The Complete Works of Lu Xun's Novels

Chapter 35

"I've always been like this," Lao Tzu replied. "I haven't seen it for a long time, must be hiding in the apartment and working hard?"

"There, there," Confucius said modestly. "I didn't go out, I was thinking about it. I figured it out a bit: crows and magpies kissed; How can this change others!..."

"That's right!" Lao Tzu said. "You figured it out!"

Everyone has no words since then, like two dumb blocks.

After about 8 minutes, Confucius let out a deep breath, got up to say goodbye, and politely thanked Lao Tzu for his lesson as usual.

Lao Tzu didn't keep him either.Stand up and hold on to the stick, and send him to the door of the library.Confucius was about to get into the car, and he said like a phonograph:

"You're leaving? Don't you want some tea? . . . "

Confucius agreed "Yes", got into the car, and leaned on the horizontal board with arched hands respectfully; Ran You waved his whip in the air, shouted "Du", and the car moved away.I didn't go back into my room until the car was more than ten steps away from the gate.

"Sir, you don't seem very happy today," Geng Sangchu saw that Lao Tzu had settled down, then stood beside him, with his hands down, and said. "Seldom talked..."

"You're right." Lao Tzu sighed slightly, and replied somewhat dejectedly. "But you don't know: I think I should go."

"Why?" Geng Sangchu was taken aback, as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt.

"Kong Qiu has already understood what I mean. He knows that the only one who can understand his details is me, so he must be worried. It will be inconvenient if I don't leave..."

"So, isn't it the same way? Why else?"

"No," Lao Tzu waved his hand, "We still have different ways. For example, it is like a pair of shoes, mine is for walking on quicksand, and his is for the court."

"But you are his husband after all!"

"You have been studying with me for many years, and you are still so honest," Lao Tzu laughed. "It is true that sex and life cannot be changed. You must know that Confucius is different from you: he will never come here again, and he will never come again." Call me Mr., just call me old man, and you're playing tricks behind your back."

"I really can't think of it. But sir, you can't be wrong..."

"No, I often get it wrong at the beginning."

"Then," Geng Sangchu thought for a while, "let's have a fight with him..."

Laozi laughed again, and opened his mouth to Geng Sangchu:
"Look: do I still have any teeth?" he asked.

"No more." Geng Sangchu replied.

"Is the tongue still there?"

"Here I am."

"Understood?"

"What does Mr. mean to say: the hard ones fall off early, but the soft ones stay?"

"You're right. I think you might as well pack up and go home to see your wife. But first, give my green bull a brush and dry the saddle. I'm going to ride it tomorrow morning." .”

When I arrived at Hangu Pass, I didn't go straight to the main road leading to the pass. Instead, I strangled the green bull, turned into a fork in the road, and slowly circled under the base of the wall.He wants to climb the city.The city wall is not very high, as long as you stand on the back of the ox and lean your body, you can barely climb it; but the green ox stays in the city, but you can't move out of the city.If you want to move, you have to use a crane, but at this time Lu Pan and Mo Di have not yet been born, and I myself would never have imagined that there would be such a thing.To sum up: he exhausted his philosophical brains and was just a lawless one.

However, he didn't expect that when he turned into a side road, the spies had already seen him, and he immediately reported to the customs officer.So within seven or eight feet of the detour, a group of people and horses chased him from behind.The spy was the first, followed by Guan Guan, Guan Yinxi, with four patrolmen and two lottery hands.

"Stop!" several people yelled.

Lao Tzu quickly reined in the green bull, but he remained motionless, like a piece of dumb wood.

"Ah!" As soon as Guan Guan rushed forward and saw Lao Tzu's face, he screamed, rolled off his horse immediately, arched his horse, and said, "I don't know who it is, it turns out to be the curator Lao Dan. Unexpected."

Lao Tzu also quickly climbed down from the back of the bull, narrowed his eyes, looked at the man, and said with a smile, "I have a bad memory..."

"Naturally, naturally, Mister has forgotten. I am Guan Yinxi. I visited Mister because I went to the library to look up "The Essence of Taxation"..."

At this time, the stick turned over the saddle on the green ox, poked a hole with the stick, put his finger in to dig it out, and walked away without a sound.

"Sir, wandering around the city circle?" Guan Yinxi asked.

"No, I want to go out, get some fresh air..."

"That's great! That's great! Everyone is talking about hygiene now, and hygiene is the most important thing. But this is a rare opportunity. We want to invite Mr. to stay in the gate for a few days and listen to his lessons..."

Before Lao Tzu answered, the four patrolmen rushed forward and carried him on the back of the bull. The picker stabbed the cow's butt with a stick. The cow rolled its tail, let go, and ran towards the pass together. up.

