英文(6)：八十年代清华【工科男】的情书

剑桥博士HimalayaSoft

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我们相约去香山看红叶，

谁也没想到，

工人们的怒吼、同学的退缩、拳击手那道闪电般的摆拳…

然后，时间慢了。

我看着那个高大的身躯缓缓倒下，

在一种莫名的冲动驱使下，我也冲了上去，

踢出了毫无力量的一脚。

那一刻，我瞥见了思雨惊惶的眼神。

当我忐忑地把这一切告诉思雨时，

她没有责备我被公安局罚款，

反而轻轻握住了我的手。

“那一刻，你站在同学身边，”她说，

“现在，我站在你身边。”

声明：时隔三十九年，柯南同学们对那场香山之战的记忆已相互出入，甚至彼此矛盾。此处仅选取其中两人的说法，仅代表他们对那场战斗的描绘。

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第 6 章 《 另一个清华》





柯南的家信：“这笔罚金，是我们一帮同学出去玩，与一工人打架，受公安局发的，大家的事，大家分担，没什么。"

A group of us classmates got into a fight with a factory worker. We were fined by the Public Security Bureau. We shouldered it as a group and shared the fine — no big deal.（柯南’s letter to parents, 1986.11.15）

Life at Tsinghua was never lived in a vacuum. Beyond the classrooms, the library, and even the tender, uncertain moments with 思雨, campus days carried their own raw edges. Clashes broke out suddenly—sometimes absurd, sometimes brutal, but always unforgettable. For 柯南, these moments became part of the fabric of his student years.

The 香山 Fight

At the entrance of 香山 Park in 1986, a few of 柯南’s classmates got into a quarrel with three factory workers. Words flared, shoves followed, and suddenly the workers charged. 柯南 turned and ran, twisting his head to keep an eye on the oncoming men. But the boxer in his class did not retreat. He stood at the very front — the only one still facing the attackers as everyone else fell back. 柯南 was about four steps behind him, slightly to the left, his neck craned as he watched the lead assailant.

He remembered it vividly. The boxer’s punch flashed out like lightning, and he puzzled over why the worker made no move to strike back. Then the man’s body seemed to slow, as if the whole scene had slipped into slow motion, while the boxer stood ready to deliver another blow. But no second strike was needed. The worker sagged and collapsed to the ground. 柯南 remembered rushing forward, kicking him with his soft cloth shoes, and shouting, “Toss him into the pond!” Half a dozen of his classmates also rushed back to attack the man on the ground, two even colliding with each other. Some chased the other two workers. For a moment, chaos consumed everything — people running in every direction.

Moments later, 柯南 saw the boxer being held by several men walking toward a nearby courtyard. His classmates rushed after them, only to realize the men were plainclothes police. Soon uniformed officers appeared, some brandishing their batons to hold the students back. The police led the boxer into the courtyard — which turned out to be the park’s police station. Only then did 柯南 realize the fight had played out entirely within view of the authorities. Inside, two classmates were questioned and released, while the boxer alone remained in custody.

Thus ended their trip to 香山 to view the beauty of the maple leaves turning red.

The Boxer’s Account

Thirty-nine years later, the boxer recounted his side of the story to the author:

“There’d been some quarreling between the workers and my classmates. I didn’t know why, but I sensed I needed to be ready. I slipped off my wristwatch, handed it to Zhao, and told him to stay aside. There was some pushing and shoving, and then the workers suddenly rushed us. Most of our classmates pulled back, but I found myself face-to-face with a tall, broad-shouldered man. I feinted with my left, then threw an overhand right (摆拳) at his face. That was all. He dropped.”

The boxer paused, then went on:

“Chaos followed. Our classmates chased the other two workers, and before I knew it, two or three men were rushing at me. I turned and ran, wondering why there seemed to be more and more ‘workers’ appearing. I tried to fight them off, but in the end I was exhausted and gave up. I stooped down, covering my head with my hands, waiting for the blow to land. But, to my surprise, nothing came. They identified themselves as police. They held me and took me to the station — which, it turned out, was right there at the park entrance.”

The boxer ended his story:

“Later, at the station, they asked why I didn’t stop fighting after they’d identified themselves as police. I told them that in the heat of battle I couldn’t hear a word they said — I only knew I was being chased and attacked by three men.”

Solidarity

By the next day, word spread that the boxer was being held in a nearby jail. A large group of classmates biked there to show support. Alarmed, the university authorities quickly dispatched the class advisor to disperse them with promises that the university would intervene.

