Crazy years
China, 1967.
The "Red Union" attack on the headquarters of the "April 28th Corps" has lasted for two days, and their flags are fluttering restlessly around the building, as if eager for firewood.
The commander of the "Red Union" is distraught. He is not afraid of the guards of the building. The more than 200 "April 28" fighters are the same as the "Red Union" which was born in early 1966 and has undergone major inspections and series. Much more immature.
What he was afraid of was the dozens of large iron stoves in the building filled with powerful explosives and connected in series with electric detonators. He couldn't see them, but he could feel their presence like magnets. They were turned on and off, and the jade was burned. Those Little Red Guards of "April 28th" had this spiritual power.
Compared with the first-generation Red Guards who have matured a lot in the wind and rain, the new rebels are like wolves on the coals, in addition to being crazy or crazy.
A petite figure appeared on the top of the building. The beautiful girl waved a "April 28th" banner. Her appearance immediately evoked a burst of chaotic gunfire. The shooting weapons were all kinds of old American styles. Carbines, Czech-style machine guns and 38 large covers, as well as brand-new standard rifles and submachine guns-the latter were stolen from the army after the publication of the "August Editorial"-along with cold weapons such as shuttles and broadswords. It constitutes a condensed modern history...
The "April 28" people have played this game many times in the front. In addition to waving flags, the people who stood up on the roof sometimes used loudspeakers to shout slogans or throw down flyers. Retired in the rain of bullets, earning a lofty honor for himself.
The girl who came out this time obviously believed that she was still so lucky.
She waved the battle flag, waved her burning youth, the enemy will be turned into ashes in this flame, and the ideal world will be born in her boiling blood tomorrow...
She was intoxicated in this bright red dream, until a rifle bullet pierced her chest. The fifteen-year-old girl's chest was so tender, and the bullet basically did not slow down after passing through, and she made a chirp in the air behind her.
The young Red Guard fell from the top of the building with her flag, her light body falling even slower than the flag, as if a bird was attached to the sky.
The soldiers of the "Red Union" cheered, several people rushed downstairs, raised the flag of April 28th, lifted the tiny body below, held a section as a trophy, and then threw her high. The iron gate of the compound.
Most of the pointed metal bars on the iron gate were taken away as spears at the beginning of the fight, and the remaining two just caught her. At that moment, life seemed to return to that soft body.
The Red Guards of the Red Union stepped back a certain distance, and practiced shooting with the hung body as a target. The dense bullets were soft as rain to her and no longer brought any feeling.
Her ivy-like arms flicked lightly from time to time, as if to brush off the raindrops on her body, until the young head was knocked out in half, and the only beautiful eye left was still staring at the blue sky of 1967. , There is no pain in his eyes, only solidified passion and desire.
In fact, compared to some others, she was lucky, at least she died in the magnificent passion dedicated to her ideals.
Such hotspots spread throughout the city, like countless parallel computing CPUs, uniting the "Cultural Revolution" as a whole.
Crazy is like an invisible flood, submerging the city and permeating every tiny nook and cranny.
On the playground of the famous university on the edge of the city, a criticism meeting involving thousands of people has been going on for nearly two hours.
In this era of numerous factions, there are intricate and opposing factions fighting everywhere.
On the campus, the Red Guards, the Cultural Revolution Working Group, the Work Propaganda Team, and the Military Propaganda Team are all in sharp conflict with each other, and within each faction, new opposing factions are constantly splitting up, defending their different backgrounds. And the program broke out even more cruel contest.
However, the reactionary academic authority that was criticized this time is the goal of the struggle that no one has objection to, and they can only endure cruel blows from all sides at the same time.
Compared with other monsters, reactionary academic authorities have their own characteristics:
When the attack first comes, their performance is often arrogant and stubborn, which is also the stage where their casualty rate is the highest;
In the capital, more than 1,700 critics were beaten to death in 40 days, and more people chose faster paths to escape the madness:
Lao She, Wu Han, Jian Bozan, Fu Lei, Zhao Jiuzhang, Yiqun, Wen Jie, Haimo, etc. all ended their awe-inspiring lives by themselves.