When he got to close it, he immediately opened the hall to entertain him.This hall is one of the towers. Looking out of the window, you can see the loess plain outside, the farther you go, the lower the sky; the sky is blue, and the air is really good.This Xiongguan Pass is high on the steep slope, the left and right sides of the gate are full of earth slopes, and there is a driveway in the middle, which seems to be between the cliffs.In fact, it only takes a pill of mud to seal it.

Everyone drank boiled water, and then ate pastry.After letting Lao Tzu rest for a while, Guan Yinxi suggested that he give lectures.I knew this was inevitable, so I agreed wholeheartedly.So there was a bang for a while, and the room was gradually filled with people listening to the lecture.In addition to the eight people who came together, there were four patrolmen, two signers, five spies, a secretary, the accountant and the kitchen.A few of them also brought pens, knives, and wooden cards, ready to copy the handouts.

Lao Tzu sat in the center like a piece of dumb wood, and was silent for a while, then coughed a few times, and the lips inside the white beard moved.Everyone immediately held their breath and listened sideways.I only heard him say slowly:

"Tao can be Tao, it is very Tao; name can be named, it is very famous. Nameless, the beginning of heaven and earth; Named, the mother of all things..."

Everyone looked at each other without copying.

"Therefore, there is always no desire to observe its wonders," Lao Tzu continued, "always have desires to observe its orifices. These two come from the same name but have different names. They are the same, and they are called xuan, and xuan is also xuan, the gate of all wonders..."

Everyone looked sad, and some seemed to be at a loss.A signer yawned heavily, and the secretary dozed off. With a clang, the knife, pen, and wooden slips all fell from his hands onto the mat.

Laozi didn't seem to feel it, but he seemed to feel it a little bit, because he explained it in more detail.However, he has no teeth, and his pronunciation is unclear. He speaks in a Shaanxi accent with a Hunan dialect.But as the time went on, the people who came to listen to his lectures suffered extraordinarily.

For the sake of saving face, people had no choice but to suffer, but in the end they would inevitably be distorted, everyone was thinking about their own affairs, and when they talked about "the way of a sage, do not fight for it", they stopped talking, and no one moved. .After waiting for a while, Lao Tzu added:

"Mouth, it's over!"

Everyone just woke up like a dream. Although their legs were numb because of sitting for too long, and they couldn't stand up for a while, they were surprised and happy, just like the amnesty.

So Lao Tzu was also sent to the wing room and asked him to rest.After drinking a few sips of plain water, he sat motionless, like a piece of dumb wood.

People are still talking outside.Not long after, four representatives came in to see Lao Tzu, to the effect that he spoke too fast, and his Mandarin was not very pure, so no one could take notes.It is a pity that there is no record, so I ask him to reissue some handouts.

"What are you talking about, I really can't understand it!" said the accountant.

"It's still the end of my own writing. It's finally a waste of time to chew maggots. Ah?" ②Mr. Secretary said.

Lao Tzu didn't quite understand it, but when he saw the other two pens, knives, and wooden sticks in front of him, he expected that he must make up the handouts.He knew it was inevitable, so he agreed; but it was too late today, and he would not start until tomorrow.

The delegates considered the result satisfactory and withdrew.

The next morning, the weather was a bit gloomy, and Lao Tzu felt uncomfortable, but he still had to make up handouts, because he was eager to leave the customs, and he had to hand in the handouts when he went out.He glanced at the pile of wooden letters in front of him, and seemed to feel even more uncomfortable.

However, he remained calm, sat down quietly, and began to write.Recall what you said yesterday, think about it, and write a sentence.Glasses had not yet been invented at that time, and his presbyopic eyes were as thin as a line, and it took a lot of effort. Excluding the time for drinking plain water and eating pasta, he wrote for a whole day and a half, but only [-] characters.

"In order to get out, I think this is perfunctory." He thought.

So he took the rope, put on the wooden slips, counted two strings, leaned on the stick, went to Guan Yinxi's office to hand in the manuscript, and declared that he wanted to leave immediately.

Guan Yinxi was very happy, thanked him very much, and regretted it very much. He insisted on keeping him for a while longer, but when he saw that he couldn't stay, he changed his sad face, agreed, and ordered the police to saddle the green cow.On the one hand, he personally picked out a bag of salt, a bag of flax, and fifteen pastries from the shelf, put them in a confiscated white cloth bag, and gave them to Lao Tzu as food for the road.And declare: This is because he is an old writer, so he is given special treatment ③, if he is young, there can only be ten of them.

Lao Tzu thanked him again and again, put away his pockets, and walked down the city tower with everyone. When they reached the gate, he still had to lead the green ox for a walk. Guan Yinxi tried his best to persuade him to get on the ox, but after some humility, he finally rode it too.After saying goodbye, I turned the bull's head and walked slowly towards the Junban road.

