Lu Xun and Song Yun'er's Childhood Bond

Lu Xun and Song Yun'er’s childhood bond endures as an emotionally consequential but unsettled tie: their shared past gives Song a claim on Lu’s attention, while his marriage to Su Xiangwan and Song’s relationship with Lin Yanche make that attention a source of jealousy, dependence, and conflict. The story does not present their history as a simple route back to romance. Instead, it shows an old attachment being tested in adult crises, where protection cannot erase betrayal or guarantee that either person can give the other what is wanted.

Identity and Background

Their childhood bond is established as the history beneath their adult closeness, but the scenes supplied do not detail how they met or what happened during their youth. What they do make clear is that Song can appeal to Lu with an intimacy that exceeds ordinary acquaintance: she calls him in distress, expects him to come, and later seeks his help in person. Lu, in turn, responds to her emergencies and remains closely attuned to what happens to her, even when he is angry with her or refuses to excuse her conduct.

That history has not disappeared with Lu’s marriage. Since becoming Mrs. Lu, Su Xiangwan has found that Lu does not want her socializing with him, a restriction that makes his continuing connection to Song especially fraught. Their relationship therefore sits between past familiarity and present boundaries: Song can still reach Lu, but his obligations as Su Xiangwan’s husband alter what that access means.

Crisis, Dependence, and Reproach

The bond becomes visible in a dinner interrupted by Song’s urgent telephone call. Lu has barely begun eating when she tells him that someone has locked himself in a study and will not come out; her fear is audible to Su Xiangwan beside him. Lu immediately asks what has happened and tries to calm her enough to explain. The call presents their old closeness as a channel for crisis: Song turns to him first, and he shifts his attention from his meal to her alarm.

Later, Song makes that expectation explicit. Gripping Lu’s trouser leg, she asks him for help while also insisting that she believes he will help even if she no longer needs it. Lu lowers himself to her level and raises her chin, a gesture of close, personal attention, but his response is not uncomplicated comfort. He challenges the state she has reached, while Song weeps and says that she is not like him: she believes he could marry casually and use a marriage to anger her, whereas she has been abandoned and has suffered consequences for her own choices. Her account makes the bond a site of reciprocal blame. She sees herself as having helped bring about his present state, yet also presents herself as someone who has already paid for her actions.

Lu rejects the idea that rejection excuses self-destructive resentment. He identifies Song’s decision to direct murderous intent toward Su Qingrou as the action that determined her defeat, while Song denies doing anything. His response draws a hard line between their personal history and the consequences of her conduct: concern for Song does not mean accepting her version of events or shielding her from every result. The scene preserves his emotional involvement but makes forgiveness conditional, not automatic.

Marriage, Jealousy, and Public Meaning

Their closeness also becomes legible through the threat it poses to Lu’s marriage. At a social gathering, Su Xiangwan pointedly asks about a rumor that Luo Jingjing is Lu’s new girlfriend and that the position of Mrs. Lu has long been vacant, with a woman other than Song finally having a chance to fill it. Su Xiangwan asks deliberately, from a place of disgust at repeatedly being confronted by women around Lu. The rumor places Song in the public imagination as a possible successor to his wife, whether or not Lu has actually offered her that role. The childhood bond thus carries adult romantic expectations that complicate the status of his marriage.

Lu’s jealousy is equally exposed in his dealings with Lin Yanche. When he sees Lin embracing Song, Lu sarcastically remarks that Song is easier to coax than the impulsive Su Qingrou and that Lin has drawn her back with only a few words. Su Xiangwan hears the taunt and recognizes its jealousy. Lu then warns Lin not to fail Song if he has truly made up his mind about her. His words combine rivalry with a protective claim: he resents Lin’s hold over Song, yet also insists that Lin treat her seriously.

The exchange does not make Lu and Song a couple. It reveals instead how their old bond persists inside a triangle of competing attachments. Lu watches Song’s closeness with Lin closely enough to be jealous, but he directs his warning toward Lin’s responsibility to her rather than promising to take her place himself.

Protection and Its Limits

Lin Yanche understands the leverage that Song’s history with Lu provides. He threatens to bring Song back to Lu repeatedly, betting that Lu will accept her and protect her with all his heart. At the same time, Lin argues that Lu cannot give Song what she wants and predicts that she will return to him as soon as he beckons. Lu answers that accepting Song is his choice, not Lin’s to dictate. Their exchange turns the childhood bond into a contest over who can claim Song’s loyalty, while exposing a limit neither man can resolve by force of feeling: Lu’s willingness to protect her is not the same as being able to satisfy her desires.

Lu’s concern is not merely possessive. After a birthday-party episode, he recognizes how ruthless Lin has been and concludes that Song could have died if her threatened suicide had gone further. That realization sharpens the danger surrounding her relationship with Lin. Yet Lu’s concern exists alongside anger at Song’s own actions, and the story does not treat rescue or protection as proof that their earlier intimacy has been restored. His care is real, but it cannot undo the choices that have damaged trust.

Change and Narrative Significance

The relationship’s recurring pattern is approach followed by contradiction. Song reaches for Lu in fear and appeals to their history; Lu responds, but he also judges her, resists being manipulated through her vulnerability, and refuses to promise what she wants. He can be jealous when Lin holds her, apprehensive about the danger she faces, and still unwilling to make himself the answer to her romantic needs. Song, for her part, treats their past as a basis for expecting help, while also accusing Lu of having caused her pain through his marriage and his choices.

Their bond therefore functions less as a settled romance than as an emotional pressure point. It gives Song a route to Lu’s attention and gives Lu a personal stake in her safety, but it also tests the boundary between enduring attachment and entitlement. The available scenes leave their future unresolved: they establish neither a return to a relationship nor a clean separation. What remains is the difficult distinction at the center of their connection—Lu may still care deeply about Song, yet care alone cannot restore the past or make him able to give her what she wants.