People in the old Beijing who live nearby know that the old Guanyin Yuan was also called Guzi'an. It was once very popular and a good place for seeking children in the capital.
The architectural pattern of Guanyin Temple is very clear. It is divided into east and west courtyards across Zixin Road. The west courtyard is on the west side of the road and is the main building of the temple. It faces south and faces north. The four-story hall is a place for worship and prayer. The east courtyard is on the west side of the road.
On the east side of the road, there is only a group of courtyards, facing north and south, which are used for monks' residences and to hold spirits. Originally this was normal, but what is interesting is that the east and west courtyards of Guanyin Yuan are connected through a very unique architectural form.
Together, that is - across the street.
The cross-street building not only allows carriages and horses to pass through the lower part, but also allows people to pass upstairs. Functionally, it is very similar to the current cross-street bridge, which plays the role of three-dimensional transportation. When the nuns in the temple performed rituals, they would accompany them.
The Sanskrit sounds of the bells and chimes meander away from the crossing building, which often makes the people watching downstairs think about it. In addition, there are statues of gods in the crossing building all year round. When people pass under the statues, it also plays the role of worshiping the gods and suppressing evil and eliminating filth.
.In addition, on every Buddha's birthday and the birthdays of Bodhisattvas, the nuns of Guanyin Temple will stand on the cross-street building and give out medicines to pedestrians on the north and south sides. When the medicines are put in small baskets, tied with ropes and hung from the upstairs, the Buddhist world
It is connected to the secular world by a thin rope.
The building structure of the cross-street building is divided into two floors. The upper floor is a cantilevered building, with three sides in width and four purlins in depth. It has a gray tube tile roof, a ridge, and square windows between the columns. The lower floor has brick arch holes and ten thousand square windows on the lower shoulder.
There is a stone plaque in the middle above the doorway. The northern forehead brick is engraved with "Golden Rope", and the southern forehead brick is engraved with "Jue'an". Both are signed "the tenth year of Daoguang (1830)". Today, this place is actually
It is the last remaining cross-street building in Beijing. It is precisely because of this unique cross-street building that the east and west courtyards have always used the same postal code address, both called Furuli No. 2 Courtyard.
Hong Yanwu's family moved to the east courtyard of Guanyin Yuan in 1954 after their old house was expropriated by the Meishi Street Office.
At that time, in order to accommodate the growing population, the government began to build terraced houses on a large scale in the surrounding areas of the city. Another measure to improve the living conditions of poor people at the same time was to eliminate superstition and stop religious activities.
Old temples were transformed into other types of buildings to make them more practical.
Under this situation, almost all of the more than a thousand Buddhist temples in the capital were confiscated and used for other purposes, and were converted into housing, schools, institutions, nurseries and nursing homes. And the Guanyin Temple in Furuli became
A place where people live with daily necessities of life.
In fact, the east courtyard of Guanyin Yuan itself is a place for people to live. To put it bluntly, it is the dormitory of nuns in the past. The layout is three rooms in the north, three rooms in the east and west, plus four rooms in reverse. Compared with the courtyard, in addition to
Except for the fact that the courtyard door is in the middle and there is no screen wall, everything else is the same. In this area, it is considered a good house with good conditions.
The first people to move in were the Hong family and the Bian family. It was first come, first served. The three north rooms were divided between the two families through discussion. The Bian family had a small population, so except for one north room on the west side, they only occupied one room on the north side.
The west wing room. And because the Hong family had some money when they first moved in, and the furniture in the house was large, in addition to the two north rooms, they also rented all three east wing rooms. When the Ding family moved again
, and occupied the remaining two west wing rooms and the reverse room on the west side. Finally, when the Su family moved, there was no choice, leaving only the last two reverse rooms on the east side, which are dark all year round, cold in winter and hot in summer.
.
