Siheyuan: Big City, Small Love

I made up a short story about people who escaped to Hong Kong from the Kowloon Walled City.

The tears on Wutong Mountain did not move his heart. His heart was already dead.

In Wu Chenggong's own words, he had already experienced all the pain he had gone through. He didn't need to care so much, after all, he had no relatives, and it was impossible for any relatives to come to him from the other side of Shencheng River.

When people all rushed to Wutong Mountain, the streets seemed much quieter. Wu Chenggong liked this kind of quietness, the quietness of being alone.

He is from Baihua Township, Huicheng, Guangdong Province, mainland China. To be more precise, he should be from southern Fujian. His family fled to Huicheng with their mother 12 years ago.

Wu Chenggong still remembers that his father was a tall and strong man, but he was kidnapped by a group of people on the charge of being a rightist.

That year, Wu Chenggong was 10 years old, his younger brother was 7 years old, and his youngest sister was only 4 years old.

Wu Chenggong remembers the later scene even more: It was probably an evening after May, he remembers, in the first half of 5. His mother was looking at the door with disheveled hair, and a man pushed the door open, frightening his sister so much that she hugged her mother tightly.

"Okay! Go ahead." The man said to Wu Chenggong's mother aggressively.

Wu Chenggong's mother immediately hugged his sister, and Wu Chenggong inexplicably held his brother's hand. It was dark. They followed their mother and walked.

The wind was blowing, making the grass on the roadside scream, and it was very cold all around.

They soon arrived at an open space on the edge of the city. There was no one around the open space, only a few crows calling, and white paper slogans posted on old trees.

There was a big red cross on Wu Chenggong’s father’s name.

Wu Chenggong's mother suddenly let out a desperate scream. It turned out that there was a person lying on the side of the road next to a clump of grass. The mother pounced on the person lying on the ground like a desperate she-wolf.

Wu Chenggong saw clearly that the man lying on the ground was his father, with a large pool of blood next to him.

"Hurry up, hurry up, they are about to be taken away!" A person next to them yelled at Wu Chenggong's mother.

Wu Chenggong's mother quickly pulled Wu Chenggong and his brother to kneel down.

Wu Chenggong and his brother both knelt down and cried.

Only the younger sister seemed to understand nothing and just grabbed her mother's clothes tightly. She probably thought that her father had fallen asleep after teasing her like before. She looked at her mother with her big frightened eyes, and then at the person on the ground.

Wu Chenggong's mother took off his father's blood-soaked clothes and changed him into a clean pair of clothes she had brought with her.

"That's enough, that's enough." The people next to him shouted, and one of them dragged one of my father's hands and threw his body onto a cart like dragging a dead dog.

Someone was dragging the car away.

"Loyalty!" Wu Chenggong's mother screamed.

"father!"

He still remembered their and his mother's final screams.

In Wu Chenggong's impression, they moved since then and no longer lived in the big house as before.

The new place we moved to was a small house in the alley. My mother put a coffee table at the door, on which were some needles, thread and shoe soles. However, the alley was not quiet. Sometimes people would come in and give my mother some stationery and ask her to fill it out.

One night, Wu Chenggong's mother suddenly said to Wu Chenggong while he was doing his homework: "Son, we can't live here any longer. We have to go somewhere else."

The car swayed on the uneven road for a day and a night and then stopped.

His mother told him that they had arrived in Guangdong Province, a place called Huicheng.

Wu Chenggong's mother held their hands and walked to a remote mountain village. The younger brother could no longer walk and wanted to find someone to eat with.

"That's it," said Mom.

They settled down in a remote mountain village.

This is Baihua Township in Huicheng, which has become their home.

There was a primary school two or three miles away from the village, and Wu Chenggong and his brother started attending school there.

One day, when they came home from school, they found that there were guests at home. A man with black and red legs was teasing the younger sister with dried sweet potatoes, and a fat woman was looking at the younger sister and grinning foolishly.

For some reason, Wu Chenggong hated those two people.

In less than two days, when the two brothers came home from school, they found that their sister, who used to wait by the door every day for her brother to come back, was gone. Their mother told them that their sister had gone with those two people.

Wu Chenggong's mother murmured, "Mom has found a good place for your sister. They are three generations of poor farmers. Your sister can live a peaceful life for the rest of her life."

Every Chinese New Year or other festival, the two brothers would think about their sister and hoped that their mother would take her back, but their mother refused.

There was a place far away from them called Tamsui. The two brothers knew that their sister was there.

One day, the two brothers were looking for their sister along the winding mountain road, but their mother caught up with them halfway.

Their mother beat them both severely and made them swear not to look for their sister again.

Wu Chenggong knew that person. That person was none other than the farmer he hated the most, who came to his house to give sweet potato chips to his sister that year.

After returning home, the two brothers told their mother what they had seen about their sister. Their mother started to cry, but then she stopped being sad, wiped away her tears, and smiled: "Your sister has made great achievements!"

My mother died in 1960. Before she died, she called her two sons to her bedside and told them everything, including the money she owed, the favors she received, and the work accounts of the production team. Then she said, "My children, I have one more thing to tell you."

The two brothers burst into tears and said, "Mom, don't worry, we know what happened. We won't go looking for our sister."

Mother nodded and closed her eyes.

Yes, if my sister were to live as a poor peasant, perhaps she could still have a good life.

The house without their mother seemed empty. Whenever the two brothers came back from the fields and opened the door, the first thing they called was "Mom". However, the house was empty, and their mother was no longer there.

