Ruan Lingyu
In the spring of 1935, Ruan Lingyu, a brilliant pearl of a generation, fell on the bustling Shanghai Beach.
She achieved the glorious style of the Chinese silent film era, and when she left, she alarmed the entire Shanghai Beach, and the funeral procession of about 300,000 people surged through the streets of Shanghai.
A Reporter for The New York Times reported that it was the largest funeral in recent history.
As Ruan Lingyu herself said: "If I want to be a very famous person, I want to be a myth, I will die in my most beautiful times, the most fierce time." ”
It is impossible to know what kind of mood she said this sentence, but it seems that it also hints at her next fate, and in the end she still ended her life.
When she left, she was twenty-five years old, which was a good time for ordinary women to marry, and she was destined not to be an ordinary woman, she had already read countless people and tasted the warmth and coldness of human feelings.
The two men who appeared in turn in life, after the love disappeared, left her with only pain, it can be said that her short life was vigorous, but she did not escape the shackles of the fate of the times.
If her fame is inevitable, her life is as bright as fireworks, but it is also fleeting.
Then the two men who appeared in her life were the seeds of misfortune sown by fate, pushing her step by step to the end of her life.
From the bottom of society, to the intertwined world, he became the darling of the film industry.
Ruan Lingyu has not always been a Shanghai celebrity, she was born in shanghai's old hutong, just like her original name is Ruan Fenggen, living in the mud but alone with a radiance.
In 1916, when Ruan Lingyu was six years old, her father unfortunately died of illness, and she followed her mother and lived a life of wandering and helplessness in Shanghai.
In order to support her family, my mother worked as a maid in the home of a man surnamed Zhang in 1917 to support herself.
Because of the discrimination at the bottom since ancient times, her mother warned her from an early age not to let others know that she was a servant and would be looked down upon.
The most common thing she heard from her mother when she was a child was, "You have to confess your destiny!" ”
Her mother's words made her have a deep inferiority complex from an early age, and she took root in her life, she was sensitive and weak, and she lived a very insecure life.
Ruan Lingyu has had a desire to study since she was a child, and in order to change her daughter's fate, her mother pleaded with the owner to let her enter the foreign school at half the price.
This correct decision freed her from the fate of ignorance, and it was also the important identity that her mother gave her in life.
That year, she changed her second name, went to Chongde Girls' High School as Ruan Yuying, and met zhang Damin, the fourth son of the Zhang family, the first man in her life.
Ruan Lingyu (right)
Fifteen-year-old Ruan Lingyu, she was now a young girl, and she was young and untouched. Her simple nature deeply attracted the rich young master Zhang Damin.
In order to pursue Ruan Lingyu, Zhang Damin, from casual surprises to small gifts, is also willing to spend money for her.
He was extremely sincere from his attitude to his actions, and the girl's heart could withstand such a stir, and soon Ruan Lingyu began to accept such a trade-off.
Zhang Damin was six years older than her, and had been influenced by the idea of freedom and equality on May Fourth, so he did not take the concept of the door to heart at all, and the young girl who was stirred by spring did not escape the gentle township of the rich young master in the end.
Ruan Lingyu and Zhang Damin
In this way, Ruan Lingyu began her first love at the age of sixteen, and originally thought that she had found a home in her life, but Zhang Mu was extremely opposed to this unequal marriage.
The two, who were very distressed, quickly decided to live together.
Zhang Damin moved out of the Zhang family gate. The two who are still in love are like glue, and he often brings Ruan Lingyu to high society.
On the slowly flowing dance floor, Ruan Lingyu learned various dances, but she also laid the groundwork for her second tragic love.
At that time, Ruan Lingyu dropped out of school for love, she originally thought that she could be a happy woman behind Zhang Damin, but she could retreat from the glory of love, and they were facing a place of chicken feathers in life.
After Zhang Damin's father died, he let Ruan Lingyu marry him in order to share more inheritance in the family.
In his father's spiritual hall, Zhang Mu had to agree to the marriage, and eventually he received an inheritance of 100,000 yuan.
However, the good times did not last long, Zhang Damin soon spent all the family subsidies, and became obsessed with gambling, the rich young master coveted fun, and Ruan Lingyu, who had always been passive, lived under his eyes.
It was also in 1926 that the sixteen-year-old Ruan Lingyu came out to make a living, and she appeared on the screen with amazing acting talent in the casting of the movie "Nominal Couple".
Appreciated by the film director, she changed her name to Ruan Lingyu, and appeared in the film industry with this new identity, and Zhang Damin, who was addicted to gambling, began to use her as a cash cow.
She examined their unequal relationship for the first time and began to become financially independent.
