One day at the end of 1917, a unique wedding was held in Shangzhuang Village, Jixi County, Anhui Province. The groom was wearing a black woolen hat, black leather shoes, and a suit. He looked very energetic. He was Hu Shi, a professor at Peking University and a representative figure of the "New Culture Movement."
Hu Shi went home during the winter vacation to get married. His marriage was a typical arranged marriage. His wife’s name was Jiang Dongxiu, an uneducated woman with small feet. The Hu family and the Jiang family met when Hu Shi was 14 years old. We got engaged that year. Although Hu Shi had always been dissatisfied with the marriage and had expressed his intention to break off the engagement many times, his mother firmly disagreed. Hu Shi was a filial son and had no choice but to give in in the end.
On the day of the wedding, Hu Shi was not in high spirits. At this moment, a pretty girl attracted his attention. She was Cao Chengying, the bridesmaid at the wedding. She had "bright eyes with autumn water, Beauty is better than cherry blossoms", which really feels like taking over the host. When Hu Shi asked, he learned that Cao Chengying's sister was married to his brother, and she and he were considered relatives.
The brief contact at the wedding made Hu Shi deeply impressed by Cao Chengying. Cao Chengying also admired the famous New Culture Movement leader and the young Peking University professor. Their relationship developed rapidly and they began to refer to each other as "cousins." After the winter vacation, Hu Shi was going back to Beijing. Cao Chengying boldly asked him for his mailing address, saying that he "encountered problems in study and asked you for advice."
After Hu Shi returned to Beijing, Cao Chengying often wrote to him. Once she mentioned in her letter that "it is best to bring some chrysanthemum seeds from Beijing." Hu Shi took it to heart and later returned to his hometown. Cao Chengying was very grateful that he actually brought it, and the two of them communicated more frequently.
In 1918, Cao Chengying was arranged by her family to marry Hu Guanying, the son of a wealthy man from a neighboring village. Cao Chengying was extremely dissatisfied with the marriage. In order to break away from the shackles of her family, she entered the Zhejiang Women's Normal School in Hangzhou in 1920. In 1922, because Cao Chengying never gave birth to a child after marriage, Hu Guanying married a younger wife. The relationship between Cao Chengying and her husband was not good to begin with, and they could not tolerate it. In 1923, the two officially divorced.
And Hu Shi did not live happily after marriage. Not only was Jiang Dongxiu uneducated and unable to communicate with Hu Shi at all, but she was also very strong-willed and made many demands on Hu Shi to stop drinking and to go home on time at night. Hu Shi felt very depressed about this.
In 1920, Hu Shi wrote a poem "Our Double Birthday (Winter Show)":
Xia Zhiqing once commented on this: "Although this is a humorous poem Poetry, we can also see that there was no tacit understanding between the two after their marriage."
In the summer of 1923, Hu Shi took a long leave from Peking University because of poor health and came to Hangzhou to recuperate. At that time, Cao Chengying was on summer vacation, so he often came to visit Hu Shi. Both of them were frustrated in marriage, and they had long admired each other, and they soon fell in love. So Hu Shi rented two houses in Yanxia Cave, Nanshan, Hangzhou, and lived a life of a couple with Cao Chengying.
Under Cao Chengying's care, Hu Shi's body quickly recovered. During this period, Hu Shi wrote a large number of poems for Cao Chengying, one of which was called "Song of Resentment":
Cao Chengying himself admitted that Hu Shi wrote this poem for her Yes, she once said to her friend Wang Jingzhi: "We have been in love since childhood, but we have no fate of love. In the past, I kept the rules for my husband, and from now on I will keep the rules for Hu Shizhi (Hu Shizhi's courtesy name)."
< p> Jiang Dongxiu, who was far away in Beijing, was not aware of the relationship between Hu Shi and Cao Chengying. Although she also knew that the two lived together, she thought that Cao Chengying was just helping Hu Shi with some housework. She even wrote to Hu Shi saying:Once, Xu Zhimo came to Hangzhou to visit Hu Shi. When he saw that Hu Shi was looking very good, he said happily: "Shi Zhi has turned old and rejuvenated. What a joy!"
