Li Xiuwen didn't know at that time that this woman, nearly 50 years younger than herself, was Hu Yousong, the third wife of her husband Li Zongren. In fact, Hu Yousong deliberately concealed his identity that day, because the relevant personnel were afraid that Hu Yousong's identity would stimulate the elderly.
On that day, when she saw the centenarian with few teeth, Hu Yousong only felt his nose was sour. When she stood in front of the old man and watched her eat oranges, she thought, "If Degong (Li Zongren) were here, she would be like this now ..."
Unconsciously, Hu Yousong once again thought of her husband Li Zongren, whom she had missed for 20 years. For a moment, she felt that his voice and appearance seemed to coincide with Li Xiuwen in the hospital bed. No wonder she is in such a trance. This is the first time she has seen someone who has been with her since her husband died.
Just as Hu Yousong was lost in thought, Li Xiuwen's niece attached to her ear and said, "This lady came to see you from Beijing." After listening, Li Xiuwen quickly nodded to Hu Yousong: "Thank you!"
Hearing this "thank you", Hu Yousong recovered completely. She smiled and walked up to Li Xiuwen and said, "Your old man is really strong."
Li Xiuwen listened, but she nodded and said, "Sit down" without any interruption. After watching her sit down, continue to send the peeled orange petals to her mouth. After the orange petals were beaten neatly in her mouth, she spit out the orange seeds one by one.
Hu Yousong looked at this scene, only feel warm. That day, she chatted with her one build what did not build, as if they were not rivals at all, but distant relatives who first met.
This is the first time that Hu Yousong and Li Xiuwen met, and it is also the last time that they met in their lives. The only time we met, we learned a lot about Hu Yousong's thoughts. For Hu Yousong, this meeting is the end of one of her wishes.
After meeting Li Xiuwen, Hu Yousong admired her husband Li Zongren even more. When she walked out of the ward, she murmured: "She is a kind and filial old man, and she is a good match for you (Li Zongren)."
After fulfilling this wish, Hu Yousong began to look for a "secret place" in her husband's hometown of Guilin. This "secret place" was mentioned to her by her husband countless times during the Cultural Revolution. He told her more than once at that time: "No, we will go to the countryside of Guilin to raise ducks."
Later, Li Zongren described "the place where ducks are raised" to her with relish. Li Zongren was very happy and Hu Yousong was very excited. When he was still unfinished, Li Zongren also said, "In the future, I must show you the place. What a nice place! "
This "secret" is rooted in Hu Yousong's heart. After her husband died of rectal cancer, she often thought of this place intentionally or unintentionally. Slowly, this place has become a very sacred existence. Every time I think of this "duck farm", Hu Yousong's heart is warm.
However, this place is really hard to find. In fact, on the second day from Beijing to Guilin, Hu Yousong began to look for what her husband called "the place to raise ducks", but in the vicinity of her husband's former residence in Langtou Village, Liangjiang Town, Lingui County, she searched for it countless times, but still failed to find the so-called "place to raise ducks".
The more I can't find it, the more Hu Yousong wants to find it. That is the "quiet life" they dream of, and it is their "Taoyuan". How could she not want to find it!
Hu Yousong didn't find a duck farm after all, but even so, she was very satisfied with her trip to Guilin. During this trip, she not only donated some of her husband's relics to Li Zongren's former residence and memorial hall for reconstruction, but also visited her husband's hometown. After three years of marriage, she went to see all the scenery he told her about Guilin, and she personally tasted the delicious "Guilin rice noodles" in his mouth.
Everything is too good to be true, but he can't accompany her after all.
Hu Yousong, who officially retired, signed up for a university for the aged after returning to Beijing. This study plan was also a calligraphy and painting that her husband instructed her to study before her death.
Hu Yousong first came into contact with calligraphy and painting when 1966 married her husband. When she first saw her husband's vigorous calligraphy works, she sighed: "Degong, your handwriting is really beautiful, like a painting, but more straight than a painting."
Li Zongren listened to her praise and said, "Calligraphy is easy to learn. I'll teach you when I have time. "
Sure enough, the next time she was free, Li Zongren held her hand and taught her to practice calligraphy. It was also during this period that Li Zongren stumbled upon her talent for painting. So he encouraged her to learn to draw.
Encouraged by Li Zongren, Hu Yousong really picked up a paintbrush. She even copied the paintings of masters of Chinese painting such as Xu Beihong and Qi Baishi in front of her husband. Seeing his wife's enthusiasm for painting, Li Zongren naturally praised it.