Back on campus, his classmates met again and made a decision: the boxer would not bear the burden alone. One after another, they admitted they too had struck the fallen worker. Some had only kicked once, others barely touched him, but all were determined to share responsibility.

柯南 stepped forward as well. He said he had kicked the worker — a blow that, he knew, had done no real harm. 思雨 worried for him, but quietly she was proud. In her eyes, he behaved like a knight — someone who would never shrink from standing by his friends.

In the final resolution, no one was singled out. Each of the twelve classmates who confessed was fined 25 yuan by the Public Security Bureau. The boxer, however, spent fifteen days in jail before being released.

For 柯南, the fine was crushing. His monthly stipend barely covered food. With no choice, he wrote home to Guizhou, confessing the fight and asking for the money. That letter remained his only written record of the incident. Later, when he leafed through his diary—otherwise filled with his love story—he found not a single word about the fight.

清华史上的武斗



This fight was not history in any grand sense, despite some of 柯南’s lab mates boasting it was the first time a group of Tsinghua students had delivered a crushing defeat to factory workers in Beijing since 彭大富’s “Hundred Days of Armed Struggle” on campus — when he led hundreds of students, armed with improvised grenades and homemade bombs from the university chemistry labs, against the factory workers who had invaded.

After all, it was just a fight that had broken out by chance. Yet for 柯南, it lingered. He wasn’t proud of kicking a man already down, but he insisted he had no way of knowing the boxer had already delivered a knockout punch. What stayed with him was the feeling of standing together — of not shrinking back when everyone else had stepped forward. That, he felt, was worth remembering.

思雨, instead of blaming him for the 25-yuan loss—by then they had already pooled their money, so his fine was also hers—seemed, in some quiet, almost imperceptible way, to draw a little closer to him. “Girls like that,” 柯南 thought. They liked a man who dared to fight back.

The Cruelty of the Side Alley

Not long after, 柯南 saw a darker side of violence — one he never spoke of to 思雨.

One afternoon, riding back from the lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, he turned into a narrow street outside the South Gate. Suddenly, a young man burst out of a side alley, three men hard on his heels. One of them raised a heavy wooden stick — likely the handle of a shovel — and smashed it across his back.

The fugitive collapsed on the roadside, only a few feet from him. 柯南 pedaled past, and when he turned his head, he saw more blows raining down. The young man had curled himself into the smallest ball he could, arms over his head, body cringing against the ground, trying to make himself vanish under the stick.

The blows thudded into the padded green overcoat, each strike heavy and merciless. 柯南 kept riding. The sound of wood striking faded only with distance. He prayed the young man’s thick military winter coat might shield him from crippling injury.

He never told 思雨. To him, she remained like a younger sister, someone he had to shield from the brutality beyond their campus walls. She did not need to know how easily law dissolved into violence in the alleys of Beijing.

The Dining Hall Standoff

One noon, Guo — one of 柯南’s classmates — was waiting in line for lunch in the Tenth Dining Hall. As the worker behind the counter scooped food into his bowl, a quarrel flared up over some trivial matter. Voices rose, tempers flared, and soon they were shouting across the counter.

The worker slammed the ladle onto the counter, stormed into the kitchen, and shouted,

“You damn wait!”

Guo shot back without flinching,

“Any time!”

Sensing trouble, Guo dragged one of the dining-hall chairs toward him — a plastic seat and back mounted on a tubular steel fra-me . He hefted it over his shoulder and swung it once, then again, the metal legs slicing the air with a hiss as he tested whether he could smash it down on an attacker.

Suddenly, the young worker burst out of the kitchen door into the dining hall, brandishing a huge Chinese cleaver. A shock wave rippled through the hall. Some students bolted for the exits; others froze where they stood. Guo planted his feet, chair raised, ready to strike.

The worker hesitated. Any other student would have fled, yet Guo stood his ground, chair raised to strike. Just then, the worker’s coworkers caught up and grabbed him from behind. He struggled in their grip, lunging forward, the knife flashing in a few feinting thrusts. At last, he spat through clenched teeth:

“Next time!”

Still thrashing, he let himself be dragged back into the kitchen — perhaps secretly relieved to be pulled away, his face saved in front of such a big audience.

Quietly, many of the students admired Guo. It was students like him, they thought, who reminded the dining-hall workers that students were not always so easy to bully.

Later, 柯南 admitted to 思雨 that he wasn’t sure he could have done the same. Facing a kitchen worker with a knife was beyond his courage. 思雨 smiled and touched his hand.

“It’s okay,” she said softly. “That one time in 香山 was enough for me to admire you.”

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