Hu Shi confessed his love affair with Cao Chengying to Xu Zhimo. He asked Xu Zhimo: "Am I taking a risk by doing this?" Xu Zhimo was very supportive of this and advised Hu Shi to go back and have a showdown with his wife as soon as possible.
There is no such thing as a banquet that lasts forever. After Hu Shi and Cao Chengying lived together for several months, it was finally time to say goodbye. At this time, Cao Chengying was pregnant. Before leaving, Hu Shi wrote a special "Farewell Ode":
In the spring of 1924, after returning to Beijing, Hu Shi finally plucked up the courage to confess to Jiang Dongxiu. He and Cao Chengying's affairs, and asked for divorce.
After hearing this, Jiang Dongxiu became furious. She took out a kitchen knife from the kitchen, raised it above her head, and shouted: "Well, Hu Shi, you can get a divorce, but I want to divorce our two people first." Kill the child. Since you don’t want me anymore, you don’t want the child I had with you either!” After saying that, she went to catch the child and scared the child so much that he ran around the yard. Hu Shi's face turned pale with fright, and he never dared to mention divorce again.
A few days later, Hu Shi's friend Shi Yuangao came to visit. Jiang Dongxiu told him that Hu Shi was divorcing her. She cried and shouted: "I remember how hard I waited in my hometown in Anhui. It took me 12 years to officially marry him, and now I have children for him, but he despises me for being an old man and wants to find a new love. Humph! As long as I don’t die, he can’t even think about it!”
Jiang Dong Xiuyue said! Increasingly angry, he finally picked up a paper knife and was about to throw it at Hu Shi. Thanks to Shi Yuangao's persuasion, it didn't lead to a family murder.
At this point, Hu Shi had no choice but to write two lines of poetry to Cao Chengying: "Suddenly I heard the roar of a lion from the east of the river, and I dropped my stick and felt at a loss!"
Cao Chengying also knew that her union with Hu Shi was over. Impossible, she reluctantly aborted the child and ended this fruitless relationship.
In 1925, Cao Chengying graduated from the Women's Normal University. She originally wanted to apply for Peking University, which she had always longed for, but she was afraid of causing trouble to Hu Shi and arousing the jealousy of Jiang Dongxiu, so she finally chose to retreat. She wrote a letter to Hu Shi:
In 1926, under the introduction of Hu Shi, Cao Chengying entered the Department of Agricultural Sciences of Southeast University in Nanjing as a special student. She wanted to follow Hu Shi's unfinished path of studying agriculture that year. . Hu Shi hoped that she would forget him and start her love life again. However, Cao Chengying still cared about Hu Shih's dreams and often conveyed her feelings to him in poems or letters.
In 1934, Cao Chengying went to the United States to study. She entered Hu Shi's alma mater, Cornell University, and chose the College of Agriculture, specializing in cotton breeding genetics. Hu Shi specially wrote a letter to his ex-girlfriend Wei Liansi in the United States, asking him to take care of Cao Chengying:
In 1937, Cao Chengying returned to China after receiving a master's degree in genetics and breeding from Cornell University College of Agriculture. She studied at Anhui University, She taught at Sichuan University and the National Compilation and Translation Institute, becoming the first female professor in China's agricultural field.
After Cao Chengying returned to China, her friends introduced her to two or three boyfriends, hoping that she could build a happy family. Among them was an American student named Zeng, who was more than 10 years younger than Cao Chengying. The two got along very well and soon became engaged.
But not long after the engagement, the Zeng family suddenly changed their mind. It turned out that Zeng had a relative who had a very good relationship with Jiang Dongxiu. Once he accidentally asked Jiang Dongxiu about Cao Chengying. Jiang Dongxiu had always held a grudge against Cao Chengying, so she told all the past events about Cao Chengying like pouring beans through a bamboo tube. She also Adding fuel to the fire, he called Cao Chengying a "vixen" who seduced Hu Shi. After Zeng heard about this, he immediately chose to break off the engagement.
