Siheyuan: Bringing Warehouses to 1959

Just when Zeng Wangcai went out to buy buns, the first rays of morning light happened to come down, and the people making a living in the courtyards and alleys seemed to be suddenly activated.

Fireworks descend upon the world.

As soon as he went out, Zeng Wangcai saw a diligent rickshaw driver pulling his precious rickshaw to work, and an old man with medium-length hair holding a birdcage in one hand and a walnut in the other.

The rickshaw driver did not stop when passing by a restaurant selling breakfast, but went straight past. The old man sat down on the long bench in front of the restaurant and shouted for steamed buns, fried dough sticks and soy milk.

An old man who lived in the alley knew Zeng Wangcai. When he saw him coming to buy buns, he greeted him for the first time: "Wangcai, I heard that you went to the countryside yesterday. What good stuff did you get? Let me, Master Ma, see it."

This Mr. Ma was a bannerman with a good family background. He had a whole yard at home and many children and grandchildren. He was a bit like Mr. Niu of Daqianmen.

"It's nothing good, just some game, not pleasing to you, Master Ma!" Zeng Wangcai laughed and said to the boss, "Uncle Luo, twenty buns!"

I don’t know if it was because of the last quarrel, but the waiter with the bad attitude was not outside. Now it was Uncle Luo, the original owner of the shop, who was greeting people outside.

"Wow, twenty meat buns at a time, even Master Ma wouldn't dare eat that much." Master Ma looked at Zeng Wangcai's back as he left, and said with a sigh like Kong Yiji, "The world has changed. Gold, silver, and antiques are not treasures anymore. Food and drink are treasures these days. A pair of my best lion head walnuts are not worth half a day's fishing for someone else."

Not to mention this side, Zeng Wangcai was walking back with two brown paper bags of buns, leading the smoke.

Third aunt Yang Ruihua came out holding a spittoon, and when she saw Zeng Wangcai, she hurried over.

"Third Auntie, slow down, it's right here!" Zeng Wangcai stepped back in fear, "Be careful with the things in your hands, why are you in such a hurry so early in the morning?"

This spittoon is not for holding spit, but is a major feature of Beijing or many other places nowadays. Since there are no toilets at home, people can only use the spittoon at home to spit out the spittoon in the middle of the night and then take it out to empty it early in the morning.

This is the case for almost every household, unless you are like Mr. Ma, who enjoys a private courtyard and a toilet at home.

"Third Auntie needs your help. Our eldest son has a girlfriend..."

"Stop, we'll talk later if you have anything to say. Your hands are getting cold by now!"

"You little brat, why are you interrupting me with your third aunt? Fine, we'll talk later!"

After scolding Zeng Wangcai with a smile, the third aunt ran straight to the public toilet with a spittoon in her hand.

Zeng Wangcai continued walking, thinking about what the third aunt had just said. The eldest in their family was Yan Jiecheng, who had just turned twenty this year and also worked in a steel mill, but had not yet earned a salary of thirty-two and a half yuan.

Yan Jiecheng’s partner should be Yu Li.

"No wonder we rarely see Yan Jiecheng. It seems he is out picking up girls." Zeng Wangcai shook his head, walked into the yard, passed through the hanging flower gate and came to the front yard.

At this time, the whole yard was filled with smoke and the air was filled with the smell of burning firewood and coal.

After a while, Chen Yumei had already lit the stove. Zeng Xiaoqiang was taken out of bed. While dozing off, he sat on a small stool and fanned the stove with a palm-leaf fan to ignite the coal sooner.

"Fan him hard and don't slack off!" Zeng Wangcai did not indulge his younger brother. After putting down the bun, he slapped him on the butt.

Although children in cities today become sensible and start working early, they are still far behind children in rural areas. In rural areas, they start working as soon as they can walk, and the order of work is progressive.

At first, they do cleaning work like sweeping the floor. When they are older, they do laundry. When they are even older, they do cooking. They have to do all of these, or wait until their younger brothers and sisters grow up, and then do the next task or go directly to the fields to reach the ultimate battlefield.

"Brother, you're back? I thought you went to work!" Zeng Xiaoqiang woke up in a second.

"Get out of here. If you have something to say, just say it. Your brother Yang hasn't left yet, so where should I go to work?" Zeng Wangcai scolded with a smile. He could see that the second brother had something to do.

"Brother, please save me and the third child!" Zeng Xiaoqiang looked back at the house and said tearfully, "We were wronged by our mother. When you were not at home yesterday, she beat us twice..."

Just as he said this, Chen Yumei came out of the house holding a small jar and a toothbrush.

"You two deserve a beating. Did your mother wrongly accuse you?" Chen Yumei turned to her eldest son and complained, "You said, they squeezed out all the toothpaste and put it in the salt jar just to get the toothpaste tube. They secretly talked about making some sword that needed the toothpaste tube, and I heard it."

"I didn't say to use the toothpaste tube. We were talking about the little bit at the front of the toothpaste tube. We didn't take the toothpaste tube at home..." Zeng Xiaoqiang retorted stubbornly.

Zeng Wangcai was embarrassed, because he was the one who did it. He took out the toothpaste from the space, and there was no way he could finish it completely.

The third brother Zeng Lai Fu woke up, came out of the house, and stood firmly on the side of his second brother.

"You prodigal son, yet you still talk stubbornly. You can't do anything all day long. Eating is your top priority. Don't you know that toothpaste tubes can be sold for money? Even if they can't be sold for money, I can give you some candies in exchange..." Chen Yumei stretched out her finger and poked the second brother. The second brother's head was poked back, but he stubbornly returned to his original position in an instant.

Zeng Wangcai quickly stepped forward to stop her: "Mom, forget it, it's just a piece of toothpaste tube, it's gone, if you want to hit me, wait until I get to work, I can't bear to see it..."

"Ow!"

Lai Fu screamed and looked at his elder brother in shock, wondering why his elder brother had changed.

Zeng Wangcai did not explain. There was no need. It was natural for a mother to beat her son. Even if she was wronged, it was wronged. What else could he do?

Besides, he knew that his mother had a sharp tongue but a soft heart. Even if she hit him, she would just use a feather duster to whip him a few times as a token of her fear. There were only two people in the family who really scared the two boys, one was Zeng Wangcai and the other was Zeng Youqian, because these two people either didn't hit him or really hit him.

Chen Yumei was amused and glared at her son: "Just protect them. Sooner or later they will steal and sell everything in the house."

"No, they dare not!" Zeng Wangcai replied while thinking about what his second aunt said yesterday. It was time to give his two younger brothers a complete childhood. If there were any signs of them becoming indecisive, he would discipline them himself.

The second and third brothers seemed to feel betrayed by the eldest brother and felt that his eldest brother did not believe in them. They sat aside in anger, staring at his eldest brother without saying a word.

Zeng Wangcai ignored them. After washing up with Lin Huyang, he went into the house and brought out the cooked porridge.

"Are you angry? You don't even want to eat the meat buns?" Lin Huyang teased the second and third brothers while holding the porridge bowl, "By the way, what do you two want the toothpaste tube for? To make swords? What kind of swords? Tell Brother Yang, and Brother Yang will help you."

“We didn’t take the toothpaste tube!”

"We are going to make... sharpen the ribs of the umbrella, use the end of the toothpaste tube as a hand guard, and make a sword to stab Liu Guangfu, the dogecoin, because Liu Guangfu scolded my eldest brother."

Behind, the second aunt who happened to be carrying a spittoon came out and stopped when she heard this: "How can this child be so cruel? What did our second child say? Are you going to stab him with a sword?"