However, this was the period of "surpassing Britain and catching up with America". As industrialists and merchants in the old society, the Hong family was afraid of being accused of "disunity" or "backward thinking". Seeing that the Su family was dissatisfied, they approached the housing management office.
The cadres, Hong Yanwu's good-hearted coward, were frightened at that time, and took the initiative to vacate an east wing room, and "united" to settle the Su family.
From this moment on, the four families in the east courtyard officially gathered together. The Bian family, the Ding family, the Su family and the Hong family began to live together for decades, living together day and night as neighbors.
For more than ten years, the living area and conditions of the four families in the East Courtyard have remained the same. It was not until last year that the famous Tangshan Earthquake occurred. Only under the call of the government did the four families in the East Courtyard build an earthquake-resistant earthquake-resistant building.
shed.
The houses are very simple, with walls made of broken bricks, low rooms, narrow windows, and a few pieces of dark linoleum covering the roof to keep out the rain, held down by a few bricks. From a quality point of view, it's really not good enough. But
After the earthquake, because there was no kitchen or vegetable cellar in the courtyard, no one was willing to dismantle these temporary earthquake-resistant sheds. For the sake of convenience, everyone simply kept them for private use.
But at the same time, there is also a disadvantage, that is, the original space in the yard has been occupied by small rooms built by each family, and the very convenient way to go back and forth in the past has naturally disappeared. Now, if the four families go in and out of the hospital, they can only walk through the hospital.
The only passage left to the west of the door.
This passage is very narrow, and is only wide enough for one person to push a bicycle in one direction. If another person is encountered in this process, one of the parties will have to give in. In addition, when the small house was built, the original floor tiles in the courtyard were also lost.
It has been damaged a lot, and chalk soil is exposed in many places of the passage. It is full of potholes and is very difficult to walk. In short, the entire terrain of the courtyard is like a trance formation. You have to twist and turn and bump up and down to get in and out.
Even if a thief comes in and steals something, he may not be able to escape.
Fortunately, Hong Yanwu didn't feel embarrassed. He naturally understood these changes. So from the moment he stepped into the courtyard gate, he didn't turn at all. He took seven-star steps, turned around the Su family's kitchen and headed west. This was better than in his previous life.
Many times, in his previous life, he worked outside the labor camp for several years after being sent to a labor camp. When he came back for the first time, he couldn't even find his home when he entered the hospital.
After bypassing the outermost Su family's small house and entering the Ding family's territory, the first thing Hong Yanwu saw were the persimmons and potatoes drying on the Ding family's window sill, and then the piles of cabbage and briquettes under the wall. Not to mention, it was cold.
In season, if it weren’t for the piles of cabbage and the hills of briquettes, it would really feel a little less like the capital, a little less like an alley.
Perhaps because his footsteps were too heavy, Hong Yanwu had just reached the corner when a woman's head poked out from the crack in the door of the west wing of Ding's house. Perhaps seeing Hong Yanwu's face, she opened the door completely to stop him for questioning.
"Where are you going? What are you doing?"
This woman is in her mid-twenties and has loose braids. She is a pretty girl, but her mouth is shaped like a little chili pepper, and her eyes are raised at the corners. She does not look good. Especially the arrogant and alert one.
The expression on his face made Hong Yanwu very uncomfortable.
"I'm looking for someone."
"Who are you looking for?"
"Looking for someone named Hong."
"Is that the person named Hong inside?"
"yes."
Hong Yanwu was too lazy to say anything. He had no impression of this woman, and it was so far away that he couldn't remember whether she was a guest of the Ding family or a relative.
At this time, a five or six-year-old girl came out from the crack in the door of Ding's house, "Uncle, who are you looking for?"
Hong Yanwu recognized this little girl. She was the granddaughter of the Ding family. At this time, he seemed to remember that this woman seemed to be the little girl's mother, the second daughter-in-law of the Ding family. Because the second daughter-in-law of the Ding family was both in Tong County.
