November 1939. Hu Shoufiao, then a 32-year-old beautiful writer and underground party member, was working on her full-length novel “The New Old Times” in Shanghai when she suddenly received a secret notice to go to Hong Kong to meet with Liao Chengzhi, then head of the Hong Kong office of the Eighth Route Army.
In this meeting, which would affect Hu’s life, she met not only Liao Chengzhi, but also another bigwig, Pan Hannian. Pan opened the door and asked her to give up her writing career and seek an opportunity to enter the intelligence organization “No. 76” of the Wang False regime as an intelligence contact. “If someone calls you a traitor in the future, you can’t defend yourself; if you do, it will be bad.”
Before that, Hu Shoufei had already made a name for himself in the Shanghai literary world. She was one of the four most talented women, along with Su Qing, Zhang Eiling and Pan Liudai. She was the first to translate and publish Gorky’s “Haiyan”, which became a household name in China and has been a textbook masterpiece.
Hu Shoufei was born in 1907 in Yuyu County, Shanxi Province, where her father was a Qing dynasty scholar and served as a local governor. When she was nine years old, her father died and her family fell through the cracks. Her mother, Xu Xiufeng, was an extremely rare woman of the olden days who knew how to read and write, and in her hardships laid a solid foundation for Hu’s education. But unfortunately, she died at the age of 15 and was forced to move to Nanjing with her aunt, alone and without support.
In order to escape the fate of early marriage, Hu Shoufiao took her sister to Shanghai to pursue her studies, where she met her valued friend, Liu Daoheng, a member of the League. In 1928, Hu entered the National Central University, first in the Philosophy Department and then in the Chinese Department. During this time, she became fascinated with new poetry and tried her hand at writing. She quickly made a name for herself in the Shanghai literary world.
Hu Shoufang’s younger sister, Hu Xiufeng, was passionate about politics and joined the underground party at an early age, devoting herself to various social activities in Shanghai, and her home was also one of the strongholds of the underground party in Shanghai. Under her sister’s influence, Hu joined the underground in 1932 at the age of 25 and became the backbone of the Left Wing Writers’ Union (LWU).
In 1935, Hu Shoufei published his poem “Song on the Pacific” and became the editor of the up-and-coming publication “New Poetry”. He then entered the film industry and composed the theme song of the hit movie “Cross Street”, “In Spring”. This popular song can still be heard frequently in KTVs today:
In spring comes the scent of a hundred flowers
The warm sun shines in the sky
The sun shines on my torn clothes
……
I met a good girl
Dear good girl, a good and innocent girl
No need to be sad, no need to be hurt Life is like going to war
Then Hu Shou Fei also crossed over into the acting circle, starring in the famous play “Sai Jin Hua”. In order to have a smoother star path, she even underwent a nose job, which was rare at the time. At this time, Hu Shou Fei, already had a loud stage name – Guan Lu.
With her talent and beauty, and at the right age, this beautiful writer seemed to have waded a visible path in the paper-drenched literary world of Shanghai Bund.
However, her life was completely changed by a recommendation from her sister.
After the establishment of the Wang False Regime, some of the senior officials of the Wang False Regime were actually wall-riders in the four-way tug-of-war and involvement of the State, the Communist Party, Wang and Japan. Secretly, they were in contact with all other parties, so that they could leave a way out for themselves when the situation changed in the future. Li Shiqun, the intelligence chief of the Wang regime, was one of these people. The Soviet Union also needed to make this connection because of the need to fight against the Nationalist government together, and the enemy’s enemy was a friend.
After Li Shiqun sent signals to the Soviet Union through the multi-faceted spy Yuan Shushi, the choice of who to contact and liaise with was the most crucial issue. Hu Shoufang, the sister of Hu Shoufang, was the most suitable candidate – Li Shiqun had been arrested and imprisoned by the Central Committee, and in a crisis, Hu Shoufang, who had a friendship with Li Shiqun, took in Li’s pregnant wife, for which Li Shiqun had been very grateful. But unfortunately, at that time, Hu Xiufeng had been sent to Hubei by the underground party to carry out the task, and could not be separated from it for a while. She then recommended her sister, Guan Lu, who was also acquainted with Li Shiqun.
This is what led to the scene at the beginning of this article. Of course, such a task is not easy for anyone – traitors such a crime in any era, for anyone is extremely heavy and difficult to turn over the burden. Jumping into the Yellow River is easy, but it is too difficult to clear. Although Guan Lu was a member of the organization, she was not without hesitation. But Pan Hannian assured her that she could be transferred to the Soviet Union after the mission. At that time, Guan Lu was already passionately in love with another underground party member, Wang Bingnan, who was also engaged in United Front work in the National Unification Area. Out of the fantasy of reuniting her lovers, Guan Lu took on this hot assignment.
As the head of the famous Wang’s intelligence organization “No. 76”, Li Shiqun was also a member of the underground and had been sent to the Gebelow School in the Soviet Union to train intelligence officers. He had experience in the Kuomintang, the Communist Party, and the Wang faction, and had a rich resume and was a shrewd person. He knew all about Guan Lu’s background from the very beginning. So instead of Guan Lu spying on intelligence, it was Li Shiqun who deliberately “fed” the intelligence. Li Shiqun even gave Guan Lu a monthly allowance of 200 silver dollars.