Not long after, the cow let go.Everyone watched them off at the pass, and after going two or three feet away, they could still distinguish white hair, yellow robes, green cows, and white pockets, and then dust heads gradually rose up, covering both people and cows, and all turned gray. , there is only yellow dust billowing, and nothing can be seen.

Everyone went back to the gate, as if they had unloaded a burden, stretched their waists, and as if they had acquired something, they smacked their lips, and many people followed Guan Yinxi into the office.

"This is the manuscript?" Mr. Accountant brought up a bunch of wooden letters, flipped through them, and said.

"The handwriting is still clean. I saw it being sold in the market, and someone will definitely want it." Mr. Secretary also leaned over, looked at the first piece, and read:

"'Tao can be Tao, very Tao'... Huh, it's still these old clichés. It's really annoying to hear..."

"The best way to treat a headache is to take a nap." The accountant put down the wooden slip and said.

"Hahaha!... I really had to take a nap. To be honest, I guessed that he was going to tell his love story, so I went to listen to it. If I had known that he was just talking nonsense, I wouldn't have sat so big at all. Suffering for half a day..."

"It can only be your fault that you saw the wrong person," Guan Yinxi said with a smile. "Where will he have a love story? He has never had a love story at all."

"How do you know?" the secretary asked in surprise.

"You can only blame yourself for dozing off. You didn't hear him say 'do nothing but do nothing'. This guy is really 'heart higher than the sky, life is as thin as paper'. If you want to 'do everything', you have to 'do nothing' '. Once you love something, you can't stop loving it. Where can you still fall in love? How dare you fall in love? Just look at yourself: now as long as you see a big girl, no matter how ugly, her eyes are as sweet and greasy as your own Wife. If you marry a wife in the future, I'm afraid you will be more polite like our accountant. "

There was a gust of wind outside the window, and everyone felt a little cold.

"Where did this old man go and what did he do?" Mr. Secretary took advantage of the situation to divert Guan Yinxi's words.

"I said I went to the quicksand," Guan Yinxi said coldly. "See if he can walk. Not only is there no salt, no noodles, there is even water. If I get hungry, I think he will come back to us later."

"Then, let's ask him to write a book again." The accountant cheered up. "But it's really too expensive. At that time, we only need to say that the purpose has been changed to promote new writers. Two series of manuscripts are enough to give him five."

"That's not likely to work. To whine and lose your temper."

"I'm hungry and still lose my temper?"

"I'm afraid of this kind of thing. No one wants to read it." The secretary said, shaking his hand. "You can't even get back the capital of five pieces of meat. For example, if what he said is true, then our leader has to let go of the customs. This is what he does. He is a great man... "

"It doesn't matter," said the accountant, "someone will always be watching. Aren't there a lot of officials who have surrendered and hermits who haven't become officials yet? . . . "

A gust of wind blew up outside the window, engulfing the yellow dust, covering half the sky with darkness.At this time, Guan Yinxi looked outside the door, and saw many patrolmen and spies standing there, listening to their chats.

"What are you doing standing here?" he yelled. "It's dusk, isn't it time for smugglers to climb the city to evade taxes? Go on patrol!"

The people outside the door ran down in a hurry.The people in the room didn't say anything anymore, and the accountant and secretary went out.Guan Yinxi just brushed the dust off the case with the sleeve of his robe, picked up two bunches of wooden letters, and put them on the shelf piled with confiscated salt, flax, cloth, soybeans, pastry and so on.

Made in December [-].

This article was originally published in the first issue of the Shanghai "Haiyan" monthly magazine on January [-], [-].

Non-attack
一
Gongsun Gao, Zixia's apprentice, has come to see Mozi several times, but he is always away and unable to see him.It was about the fourth or fifth time, and I happened to meet him at the door, because just as Gongsun Gao arrived, Mozi also happened to be returning home.They went into the house together.

After Gongsun Gao resigned, he looked at the hole in the mat and asked kindly:
"Sir, do you advocate non-war?"

"Not bad!" Mozi said.

"So, don't gentlemen fight?"

"Yes!" Mozi said.

"Pigs and dogs have to fight, let alone people..."

"Alas, you Confucians, you talk like Yao and Shun, but you have to be like pigs and dogs in doing things, pitiful, pitiful!" ④ Mozi said, stood up, ran to the kitchen in a hurry, and said, "You don't understand me. the meaning of……"

He went through the kitchen to the well outside the back door, twisted the pulley, picked up half a bottle of well water, and took more than a dozen mouthfuls, then put down the earthen bottle, wiped his mouth, and suddenly looked at the corner of the garden and cried. got up and said:

"Ah Lian! Why are you back?"