He worked in a pastry factory and only came back occasionally to see his children. So he and this woman had never met each other very often.
A kind of kindness made Hong Yanwu squat down with a smile, and he even called the girl by her nickname. "Ling'er, you don't recognize me anymore? I live here."
The little girl tilted her head to identify him, rolled her big eyes and thought for a long time before she recognized him, "Uncle Wu Zi..."
Ling'er was the first acquaintance Hong Yanwu met when he came back from "traveling". He was full of interest and wanted to tease the child a few more words. But unexpectedly, the woman seemed to be afraid that he would eat her own child, and pushed the child to the ground with all her strength.
Hidden behind.
Hong Yanwu, who was squatting on the ground, was extremely embarrassed. He thought he was very gentle, but others were guarding him like a wolf.
What the woman said next was even more embarrassing. "You...are you the third child of the Hong family who was subjected to forced labor?"
Hong Yanwu's smile disappeared and he stood up with a frown. "Yes."
But the woman didn't know how to read her face, and still asked unceremoniously, "Oh? Why were you released? Didn't I sentence you to three years? Did you run out..."
"Are you finished?" Hong Yanwu interrupted, with a fierce look in his eyes.
The woman was startled, and without saying anything, she pulled the child and swooped into the house, then slammed the door, followed by the sound of the door being opened.
Hong Yanwu was so angry that he walked into the courtyard with a cold face and full of grievance. But then, behind him, there was the sound of a woman lecturing a child in the house.
"Who told you to take care of him? He is a reform-through-labor prisoner and a bad person."
Ling'er's childish voice asked, "Mom, Uncle Wu Zi doesn't look like a bad guy? Why did he always arrest me in the past?"
"Hey, you coward, you still dare to talk to me? I tell you, if you dare to ignore him again, I will twist your legs..."
The woman undoubtedly used the most brutal education method, and her scolding was mixed with Ling'er's crying.
This heartless bitch!
Hong Yanwu's heart suddenly ached. He clenched his fists and wanted to curse, but his throat was blocked by something and he couldn't make a sound.
Huh, of course everyone has known about his bad deeds for a long time. These neighbors definitely talked about him often. He could imagine how they sighed and shook their heads on the surface, as if they cared about him and felt sorry for him.
.But in fact no one will be happy for him to come back. They must all be like this stinky bitch secretly, hoping that the government will shoot him. But so what? I don't care. I'm back. I'm very happy. I'm all
It must be the whole tail, no arms or legs missing. I...
With these messy thoughts in his mind, Hong Yanwu turned a corner and went around the boundary of Bian's family. Finally, his ears were clear.
Hong Yanwu has known the two big and stupid black locks on the door of Bian's house since he was born. The kind old couple immediately felt that they were not home. Uncle Bian had retired and didn't know what he was doing, but Aunt Bian was from the street.
The members of the neighborhood committee must still be busy on the streets. Aunt Bian's scope of authority is very large. She is in charge of the five black categories, the military households with five guarantees, the four pests, spreading rat poison, and catching people alive. The old lady can do everything.
worry.
There is another scene under the eaves of Bian's house. There are no piles of briquettes and cabbage, which have been placed in the small room. Because Uncle Bian likes to play with flowers and plants, the windowsill of Bian's house is full of flower pots and pots.
Don't look at it, they are all used to clear the soil. Uncle Bian's real treasure is spending the winter in the house. It will not be moved out of the house for everyone to enjoy until the weather is suitable. In addition, the lotus tank for raising fish is not easy to move.
, can only stay outside the house. A thin layer of ice has formed, and it is not known how many little goldfish are still alive inside. Hong Yanwu is also familiar with this object. When he was a child, he often secretly peed in it.
The water pipes and sewers of the whole hospital are also located here, facing the entrance of the north house of the Bian family. So the Bian family built a small house in front of the north house. Unintentionally, the small house also became a dividing line, blocking the flood water.
