The Red Era: Living in Seclusion in a Siheyuan as a Boss

Chapter 462 New House - No. 100, Yanhe Hutong

It rains a lot in the capital in late July and early August.

I watched the water level of the Yongding River rise inch by inch. Soon it submerged the banks, spread to the roadsides on both sides, and surged down.

The reservoir upstream is full of water now. If the gates are opened to release water, the waves in the entire river will be even more powerful.

At this moment, Liu Zhiye, who had a rare moment of leisure, was taking Gan Ning for a stroll on the shore. Looking at the vast water rushing into his eyes and then floating forward, he couldn't help but get excited and shouted at the top of his voice: "A big river with wide waves, the wind blows the fragrance of rice flowers on both sides, my home is..." Needless to say, it really did make sense!
When the water is warm and the weather is hot, the flowers and plants on the bank sway in the east wind, and the worker bees buzz in search of the newly blooming flowers.

It was the children's summer vacation, and Liu Wen and Liu Wu were playing in the grass on the shore with a group of little brothers.

As long as they didn't go into the water, Liu Zhiye didn't bother to care about them.

Grasshoppers (locusts) in the grass are common. You don’t need to pay attention to the small yellowish grasshoppers. What is worth chasing for children is the "Qinggeleng" that is three or four inches long, covered with green clothes, has big yellow eyes, and can jump several feet away with its legs.

The mantis is the favorite creature for these children to catch. It has a triangular head with sharp probing threads on it, a slender neck raised high, and two bent front legs like saw blades and sickles, showing a brave posture.

After summer, the river bank is a paradise for crickets (the ancient name is "Cuizhi", the scientific name is "cricket". If cricket is pronounced like "ququ", it is considered unorthodox. Children in Beijing call it "cricket'er", with the ending sound "qiu"). They live beside grass roots and under broken tiles. Their caves are on the side of the embankment and in the cracks of bricks. They make music by rubbing their wings together, and their polyphonic chorus dances on both sides of the steamy river.

Even from a distance, Liu Zhiye can tell who is an "oil gourd" and who is an "old rice mouth" just by their voices. Even if they are both crickets, he can roughly tell which is an "old bend" and which is a "tender crow" by the difference in their voices.

After a while, they got tired of playing, so Liu Wen and Liu Wu took a few little brothers to catch cicadas (cicadas, also called "seasonal birds"), which was their specialty.

With these four "killer skills" of accurate eyes, long rod, sticky glue and steady hands, Liu Wen and Liu Wu circled under the tree by the river, and five or six, seven or eight trophies were imprisoned in the small cage at the little brother's hand.

At this time, the chirping of birds was hoarse, and there was no longer the annoying sound of the birds chattering at the top of their voices on the high branches without paying attention to anything.

Maybe it’s going to rain again. The dog days of summer can change at any time.

After catching the chirping birds, they went to catch dragonflies. Dragonflies, the children in Beijing called them "old glass".

Before it rains, the air pressure is very low, and the old glassbirds love to fly close to the tips of grass or even over the water surface, coming in groups to form a majestic formation. You may worry unnecessarily that they will flap their wings.

This is the best time for kids to catch dragonflies.

In the left hand, a piece of grass or a wild flower is tied to a short rope on a bamboo pole, and in the right hand, an "old glass net" made of woven ropes is held; when the "tow net" in the left hand is swaying among the dragonflies, there will be many chasing their companions, and at this moment, when the net is lowered, there will almost certainly be a catch.

The dragonfly covered with green is called "laozi'er", the one with blue spots on its tail is called "laogang'er", the bright red one is called "hongqinjiao", and the one that is completely black is called "heipo'er"... The more happily the children run, the more chances they have to win.

When Liu Zhiye looked at these lively children, he was reminded of his own childhood.

Such a scene still flashes in my memory: it was the hottest time of the year, it was raining heavily, and the waves in the river were surging and rolling.

On the other side of the Yongding River, there used to be a Medicine King Temple, which was filled with people pulling "row carts" and working as "wobo'er", that is, porters who lowered their heads and carried heavy objects on their shoulders.

Among the porters was a man called Liu Laogen, who was tall, fat and solid, with only a pair of large shorts made of flowered cloth covering his body. He was a very good swimmer and loved to splash around on the water.

A large watermelon rind floated down upstream, and he grabbed it and put it on his head, so that the colorful green "hat" would rise and fall with the waves as he chased the waves.

When he was in high spirits, he would lean against a tree in the current, or hold onto a stake by the bridge, and sing: "I am watching the mountain scenery from the tower, and I hear the commotion outside the city..."

