A hundred-foot palace wall and a thousand years of ethics cannot lock the heart of a young man.

Through a black and white photo, looking at his sharp facial contours, delicate three-dimensional facial features, and neat short hair, he was wearing a pair of round-rimmed glasses and a handsome suit. Intellectuals who returned from overseas during the Republic of China. The melancholy and confusion in his eyebrows could not conceal the slightly raised corners of his mouth at that moment. The flash of joy in his curved eyebrows only lasted for a few seconds, but it was captured by a highly skilled photographer. So, with his gentle eyes, he was frozen in that moment. Moreover, this was also the first good impression he left on me. He was the last emperor Puyi. A legendary figure, now, I want to get close to him again across time and space.

In that turbulent era when the country was in turmoil, Puyi was lucky. He was born in Prince Chun’s Mansion, where he had good clothes and fine food, where he had kind grandparents, parents who loved him very much, and a strong family. His background, his enviable life experience, and the high palace walls separated him from the war-torn world outside. However, he just played with his younger siblings in the flower-filled courtyard, or held a book in his hands under the windy window. chant. Perhaps, this scene was seen by the powerful Cixi. She thought of her son who died young, how his son was once so well-behaved, sensible and loved reading, and how sweetly his son followed her and called her Niang. This scene made the corners of her eyes moisten a little, and the soft heartstring in her heart was finally touched. So, she connected him to the Forbidden City with motherly love, and gave him the best of everything, even the throne that was beneath one person and above ten thousand people. However, she also gave him endless pressure, making him breathless. The moment the young Puyi stepped into the hundred-foot palace wall in a chariot, the trajectory of his destiny was already quietly changing.

He ran desperately in the magnificent palace, stumbled through the Three Palaces and Sixth Courtyard, but could never find the direction home. Finally, he squatted beside the dry well in the cold palace with his head in his hands and cried silently. . He called Ama Eniang in a low voice in the dim yellow palace. His shallow moans passed through the huge palace but there was no echo. Finally, he curled up and hid in a dark corner, shivering. During the day, he cried and shouted to go back to the palace, but this heartbreaking homesickness was only rewarded by Cixi's scolding. When his resistance exhausted Cixi's kindness little by little, he finally got It was Cixi's stern warning and threat. In the end, for the sake of the home he could never return to, he gave up the struggle. From then on, he read the Four Books and the Five Classics and abided by the Three Cardinal Guidelines and the Five Constant Rules. From then on, he became a famous but powerless puppet emperor in the hundred-foot Forbidden City.

The pear blossoms have turned white again and again, and the child bound by thousands of years of ethics has grown into a graceful young man, but his eyes are always covered with a layer of melancholy and sadness that cannot be concealed. He has no control over his life, not even his marriage. Under the control of the powerful, he married Queen Wanrong and Concubine Shu Wenxiu at the same time. Perhaps God favored him a little, but within the cold palace walls, he actually developed some affection for Wanrong, and the two spent their time together. During the wonderful few years, they also learned to speak fluent English together, and each gave themselves English names. Moreover, Puyi and his younger siblings had close contacts, and they often communicated about foreign cultures in English. During that period, Puyi was extremely excited and ecstatic, as if more than ten years of oppression and suffering were swept away. This time, he ignored the so-called feudal ethics and even ignored his status as emperor. He cut off the long braid that the Manchus were proud of. He also took off his dragon robe and put on a suit and glasses. However, the mentally and physically exhausted Cixi also I can only turn a blind eye. Perhaps, that period was the best time in Puyi's life. At that time, he had the person he loved most by his side, and at the same time, his younger brothers and sisters were also by his side. , the most gratifying thing is that he can finally do what he wants to do.