The Bian family's house and the Bian family's house are also separated into two separate spaces. After passing through the Bian family's small room, we will find Hong Yanwu's home.
At a glance, at the end of the road leading to the house, a thick old jujube tree swayed its incomplete branches, timidly welcoming him.
The jujube tree is extremely ugly. The branches are bare and blowing in the wind. It is not beautiful at all. It looks like a monster that has become a spirit. When the weather is warm, there is often a kind of thing that the children in the capital are most afraid of lurking on the branches.
Insect - "Crystalis". In fact, the scientific name of that thing is the green thorn moth. It is covered with hard hairs and has a ferocious color. If the hairs touch the skin, it will immediately become red and swollen, painful and itchy, making people unable to cry.
.However, Hong Yanwu never disliked this old tree because of this. He knew its benefits.
In spring, tender green leaves will emerge from the branches, and light yellow jujube flowers will bloom here and there. No matter morning or evening, the fragrance can float all the way outside the courtyard, and passers-by often pick up the nose and follow the smell.
In summer, the tree will cover the whole yard. As long as the sun is good, the yard is covered with flowers and shade. Every day, the whole family eats dinner under the jujube tree and talks quietly. The father drinks and the mother gives a few
Children pick up vegetables.
Also, this old jujube tree is never watered or fertilized, but it is full of fruits every autumn, year after year, without interruption. As if it wants to repay someone, when the day comes, the white flowers bloom,
The red fruits were definitely hanging all over the branches, so heavy that the branches were bent so hard that they almost touched the ground. According to my mother's words, the dates looked like "garlic pigtails."
Hong Yanwu walked to the jujube tree and stopped. He could see a large, vague scar more than one meter above the ground. It was a main trunk extending horizontally to the east that had been sawed off. He couldn't help but touch it.
This rough scar actually gave rise to a kind of excitement like seeing a relative in advance.
When he was a child, he would play "juyou'er" on the tree, pick dates by pedaling on it, and practice "martial arts" by "punching and kicking" on the tree. He remembered clearly how childish and innocent he had been.
He regarded this tree as a "playmate" and the best "amusement park". In fact, it was precisely because of his naughtiness that the old jujube tree was innocently affected and had this arm removed.
When he was seven years old, because the diet at home was light and he was eager for meat, he "thief" got into the big yellow civet cat at Aunt Bian's house. At that time, he stepped on a stool, hugged the branch that stretched out, and hung up.
The same thing was done on the tree. Unsurprisingly, he used the wire snare to snare the unlucky cat easily. Although the big yellow civet cat flashed green eyes and purred at him, it was as ferocious as
He was a tiger, but in the end he, the "tiger-fighting hero", inevitably hung him from a tree, disemboweled him and skinned him. After getting down from the tree, he set up tree branches and played with jujube barbecue. Unexpectedly
Yes, the fragrant smell of meat attracted all the people in the courtyard to have a look. As a result, Aunt Bian, who had always been good-tempered, became anxious when she saw the "tiger skin". She blocked the door of Hong's house in an unprecedented manner, and made a fuss without mercy.
One day, the father, who never spanked his children, spanked him for the first time because of this incident and beat his buttocks to pieces with a bamboo strip.
After being beaten, he thought that the incident was over, but later he discovered that the retribution for doing this immoral thing was far from over.
In the Mid-Autumn Festival of the same year, when he saw his sister looking at the heavy half-ripe dates on the branches, he volunteered to climb up the tree to pick dates for his sister. However, when his sister clapped her hands and cheered, he had just loaded it up with a hurdle vest.
With half a bag full of dates, the second brother came to tell him that his father was calling him at home, telling him and his sister to go quickly. He thought that his father had found out about some naughty reasons, so he ran down the tree trunk in a hurry. As a result, he
His chest and stomach were all scratched to pieces by the rough bark of the jujube tree.