The people who survived this stage are gradually numb under the continuous cruel blow. This is a kind of mental shell of self-protection, so that they can avoid the final collapse.
They often go into a semi-sleep state at the criticism meeting, and only a shock can make them wake up, and mechanically repeat the confession that has been said countless times;
Then, some of them entered the third stage. The protracted criticism injected clear political images into their consciousness like mercury, and completely destroyed their ideological edifice constructed by knowledge and reason. They really believed that they were guilty. They really saw the damage they had done to the great cause and wept bitterly about it. Their confession is often much deeper and sincere than the non-intellectual monsters and monsters.
For the Red Guards, the objects of criticism in the latter two stages are the most boring. Only the ghosts and snakes in the first stage can effectively stimulate their already over-excited nerves, just like the red cloth on the hands of a matador. But there are fewer and fewer such objects, and there may only be one left in this university. Because of his rarity, he was reserved for the final appearance of the Critical Conference.
Ye Zhetai has lived since the Cultural Revolution until now, and has been in the first stage. He did not plead guilty, did not commit suicide, and did not become numb.
When the professor of physics stepped onto the critical stage, he was clearly saying:
Let the cross that I bear is heavier!
The Red Guards burdened him with heavy things, but it was not a cross.
The tall hats worn by other critics were framed with bamboo strips, but the one he wore was welded with a thick steel bar, and the brand he hung on his chest was not hung by others. Instead of an iron door removed from an oven in the laboratory, his name was written prominently in black, and a large red fork was drawn along the diagonal.
The number of Red Guards who escorted Ye Zhetai to power was twice as many as the other critics. There were six people, two men and four women.
The two young men have a steady and strong pace, a mature young Bolshevik image. They are both in the fourth year of theoretical physics in the Department of Physics, and Ye Zhetai was their teacher;
The four girls are much younger. They are all second-year students in the attached high school of the university. These little soldiers in military uniforms and armed belts carry a compelling youth and vitality, like four green flames surrounding Ye Zhetai.
The appearance of Ye Zhetai excited the crowd below, and the already weak slogans rose again like a new wave, drowning everything.
After patiently waiting for the slogan to subside, one of the two male red guards on the stage turned to the object of criticism:
"Ye Zhetai, you are proficient in all kinds of mechanics. You should see how powerful this great force you are resisting is. Stubbornness is a dead end!
Today, I will continue the agenda of the last conference, so I won't say much nonsense.
Answer the following questions honestly:
Did you add a large amount of relativity to the basic courses of the 62nd to 65th classes without authorization? ! "
"The theory of relativity has become the classical theory of physics. How can the basic courses not involve it?"
Ye Zhetai replied.
"You bullshit!"
A female Red Guard nearby said sharply, "Einstein is a reactionary academic authority. He is a mother if he has milk, and ran to build an atomic bomb for US imperialism!
To establish revolutionary science, we must defeat the black flag of bourgeois theory represented by the theory of relativity! "
Ye Zhetai was silent. He was enduring the pain caused by the iron top hat on his head and the iron plate on his chest, and the questions that were not worth responding were silent.
Behind him, his students also frowned slightly.
The talking girl is the most talented of the four middle school Red Guards, and she is clearly prepared. I saw her memorizing the critical draft just now before coming to the stage. But to deal with Ye Zhetai, only her slogans are needed. It won't work.
They decided to show off the new weapons prepared for the teacher today, and one of them waved his hand to the audience.
Ye Zhetai's wife, Shaolin, a professor of physics in the same department, stood up from the front row of the stage and walked onto the stage.
She was wearing a very unfit grass-green dress, and obviously wanted to get closer to the colors of the Red Guards, but people who were familiar with Shaolin thought of her who used to wear exquisite cheongsam to give lectures, and always felt awkward.
"Ye Zhetai!"
Shao Lin pointed to her husband and shouted. She was obviously not used to this kind of occasion. She tried to raise her voice as much as possible, but even the tremor in it was amplified, "You didn't expect that I would stand up and criticize you!?
