Hairpin Phoenix
Spring remains the same, but I am thin and frail, my tears staining my red silk handkerchief.
Peach blossoms fall, the pavilion by the idle pond stands. The vows of love remain, but the letter cannot be sent. No, no, no!
When the air raid stopped, she struggled to move the bloodied, riddled-with-holes corpse off her. Suddenly, a purplish-brown hand slid down from the corpse and landed on her neck, while a grimy face pressed heavily against her chest. She gasped, her breath catching in her throat, and slumped back to the ground.
Catching her breath, she got up again. All she could see was a drab, gray city. The shops lining the streets, plastered with colorful posters of pop stars, along with the walls behind them, were now nothing but piles of rubble. Those purplish-brown arms and those muddy-gray, desperate faces rolled one after another among the rubble, almost indistinguishable. Children, crying and choking, searching for their mothers; lovers, posing for cameras with honeyed expressions of affection; all lay hand in hand amidst a pool of bubbling, viscous blood. Closer to the black, slightly lighter brown, and amber eyes, they burst forth, flowing into the winding, chaotic mess, revealing either terror or happiness.
When she finally dragged her heavy body home, her face ashen, and her trembling, greenish-purple lips quivered as she caught up with her, "Grandma, you..."
She seemed unable to explain what had happened either; the huge explosion had left her mind a jumbled mess, so she fell silent, bent down, and supported her cold back as she was pulled into the room.
When the scalding hot handkerchief touched her cheek, the dried blood began to flow again, trickling down her pale eyelids and into her eyes like red tears. The maid shouted and knocked over the porcelain basin filled with boiling water.
She then stood up as if waking from a dream, staring at the person sitting on the ground with bloodshot eyes, and said, "Where is Third Master's letter? Is there any letter from Third Master? Go get it for me, go get it for me."
"Grandma, Third Uncle hasn't written in a long time..."
"You're lying. I saw one yesterday. Go get it for me." Seeing the maid's hesitant look, she slowly shed blood-stained tears, snatched the wet handkerchief, and slapped it at the person on the ground. "I told you to go get it. Didn't you hear me? You lowly thing."
The maid, having been hit by her, slowly got up from the ground and, after a while, retrieved a yellowed envelope and handed it to her.
From the dense text, she could only read four words that she recognized: Yuan Siyuan, dead.
Yuan Siyuan died.
Yuan Siyuan died.
She widened her eyes and read aloud, "What does this mean? What does this mean?"
Perhaps he killed the Japanese, or perhaps it was someone else... In any case, Yuan Siyuan may not be dead.
But, but… she stood up in horror, as if it were true that he was dead.
No, no, she sat down again.
But……
She slumped onto the sofa, clutching the red-lined letter tightly in her hand. Her sharp fingernails tore through the paper and dug into her skin, drawing out fresh, red liquid. Her entire body was stained a deep crimson, like a giant butterfly.
She was a woman raised under the old education system. She didn't know how to read or write, and even when a gun was pointed at her head, she remained blank and didn't know how to fight back. She was skilled at needlework, gentle and kind, and she would definitely be wholeheartedly devoted to her husband, without ever betraying him.
But if her husband dies, how can a woman like her, living in a new generation riddled with bombed limbs, survive?
She strained to open her round, blood-red eyes and stared at the ceiling. She took out a long cashmere scarf with white tassels from the box, held it in her palm, and slowly stroked it with the calluses from her needlework.
After a long silence, the maid leaned against the door and tentatively asked, "Grandma, is it time to help you to bed?"
It was still just a silent, deathly echo of the wind.
She pushed the door open and saw part of Grandma Yuan's body hanging from the roof beam. She immediately screamed and rushed over.
"Grandma, Grandma, what are you doing?"
By the time several people had hurriedly lifted her down, the blood in her body had already congealed. She just stared silently into her almond-shaped eyes, her purplish-gray lips twitching incessantly.
After a long day, she was truly exhausted and slowly curled up into a ball, as if she were about to fall asleep.
The servants breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that she had finally fallen asleep. They exchanged glances and silently left the room.
When the last ray of light was blocked by the bedroom door, she opened her eyes clearly in the deathly silence. Her body was inexplicably cold and she could hardly control it. She slowly swallowed the acid that was rising from her stomach, savoring the bitter, fishy taste drop by drop on her tongue.
If simply lying down could evoke the same pain and torment as Jehovah being nailed to the cross, then all the Chinese people who suffered invasion, men and women, would lose all the adornment of their souls, grinning and lowering their eyelids as they lay one after another in the pool of blood of their loved ones, still wet from the previous night, silent, their hearts wailing a thousand times over.
When the night wind howls and pierces through the window, infiltrating the dreams of the unsuspecting, the tip of the tongue tastes the salty and spicy flavor of fireworks after a bombing.
Lankang was already a ruined and sorrowful city, the plight of families torn apart by separation and loss permeated almost every household. The Japanese, already suffering defeat after defeat on the main battlefield, displayed a ruthless, death-defying frenzy, relentlessly destroying everything they had gained. Perhaps this was still a glimmer of hope, a reminder that the hope of resistance was within reach; as long as they stood up and ran towards the light, then…
On either side of the street piled with corpses lay the ashen body of a woman. The luster on her face had begun to decay, yet a serene smile curved at the corners of her lips. She wore a wide-brimmed, purplish-blue cheongsam, its edges adorned with yellow pleats. This smiling woman, this smiling corpse, the luster on her face already beginning to decay.
The day after the bombing ended, when Hua Xusheng trembled as he picked up the receiver, he only heard the solemn crackling of the electrical current. His once sweet and gentle wife, who jokingly referred to herself as "Zhong Wuyan," never returned after going to the market to pick up her newly made clothes that day.
His legs, swollen and tinged with pain from kneeling for so long, controlled his body. The piano, now a jumbled mess after the tremors, was a far cry from its former elegance and composure. As he lost his balance and fell onto it, touching those ivory-white pieces, it finally let out one last piercing scream before falling silent forever.
Those longings and those letters that could not be sent have become hazy and distant, unreachable.
The poem "Chai Tou Feng" by Lu You and Tang Wan, with its repeated refrains of "No, no, no, wrong, wrong, wrong," vividly portrays the countless recollections and regrets of a helpless man and a utterly resigned woman in a chaotic old era. And when this poem is sung in a city falling apart and suffering from foreign invasion, all that remains is a profound and lingering sorrow.
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