The love between the two is also struggling on the verge of dying, and Ruan Lingyu at that time still loves Zhang Damin, but the tolerance again and again is exchanged for intensification.
Ruan Lingyu began to be disappointed in Zhang Damin, and as a result, she verified step by step that her choice was wrong, and the man who had sworn to the sea alliance in front of her was not worth it, and it was Zhang Damin who pushed her into the abyss of eternal disaster.
Some scholars have studied: "Ruan Lingyu's life is a tragedy that is connected by men."
Ruan Lingyu, who is at the peak of her career, can completely retire and achieve her career, but it is also the experience and worldliness of her youth that she finally did not hide from the saying that women want to find men to rely on.
In 1923, the "January 28 Incident" broke out, Ruan Lingyu took refuge in Hong Kong with her family, and her love for Zhang Damin also disappeared in oppression.
In the same year, Ruan Lingyu attended a cocktail party and met tang Jishan, a rich tea king, on the dance floor, a man like a father, who quickly opened her heart.
Tang Jishan is different from the rhetoric of young men, he has learned about Ruan Lingyu's identity and experience, step by step to make the woman who loves to faint submit to him, Ruan Lingyu is no exception.
Tang Jishan and Ruan Lingyu
In order to express her love, Tang Jishan bought her a small three-story Western-style building on Xinzha Road in Shanghai and promised to live with her.
Tang Jishan took Ruan Lingyu's mother with her, raised her adopted daughter with her, and took a stake in her film company, such a sense of safety and steadfastness that Zhang Damin did not have.
Ruan Lingyu was quickly impressed by this man, when she thought she was going to step into a happy marriage, but the tragic end of the woman who had once been Tang Jishan's side did not wake her up.
As Tang Jishan's former lover, movie star Zhang Weyun warned her, "If you insist on going your own way, then my present is your tomorrow." ”
Ruan Lingyu stills
Ruan Lingyu always believes that Tang Jishan can live a good life with her, she interprets what is called love and righteousness, and also profoundly tells others that women will become unfortunate if they lose themselves.
Tang Jishan's love is like a boiled frog in warm water, Ruan Lingyu is also unwilling to come out in the ivory tower she has woven, and Tang Jishan's appearance seems to make up for her lack of security.
She and Tang Jishan had a pleasant time, but with it came abyss and despair.
After Zhang Damin and Ruan Lingyu separated, they were unwilling to watch the women of the past throw themselves into the arms of others.
Zhang Damin spent all of Ruan Lingyu's breakup fee, he first pestered Ruan Lingyu and threatened her to give him four hundred yuan of living expenses every month, otherwise he would explode the intimate relationship between the two to tabloid reporters.
Ruan Lingyu wanted to calm things down, but no amount of money could make up for Zhang Damin's greedy pockets.
Tang Jishan was not afraid of threats, he proposed a living allowance of one hundred yuan per month, Zhang Damin first compromised, but did not think of letting the two go.
Later, Zhang Damin used tabloids to use public opinion to push Ruan Lingyu to the cusp of the storm, and even published his secret story with Ruan Lingyu, pushing the woman he loved in the past to the crowd to humiliate.
At this time, Ruan Lingyu thought that the man behind her, Tang Jishan, would carry the storm of public opinion for her, but what was waiting for her was Tang Jishan's more ruthless knife.
There was no shelter, and all she was left with was endless cold violence and verbal abuse.
At this time, Zhang Damin, who was not satisfied, filed another complaint against Tang Jishan and Ruan Lingyu for the crime of bigamy.
He slandered Ruan Lingyu and Tang Jishan for having an improper relationship, and even said that his money was taken away by Ruan Lingyu in order to maintain the relationship between himself and Tang Jishan.
Rumors were like a flood beast that soon devoured Ruan Lingyu.
At this time, Ruan Lingyu was already tortured and exhausted, and she had to publish a newspaper to clarify that she had become financially independent when she separated from Zhang Damin, but the crowd of onlookers would only add fuel to the fire.
Tang Jishan, however, found a new love and hugged Ruan Lingyu's friend Liang Saizhen into his arms, and it turned out that Ruan Lingyu really became the next Zhang Zhiyun, and she withdrew very badly.
The storm of public opinion has not been suppressed, and what awaits Ruan Lingyu is the defendant's seat standing in the courtroom, and Tang Jishan's cold words and violence against her.
Zhang Damin's harm to her exists overnight, then Tang Jishan makes her lose hope in this world, and she has never received a good end in the love she yearns for.
The relationship between Ruan Lingyu and Zhang Damin is like the first movie she starred in, "A Named Couple". There was a door-to-door prejudice between them and were not consented to by feudal parents.
In this way, the two men in Ruan Lingyu's life did not give her a precise name and identity, and such a relationship is equivalent to a pathology.
