The Other Shore (Novel)
Other Name: 彼岸
Genre: novel, history
Author: Zhao Yan
Year: 2019
Chapter: N/A
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Introduction:
The story took place in the 1960s and 1970s in the twentieth century. It was a period of social change. Xiaoyu, as the leader of the teenagers in a small town in southern Anhui, often tells us what his grandma told him about the guerrillas in southern Anhui. The story of the team, through his telling, let us understand what happened that year, and cherish the difficulty of victory in the revolution even more. Because of the righteousness and chivalrous heart in her heart, Xiaoyu finally got the title of hero with her life..
Free Reading Highlights:
The crisp sound of the iron ring knocking on the door lock, like the sound of cold bullets, exploded near the silent pond. The wicker fish on the edge of the pool were all frightened, and they dived under the duckweed, peeking at the source of the sound. A few playful red dragonflies flew into the air with a swift, then, resting on the little lotus in the pool, watching his actions intently. A big fish in the pond was also awakened, and turned over impatiently, causing a large splash of water.
Unexpectedly, the world was so peaceful and so connected, he was a little scared, he felt a red tide, itchy and hot all over. He waited for a while, there was no movement, no inquiry, and no footsteps. He was anxious, shouting “Brother Xiaoyu” loudly outside, his voice weak and hesitant, but he still didn’t agitate.
He didn’t know what to do next, so he stood there blankly. I don’t know how long it took, there was a creak, the door opened, and Xiaoyu stood in front of him. Xiaoyu saw him, smiled, and said meaningfully: “Is it you, the little guy? I was sleeping on the night shift last night! It doesn’t matter, I’m getting ready—you can come in.” He hesitated and took a step forward. He didn’t like Xiaoyu calling him a little guy, and there was a strong resistance in his heart. He looked at the half-open door, the black hole inside, full of mystery, like another world.
He hesitated whether to go in, and looked at this old house nervously and cautiously. It was not much different from the old house in Huizhou he had seen, familiar structure, familiar taste, familiar light and shadow. But because of Xiaoyu, this room seems particularly mysterious. This is an old-fashioned Anhui-style residential building.
Opposite the gate, there is a rectangular patio with bluestone strips at the bottom and surrounded by bluestone strips. On the other side of the patio is the main hall of the house. On the main hall, there is a table of eight immortals and two chairs for the master. Behind them, there is a long-legged oak wood table. On the east side is a famille-colored ceramic bottle more than a foot high, and on the west side is a round mirror embedded in a square wooden frame. Huizhou folklore ,
There is a bottle with a mirror, which means “calm”. Right above the bar table, there is a portrait of Chairman Mao pasted, and a couplet on both sides: the seas are tumbling, the clouds are raging, and the five continents are shaking and thunderous. There was no one else in the hall, and there was no sound. The sunlight shot down from above the patio, and the moss in the gap between the stone steps glowed with a green halo. Xiaoyu led him, turned to the right along the door, and went up the stairs from the side.
The stairs were very narrow and steep. He had to hold on to the handles on both sides, moving up one level at a time, and then he came to the attic. The left wing room is locked, and the right wing room should be Xiaoyu’s room: the room is not big, about 12 square meters, very neatly arranged, the walls are pasted with white paper, which is very different from the dim world outside the house; on the walls There is a weighted air gun and a violin. On the side of the wing is the eaves of the patio. Swallows whispered and flew around. Looking from the patio, they felt that they were very close to the clouds on the horizon.
Yo, so many books! Xiaoyu’s room is full of books. In addition to the book, there is an old big bed. Although the old broken paint is peeling off, you can still see its richness and richness. On the wall of the ancient bed, there are also hollow carved various opera pictures, such as “The Flooded Seven Armies” and “Mother-in-law Tattoo”; the bed lintel is very wide and densely carved with traditional auspicious patterns: Qilin , Pine and cypress, boy, lion, peony, bergamot, peach, plum blossom, etc., colorful colors, occasionally painted gold, are very auspicious and festive.