At this moment, the children chasing on both sides of the river to watch the excitement responded loudly, "Good!" "Good..."

At that time, Liu Zhiye was particularly envious of him for having such great skills.

So, Liu Zhiye began to think about learning skills from Liu Laogen.

However, Liu Laogen was not willing to teach at first. He had a hobby, which was drinking wine, but how could a laborer afford to buy good wine often?
Little Liu Zhiye was smart and soon discovered Liu Laogen's hobby, so he often stole his uncle's collection of liquor to honor Liu Laogen.

Of course, he paid the price for this behavior and received several good beatings on his buttocks.

But Liu Zhiye's sincerity finally moved Liu Laogen (probably because of the good wine), and Liu Laogen finally decided to pass on his underwater skills to Liu Zhiye.

From then on, Liu Zhiye practiced hard and gradually acquired excellent underwater skills.

Later, in his military career, Liu Zhiye relied on this ability to make many outstanding military achievements and shine brilliantly.

Unfortunately, Liu Laogen died before the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Gan Ning stretched out her slender little hand and waved it gently in front of Liu Zhiye's eyes, with a bit of playfulness and curiosity: "Zhiye! Zhiye? Where has your heart flown to?"

Liu Zhiye suddenly woke up from his deep thoughts, his eyes slightly dazed: "Ah? What did you just say?"

Gan Ning rolled her eyes at him and muttered to herself, "This guy finally got a day off to relax with his kids, but he ended up thinking about work all the time. It's really disappointing!"

I had no choice but to say, "Look, it's raining! Let's go back! Didn't you say that the yard you bought for Xiaoxian has been renovated? Otherwise, why don't we go and take a look?"

Liu Zhiye suddenly looked up at the sky and muttered to himself, the weather changes so quickly. After a while, the originally clear sky was covered by dark clouds, and it seemed that a storm was about to come.

His heart tightened. He had to go back quickly, otherwise he would probably become a drowned chicken.

"Yes, we have to hurry!" Liu Zhiye urged.

Then, he opened his voice and shouted to the children who were playing not far away: "Liu Wen! Liu Wu! Stop playing and come here! We have to go home quickly..."

Liu Wen and Liu Wu had a rare opportunity to be with their parents, but it seemed like they hadn't had enough fun. They looked unhappy and were taken back just like that.

Seeing this, Liu Zhiye smiled and said, "You two little guys, stop looking sour. Daddy will take you to the city to have some fun, how about that?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Wen and Liu Wu's faces instantly turned from gloomy to bright, and they were so excited that they almost jumped up: "Great! Dad, you said this yourself, you can't regret it when the time comes!"

Liu Zhiye shook his head helplessly and said, "Okay, okay, Daddy keeps his word. I'll be with you all day today. Is that ok?"

…………

This year is the happy year for Liu Shuxian to be admitted to Peking University. For the sake of his daughter's future, Liu Zhiye specially purchased a new house in Houmenqiao Heyan Hutong.

He had already planned in his mind that this house would be used as Liu Shuxian's wedding house in the future, so when he was going through the house purchase procedures, he directly wrote Liu Shuxian's name in the household owner column.

The environment around this courtyard is very nice because it is right next to the Houmen Bridge of Shichahai.

Houmen Bridge is actually its common name or nickname.

Its original name was Haizi Bridge, and later it was officially called Wanning Bridge.

Because the north gate of the imperial city is Di'anmen, commonly known as the Back Gate, and Wanning Bridge is just outside the Back Gate, it is called the Back Gate Bridge for a reason.

Liu Zhiye and his family stood on the back gate bridge, looking around:

The water of Shichahai Lake sparkles and flows quietly from the west. It crosses the culvert of the ancient bridge under your feet and passes the "security check" under the eyes of the water beasts lying on both sides of the river. It flows eastward with ripples, and the trees and water plants on the bank are lush and green. It bends to the south about a hundred meters away...

Houmenqiaoheyan Hutong is first and foremost a residential area.

The houses on both sides are connected, and the doors of the houses are all open to the river, steaming with the warm atmosphere of residential and daily life.

They walked down the bridge and followed the water. Going down the back gate bridge, they reached the Yufenchang courtyard and the north entrance of Guaibang Hutong. There was an unnamed wooden bridge that creaked and trembled when they stepped on it, leading to Maoer Hutong.