The younger sister and the mother were gone. As the country folks said, "the bucket has lost its hoop." The family was going to fall apart. Baihua Township was no longer their hometown. All hope of life no longer existed for these two teenagers.

One day, the younger brother said to his elder brother: "Brother, let's run! Run to the harbor city!"

The two young men climbed to the top of Wutong Mountain carrying two kilograms of fried rice.

On that night in March 1961, Wu Chenggong and his brother successfully crossed the reeds by the Shencheng River. As he rushed towards the Shencheng River, he heard the sound of wolfhounds "whooshing" through the reeds behind him.

It's over! He suddenly felt it in his head. But the wolfhound didn't come towards him, he heard his brother's scream.

He crossed the river safely. Looking back, he looked at the north bank of the Shenzhen River and the dark wilderness, and called out, "Brother! Brother!"

But no matter how he cried and screamed, it was useless. My brother was dragged away by two men in military uniforms next to the wolfhound.

Wu Chenggong was successful. He arrived in Gangcheng smoothly and got a Gangcheng ID card. He got a job in a printing and dyeing factory, but his brother was gone.

Half a year later, he received a piece of news that made him sad and happy: his brother was not dead, he was imprisoned in a prison in Shaocheng.

His mother was dead, his brother was in jail, his sister changed her surname and married someone else, what hope did Wu Chenggong have?

He, Wu Chenggong, may be alone forever. He has no family, no friends. Whenever he comes back from work at the factory, he hides in a shed of a few square meters. He puts his hands under his head and stares at the moon in a daze.

He was so lonely and in need of comfort. One day, he finally walked into the attic of Kowloon Walled City and spent his first night as a virgin in the tender caress of a strange woman.

From then on, he found himself addicted, like a gambler addicted to the card table, a smoker addicted to the pipe. On the day of salary payment, he would take the few dollars he had and go to Kowloon Walled City.

When the incident on Wutong Mountain turned the whole port city upside down, he was very calm. His life was too hard. Perhaps, all his human emotions were drained away during those years.

As he said, "That's other people's business." He didn't want to think about anything in the past.

There were few people on the street, and it seemed much quieter. Perhaps everyone was heading up Wutong Mountain.

All the shops were closed, except for the familiar little shop with a red light, whose door was open.

"Oh, it's Boss Wu." "Mummy" came over to greet him. Business was not good, so the madam was particularly cordial: "Hurry, Furong. Sanmei and Chunmei, come out soon."

Immediately, three or four gorgeously dressed women lined up. Wu Chenggong glanced at them and pointed to a younger one: "Let's pick her."

"Mummy" quickly came up and said, "Boss Wu has a really good eye. Hongmei is the youngest and she's the 80-yuan one."

"Whatever, 80 is 80." Wu Chenggong said irritably.

"Mummy" led Wu Chenggong upstairs. The pink billboard on the door was lit and spinning. The room inside was very dark. The lamp on the top of the room was emitting pink light, which made people feel soft as soon as they entered.

"Mommy" turned on the air conditioner: "Boss Wu, please do as you please." Then she turned around and went out, closing the door.

The girl named Hongmei was still standing there, looking shy. Wu Chenggong took her hand and brought her to him: "Don't be afraid, it will be quick. I will give you the money in a moment."

Liang Chenggong found that her body was shaking, like a newcomer.

“Are you new here to do this?”

She was very scared and took a long time to utter one word: "Yes."

"when?"

"yesterday."

"Oh, then you came down from the mountain!" The "mountain" that Wu Chenggong was talking about was Wutong Mountain.

The woman nodded.

"Where are you from?"

"Huicheng."

Wu Chenggong turned over and jumped up from the bed: "What, you, you are from Huicheng?"

Could it be? He stared at the trembling Hongmei, ah, no, not my sister.

He looked carefully and found that it was not the case.

He had a strange thought at the moment, it would be nice if the Hongmei in front of him was his sister. But unfortunately, it wasn't her.

For some reason, Wu Chenggong suddenly let out a sigh of relief: "Come here, don't be afraid, come here."

He pulled Hongmei to his side and began to gently unbutton her clothes. When Hongmei's collar was opened, Liang Chenggong was stunned.

I was not stunned by the snow-white neck, but by the scar on the back of the neck! It was caused by the burns from the firewood sparks when my mother was holding my sister in her arms and roasting firewood in our hometown in southern Fujian.

He remembered the little girl who was reciting quotations from great men on the stage. She was his sister!

"Sister! It's you!"

Later, according to a report in a Hong Kong newspaper on June 1962, 6: "...the brother and sister hugged each other and cried. They learned that their sister had been sold to a brothel owner for 27 Hong Kong dollars. Later, Wu Chenggong discussed with the brothel owner and rescued his sister from the fire pit. He finally redeemed his sister for 400 Hong Kong dollars."

The news that Wu Chenggong had found his sister unexpectedly spread quickly throughout Hong Kong. Newspapers and radio stations came to them one after another. Some companies even offered to hire them with high salaries.

Wu Chenggong had no choice but to hide in the attic of a fellow villager with his sister to avoid the crowd.

According to a reporter from a Hong Kong magazine, they were eventually taken to Wandao, where they opened a small restaurant. Because many people came to see what the siblings looked like, the restaurant's business was very popular.

This is the story, but it is very true. Wu Chenggong's sister finally chose to flee to Hong Kong in 62 and became a prostitute. Fortunately, she met her brother.

But how many people are so lucky? I think most people are still quite miserable, having to work as prostitutes and laborers for their entire lives!

How to say it, all the sufferings in the world have been borne by the farmers and common people. The rural elderly who can survive the difficult times really deserve the respect of every Chinese.