Placed next to the bed is a phoebe wood desk, which looks unusually strong, with many books piled on it. In the corner of the bed, there is also a pure black leather suitcase. It is very old, but it looks warm and shiny. It also has stretchy elasticity. The style and quality are also very exquisite. The nail heads shimmer like stars. Very valuable.
Xiaoyu pointed to the box and said, “Back when my grandpa and grandma went to Nanjing to find an organization to pick up the radio station, they used this suitcase to pack it back. Do you know the story of taking the radio station? After my grandpa and grandma arrived in Nanjing, they pretended to be a capitalist couple. , Put the radio in the box and brought it back to the mountainous area of southern Anhui.
From then on, in the remote southern Anhui, you can directly hear the voice of the Party Central Committee…” When Xiaoyu talked about her grandpa and grandma, she was overwhelmed with excitement. He likes Xiaoyu’s house, small, full of mystery and warmth. The small and simple room is full of Xiaoyu’s smell, sound, heat, words, desires and emotions. All this is so full, whirling around like a heat wave, wrapping, twisting, filling, melting, and permeating. He likes these, likes everything related to Xiaoyu.
…Talk. Talking is always good. Xiaoyu likes to sit on the wicker chair in front of the desk, let him sit on the bed, and then look at him with a smile, very cordial. Xiaoyu is always gushing, like a mountain spring gushing out. He was fascinated by it, and felt that every word Xiaoyu uttered did not stay in his mind, but flew directly into the depths of his memory. Later, he will regurgitate what Xiaoyu said, word by word, and think carefully. This spring water joined with another spring water, making his heart become endless, this is a kind of overall corresponding connection. Such close communication really has a gurgling element, running through the body and heart, clean and dynamic.
Xiaoyu told him that when he was five years old, his parents had died in a car accident-his parents went on a business trip to Heilongjiang and visited a farm run by the Soviets in Jiamusi. The car went to the place where the road and the railroad meet, and suddenly broke down and the train neighed. Drive over. Xiaoyu said that he once had a hunch that such a scene appeared in his previous dream. He cried and woke up from the dream and told his grandmother that she didn’t care, just smiled and comforted him. Sure enough, a few days later, news of the parents’ death came. He knew Jiamusi, which was the place where the novel “Linhaixueyuan” took place.
In winter, it was covered with snow and frozen three feet away. Xiaoyu said that after burying his parents, he moved over to live with his grandmother, who was originally the secretary of the county textile factory. She was very tired at work and had a bad waist. When he was young, he beat his grandmother every night, but when he got older, grandma wouldn’t let him beat him, so he had time to read. Xiaoyu said that when he graduated from high school, his academic performance was among the best in the class, but what use is it?
Go to the mountains and the countryside. Although grandma was reluctant to leave him, she still sent him to the countryside for the sake of the overall situation. Xiaoyu said that the place he was delegating was called Maojialing, which was 60 kilometers away from the county seat and was closed to traffic. There is only a dime and eight cents for a work point there. How bitter! Xiaoyu joked: “There is a custom in Maojialing.
An earthen urn for urine and urine is placed at the door of the house. It is very big, like a big wine jar. Men, women and children all sit on it and urinate. Taboo. When we first entered the village, we saw the folks sitting naked on the urn and shit, and they kept shouting at us: Welcome, welcome, and welcome young intellectuals to jump in. The eldest girl is also not shy, but also sitting The bare buttocks on the urn smiled enthusiastically at us, scaring us to look down.”
Xiaoyu said, life in the country is hard, more terrifying than hard life, and there is a strange environment. On the first day of their settlement, a poor and lower-middle peasant came to visit and told a story, scaring himself to death. On the mountain roads there, a kind of double-headed snake was often lying on its back. It had heads on both sides and could walk in two directions freely. , And go very fast. Sometimes when a snake sees a person coming, it will stand upright and stand taller than the person. If a person cannot match it, he will die immediately.
Xiaoyu’s face turned pale. The locals smiled relaxedly and said: “It’s okay, as long as you have a stone in your pocket, wait for the snake to stand up, quietly throw the stone into the sky, and yell: I am taller than you! The snake will die limply.” Xiaoyu I believe it. There was a period of time with stones in my pocket every day… After two years in Maojialing, because my grandmother was no one around, the county “May 7th Office” gave an indicator and recruited Xiaoyu into the county light machine factory.