In this way, Guan Lu actually stayed by Li Shiqun’s side as an intelligence contact and facilitated three meetings between Li Shiqun and Pan Hannian from 1941 to 1943, and to show his sincerity in cooperation, Li Shiqun gave a lot of checks in private. He even introduced Pan Hannian to Wang Jingwei in 1943, and Pan was able to have secret talks with the chief of the strategy section of The Japanese Central China Dispatch Army, Senior Colonel Dujia. …… These experiences, which should have been rotten in his stomach, were later mentioned by Pan Hannian out of necessity during the political campaign, but became the cause of decades of injustice that could not be redressed later on –The first time I saw him, he was only carrying out orders.
Of course, for Guan Lu, the inevitable consequence was the rebuke of traitors – a beautiful leftist writer with a promising future, a backbone of the literary world, a rising star in acting, who yesterday was writing “I’d rather die fighting for my country than be a national survivor”, but today turned around and actually defected to a senior official of the Wang Fake regime, which is even faster than the speed of today’s hagiography, and the topic itself is already explosive enough.
After a few years of suffering, Guan Lu thought she had finally completed her mission and could go to the Soviet Union, but she was told to continue her infiltration as a pawn to liaise with the Japanese Communist Party. She also joined the Japanese writer Toshiko Sato as editor of the magazine “Women’s Voice”, and once went to Tokyo as a representative of Chinese women to attend the “Greater East Asia Literary Conference” and spoke on the topic of “Sino-Japanese Women’s Cultural Exchange”. …… So, the traitor’s business card was difficult to remove. The business card of a traitor was difficult to remove.
At this point, Guan Lu, who was extremely tired physically and mentally, had developed a severe nervous breakdown and began to experience hallucinations. Repeatedly reported to his superiors for transfer, but received no response. It was not until 1945, when the Japanese surrendered, that the Military Intelligence issued a “purge order” in Shanghai, and Guan Lu, as a “traitor”, was listed in the list, with her life in danger. But because her reputation was already ruined, her superiors not only did not clarify her, but also tried to clear her relationship with the outside world. In order to prevent her from falling into the hands of the Central Committee, she was allowed to end her career as an infiltrator and was sent to the Soviet Union.
But in contrast to the yearning for the bitter end, Guan Lu was greeted with even greater humiliation and blow.
Dear good girl, innocent good girl
Don’t be sad, don’t be hurt, the future has its own wind and waves
Steady the rudder and drum the oars, even if it is a big ocean
Don’t wander forward, there is light at the end of the darkness
–Guan Lu’s “In Spring
Guan Lu’s lover, Wang Bingnan, was in charge of foreign affairs at that time. Because of Guan Lu’s image as a “traitor”, his superiors thought that his open relationship with Guan Lu would affect the organization, so they ordered Wang Bingnan to write a letter to break up with Guan Lu. The relationship with his lover, the only spiritual pillar of Guan Lu’s years of submersion, collapsed and he was devastated. The writer Lou Shiyi once met Guan Lu in the liberated area of Huaiyin: “She was not very well and was restless. One day she went to the Xinhua bookstore and was discovered by a young man from Shanghai, who shouted ‘catch the female traitor’ and became frightened …… nervous disorder. The “I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to do this.”
With her reputation ruined, Guan Lu, who imagined using literature as a support, suffered another blow, and her work was refused to be published by her own Xinhua Daily …… The editor bluntly said to Guan Lu: “You should consider the honor of the party newspaper, not your personal honor.” During the “Rectification Campaign” in the Soviet Union, Guan Lu became the focus of isolation and was ordered to “explain the problem” several times. It was not until her old superiors wrote a written certificate that she was able to regain her freedom. After that, she was ordered to stop using the pseudonym “Guan Lu”.
After 1949, Guan Lu was assigned to work on film scripts under the Film Bureau of the Ministry of Culture, and when Pan Hannian’s case was discovered in 1955, Guan Lu, as a former subordinate, was arrested and imprisoned in Gongdeilin Prison. Her schizophrenia worsened in prison and she was released two years later, but she lost her job and had a hard time. After that, she was involved in the case of the “Ding Ling and Chen Qi Xia anti-Party group”. After repeatedly writing letters and begging, he was placed in the Commercial Press.
In 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, Guan Lu, who was already 60 years old, was arrested again and imprisoned in Qincheng Prison, where he spent eight years before being released. In prison, Guan Lu had several mental breakdowns, and she polished an iron nail into a needle every day. Those old superiors who knew her well were either in jail like Pan Hannian or did not speak up for her at all. After her release from prison, she was put directly into a nursing home.
In May 1980, the dying Guan Lu was seriously ill and had difficulty taking care of herself. In March 1982, after Pan Hannian was rehabilitated, Guan Lu, who was at the end of her rope, also received a rehabilitated notice. On December 5 of the same year, after writing her memoirs, the 75-year-old Guan Lu committed suicide by taking sleeping pills. She was unmarried and had no children. The memoirs she left behind, for conceivable reasons, will not see the light of day.
Maybe you’re dead.
Among the tens of millions of dead people
You died
In a square full of corpses
You died
As a slave
You, dead!
–Guan Lu, A Night Without Stars
This great talent, famous in the Republic of China, had only one children’s literature “Apple Orchard” published in the long years after 1949, and no other works.
When she committed suicide, she was accompanied only by a plastic doll and a photo of her old lover.
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