After the river turns south, there is an unnamed brick and stone bridge at the east entrance of Guaibang Hutong, leading to Yuer Hutong. After reaching the bend and walking south for about a hundred meters, you will encounter another ancient bridge - Dongbuya Bridge.

If you open the map of the capital, you will find that from Houmen Bridge to Dongbuya Bridge, you can see a dark green waterline that first goes east and then southeast.

The waterway east of Houmen Bridge is a bit like a horse's tail. It swings leisurely and leaves this elegant arc running from the north of the imperial city to the east and south.

In fact, the river below Houmen Bridge is within the city circle of the old capital.

Historically, it has been called Yuhe River, Yugou River, Yuhe River, Jinhe River, and even "Jingou River".

Didn’t Yang Zai, a Jinshi in the Yuan Dynasty, have the poem “The Jingou River begins to flow, and passenger boats are tied to the Haizi Bridge”?

The alley on the east river channel of Houmen Bridge was called "Maweiba Xiejie" in the Qing Dynasty. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, it was changed to "Dongbuyaqiao Hutong".

The newly bought house by Liu Zhiye is located in "Dongbuyaqiao Hutong", less than 100 meters west of Houmen Bridge, and is located on the south bank of the river.

The gate is about 100 to 100 meters away from the water, and the "horsetail" begins to show the front end of an elegant arc. The house number is "Heyan Hutong A ". The courtyard of "A " has a dark red lacquered wooden door, and the lower part of the door is embedded with a gourd-shaped thick iron guard with dense nail heads. The threshold lies between the door sill and the door panel. This threshold is long, thick and heavy.

Facing the gate, there is a houseplate with white characters on a blue background reading "No. 100, Heyan Hutong" on the upper left corner of the door frame. There is a rectangular pale green wooden board inlaid in the upper right corner of the door frame, on which are the two big characters "Liu's House" written by Liu Zhiye in his level 7 official calligraphy, in a calm black lacquer.

In recent years, Liu Zhiye has been promoted step by step in his career, but he has not forgotten his inner cultivation and pursuit.

He began to study calligraphy as a way to cultivate his sentiments and improve his character.

Every day, he would take some time to immerse himself in the fragrance of ink and the rhythm of paper. Every stroke revealed his love and persistence for calligraphy.

Because of this, his calligraphy skills improved day by day, and he gradually formed his own unique style, which is truly extraordinary.

【Calligraphy: Level 7 (Master Level)】

Entering the gate and passing through the doorway, the north gable of the west room also serves as an inner screen wall, below which is a rectangular flower bed planted with several rows of hostas.

Its leaves are emerald green, its flowers are snow-white, and it has a faint and refreshing fragrance.

Gan Ning liked to put the budding hairpins in her temples, while Liu Shuxian liked to string hosta flowers into a string and hang it on her chest.

Turning left from the entrance are four lake green screen doors with the characters "Zhong", "Zheng", "He" and "Ping" written in dark red regular script on them.

The courtyard is behind the screen door.

There are five rooms in the north, five rooms in the south, and two rooms in the east and west wing.

There are large transparent glass windows in the north and south rooms, and the house has carved partitions, thick beams, novel chandeliers, and imported flower-tiled floors.

There is a square brick path between the north and south doors.

The door of the east wing is on the south, and the door of the west wing is on the north. There are brick paths in front of the doors connecting to the corridor in the middle.

The courtyard is thus divided into four scattered plots of land.

Toona sinensis, date trees, cloves, grape racks, and potted pomegranates and figs each have their place.

By then, in early spring, the Chinese toon will bloom with red sandalwood and emerald green buds in three to five days and nights, in late summer, bunches of grapes will hang down and bend the vines to sweep over the children's heads, and in autumn, the jujubes will sparkle with spots of light under the sunlight...

The brothers Liu Wen and Liu Wu’s favorite thing to play with is the water pump in front of the north room.

Pour a few scoops of water into the belly of the machine, use the hand pump handle to "call" the water up from underground, and then just press it with "gurgle", "gurgle", "gurgle", and the clear groundwater will flow out "whoosh".

The longer you press, the more water will flow.

The only drawback is that it is generally not worth eating.

This was because there were originally few sweet water wells in the capital city, and the famous "Fu Sui Jing" in the west city was originally a homophonic change of "Ku Shui Jing".

This water can only be used roughly: watering flowers and vegetables, washing clothes, cooling watermelons in the hot summer, and pouring ice in the yard in the severe winter...

Liu Zhiye's family likes this new house very much. Although it is not as big as their home in Liujiazhuang, it has a rich historical heritage.

