Seeking the outline of Shen Congwen's long story.

Long River is the representative work of Shen Congwen, an essay he wrote after he returned to Xiangxi in 1937 and lived in a county town in central Shui Yuan for about four months. This is another elegy about characters and customs in western Hunan after Border Town. According to the author's account, we can feel the changes of Xiangxi in the development of war.

This novel wrote such a story:

In 1930s, there was a tributary named Chenhe in the upper reaches of Yuanshui River Basin in Hunan Province. The small port in the middle of Chenhe River was Lujiaping, where the president of the local chamber of commerce lived and the security team was stationed. About four miles downstream of the river, there is a small earth slope called "Fengshu 'ao", and there is a ancestral temple named Teng on the depression. There are more than a dozen old maple trees before and after the ancestral temple. Under the old maple tree in front of the ancestral temple, there was an old sailor sitting in a depression with a stall. There is a large orange garden in Mu Feng 'ao, beside the radish stream. Master Teng Changshun has two sons and three daughters, and the youngest daughter is the most beautiful, nicknamed "Black". That year, oranges were harvested again, and the orange trees were covered with huge fruits.

The old sailor heard passers-by say in front of the stall that "a new life" was coming. This "new life" doesn't seem to be a good thing for him, so he is a little worried. He crossed the river and told Changshun, but Changshun was calm and didn't care. President Lv Jiaping also listened to the people who came back from Chenxi County and said that "a new life" was coming. In fact, the "new life" will not come so soon, but the security captain is here. He received the president's annual security premium and took the receipt prepared by the president in advance. In order to thank all parties, the president bought a shipment of oranges in Changshun. Changshun's family, including Yao Yao, began to pick oranges, and old sailor Manman also came to help. The security guard also took a fancy to Changshun's oranges, but he used blackmail. The captain was angry that Changshun, who had experienced the world, was not caught. Fortunately, the president intervened to calm the situation. At the end of this volume, the social drama was written, and the oranges were harvested. Changshun invited Pucheng Opera Troupe to sing for a few days to thank the gods. People have a good time with God, and everything seems to be the same as before.

This novel has only been written in one volume. Will a "new life" come?

What is a "new life"? I want to put this problem on hold for the time being. Chenhe River in the southwest of Dongting Lake, where the novel takes place, is rich in oranges, and oranges also run through the whole work. My interpretation begins with oranges.