Original text of "Young Runtu"
A golden full moon hangs in the deep blue sky, and below is the sandy land by the seaside, with endless green watermelons planted there. Among them was an eleven or twelve-year-old boy with a silver ring on his neck and a steel fork in his hand, stabbing a harpoon with all his strength. Na Yuan twisted her body and escaped from his crotch.
This young man is Runtu. When I met him, he was only over ten years old, which was about thirty years ago. At that time, my father was still alive and my family was well off, so I was just a young master. That year, my family held a big sacrifice. This sacrifice is said to only come once in more than thirty years, so it is very solemn.
In the first month of the year, there are many offerings and the ritual vessels are very particular. There are also many worshippers, and the sacrificial vessels must be guarded against theft. My family only has one busy month (there are three types of workers here: those who work for a certain family throughout the year are called long-term workers; those who work for a certain family on a daily basis are called short-term workers); those who also farm their own land only come to work during the New Year, holidays and rent collection time. In certain families, workers were called "busy months"), and when they were too busy, he told his father that he could ask his son Runtu to take charge of the sacrificial vessels.
My father agreed; I was also very happy, because I had heard the name Runtu a long time ago, and knew that he was the same age as me. He was born in the leap month and lacked earth in the five elements, so his father called him Runtu. Runtu. He can pretend to be a bird and catch small birds.
So I look forward to the New Year every day. When the New Year arrives, Runtu will also arrive. Finally, at the end of the year, one day, my mother told me that Runtu was coming, so I ran to see her. He is in the kitchen with a round purple face, a small felt hat on his head, and a bright silver collar around his neck. This shows that his father loves him very much and is afraid that he will die, so he made a wish in front of the gods and Buddhas. The circle caught him. He was very shy when meeting people, but he was not afraid of me. He would talk to me when no one else was around, and within half a day we became familiar with each other.
We didn’t know what to talk about at that time. I just remember that Runtu was very happy, saying that he saw many things he had never seen before after going to the city.
The next day, I asked him to catch birds. He said: "This can't be done. It has to snow heavily. It snowed on our sandy ground. I cleared out a clearing and used a short stick to prop up a big bamboo plaque. I spread the grain and watched the birds come to eat. I just pulled the rope tied to the stick from a distance, and the birds were covered under the bamboo plaque: rice chickens, horned chickens, swans, blue-backed..."
I was looking forward to snowing again.
Runtu said to me again: "It's too cold now. Come to us in the summer. We go to the beach to pick up shells during the day. There are red and green ones, there are ghosts and ghosts, and there are Guanyin hands." "My father and I are going to take care of the watermelons in the evening, and you will go too." It's not stealing. What you have to worry about is the badger, the hedgehog, and the harpoon. Listen, the harpoon is biting the melon under the moon, so you squeeze the fork and walk away..."
I didn’t know what this so-called animal was at the time—and I still don’t know it now—I just felt that it looked like a puppy and was very ferocious for no reason.
"Doesn't it bite?"
"There is a harpoon. When you get there and see the harpoon, you stab it. This beast is very smart and runs towards you. Instead, it escaped from under the crotch. Its fur was as smooth as oil..."
I never knew there were so many new things in the world: there are such colorful shells on the seaside; watermelons have such dangerous experiences, I only knew it was sold in fruit shops.
"In our sandy land, when the tide is coming, there are many jumping fish that just jump, with two legs like frogs..."
Ah! There are endless strange things in Runtu's heart, which are unknown to my former friend. When Runtu was at the beach, they were all like me, seeing only the sky at the four corners of the high wall in the yard.
Unfortunately, the first month has passed and Runtu must go home. I was so anxious that I cried, and he hid in the kitchen, crying and refusing to go out, but he was finally taken away by his father. He later asked his father to bring me a pack of shells and some nice bird feathers. I also gave him things once or twice, but we never met again.
In my haziness, another piece of green sand on the seaside spread out in front of me, with a golden full moon hanging in the deep blue sky above.
Extended information
"Young Runtu" is an excerpt from the short story "Hometown" written by Lu Xun in 1921.
This article created the image of a young Runtu who was "smart, witty, brave, and well-informed" in Lu Xun's eyes. Mr. Lu Xun contrasted "I" with "my" friends, highlighting the image of Runtu. A huge contrast with the middle-aged Runtu.
In the declining semi-feudal and semi-colonial rural areas of China, farmers live under the oppression, exploitation, fooling, and poisoning of the feudal regime. When the author returned to his hometown in 1919, he heard and witnessed the cruel reality of China's rural areas being devastated, and after more than thirty years of searching for life experience in this precarious society, he wrote this sad and melancholy but hopeful story. novel.
About the author
Lu Xun (1881~1936), the founder of modern Chinese literature. His original name was Zhou Shuren, with the surnames Yushan and Yuting. Later he changed his name to Yucai. He was a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang.
In May 1918, he used "Lu Xun" as his pen name for the first time and published the first vernacular novel "A Madman's Diary" in the history of Chinese literature in the magazine "New Youth". His works are mainly novels and essays. His representative works include: the novel collection "Scream", "Wandering", and "New Stories"; the essay collection "Morning Flowers Picked at Dusk"; the literary treatise "A Brief History of Chinese Novels"; the prose poetry collection "" "Weeds"; 18 collections of essays including "Grave", "Refeng Collection", and "Huagai Collection".
Lu Xun used his pen as a weapon and fought for his whole life, and was hailed as the "soul of the nation".
Mao Zedong evaluated him as a great proletarian writer, thinker, and revolutionary, and the leader of China's cultural revolution.
Reference: Baidu Encyclopedia-Young Runtu