Liaohuating

At the age of thirteen, she sold herself. The condition is: within three years, if you give birth to a son, you will not be able to give birth to Shen He. She won the bet. She took charge of the granary and became the hostess. But the troubled times did not allow her to reason - Manu killed the old master, took over the mansion, and made her kneel down again. When she was tied to a willow tree in Polygonum Ting for the third time, she was covered in wounds, but she smiled: "I have always only guarded my life." My younger sister, Hong Liao, is following her heart. She married a boatman, and her husband disappeared for six years. Everyone said the boat capsized. Hong Liao didn't believe it and lit a paper lantern every night. One gambles on one's life, the other guards one's heart. As long as the lights are on, the person is not dead. The water in Polygonum Ting is still flowing, and the wild flowers are getting redder every year. Concept: The concept of "Polygonium Flower Ting" 1. Two ways of living, the same life. Angelica dahurica bets on life, and Polygonum vulgaris protects the heart. One exchanged his body for a granary, and the other used a paper lantern to wait for someone to return home. They took two completely different roads, but they were both roads that women could walk in troubled times - narrow, steep, and one where they lost their feet while walking. Angelica dahurica crushed itself into pieces and used it as fertilizer, while Polygonum vulgaris ground itself into an everlasting lamp. One is rolling in the mud and the other is standing in the wind. Their methods are different, but at their core they are the same - neither of them leaves their lives to others to decide. The last scene shows the two sisters standing side by side on the river bank of Polygonum Ting, looking at the patch of red Polygonum flowers they planted. They did not distinguish who was right or wrong, or who deserved more life. They were just alive and standing. This is the first core expression of the novel: when the world is unkind, no matter how a person defends himself, he is worthy of himself. 2. Resilience is the only thing that cannot be taken away in troubled times. Troubled times have taken away many things - Bai Zhi lost Wang Rui, and Hong Polygonum lost six years; they took away food, housing, dignity, and relatives. But what cannot be taken away is their ability to continue living. Bai Zhi was tied to a willow tree, hit with stones, spat on, and covered in injuries. However, she was able to stand up and follow Hong Polygonum home the next day. Hong Liao spent six years hungry, freezing, and being advised to "stop waiting." However, she still lit the lamp every day and lit it again the next day. The light will go out, but people can light it again. So does Polygonum. The roots were dug up, the seedlings were trampled, and the stalks were burned. The next spring, they emerged from the cracks in the mud, thin and green, with a bud still stained by mud, and stretched out tremblingly into the light. They don't care about land, water, or weather. This is "toughness" - not that it has never been knocked down, but that it can grow back from the mud. 3. Daily life in famine years is the greatest resistance. There is a sentence in Cui Du's notes, which is both the lightest and the most important: "In troubled times, there are still people who stick to daily life, which is a sign of the endless way of heaven." In the era of "people eating each other", there were still people washing dishes, knitting straw sandals, lighting lamps, and waiting for someone to come back - these trivial, insignificant things that will not be written into the history books are precisely the evidence that the way of heaven has not been completely broken. Hong Liao was washing her clothes by the Bianshui River. Her hands were cracked by the cold and bleeding. When asked if it hurt, she said, "The water is cold, but you have to wash your clothes." When Wang Hesheng came back, the first thing he did was to cut a small pole and teach Shuisheng how to punt. Bai Zhi was choosing vegetables in the yard, picking yellow leaves and throwing them into the chicken coop. Finally, Angelica dahurica was able to squat quietly on the edge of the field, watching a new sprout emerge from the mud, and watch a spike of flowers turn from white to red. It is precisely because she can "become an ordinary person again" that those things that were once trampled to pieces can truly and completely come back to life. 4. The way women survive in troubled times - not written into history books, but remembered by Polygonum Flowers. This novel writes about the history of the late Tang Dynasty, but history only records the year in which Huang Chao conquered Yingzhou, the year in which he became emperor, and the year in which he was defeated. History has not recorded people like Bai Zhi and Hong Polygonum, and their names will not appear in any history books. Cui Du was the only one to record them. He kept them in his notes: "There are two women in Liaohuating... One village and one field, one fierce and one tough, with the same origin and different paths, both are strange flowers in troubled times." The world in the book, from the Huangchao uprising to the official and army counterattack, is all about the killings between men and the change of dynasties. Men use swords, guns, food, and women to fight, win and lose. Women hold up another world. No matter who is sitting on the stage, the next meal can be arranged, the porridge in the pot is not broken, the fire in the stove can still burn, and the paper lantern in front of the door can still light up until dawn. What this book actually writes is - history is changing, but life remains. It was they who held the thread of life and did not let it break. 5. Polygonum Flower: Live like a weed and die like a flower. The three words "Polygonium Flower Ting" itself are the condensation of the entire idea. Polygonum is a wild flower, not a peony or a plum blossom. It does not need to be cared for by gardeners or repeatedly sung by poets. It grows in the barren muddy ground by the water. It withers and blooms every year, falls and blooms, blooms and falls again, and does not need to be seen. It lives like a weed but dies like a flower. It is like Angelica dahuricae, also like Polygonum rhizome, and like countless women who have no names in troubled times. The children they gave birth to may have died, and the people they loved may not have come back, but they were still holding on to what little they could hold on to. When spring comes and the water flows again, those flowers will bloom again, blooming on the land after a forgotten war, blooming in places where no one remembers where people died. 6. The core of the idea "Polygonum Ting" is not about victory, but about still standing. Wars would end, dynasties would change, men's heads would hang on city walls, new flags would replace old ones. But as long as there are women sitting on the threshold, as long as there is porridge in the bowl, as long as the polygonum flowers still emerge from the mud in spring - the days of this land have not really ended. Polygonum flowers are getting redder every year.