The younger sister turned pale with fright at the blood in his stomach, and the second brother was also stunned on the spot. Probably because he felt that he had something to do with it and should be responsible for his horrible stomach, the second brother secretly ran to
I bought a bottle of 220 from the drug store (in the past, the commonly used external medicines, except iodine and gentian violet, were only red syrup. 222 is red syrup, the scientific name is mercurochrome. It is called 220 because it took 220 tests before it was successful.
) came back. But after his sister applied the red liquid on him, his stomach felt more like it had been disemboweled. He only felt strange, frightened, and intolerable. Now he didn't even dare to wear clothes.
I dyed it as soon as I wore it. In the end, I had to stand outside alone with an inexplicable red belly, not daring to enter the house at all.
When his father came out of the house impatiently, he discovered his horrible red belly and was immediately shocked. After finding out what happened, considering that he had played so many tricks on the tree, I was afraid that one day he would
After falling from the tree, his father cut off the horizontal branch he used to rely on without saying a word.
Only then did he learn that his father did not ask him to go there because he had obtained any new "criminal evidence", but just to share moon cakes with the children at home. This made him feel dejected, and also sent his second brother to
What a complaint.
The past still feels like yesterday. Thinking of the red belly back then, Hong Yanwu's eyes suddenly stretched far away.
After bypassing the jujube tree, he finally entered the home. The first thing Hong Yanwu saw was two half-grown chickens, clucking and pecking in front of the kitchen.
The Hong family's small room is an inverted room. There are piles of cabbage with dry skin placed under the west wall of the small room. Because they are afraid of being pecked by chickens, the piles of cabbage are covered with a ragged felt. The small room
There is a linoleum shed on the east side, and the briquettes under the shed are stacked neatly and magnificently. In addition, there are several braids of purple garlic hanging next to the door frame of the small room. Under the garlic braids, there is an earth basket for garbage, and on top of the earth basket
It was a half-rusted black iron dustpan, and beside it was a broken broom that had almost wiped out the seedlings.
Walking to the small house and looking to the left, there are four main rooms, two in the north and two in the east. There are four pickle jars on the windowsills of the two east rooms, but the doors are locked. Only the parents in the north room have
There is no padlock in the room, and white gas is still coming out of the chimney. Standing in the courtyard, Hong Yanwu can smell a strong smell of Chinese herbal medicine coming from that room.
Yes, I’m back home. After more than thirty years of traveling in a big circle, I’m finally back. The scene in front of me can prove everything. This is a miracle that millions of people long for but are hard to find.
The familiar scene seemed to be calling or urging Hong Yanwu to walk to his parents' door in a few steps. But just when his hand touched the door that had been opened countless times, he suddenly felt sore in his heart.
Instead, he began to worry about gains and losses.
Behind the door are the traces of his growth and the imprint in his soul. Now as long as he opens the door, he can see the relatives he misses so much.
But the question is...will his relatives be happy to see him?
No need to ask, mother and sister must be happy. Where are the eldest brother and sister-in-law?
Although they have always had strong opinions about him, his mother will probably persuade them not to make things difficult for him. The second brother is still jumping in the queue in Shanxi, and the nephew is not yet an adult, so he does not need to worry about this.
The most important thing is his father. Will his father forgive him?
Hong Yanwu recalled the moment when he was taken away in front of his father and he shouted "I have no father". Although he didn't see it, he could imagine the scene when his father finally left.
The father who was so thin that he could be knocked down by a gust of wind and whose steps were hobbling must have stood looking at the entrance of the alley for a long time before hunched over and turned around to leave. The father's eyes must be as empty and distant as his broken heart.
My heart was confused and my hands were shaking. There was panic in the chaos, and there was also a tearing pain in the palpitations.
People will always hurt those who love them, but often they themselves will also be hurt.
In a daze, Hong Yanwu seemed to see the door of the room being opened, and all his relatives were standing in the room, looking at him expressionlessly.
His body froze and his soul had emerged from its shell.