Xiaoyu said, but think about it, the experience of jumping in the team in those two years really trained people. At least, he fought a dozen times. At first, he was timid and afraid to make a move. Later, when I was bold enough, I would fight, not only with local educated youths, but also with educated youths from other places and local farmers. Sometimes with bricks, stones, sometimes with daggers and kitchen knives…In this respect, I am considered talented, can fight, and have never defeated.
Because of the many fights, the locals in Maojialing wanted to go by themselves. Xiaoyu said that the life of jumping in the queue in the countryside has taught herself how to behave. To be honest is not good, you can’t just know to be patient, and sometimes you have to complain with grievances, or even brutally control others.
At first, he, who had been listening, would only sit on a stool awkwardly, like a crappy listener. In his heart, he liked Xiaoyu’s unconcealed way of expression, and also liked listening to Xiaoyu’s voice-Xiaoyu’s voice was not transmitted, but floated in midair like a celestial flower. This is a beautiful feeling, not only the sound, but also the petals mixed with gentle wind and rain. For him, this voice is sincere and profound, just like the direction of life. Listening to such a voice, thinking that after a few years, he can become Xiaoyu’s appearance, it feels really beautiful.
Xiaoyu told him that his favorite thing was reading. Books are a good thing. For so many years in human society, good things have been hidden in books. There have been many people in this world, and most of them have disappeared. Only a few people continue their lives in the book. Why can it continue? Because of value. Xiaoyu pointed to the books on the bamboo bookshelf beside the bed and said: “You read these books. Most of them are given by others. As long as they give me books, I will help others to do things, and even fight for others!”
“Help others to fight?” he asked puzzledly.
“Yeah! When you read this “Gadfly”, someone asked me to help him beat up a ruffian. I didn’t have any requests, so he asked him to give me this book. And this “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”, too… For this book, I almost got a knife from the ruffian…but I think it’s worth it. It’s so fun to have a good book!” Xiaoyu smiled, his smile was as simple as a child, like a stone thrown in the water , The whole surface of the water is full of emotions.
He became silent. How dangerous it is to fight with a knife! He knew that Xiaoyu was very famous in the county town, and he fought a lot of fights, but he didn’t know that he fought a lot for reading. Xiaoyu looked very excited and continued to talk. Xiaoyu said that he would read more and write things in the future, to be a writer and a Chinese Hemingway. Xiaoyu thought for a while and said that it is best to be a writer to go to university first. If he can pass the exam based on his test scores, he should be able to pass it. Xiaoyu made a gesture of carrying a bottle of wine, and then the character who learned the foreign movie spread his hand and shrugged.
In the days to come, he ran to Yuetan when he had nothing to do. He and Xiaoyu had nothing to talk about, and the topic naturally extended. From the gangs in the county town, Lin Chong and Lu Junyi in “Water Margin” have been talking about the mystery of the world and time. Xiaoyu said that to exist is to be perceived. If one day cannot be felt, he no longer exists and the world does not exist. Time is not as people imagine, it is a straight line, but it leads to an infinite black hole. Time should rise in a curve and spiral, with a unique trajectory.
Sometimes people will feel some events as if they have been experienced at a certain time. It is a dislocation of time. It is an event that happened at another time. All the secrets in the world are secrets with time. It is time that creates the joys and sorrows of mankind. If one day, people clearly understand the secret of time, then mankind will truly become the master of the world. Before that, people could not talk about being masters, but only as slaves of time, floating up and down on the river of time.
This conversation about time is still fresh in his memory. During the conversation, they had walked out of the room on the new road on the outskirts of the city. This road is newly built, few vehicles pass by, and the two sides are covered with verdant tallow trees, which is quiet and elegant. How can a child go for a walk? Walking with Xiaoyu, he has to work hard to follow Xiaoyu’s pace and adjust his rhythm. This feeling is just like the clumsiness of a new ballroom dance. The night was breezy, cool and pleasant. Xiaoyu was very interested and quick-thinking, and he spoke these truths casually, which made him feel shocked.
