Nine idlers

Tongxian County in Beijing has been the hub of north-south trade since ancient times. It is also known as North-South Tongzhou together with Suzhou Nantong. It is precisely because of the importance of this place in the ancient north-south trade route that a large number of merchants gather here, even if they do not live here for a long time. Some temporary houses will be built here to receive businessmen from south to north.In order to show their own strength and heritage, the owner of the house will build the house extremely luxuriously. Almost all the characteristic buildings in ancient China can be seen here, but the preferences of people in the past few hundred years have made most of the buildings here be north-south. The combination of Soviet-style gardens is the mainstay, which not only allows northerners to appreciate the southern landscape, but also allows southerners to feel the northern style of the Fortress, and the Chen Family Courtyard is one of the best.

In the past, the Chen Family Courtyard was a well-known mansion among the common people in Tong County, covering an area of ​​one hundred hectares, hundreds of houses, thousands of servants, and countless rare and antiques. Many of them have been to the Chen Family Courtyard People in the courtyard thought that the owner of the Chen Family Courtyard probably built it in the original shape of the Grand View Garden written by Cao Xueqin.As for who the owner of the Chen family compound is, most people only know that it is a great family in the south, and few people know the more specific content.

Although the Chen Family Courtyard used to be extremely luxurious, after experiencing the turmoil in China, the Chen Family Courtyard has been completely dilapidated. All kinds of antique calligraphy and paintings in the compound were either taken away by the Chen family or donated to the country, and the rest of the despised ones fell into the pockets of the servants at home.

In the various movements after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chen Family Courtyard, as a typical example of feudal decay, has been nationalized. However, at this time, more than a hundred families have lived in the Chen Family Courtyard for many years, and most of them are the Chen Family. In the past, servants were defined by their social status as the oppressed and the poor.Therefore, the government can't let them move out and demolish the Chen family compound, so they can only continue to live here, and even later transformed it into a small alley in a small community, and stuffed dozens of people into it. family.In the end, it became a rather crowded courtyard like it is now.Also because of the increase in the living population, the original houses were no longer enough, and the people who moved in later could only transform some gardens into small courtyards, after many renovations.The Chen Family Courtyard has been completely changed beyond recognition, and it has long lost the grandeur and elegance of the past.

Chen Jingde lived in the southeast corner of the Chen Family Courtyard. This place was originally the largest garden in the Chen Family Courtyard, Jing Yuan, and there were no suitable houses for people to live in. When he lived here.He and his family had to build their own houses. It can be said that he built the four-bedroom courtyard where he lives now.

The reason why he didn't live in the house in the northwest corner of the compound like everyone else was mainly because of his family's status. His family was the son of the Chen family. Grandpa's generation even became the chief steward of this Chen family compound.It is precisely because of the status of this chief executive that his background has become an accomplice of the oppressors, a henchman of the exploiters, etc. Naturally, he is not suitable to live with the oppressed people.

Among the stewards of the Chen family compound, the situation of his family is not bad.Because when his grandfather and his father were in charge of the Chen family compound, they did not do anything to bully others, and they also helped many people. During the Anti-Japanese War, they even took in some wounded guerrillas at risk. .It is precisely because of the merits left by these elders that even though he had a problem with his background, he did not suffer too much. He just let their family live out alone. The big and small stewards of the former Chen family compound, their family is already considered very good.

later.The government also arranged for residents to relocate to the Chen Family Courtyard. Most of these residents were placed in various gardens in the Chen Family Courtyard. Jing Yuan was the garden with the largest number of residents, and almost thirty families were arranged here.Because most of these more than 30 families are from military households in Fujian.They all speak Hokkien, the language is barrier, and they rarely communicate with each other. In addition, these people know the background of Chen Jingde's family from other people, and they will subconsciously avoid contact with their family in their daily life, so they are completely isolated. .

Even if isolated.But life is still not bad, Chen Jingde is a person who can only live a small life, this kind of life is most suitable for him.However, as the movement to destroy the four olds began to spread across the land of China, Chen Jingde never lived a peaceful life. He was always in fear every day, for fear that disasters would fall from the sky to destroy his family. The box of belongings under the bedroom.

