, but they didn't see any movement.They made a stockade in the belly of the dead body, for that was the fattest place, and they were wise in picking these things out.However, they suddenly changed their tone, saying that they were the only descendants of Nuwa, and at the same time they changed the character Kedou on the banner to write "Nuwa's intestines". ①
(End of this chapter)