But happiness is short-lived. Even if he abdicates, it cannot bring stability for a lifetime. In the end, the Manchu nobles were expelled from the Forbidden City. In the turmoil of fireworks, he drifted like a homeless child. He was wandering in Prince Chun's Mansion, he was helpless at the Japanese Embassy in Tianjin, and he was confused in his rented house "Zhang Yuan". He established his own puppet Manchu Empire with the help of the Japanese. He longed to rebuild the Qing Dynasty and regain the prosperity of the Kangxi and Qianlong eras. However, under the supervision and control of the Japanese, he was nothing more than a puppet. The difficult life made him even more confused and hopeless about the future. He knew the ambitions of the Japanese, but he had to rely on the Japanese. When the Japanese's inflated ambitions were increasingly exposed, and they even clearly ignored him, he realized that there was little hope of restoration, so he fled Tianjin to the Soviet Union, but what he got in return was several years in prison.

Puyi's fate was ill-fated, and even his marriage and love also experienced ups and downs. On the way to escape, Wenxiu successfully escaped with the help of her family and relied on the laws of the Republic of China to divorce Puyi. For Wenxiu, she had been holding on for many years, but Puyi could not tolerate her in his heart. She was worried about her own life. Sad, sad for Manqing's lingering life, so she escaped from the cage that suffocated her. But this divorce incident caused Puyi great humiliation. He frowned and blamed Wanrong for all this, and the love between the two was lost in the drift. There were five women in his life. Queen Wanrong and the nobleman Tan Yuling died tragically. Concubine Shu Wenxiu divorced and ran away. The nobleman Li Yuqin waited for him for ten years. His wife after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Li Shuxian, accompanied him to the end of his life.

For him, he is lucky. There are people waiting for him to protect him when he is down, but he is incompetent. He cannot give his woman a stable life. He does not really protect everyone who appears in his life. woman. When he looked back and faced the vicissitudes of life, he was choked and softly recounted all his joys and sorrows in "My First Half of Life". As time flies, the first half of his life is enough for him to recall the second half of his life. Maybe he will laugh in the memories, maybe cry in the memories, maybe cry and laugh in the memories. But these are not important. What is important is that there once was a young man who flew out of the Forbidden City during the war. He flew lonely and messy, and was covered in bruises, but he still flew out and lived a happy second half of his life. The man has passed away, but the book still exists. That story can only be read carefully in the first half of his life.

Sometimes I think that if he had not entered the palace and not become the emperor, maybe he would still be the carefree young man in the palace of Prince Chun, listening to the cicadas in the wind, playing the piano and chanting books, and he would still be drunk in this life. You will meet a sweetheart. During the day, you will spend the day in front of the palace, admiring the flowers blooming and falling, watching the clouds rolling in the sky. After dark, your red sleeves will be fragrant and you will read at night. When they read the most interesting part, they will lower their eyebrows. Look at each other and smile. If the dynasty is defeated and the palace ceases to exist, they will abandon everything and live the fireworks life of ordinary people in anonymity. They will join hands in the countryside to watch the changes of the four seasons and the change of day and night, laugh at the changes of the whole life, and then slowly grow old together. Or maybe, under the trend of the May Fourth New Thought, he will bravely break out of his feudal family like Juehui in "Family" and join China's liberation struggle, but these are not out of selfish motives to save the Qing Dynasty. , but he realized that dynasty overthrow was an inevitable process, so he would rather let go of his small self and achieve his great self. Maybe, he will go abroad for further study, maybe, he will escape into Buddhism, maybe, he will have many possibilities. But no matter what is possible, I think the result will be better than now.

The young man standing on the city wall always tried to break through the feudal ethics. He always longed to fly out of the tall Forbidden City. Although he lived the first half of his life involuntarily, his heart had already flown over thousands of mountains and rivers, and he had already seen all the joys and pleasures in the world. The smoke of the Republic of China has dissipated, but there is still a dark fragrance in the sky over history, a unique fragrance about that boy. I seemed to see him from Mo Xiang's words, and saw him smiling at me. From then on, he lived between my eyes and eyes for all my life.