Yes, I was deceived by you before. You blinded me with your reactionary outlook on the world and science!
Now I wake up, with the help of the young revolutionary, I will stand on the side of the revolution and the side of the people! "
She turned to the audience, "Comrades, revolutionary teenagers, revolutionary faculty and staff, we should recognize the reactionary nature of Einstein's theory of relativity. This nature is most clearly reflected in general relativity:
The static universe model it puts forward negates the nature of matter in motion and is counter-dialectic!
It believes that the universe is limited, and it is totally reactionary idealism..."
Ye Zhetai smiled bitterly while listening to his wife's endless speech.
Lynn, I blinded you?
In fact, you have always been a mystery in my heart.
Once, I commended your father for your extraordinary talent-he was lucky to go early and escaped this disaster-the old man shook his head and said that my daughter could not make any achievements in academics;
Then, he said a sentence that was very important to me in the second half of my life: Linlin is too smart, but she is not stupid to do basic theory.
In the years that followed, I continued to realize the meaning of these words.
Lin, you are really too smart. As early as a few years ago, you sniffed out the political trends in the intellectual world and made some advanced moves. For example, you changed most of the laws and parameters of physics in teaching. The name, Ohm's law was renamed the law of resistance, Maxwell's equation was renamed as electromagnetic equation, and Planck's constant was called quantum constant...
You explained to the students: All scientific achievements are the crystallization of the wisdom of the working people, and those bourgeois academic authorities merely steal this wisdom.
But even so, you are still not accepted by the "revolutionary mainstream". Look at you now. There is no red armband worn by the "revolutionary faculty and staff" on your sleeves; you come up empty-handed, and you are not even qualified to take a quotation. ...
Who made you born into a prominent family like old China? Your parents are both such famous scholars.
Speaking of Einstein, you have more things to explain than I do.
In the winter of 1922, Einstein visited Shanghai. Your father was arranged as one of the escorts because of his good German.
You have told me many times that my father embarked on the road of physics under the personal teaching of Einstein, and your choice of physics major was influenced by his father, so Iweng can also be regarded as your indirect mentor, you I feel extremely proud and happy for this.
Later, I learned that my father told you a white lie, and he had only one exchange with Einstein, which was too short.
It was the morning of November 13th, 1922. He accompanied Einstein on a walk on Nanjing Road. He seemed to be accompanied by Shanghai University President Yu Youren, "Ta Kung Pao" manager Cao Gubing and others. After a roadbed maintenance point, Einstein was in A little worker who smashed a stone stopped beside him, silently looked at the boy with torn clothes and dirty hands and face in the cold wind, and asked your father: How much does he make a day?
After asking Xiao Gong, your father answered: five points.
This is the only exchange between him and the scientific master who changed the world. There is no physics, no theory of relativity, only cold reality.
According to your father, Einstein stood there in silence for a while after hearing his answer, watching the numb work of the little worker, the pipe in his hand was wiped out and he did not take a breath.
After your father recalled this incident, he sighed to me like this: In China, any detached thoughts will fall to the ground, and the gravity of reality is too heavy.
"Head down!"
A male Red Guard shouted orders.
This may be the lingering sympathy of his students for the teacher. Those who are criticized will bow their heads, but if Ye Zhetai wants to do this, the heavy iron hat will fall. As long as he keeps his head down, there is no reason to give He put it on.
But Ye Zhetai still held his head high, supporting the heavy steel beam with his thin neck.
"Head down!
You are a reactionary diehard! ! "
A female red guard next to her took off the belt around her waist and waved it towards Ye Zhetai. The brass buckle was hitting his forehead, leaving the exact shape of the buckle there, but it was quickly blurred into black and purple by bruises. A ball.
He shook his feet and stood still.
A male Red Guard questioned Ye Zhetai: "In the teaching of quantum mechanics, you have also spread a lot of reactionary speech!"
After speaking, nodded to Shaolin and motioned her to continue.