After Cao Chengying suffered this major blow, he became disheartened about life, so he went to Mount Emei and decided to become a nun. After Cao Chengying's brother Cao Chengke heard the news, he chased her up the mountain overnight and carried her down the mountain and placed her in the countryside of Chongqing to recuperate. But while Cao Chengying was at the foot of the mountain, he never forgot Buddhism and was still ready to find an opportunity to become a monk.
Hu Shi, who was the ambassador to the United States at that time, learned about Cao Chengying’s current situation from her classmate Wu Suxuan, and immediately wrote her a letter with $200 attached. After receiving the letter, Cao Chengying felt refreshed and immediately gave up the idea of ??becoming a monk again. Her body gradually recovered. After that, she came to Shanghai to serve as a professor at the College of Agriculture of Fudan University.
In the early spring of 1949, Hu Shi was ordered to go to the United States to beg for foreign aid. On February 16, Wang Mengzou, the organizer of Yadong Library, hosted a banquet to send off Hu Shi at Daxin Restaurant in Shanghai, and invited some fellow Anhui residents to accompany him. Hu Shi called Wang Mengzou's niece Wang Xieru aside and said softly to her: "Please call Peisheng and invite her to come over for dinner."
It didn't take long for Cao Chengying to arrive. She was concerned. He said to Hu Shi: "Brother Zhu (Hu Shi once used the name "Si Zhou"), you can stay here and don't run away with Chiang Kai-shek!"
Hu Shi just smiled and did not answer directly.
Because Cao Chengying had class the next day, she left the meeting early. Before leaving, she took out a ring and some dollars and handed them to Wang Xieru and said, "Brother Zhu has no money, please give it to him."< /p>
After the dinner, Wang Xieru handed over the ring and money to Hu Shi. Hu Shi immediately wrote a letter and asked Wang Xieru to pass it on to Cao Chengying. When Wang Xieru saw that the letter was not sealed, he asked: "Why not seal it?"
Hu Shi replied: "There is no need to seal the letter if you ask an acquaintance to bring it."
This is Hu Shi and Cao Chengying The last time we met. After that, Hu Shi went to Taiwan, while Cao Chengying stayed on the mainland. In 1952, during the nationwide restructuring of colleges and universities, the Agricultural College of Fudan University was transferred to the Northeast to form Shenyang Agricultural College. In September of this year, Cao Chengying, along with more than 600 teachers and students from Fudan, bid farewell to Shanghai and headed to Northeast China. In Shenyang, she concentrated on research on potato cytogenetics and successfully bred new high-yielding potato varieties. In 1956, Cao Chengying was elected as a member of the Shenyang Municipal People's Political Consultative Conference. In 1958, she officially retired.
In her later years, Cao Chengying returned to her hometown in Wangchuan Village, Jixi. She had never forgotten Hu Shi’s hometown of Shangzhuang Village. There is a stone arch bridge at the entrance of Shangzhuang Village, called Yanglin Bridge, which was funded by Hu Shi. In his later years, Cao Chengying frugally saved more than 1,000 yuan to repair the bridge. From then on, the "small bridge and flowing water family" here lived up to its name.
In 1973, Cao Chengying died of lung cancer in Shanghai at the age of 71. Before she died, she left a will: After her death, she would be buried beside the highway beside Yanglin Bridge, because that was the only way Hu Shi could go home.
The folks in Jixi understood what Cao Chengying meant and they complied. Nowadays, most tourists who go to Shangzhuang Village to visit Hu Shi's former residence will get off the car when passing by this road, and then pay silent tribute to this lonely grave with grass and the tombstone of "Mr. Cao Chengying's Tomb".
Wow, if Hu Shi could return to his hometown, he would definitely meet Cao Chengying here first!