The next day.

The sky cleared up.

Early in the morning, bursts of children's laughter could be heard outside the yard. The two brothers Liu Wen and Liu Wu were very active and could not hold back any longer, so they rushed out.

When I left the courtyard, I saw a group of kids from the alley playing bag-pulling on the river bank near the gate.

Under the big locust tree on the shore, some children were chasing each other and playing the game of "Hanged Man" - this was especially serious if there were girls around.

More little boys are playing football here: their schoolbags are thrown to the sides to serve as "goals", and they are kicking a ball that is made of rubber or cowhide, bulging or deflated, mostly "old". These little guys have their shoes and socks flying off, and their clothes are soaked with sweat.

The brothers Liu Wen and Liu Wu are good at playing football and are also members of the school football team. Schools at all levels in Liujiazhuang have professional football and basketball teams.

Relying on their good skills, the two brothers quickly became friends with them.

What should you do if the ball falls into the river? No problem! If it’s close, wade in the water to retrieve it. If it’s far away, find a stick to hook it back. If it’s even farther away, throw a stone to “splash” the ball back.

As it got dark, adults leaned out of the doorways of each house and called out to their children by their nicknames, "It's time to eat!" Only then did the remaining brave soldiers reluctantly leave the stadium.

At night, the real owner of this yard, Liu Shuxian, finally decided to come back!

The summer vacation at Peking University in 1978 came very quickly.

Originally, the emergence of Class 77 was a sudden stroke of genius, which led to a relatively rare spring enrollment.

Even this spring, the start time is not after the usual winter vacation, but has been extended to mid-March. For those who have expanded their enrollment, it has been extended to April. It can be seen that everything is done to save time, and many related details have been ignored.

So, in just a moment, the semester was over.

But this still makes Liu Shuxian very happy. After all, this is the long-awaited summer vacation. More than a month of time is completely under her control, which seems like a gift from God.

In the past six months, Liu Shuxian has had a special understanding of the four words "seeds of learning". She feels that almost all the students in Class 1977 can be described by these four words.

During the semester, the students were studying like crazy. To use the words at that time, they were trying to “make up for the lost time.”

Liu Shuxian still remembers that one night, before the lights were turned off, there was a sudden power outage, and the students who were studying at the time exclaimed in unison.

There was deep regret in this voice, because the evening self-study class was interrupted and precious time was wasted. However, this might also be the only reason to pull the whole class out of the classroom, allowing everyone to relax their tense nerves due to uncontrollable factors.

The age difference among their class of 77 was quite large. The oldest student in the class was 32 years old and the youngest was only 16 years old, a whole generation apart.

Liu Shuxian is probably one of the youngest people in the class and is considered a junior in the class.

There is an obvious feeling that the knowledge base is not even a little bit behind those older brothers and sisters, so the younger generations are trying desperately to catch up.

Therefore, summer vacation is of course a continuation of the school term, and is the best time for tutoring.

As the saying goes, make up for what you lack. However, people of Liu Shuxian's generation lack too many things, and the summer vacation is only more than a month long, so it is impossible to take care of everything.

As far as Liu Shuxian is concerned, the subject she wants to improve the most is English.

Because she originally studied Russian in middle school.

Now that the country has opened up, people will go abroad sooner or later.

English is an international mainstream language. How can she succeed as a journalism student without knowing English?

In fact, Liu Shuxian had been exposed to English with her mother when she was a child. Her mother Gan Ning was a talented woman at Peking University and her English was quite good.

But Liu Shuxian was not good at studying when she was young. Although she gave up halfway, she did not have to start learning the 26 English letters in college like other classmates.

After Liu Shuxian studied journalism, she thought she could travel around the world.

She began to really like learning languages, and the more she learned, the more interested she became. So she spent the entire summer studying English in a training class.

Liu Shuxian has a strong interest in journalism, and as a father, Liu Zhiye naturally wants to give her full support.

In order to encourage his daughter to pursue her dream, Liu Zhiye specially selected a special gift for Liu Shuxian - a Seagull DF camera.

This is not an ordinary camera. It costs more than 500 yuan and is a top-notch photography tool in China. Both its image quality and operating performance are first-class.

Liu Shuxian was so happy that she almost jumped up when she received this generous gift.

She couldn't put the camera down and took it with her every day to take pictures and record every detail of her life.

With her outstanding photography skills and keen sense of news, Liu Shuxian took many wonderful shots and published them in the school magazine, winning unanimous praise from teachers and students of Beijing University.

(End of this chapter)