On one occasion, Li Zongren's birthday, Hu Yousong specially drew some pictures to hang in the small living room. Li Zongren was surprised when he saw it. He called his secretary, Cheng Siyuan, and said, "Philip Burkart, come quickly. Yusong is holding an art exhibition at home! "
Li Zongren's alternative praise made Hu Yousong go further and further on the road of painting. This woman who has never learned to draw is becoming more and more "like". All this naturally delighted Li Zongren.
Every time I think of the scene when I was a beginner in painting, Hu Yousong's eyes are always filled with tears involuntarily. Every time she mentions the brush, she always thinks of all kinds of things with her husband. Hu Yousong likes painting plum blossoms best, not only because "Mei" used to be his own name, but also because "My husband likes plum blossoms best".
Besides plum blossoms, Li Zongren also likes to watch his wife copy Xu Beihong's Lonely Cat. This painting is Li Zongren's favorite. He always said, "The cat's expression, a pair of lonely, lonely, painful and sad expressions, plus' who is lonely to talk to, it's a year in a daze', which is really artistic."
Because Li Zongren likes it, she always copies this painting for her husband in her spare time. The more times she copied, the more vivid she painted the cat. Hu Yousong knew Li Zongren after all. She knew that during the Cultural Revolution, he felt unspeakable loneliness because he was lonely and was not allowed to walk around. Watching her draw cats is just a way to get rid of loneliness.
As long as I think of Lonely Cat, Hu Yousong can think of her husband's difficult situation after returning to China for two years: coping with complicated situations at any time, being in good and bad health, and finally being diagnosed with rectal cancer and having an operation.
Because her husband is Li Zongren, Hu Yousong's life is doomed to be extraordinary. In the three years since she married her husband, because she saw too many ups and downs, her growth surprised her unexpectedly.
But these are not the most important wealth that her husband gave her. Li Zongren's greatest wealth is that she has learned to love. She is an abandoned child, and her adoptive mother treats her badly, and sometimes even beats and scolds her for no reason. Growing up in a loveless family, she always felt extremely inferior and didn't know how to love others.
It was under the little influence of her husband that she understood what love was and learned to love. Through her husband, her life has really become round and full.
What really makes people grow up is love, which can make people strong and soft. Hu Yousong will never forget how he became "soft and strong" in her husband's love. Before him, no one had ever loved himself so unreservedly.
She will always remember how nervous he was when he fell off his bike. He rubbed medicine on her carefully and complained that she couldn't take care of herself. That night, he also climbed up countless times to check his wife's injury. Later, every time she went out, he warned "No cycling".
After realizing her husband's wholehearted love, Hu Yousong began to respond to him with actions. In life, she has always been meticulous to him, and she remembers his likes and dislikes clearly. She hasn't left since he was ill, for fear that she might make a mistake.
The deeper the relationship with her husband, the more afraid she is of him leaving. However, he is nearly 50 years older than her after all. When she marries him, their time together will count down.
Because of the extreme fear of loss, one night during Li Zongren's serious illness, she once thought of suicide. She is afraid of the lonely life after losing her husband, which is beyond her imagination. So, one night, she decided to wait for her husband in another world before he died.
After making the decision to commit suicide, Hu Yousong went to the cupboard beside the window sill and picked up the sleeping pills prescribed by the doctor for a week. She used to be a nurse, and she knew it was enough to kill her. Just as she was about to swallow sleeping pills in one gulp, the nurse suddenly pushed the door into the ward and said, "Li Zongren is running out of glucose."
The nurse's loud voice pulled Hu Yousong's consciousness back, and Li Zongren, who had been groggy in bed for a day, opened his eyes. After waking up, Li Zongren gently let out a cry "Ruomei". Hu Yousong heard her husband tell him that he had sleeping pills in his hand and walked beside him. Li Zongren looked at his wife and said, "You've lost weight. You must be exhausted. You need a rest. "
Hu Yousong couldn't help feeling sad, and tears came down unwillingly. Only then did she realize how selfish she had just acted.
That night, after Li Zongren fell asleep again, she put away her sleeping pills and said to herself, "I can't walk in front of Degong anymore!"
In the end, Li Zongren had no enemies of life and death. When he left, he kept mumbling, "I can't worry about you." He left with the last tear on his face. She wiped it off with her own face.