Shaolin couldn't wait to continue, she had to keep talking, in order to keep her shaky spirit from being completely destroyed.
"Ye Zhetai, you cannot deny this!
You have spread reactionary Copenhagen explanations to students many times! "
"This is, after all, the currently accepted explanation that best matches the experimental results."
Ye Zhetai said that after receiving such a heavy blow, his tone was still so calm, which surprised Shaolin, and also terrified.
"This explanation believes that external observations have caused the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another manifestation of reactionary idealism, and it is the most rampant manifestation!"
"Does philosophy guide experiment or experiment guide philosophy?"
Ye Zhetai asked, his sudden counterattack made the critics at a loss for a while.
"Of course it is the correct Marxist philosophy to guide scientific experiments!"
Said a male red guard.
"This is tantamount to saying that the correct philosophy has fallen from the sky.
This objection to the realization of true knowledge through practice is precisely against the Marxist principle of cognition of the natural world. "
Shaolin and the two college Red Guards were speechless. Unlike the Red Guards in middle school and society, they couldn't be unreasonable.
However, the four teenagers from the attached high school have their own revolutionary methods of "indestructible". The girl who just started drew Ye Zhetai's belt again, and the other three girls also took their belts and drew them separately. , They must behave more revolutionary, at least as revolutionary.
The two male Red Guards did not intervene. If they were to take care of it now, they would be suspected of not being revolutionary.
"You are still spreading the theory of the Big Bang in your teaching. This is the most reactionary of all scientific theories!"
A male Red Guard tried to change the subject.
"Maybe this theory will be overturned in the future, but the two major cosmological discoveries of this century:
Hubble redshift and 3K cosmic background radiation make the Big Bang theory the most credible theory of the origin of the universe so far. "
"nonsense!"
Shaolin yelled, and then continued to talk about the Big Bang, naturally not forgetting to deeply analyze its reactionary nature.
But the super novelty of this theory attracted the smartest of the four little girls, and she asked involuntarily: "Even time starts from that singularity!?
What was before the singularity? "
"Nothing at all."
Ye Zhetai said, like answering any little girl's question, he turned his head and looked at her kindly. The iron top hat and the serious injuries made him difficult.
"Nothing at all?!
reactionary!
So reactionary! ! "
The girl screamed in horror, and she turned to Shaolin for help at a loss, and she got it immediately.
"This leaves a place for God's existence."
Shaolin nodded to the girl.
The dazed thought of the Little Red Guard immediately found a foothold. She raised her belt-holding fingers and pointed at Ye Zhetai, "You, do you want to say that there is a God?!"
"I do not know."
"what did you say!"
"I mean I don't know. If God refers to the superconscious outside the universe, I don't know if it exists;
On both the positive and negative side, science has not given definite evidence. "
In fact, at this nightmare moment, Ye Zhetai has tended to believe that it does not exist.
This rebellious remark caused a commotion throughout the venue. Under the leadership of a red guard on the stage, waves of slogans broke out.
"Down with the reactionary academic authority Ye Zhetai!!"
"Down with all reactionary academic authority!!"
"Down with all reactionary doctrines!!" ......
"God does not exist, and all religions are spiritual tools to paralyze the people fabricated by the ruling class!"
After the slogan subsided, the little girl said loudly.
"This view is one-sided."
Ye Zhetai said calmly.
The little red guard, who was so embarrassed and angry, immediately made a judgment. For the dangerous enemy in front of him, all his words were meaningless.
She pulled her belt and rushed up, and her three little comrades immediately followed.
Ye Zhetai is very tall, and the four fourteen-year-old girls can only hit his unwilling head with a belt upward.
After the first few blows, the protective iron top hat on his head was knocked off, and then a wide belt with a copper buckle rained on his head and body-he finally fell Up.
This encouraged the Little Red Guards to continue this "noble" battle more deeply. They were fighting for their beliefs and ideals. They were intoxicated by the glorious mission given to them by history and proud of their bravery. ...
"The highest instruction: Wendou, not armed!"
