Rebirth of the Legend of the Red Age

Chapter 72: Bringing my wife to learn about Siheyuan

After deciding how to deal with the three pieces of calligraphy, everyone else went about their own business, and Wang Li, with his wife Zheng Lan, walked towards the main house in the third courtyard.

Zheng Lan asked doubtfully: Is there any treasure house in our house?

Wang Li said: You will know it soon. I will take you around the house first and introduce you to the layout of the house and courtyard. You are the hostess of the house, so you should have some understanding of these.

The two came to the open space in the front yard of the third courtyard, and Wang Li began to introduce it to Zheng Lan: Wife, what you are seeing now is the third courtyard where we two will live in the future. You have gained a preliminary understanding of it in the past two days.

The courtyard where we lived had no west wing, and the main part was a main house that was 17 meters long and 6 meters wide. Next to the courtyard wall was the kitchen and boiler room, which was about 7 meters long and 6 meters wide.

The main house where the two of us lived was about 10 meters long and 6 meters wide. The first floor was the living room and bathroom, as well as a small storage room and a corridor in the corner.

As you know, the second floor has our bedroom, dressing room and bathroom.

Let me tell you in detail, the beams and supports in our bedroom are made of golden nanmu and rosewood.

Hearing this, Zheng Lan showed a surprised expression and asked: "I was wondering why there was always a soothing woody fragrance in the bedroom. It turned out to be the fragrance of these two precious woods. Where did our family get these good woods? Didn't they say that the house was rebuilt?"
Wang Li replied: What you see now is only a part of it. The sources of these woods are mainly two aspects. The woods, beams and supports you see were found in the ruins in the yard before.

Later, I bought a lot of precious wood from a timber merchant and used it to build the windows and interior decoration of the courtyard. These woods can not only make the house stronger, but also have a certain function of repelling insects.

The furniture in each room now is also made by me using that wood.

Only our bedroom and living room are still lacking some furniture made of precious wood. I plan to buy some huanghuali wood in the south when I have the chance and build some more furniture for our main house.

After saying that, Wang Li took Zheng Lan and walked downstairs, introducing as they walked: There is a double-layer basement 17 meters long and 6 meters wide under the main house. Let's go down and take a look.

Soon the two arrived at the basement. Wang Li introduced: There are not too many things stored in the basement at present, just some daily necessities. You can plan to use the basement in the future.

We can also store some liquor and foreign wines on the basement floor. You can decide on these later.

I'll take you to the second underground floor. It's a showroom I designed.

As they were talking, the two of them came to the second underground floor. Zheng Lan was very shocked when she came down.

Because she saw that the walls of the second underground floor were all filled with storage racks. Each rack had many compartments, on which were placed some small pieces of porcelain and bronze, as well as some small boxes.

She asked in surprise: Is this your treasure room?
Wang Li smiled and replied: There are probably several hundred pieces of porcelain and bronze artifacts, as well as some ancient books, but these are not all my collections.

After saying that, he walked towards a storage rack, pressed a few buckles on the side with his hands, and pulled the storage rack open like a door. Zheng Lan saw that there was a thick iron door behind it.

Wang Li took out the key and opened the iron gate, and she followed Wang Li into the unknown space.

She was shocked to see that this was a corridor 2 meters wide and 14 meters long, with storage racks 8 meters high, 1.5 meters wide and 14 meters long on both sides. The racks were filled with wooden boxes of the same specifications, and there were various brand names on the racks, such as porcelain, bronze, ancient books, etc.

She estimated that there were at least 100 boxes already here, and that only took up a small portion of the space.

She asked in shock: Is this the treasure house?

Wang Li smiled and said: Yes, this is our family's treasure house. I haven't counted how many treasures are here. These treasures were collected by me at the purchasing station. I heard that you have a certain knowledge of antiques. When you have time in the future, you can come here and classify and count these collections.

After saying that, he took the two scrolls and walked to the area with calligraphy and paintings. He opened a wooden box, took out an exquisite wooden box from it, and put the two calligraphy works in it.

He turned around and said to Zheng Lan, who was still in shock: "Let's go, let's continue to visit the courtyard. I will give you a key here, and you can come down and see it yourself when you have time."

Then we went to the underground floor and opened a large locked iron door in the direction of the garden. We introduced to Zheng Lan: Through this iron door, we can go to the underground of the courtyard corridor. This underground corridor is built directly under the courtyard corridor and can run through the underground part of the entire courtyard. I will take you to the underground of the first courtyard to have a look.

As he walked, he said: The underground of the back house in the first courtyard and the underground of the main house also have two-story underground buildings. The only difference from the underground of the second and third courtyards is that the underground warehouse of the first courtyard is connected with the underground second floor of the two-story underground building of the house, forming a huge storage warehouse. I designed it to store supplies.

The basement level of the house is planned as a storage room for those living above ground.

After visiting the underground part of the first courtyard for a while, the two walked to the underground part of the second courtyard where his parents lived. Wang Li introduced: Because my father likes to make wine recently, I converted the underground warehouse of the second courtyard into a wine storage room, and put all the medicinal wine brewed by my father in it, leaving the first and second floors of the house for my father and mother to use.

Let me take you to see the underground garage in the garden.

The two walked from the underground corridor to the underground garage. Wang Li said: This underground garage is the largest underground building in the entire courtyard. It is currently rented to a recycling station for storing waste.

After touring the huge underground garage, the two passed through an upward sloping C-shaped driveway and arrived at the exit near the gate to the ground garden.

Wang Li added: There are two floors in the gatehouse at the main entrance. There is an underground entrance on the first floor, which leads to the underground garage and the underground warehouse as soon as you enter the courtyard.

All the underground parts you see are paved with 1.5-meter-thick wall bricks at the bottom, and the walls are paved with 1-meter-thick wall bricks and half-meter-thick blue brick reinforced concrete.

Therefore, you don’t have to worry about the safety of the underground part. As for the above-ground buildings, for the sake of cold protection and warmth preservation, the wall thickness is also about tens of centimeters. These are the architectural conditions of the courtyard houses.

Zheng Lan asked in shock: "Did you build all these by yourselves? This is too much! If you don't know, you might think you built a castle."

Wang Li replied: It took my father, Lai San and I nearly ten years to build it. It was mainly for the sake of building quality and service life. In addition, the city wall of Kyoto was demolished in recent years, and no one wanted the city wall bricks, so we used them as waste. It was also because the quality of the city wall bricks was very good, so we used them as the main frame of the building.

In the future, you will also be the owner of this yard. You can slowly divide and use various areas of the house. I believe you will do better than me.

Zheng Lan felt her husband's trust in her and promised Wang Li: Don't worry! I will help my mother manage the family.

(End of this chapter)