After Li Zongren's death, Hu Yousong was devastated. She felt that her world had collapsed. Strangely, at this time, she woke up and realized that she couldn't go with her. Yes, she still has many things to do, such as taking care of his affairs.
Because her husband died in the turmoil, after his bones were cremated, he was told that he could only put them in ordinary urns. That kind of urn is one of 39 yuan's, and Hu Yousong couldn't help feeling sad when he saw it. She said to herself, "Degong is a capitalized person after all. How can he put it in such a small urn?"
So, in order to put Li Zongren's ashes in a decent urn, Hu Yousong decided to ask someone to send them once. She thought for a moment and tearfully said to the propaganda team, "Please give a bigger and more decent urn, so that people who come back from overseas will have a special feeling when they are in the urn in Zongren, Li See, and let everyone know that he has been respected and treated after returning to the mainland."
Hearing this, the propaganda team whispered, "I know Mr. Li Zongren, who is patriotic and simple. You can exchange him for a better one. Need 120 yuan. Is this enough for you? " Hearing this, Hu Yousong quickly recited: "Enough, enough!"
Later, Hu Yousong put a lid on her husband's grave in Tomb-Sweeping Day one year. After this "decoration", Hu Yousong felt at ease.
Now, every year in Tomb-Sweeping Day, she takes flowers to pay homage to her virtuous husband early. The flowers she gave her husband were never bought, but the wild flowers she picked specially. After picking them back, she will keep them in a porcelain bottle filled with water in advance.
Raising wild flowers in bottles is what Li Zongren often does when he is here. Every time she picks wild flowers and puts them at home, he is full of praise.
So she always thought that if she put the vase in front of the bronze statue in his cemetery, he would be very happy to know it under the spring. She vaguely remembers that before her husband died, she used her wild flowers as the object of painting.
Speaking of painting, Hu Yousong has really improved a lot now. This is not a sudden improvement in her understanding, but the result of years of hard study and hard practice. In the days without Li Zongren, whenever I think of her, I can't help but start painting. Painting more, painting skills naturally improved.
Therefore, after entering the university for the aged, her paintings are always top-notch. Later, her works were auctioned at high prices many times. Hu Yousong donated the proceeds from each auction.
Hu Yousong donated 5,200 yuan to the disaster-stricken areas in the flood relief charity sale of 1998. Every time there is a charity event, as long as there is something she can use, she will gladly go.
Her idea is simple: Degong is an anti-Japanese hero who loves his country and his people. As a wife, she should also inherit his excellent qualities.
While doing charity, Hu Yousong has always had another wish: she wants to fulfill her husband's unfulfilled wish and contribute to national reunification.
Li Zongren had always told Hu Yousong that his return to China was not the most important thing, but the most important thing was to promote the reunification of Taiwan Province Province. Because of this regret, when he was dying, he specially asked his wife to call Yin and said to him, "When I come back, I want to do some work on the Taiwan Province issue. I told you those thoughts before I had time to tell Premier Zhou, hey! "
Because of this unfinished regret, Li Zongren said in his last letter to Premier Zhou Enlai:
Hu Yousong remembers this last letter very clearly, because she was standing beside her husband when he dictated it. As a wife who deeply loves her husband, Hu Yousong naturally knows better than anyone the importance of "national unity" in Li Zongren's mind. But as a weak woman, it is too difficult to help the country unify.
But she always thought she might be able to help.
However, Hu Yousong did not make any contribution to the reunification of the motherland all his life. After Li Zongren's death, she survived and she was displaced. Later, she became a researcher of literature and history in the First Archives of Beijing. Hu Yousong chose this job because of her husband Li Zongren. It should be noted that his favorite reading materials before his death were literature and history, and he often asked her to read some literature and history materials to himself.
Hu Yousong likes this job very much, because it makes her feel as if she is still with her German husband.
After retiring from the Museum of Literature and History, I always felt that Hu Yousong, who was far away from her husband, was always depressed. During this period, calligraphy and painting became her only spiritual sustenance, perhaps because of unbearable loneliness. During this period, she married a technician. But because of her husband's rudeness and selfishness, this marriage only lasted for a short time.
1995, Hu Yousong, who seemed to see through the world and seemed indifferent to the world, converted to Buddhism at Guangji Temple in Beijing, and his dharma name was Miaohuiju. From the moment he converted to Buddhism, Hu Yousong made up his mind to stop caring about secular affairs.
