On March 26, 1897, Su Xuelin, who was known as the "Five Talented Women of the Republic of China" with Bingxin, Ding Ling and others, was born in the family of Shangjia, and her growth was like a flower in a greenhouse, surrounded by the love of her parents.
However, at that time, women were bound by feudal etiquette, and reading and literacy seemed to be the preserve of men. Su Xuelin was forced to practice female celebrity in the boudoir, but her heart longed for the sweet spring of knowledge.
Luckily, she had several brothers who loved her, and they passed on what they had learned to her, nourishing her soul. At the age of nine, an opportunity to change his fate quietly came.
The uncle who returned from studying in Japan asked a question to test his nephew at home, and Su Xuelin, who had never entered the school, was the first to answer correctly. Her intelligence shocked her uncle, who had the insight to help her get the chance to enter the school.
However, his father's vision was limited, and he only hoped that Su Xuelin would be literate and hyphenated. Accompanied by his brothers, Su Xuelin spent several years in private school.
But when her father wanted her to return to tradition and wait for the fate of a man and a woman to marry, she chose to resist.
She secretly applied for the Beijing Girls' High School and stood out with high scores and won the opportunity to enroll. With the helpless connivance of her parents, she began her education.
During his study time in Beijing, Su Xuelin's soul was liberated. She is deeply aware that as a woman in the new era, she must bravely pursue freedom and live her own color.
Therefore, she resolutely chose to go to France for further study, hoping to expand her horizons in that broader world.
But the haze of fate suddenly came, and the torture of water and soil adaptation and illness forced her to say goodbye to the years of knowledge in advance. The changes in the family, the death of her father, and the pleading of her mother made her have to accept her marriage to Zhang Baoling.
Although Zhang Baoling is also a talented man who has returned from studying abroad and has a deep love for her, Su Xuelin's heart has never been able to accept this marriage. In Su Xuelin's heart, that man has never been truly recognized by her.
Their marriage is like a cold island, even in the years after marriage, they are in separate camps and sleeping in separate rooms. This loveless marriage, like a long winter, made Zhang Baoling's heart gradually frozen.
Although the two have the name of husband and wife, they seem to be separated by a chasm, their hearts have long been far away, and the divorce procedures have not been signed.
In 1961, Zhang Baoling died in depression, and this loveless marriage seemed to end. Su Xuelin, who was freed, did not choose to step into the palace of marriage again, but chose to walk through the rest of his life alone.
In 1999, the 102-year-old man confided on his deathbed the reason for insisting on different rooms: "The personalities are incompatible, but the name of husband and wife is warm and sheltery." What is revealed in her words is the adherence to traditional morality, but also the helplessness of self-choice.
Su Xuelin's life is full of helplessness and struggle, an unyielding journey of knowledge, a desire for freedom, and a struggle against fate. In the torrent of the times, she strives to pursue herself, but she is also bound by tradition, which is full of emotion.