Her relationship with Tang Jishan, in the eyes of outsiders, is a third party has always been questioned, Ruan Lingyu has been tortured and wronged in these two relationships, and has never found a reliable backer.
If Ruan Lingyu, who is extremely popular, has less attachment to love and dedication to herself, whether there will be a different ending, we have no way of knowing.
Ruan Lingyu has acted in twenty-nine silent films in her life, and the fate of each film has an inseparable relationship with tragedy, as if it is also telling the life of this woman in silence.
She seems to have an inexplicable attachment to love, and with Tang Jishan's alienation and indifference to her, she met Cai Chusheng, a director who pitied her during the filming of "New Woman".
The two became more and more close to each other as the film progressed, but the man stopped at etiquette, and he kept his bottom line and broke off relations with Ruan Lingyu for the sake of his wife and his own reputation.
At this time, Ruan Lingyu has become infamous, as the line in the movie "New Woman", "How I want to be a new woman, a new woman who can get rid of my fate, but I am too weak." ”
She was still a product of the times, and in that era when women were not completely liberated, she was more like a victim of a long-doomed ending.
Zhang Damin's crazy revenge broke through her psychological defense line, and all that was left was endless collapse, while Tang Jishan on the other side had already ignored her life and death, and she did not choose to hold on again.
On March 7, 1935, she and tang Jishan, who seemed to be in a mysterious state, attended a dinner party at Lai Minwei's house.
She dressed up brightly, talked and laughed at the dinner party, hugged every friend present, and everyone thought she had walked out.
On that day, the two returned to the three-story small Western-style building on Xinzha Road in Shanghai, and in the face of Tang Jishan's cold words, Ruan Lingyu rarely stopped responding.
The next evening, Ruan Lingyu asked her mother for a bowl of hot noodles, and then swallowed the thirty sleeping pills and noodles that had been prepared into her stomach.
Ruan Lingyu funeral
There were two suicide notes quietly on the desk in her room, and she said to Tang Jishan, "If you hadn't beaten me that night and hit me again tonight, I probably wouldn't have done this!" ”
A short number of letters, Ruan Lingyu's humility in love we can not empathize, from Tang Jishan's few slaps, perhaps interrupted her hope of life.
When her mother found her, Ruan Lingyu was already dying. When Tang Jishan sent her to the hospital for rescue, she was only worried about whether this matter would destroy her reputation, and the best rescue time was delayed by several turnovers in the small hospital.
Faced with the pressure of outside public opinion, Tang Jishan used a forged suicide note to blame Ruan Lingyu's departure on "fearsome words.".
A generation of silent film queen Xiang Yuyu died, just four big words, it is inevitable that it is a little too perfunctory, of course, it can not summarize her brilliant life, at that time people still have doubts.
After witnessing the real suicide note, Liang Saizhen also suffered from the torment of conscience day by day, and in the end she still chose to publish the contents of Ruan Lingyu's real suicide note in a newspaper.
Liang Saizhen
Although it is only a nameless tabloid, it is still uncovered, and the cause of Ruan Lingyu's death has not really been extinguished in the tide of history, which should be a consolation for fans who love Ruan Lingyu.
However, after the truth is revealed, can the remorse of the outside world extinguish the anger in Ruan Lingyu's heart? Can it soothe the harm of public opinion to a woman?
Everything in this world has nothing to do with her, and no amount of regret in the outside world can save a living life.
Mr. Lu Xun later wrote "On the Fear of People's Words", in which he said: "This sensational event has gradually become snubbed after a theory of emptiness. ”
After Ruan Lingyu's death, Tang Jishan soon had a new love, she married the right family of the Great Beauty Queen of the Republic of China, and finally because of the change in huaxin's personality, this marriage did not end well.
Wang Right Home
Zhang Damin used her identity as her ex-husband to consume her reputation and frantically amass wealth in the Hong Kong director's film about "Nguyen Ling Yu".
He was not enterprising as a second ancestor, living a poor life, and at the end of his life, we cannot guess that he had the slightest regret.
But as the initiator of the fearsome words, Ruan Lingyu should regret meeting him.
For Zhang Damin's suicide note, she wrote: "Damin, I was forced to die by you, you really have no conscience, now that I am dead, you are satisfied!" ”
It's just that no matter how they are, it's only a matter of people who are still alive.
Ruan Lingyu came out of the funeral
Ruan Lingyu's life was forever fixed at the age of twenty-five, as she herself said, forever young.
The two men she had met in her life had made her lose so badly that she could only end her life in despair.
Her life has been in the mire, brilliant, questioned, and despaired in the brilliance that others can't see.
Ruan Lingyu is still a product of the fate of the times, warning us that women can only take the helm of life if they pin their happiness on themselves.