However, on 1996, when the relevant person in charge of the construction of Li Zongren Memorial Hall in Taierzhuang approached her and asked her to help build the museum, she agreed without hesitation. She even donated a large number of Li Zongren cultural relics that she has treasured for decades to the memorial hall. On the day when these cultural relics were sent to the memorial hall, her eyes shone with tears.
Since then, every year Hu Yousong will go to the Li Zongren Memorial Hall in Taierzhuang for several months. She likes this place very much. This is the place where her husband once led the soldiers to guard with their lives, and there is his blood here. So staying in Taierzhuang, she always feels practical.
Even so, Hu Yousong doesn't want to stay in Taierzhuang all the time, because she doesn't want to cause any trouble to Taierzhuang herself. Therefore, after a few busy months every year, she will return to the small courtyard in Beijing to raise flowers, paint and copy Buddhist scriptures.
Running back and forth between Beijing and Taierzhuang for a long time is a kind of hit the floor thing for ordinary people, but it is a kind of "happiness" for Hu Yousong. She likes to shuttle between these two places, and this love naturally comes from these two places: one is where she lived after she married him for three years, and the other is where he shed blood.
In 2007, Hu Yousong came to Taierzhuang again. At the end of the year, she bought a lot of new year's goods and prepared to have a rich Spring Festival in Taierzhuang. But that night, she suddenly had abdominal pain. After going to the hospital for examination, he was diagnosed as rectal cancer.
She looked very calm when she learned that she and her husband had the same cancer. Later, she even said half jokingly, "I have rectal cancer, and I have the same disease as him." When I die, we will be in the same boat. "
Hu Yousong, who converted to Buddhism and believed in cause and effect, even felt that he was destined to get this disease. And this doomed result is still considered by her to be her best destination.
On October, 2008 1 Month16th, Hu Yousong underwent surgery in the municipal hospital. Before the operation, the doctor asked his family to sign it. Hu Yousong smiled and said, "My only relative has left. I'm alone. I'll sign it myself. "
Hu Yousong's operation was so successful that the doctor arranged at least five times of chemotherapy. But by the third chemotherapy, she refused to continue chemotherapy. Someone asked her why she gave up treatment. She only said: "Chemotherapy costs money, and there is little hope. I don't want to add unnecessary burden to the people in Taierzhuang."
When he said this, Hu Yousong's face was bright and calm, and he couldn't see any pain or sadness.
After leaving the hospital, at the age of 69, she suffered from cancer and insisted on taking care of herself. Because time was running out, she decided not to go back to Beijing and stay in Taierzhuang, which was guarded by her husband. When asked about the reason for this choice, she said, "Only in this way can my husband be closest to me."
After that, Hu Yousong, who was quietly waiting for death, posted a sign in front of her house, which read "Do not disturb self-study", and she began to arrange her own affairs. In fact, these are mostly accounts of Li Zongren's legacy.
One of the contents of the will is that she will donate all her possessions, thousands of dollars and thousands of Hong Kong dollars to Taierzhuang to set up a charity fund. The last content of her will is: all the salary of100000 yuan in her personal passbook will be given to Buddhist friends and people in need in the temple.
Shortly after making the will, on June 4th, 165438+ Hu Yousong went to the hospital because of general weakness and persistent high fever. The hospital's diagnosis is that the cancer cells in the whole body have spread. After hearing the diagnosis, Hu Yousong just smiled, and she refused all the treatments again. Later, she was discharged from the hospital, went to Qingyun County, Dezhou, not far from Taierzhuang, and lived in an island Jinshan Temple.
Only one week after arriving at the temple, at 6 pm on June 25th, 165438, Hu Yousong passed away safely.
After Hu Yousong's death, the small red-roofed building where she once lived has been standing beside the Li Zongren Memorial Hall, just like the company Li Zongren gave him in his later years.
Until today, the Taierzhuang Li Zongren Historical Museum, which was built and watched in Hu Yousong for more than ten years, is still the most meaningful and interesting existence about Li Zongren. This museum witnessed the great life of Li Zongren and the extraordinary feelings of Hu Yousong and Li Zongren.
There is always a red plum painting hanging on the stairs on the second floor of the museum. This painting was painted by Hu Yousong himself, adding a touch of beauty to the heroism of the museum.
"Mei" is a name and Li Zongren's favorite flower, which can best represent her life. The Life of Hu Yousong in Lu You's Yongmei;