Ah Lian had also seen that he was running towards him, and when he came in front of him, he stood upright, with his hands down, and called "Sir", then he continued a little angrily:
"I'm quitting. They didn't match what they said. They promised to give me [-] pots of corn, but they only gave me [-] pots. I had to leave."

"If I give you more than 1000 pots, will you leave?"

"No." Allen replied.

"Then, it's not because their words and deeds are inconsistent, but because there are fewer of them!"

As Mozi spoke, he ran into the kitchen again and shouted:

"Plow the pillars! Make me some cornmeal!"

Geng Zhuzi just walked from the main room, he was a very energetic young man.

"Sir, are you making dry food for more than ten days?" He asked.

"That's right." Mozi said. "Have Gongsun Gao left?"

"Let's go," Geng Zhuzi said with a smile. "He was very angry, saying that we both love and have no father, like animals."②
Mozi also smiled.

"Sir, are you going to Chu State?"

"Yes. You also know?" Mozi asked the plowing pillar to mix cornmeal with water, but he himself took flint and moxa to make a fire, lit dead branches to boil water, looked at the flame, and said slowly: "We He always relies on his little cleverness to stir up trouble. It is not enough to teach the king of Chu to fight with the Yue people by making hooks. This time he came up with some kind of ladder to incite the king of Chu. Going to attack Song. Song is a small country, how can such an attack be forbidden. I'll go and press him."

He saw that Geng Zhuzi had put the steamed buns in the steamer, so he went back to his room, found a handful of salted dried quinoa vegetables, a broken copper knife, and found a broken bag to wait for. Geng Zhuzi brought in the steamed buns and packed them together into a package.But he didn't pack his clothes, and didn't bring a face towel. He just tightened his belt, walked down to the hall, put on the straw sandals, put on the parcel on his back, and left without looking back.From the package, there was still a burst of hot steam.

"When will sir come back?" Geng Zhuzi shouted from behind.

"It will take about twenty days," Mo Zi replied, and just walked away.

two

When Mozi walked into the border of the Song Dynasty, the laces of the straw sandals had been broken three or four times. He felt hot on the soles of his feet. When he stopped to look, the soles of his shoes were also worn into big holes. Some places on his feet were calloused and some places were blistered. up. ①He didn't care, and continued to walk; looking at the situation along the way, the population was quite large, but the traces of floods and military disasters in the past remained everywhere, and the changes were not as fast as the people.After walking for three days, I couldn't see a big house, a big tree, a lively person, or a fertile field, so I arrived at the capital.

The city wall is also very dilapidated, but new stones have been added in several places; there are piles of mud piled by the moat, as if someone has dug it, but there are only a few idlers sitting on the edge of the ditch as if fishing.

"They probably heard the news too," Mozi thought.Look closely at those fishermen, but there are no students of their own inside.

He decided to pass through the city, so he approached Beiguan and walked south along a central street.The city is also very depressed, but it is also very peaceful; the shops are pasted with discount notices, but there are no buyers, but there is nothing in the shops; the streets are full of fine and sticky yellow dust.

"It looks like this, let's attack it again!" Mozi thought.

As he walked on the street, he saw nothing unusual except that he saw poverty.You may have heard the news that Chu State is coming to attack, but everyone is used to being attacked, thinking that they deserve it, and they don't think it's special. Besides, everyone has only one life left. Food, so no one wants to move.When I saw the tower of Nanguan, I saw more than ten people gathered on the corner of the street, as if they were listening to someone telling a story.

When Mozi approached, he saw the man wave his hand in the air and shouted:
"Let's show them the hearts of the people of Song State! Let's all die!"

Mozi knew that it was the voice of his student Cao Gongzi.

However, he didn't squeeze in to greet him, and hurried out of Nanguan, only going on his own way.After walking for another day and most of the night, I took a rest and slept under the eaves of a farmhouse until dawn, then got up and started walking again.The straw sandals had been broken into pieces and could no longer be worn, and there were still buns in the bundle, which could not be used, so I had to tear off a piece of cloth and wrap it around my feet.However, the cloth was thin, and the uneven village road blocked the soles of his feet, making it even more difficult to walk.In the afternoon, he sat under a small locust tree, unwrapped his package and had lunch, which was considered a rest.From a distance, I saw a big man, pushing a heavy cart, coming here.When he was approaching, the man stopped the car, walked up to Mozi, called "Sir", and lifted up the corner of his clothes to wipe the sweat from his face, panting.

"Is this sand?" Mo Zi knew that he was Guan Qian'ao, his student, and asked.

"Yes, for ladder protection."

"What about other preparations?"

"I've also raised some hemp, ash, and iron. But it's very rare: some are not willing, some are not. There are still a lot of empty words..."

(End of this chapter)