When the Chen family left, they took away all the previous things in the Chen family compound, but they still kept some good things for the children of the Chen family who had served the Chen family for generations, which was regarded as severance pay.Back then, Chen Jingde's father was the chief manager of the Chen Family Courtyard, so he had the best and most items in his hands. These items were mainly folk kiln porcelain from the Yong-Qian period.Although these porcelains are only folk kilns, they are also very exquisite because they were fired in the prosperous Qing Dynasty. They were already very valuable in the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. critical stuff.

Not long ago, a piece of folk kiln porcelain from the Daoguang period was found out in the Chen family compound and criticized in the county.Only one piece of Daoguang folk kiln has been dragged out for criticism. If someone finds out that there is also a box of Yongzheng and Qianlong folk kiln porcelain hidden in his home, the consequences will definitely be unimaginable to Chen Jingde.Fortunately, when Chen Jingde's father got these porcelains, he hid them and never displayed them in front of others. Outsiders didn't know that there was such a box in their house.

It's just that Chen Jingde couldn't turn a blind eye to such a box of scourges at home. He was worried every day, for fear that others would find out, and he would become paranoid.In the last few days, he heard that a former steward of the Chen family who was expelled from the Chen family's compound was searched for some of the property that the Chen family gave him in the past. He died within two days.This news made his mentality worse. He hadn't closed his eyes for three days in a row. He was skinny and his eyes were bloodshot. According to his mother-in-law, he might not need it in two days. If others took him out to criticize him, he would either be driven mad by this scourge, or he would turn himself in.

Chen Jingde also felt that if he continued like this, he would really go crazy, so he decided to smash all the porcelain, and then quietly took it outside at night to throw it away.In this way, he found a day when the nearby construction site started working, and then put the porcelain that was once considered a treasure but now a scourge on the bed one by one, covered it with a quilt, and found a big rice-pressing cylinder head. The stone smashed all these porcelains to pieces.Afterwards, he divided these pieces of porcelain into more than a dozen pieces of different sizes, and then at night when no one was around, he took a few pieces of broken porcelain and went out quietly through a gap dug artificially in the garden. In a pond in the suburbs, all the broken porcelain was thrown into the pond.

Chen Jingde was very careful during the whole process of throwing away the porcelain. Although he was almost seen twice, he was not in any danger at all. Seeing that the pieces of porcelain that were regarded as heart disease gradually decreased, his original heart gradually became more and more serious. After letting go, the whole person is no longer so suspicious and neurotic, as if he was a different person.Tonight, he was about to throw away the last pack of porcelain shards, and he could really feel relieved after that, so he was very excited all day, and he returned home early from the construction site, sitting in the main room Wait for dark.

Like the previous few times, Chen Jingde waited until late at night, put the packed broken porcelain in a rag backpack, and asked his mother-in-law to wait for the door, while he turned over through the back window of his bedroom with ease. He got into the grass behind the house, and carefully moved towards the gap along the corner of the garden wall.However, when he moved to the gap in the wall, he found that a group of patrolling militiamen just stopped here to rest, and almost ran into him.

Fortunately, Chen Jingde reacted quickly, and when the other party found out that it was valuable, he rolled over and lay down in the ditch in the corner, avoiding the sight of the patrolling militiamen.Although it is safe in the ditch, as long as you don't get close, you can't see someone hiding here, but because of the spring rain just now, the originally dry ditch was filled with rainwater. Although the rain stopped, the inside of the ditch The water also receded, but there was still some accumulated water in some sunken places in the ditch. Unfortunately, the place where Chen Jingde lay down happened to be in a puddle, and his clothes were soaked in water in an instant.

Because the winter had just passed and the weather was still very cold, wearing a rain-soaked padded coat was no better than being naked in the snow, but within a short while Chen Jingde felt that he could no longer hold on.Fortunately, the patrolling militiamen did not rest for too long. After smoking a few cigarettes, they continued to patrol according to their daily route.

After the militiamen left, Chen Jingde immediately jumped out of the ditch, trembling and ready to go back, but the sound of broken porcelain rubbing against his body made him stop, and a hesitant expression appeared on his pale, bloodless face. In the end, he gritted his teeth, resisted the coldness on his body, turned around and walked quietly towards the pond according to the previous route.

On the following road, Chen Jingde walked smoothly without any troubles, and soon he came to the pond.At this moment, his tense mood also relaxed. The chill that he hadn't noticed because of his mood hit him violently, and a strong sense of fatigue and strange heat spread all over his body. Throwing the package into the water, he passed out straight by the pond. (~^~)