Ye Zhetai's two students finally made up their minds and yelled these words. They both rushed over at the same time, pulling away the four little girls who were already in a semi-crazy state.
But it was too late. The physicist was lying quietly on the ground, watching the blood stains flowing from his head with half-open eyes, and the crazy meeting place fell into a dead silence for an instant.
The blood stain is the only thing that moves. It crawls slowly like a red snake, dripping drop by drop on an empty box below when it reaches the edge of the platform, making a rhythmic "click" sound, like a gradual movement. Steps away.
A strange laughter broke the silence. This sound was made by Shaolin, who had completely collapsed, and it sounded terrifying.
People started to leave, and eventually developed into a great debacle. Everyone wanted to escape from this place as soon as possible.
The venue quickly became empty, and only one girl was left standing in the audience.
She is Ye Wenjie, Ye Zhetai's daughter.
When the four girls brutally took their father’s life, she wanted to rush to the stage, but the two old school workers around him caught her tightly, and whispered in their ears to tell her not to kill her. At that time, the venue was already in complete madness, and her appearance would only lead to more mobs.
She used to cry hoarsely, but her voice was drowned in the crazy slogans and cheers on the venue. When everything fell silent, she couldn't make any sound anymore. She just stared at the dead body of her father on the stage. The things she cried and shouted diffused and dissolved in her blood, and would stay with her throughout her life.
After the crowd dispersed, she stood there, her body and limbs still maintaining the posture of the old school worker holding her, motionless, like petrified.
After a long time, she put down her dangling arm, slowly got up and walked onto the stage, sat next to her father's body, took one of his cold hands, and looked into the distance with blank eyes.
When the body was about to be taken away, Ye Wenjie took out something from his pocket and put it into his father's hand. It was his father's pipe.
Wen Jie quietly left the empty playground and walked home.
When she walked downstairs to the staff dormitory, she heard silly laughter from her own window on the second floor. This sound was made by the woman she used to call her mother.
Wen Jie turned and walked silently, letting her feet lead her away.
She finally found herself in front of Ruan Wen's house.
In the four years of university, Teacher Ruan has been her head teacher and her closest friend.
During the two years when Ye Wenjie studied as a graduate student in astrophysics, and until the time when classes were suspended to cause revolution, Teacher Ruan has always been the closest person to her except her father.
Ruan Wen studied in Cambridge. Her home was full of attraction to Ye Wenjie. There are many exquisite books, oil paintings and records brought back from Europe, a piano, and a European-style pipe placed on a delicate wooden rack. Father That one was given by her. These pipes have Mediterranean heather roots and Turkish meerschaum. Each one seems to be soaked in the wisdom of the man who held them in his hands and in his mouth, but Ruan Wen Never mentioned him.
This elegant and warm little world became Wenjie's harbor to escape the earthly storm.
But that was before Ruan Wen's home was ransacked. The impact she received during the exercise was as heavy as Wen Jie's father.
At the criticism meeting, the Red Guards hung high-heeled shoes around her neck and used lipstick to draw a lot of ways on her face to show her decadent bourgeois lifestyle.
Ye Wenjie pushed open the door of Ruan Wen’s house and found that the chaotic room became tidy after the house was ransacked. The torn oil paintings were pasted and hung on the wall, and the tilted piano stood upright in place, although it had been It can’t be played after being broken, but it’s still cleaned, and the remaining hardcover books are neatly placed back on the shelf...
Ruan Wen sat on the swivel chair in front of the desk, her eyes closed peacefully.
Ye Wenjie stood beside her and touched her forehead, face and hands. They were all cold. In fact, Wenjie noticed the empty sleeping pill bottle lying upside down on the desk after entering the door.
She stood silently for a while, turned around and walked away. The sadness is no longer felt. She is now like a Geiger counter. When exposed to excessive radiation, she no longer reacts. There is no sound. The reading is zero.
But when she was about to go out, she looked back at Ruan Wen for the last time. She found that Teacher Ruan put on makeup very well, she put on lipstick and high heels.