Chapter 2 Opening the Door
1459 Words
How can I not remember, it is just fresh in my memory. According to the customs that have been passed down in this town for hundreds of years, if there are snakes digging into their house, it is a good sign, and the owner must not expel them and kill them. On the first day of the first lunar month, Song Jixin sat on the threshold to bask in the sun, and then a small thing commonly known as a four-legged snake scurried into the house under his nose. Song Jixin grabbed it and went into the yard When I fell out, I never thought that the four-legged snake, which had already fallen into all kinds of meat, became more and more courageous. Time and time again, Song Jixin, who never believed in ghosts and gods, was so angry that he threw it away in a fit of anger. When he arrived at Chen Ping'an's yard, where did he expect that Song Jixin would see the four-legged snake curled up under his bed the next day. Song Jixin noticed that the girl was pulling her sleeve.
The boy and her had a good heart, and subconsciously swallowed the words that had reached his mouth again. What he wanted to say was that the extremely ugly four-legged snake had a bulge on its forehead recently, like a horn on the top of its head. Song Jixin changed his words and said, "Zhigui and I may be leaving here next month."
Chen Ping'an sighed, "Be careful on the road." Song Jixin said half-truth, "I definitely won't be able to move some things, but don't steal things recklessly while my house is empty." Chen Ping'an shook his head. Song Jixin burst into laughter, pointed at Chen Ping'an with his finger, and said with a hilarious smile: "Cowardly like a mouse, no wonder there are no noble children in the poor family, not to mention the poor and humble in this life, and maybe they will not escape in the next life." Ping An was silent. They went back to their houses. Chen Ping'an closed the door and lay on the hard wooden bed. The poor boy closed his eyes and whispered, "Sui Suiping, Sui Sui An, Sui Sui Ping, Sui Sui Ping..."
The sky was slightly bright, and before the c**k crowing, Chen Ping'an had already got up. The thin bedding could not keep the heat in, and Chen Ping'an also developed the habit of getting up early and going to bed late when he was an apprentice firing porcelain.
Chen Ping'an opened the door and came to the small yard with soft soil. After taking a deep breath, he stretched out and walked out of the yard. He turned his head and saw a slender figure, bent over, holding a wooden bucket of water in both hands. Her shoulders pushed open the door of her own courtyard. It was Song Jixin's maidservant. She should have just returned from the iron lock well on Xinghua Lane.
Chen Ping'an retracted his gaze, walked across the street, and trotted all the way to the east of the town. Mud Bottle Alley was in the west of the town, and at the easternmost gate, there was a person in charge of the town's business travel and night patrols, and he usually collected and handed over some The family letter sent from outside, the next thing Chen Ping'an will do is to send those letters to the people in the town. The reward is a letter and a copper coin. This is the way he finally made money. Chen Ping'an has already I made an appointment there, and after the second dragon raised his head in February, he started to take over the business of this stall.
In Song Jixin's words, he was born poor, and even if he was lucky enough to enter the house, Chen Ping'an would not be able to keep him. Song Jixin often said some obscure words, probably from books, but Chen Ping'an always didn't understand. As for surviving the winter every year, but after the spring, it gets colder for a period of time. The youngsters experience it firsthand. Song Jixin said that it is called a cold spring, and it is as powerful as a carbine on the battlefield, so many people will die in these ghost gates. .
The town is not surrounded by a city wall. After all, let alone robbers and bandits, there are few thieves and thieves. Therefore, the name is the city gate, but it is actually a row of old fences that are crooked. There is such a place for pedestrians and vehicles to pass through. The face of this town. When Chen Ping'an trotted past Xinghua Alley, he saw many women and children gathered beside the iron-locked well, and the reels of the well kept creaking. Going around another street, Chen Ping'an heard a familiar sound of reading not far away. There is a village school, which was jointly funded by several big families in the town. The teacher is a foreigner, and Chen Ping'an is a small school. At times, I often ran to hide out the window, squatted secretly, and pricked up my ears. Although that gentleman was extremely strict when he taught, he did not scold or block Chen Ping'an, the children who were "reading and learning". Later, Chen Ping'an went to a dragon kiln outside the town as an apprentice and never went there again. school.
Going forward, Chen Ping'an passed a stone archway. Because the archway building has 12 stone pillars, the locals like to call it the crab archway. The real name of this archway is very different from that of Song Jixin and Liu Yangxian. , Song Jixin vowed to say in an old book called the local county annals, called this place as Da Shifang, the imperial archway of the emperor, in order to commemorate the cultural and martial arts of a high-ranking official in history. Liu Yangxian, who is like Chen Ping'an, said that this is Crab Square, we have been calling it for hundreds of years, and there is no reason to call it a nonsense Da Shi Fang.
Liu Yangxian also asked Song Jixin a question, "How big is the official hat of a scholar, is it bigger than the wellhead of the iron lock well?" Song Jixin blushed when asked. At this time, Chen Ping'an ran around the twelve-legged archway. There were four large characters on each side, and the fonts were strange and different. "Furious Bullfighting".
According to Song Jixin, except for a certain four characters, the other three stone carvings on plaques have been smeared or tampered with. Chen Ping'an was ignorant about these things and never thought deeply about them. Of course, even if the teenager wanted to get to the bottom of it, it would be futile. He didn't even know the local county annals that Song Jixin often talked about. Not long after the archway, I soon saw an old locust tree with luxuriant branches. Under the tree, there was a trunk that had been moved here by someone unknown. With two bluestone slabs, this big tree was used as a simple bench.
Every summer, the people of the small town like to enjoy the shade here. For wealthy families, the elders will fish out a basket of iced melons and fruits from the well. When the children are full, they will form gangs and hang out in the trees. Playing in the shade. Chen Ping'an was accustomed to going up and down the mountain, ran to the gate of the fence, and stopped at the gate of the lonely yellow mud house, his heart was not beating and he was not breathing. There are not many people outside the town. It is reasonable to say that now that the money tree made by the official kiln has fallen, there will be no new faces.
When old man Yao was alive, he once got drunk and told his apprentices Chen Ping'an and Liu Xianyang that we are the only official kiln business in the world, the royal porcelain for His Majesty the Emperor and the Empress. No matter how rich you are, no matter how big your official position is, if you dare to touch it, you will be beheaded. The old man Yao was very different that day. Today, Chen Ping'an looked outside the fence, but found that many people were waiting to open the city gate, no less than seven or eight people, men and women, young and old.
- Writer
