Shanghai, afternoon.In a European-style courtyard with overlapping pavilions, the lilac trees quietly exude the fragrance of the garden, and the sunlight sifts through the leaves to drop fine gold shavings on the ground.Girl and boy are sitting in the shade and reading a book. "... Before the maid's voice fell, a young son came in: wearing a purple gold crown with hair inlaid on his head, eyebrows tied with two dragons grabbing gold and wiping his forehead... a golden chisel necklace on his neck, and There is a five-color silk sash tied with a piece of beautiful jade. When Daiyu saw it, she was taken aback, and thought to herself: "It's so strange, it seems like I've seen it somewhere before, how familiar it is!""

This is the childish voice of a girl, and there is a kind of peace and quiet beyond her age. Although she is only eight years old, her voice already has the taste of time.It is beautiful, but cold, too rigid, like flowing water, chic, but lonely. "Baoyu has already seen one more sister, so she guessed it must be Aunt Lin's daughter, so she hurriedly came to make a bow. When they saw each other, they returned to sit down, and after a closer look at the description, they were different from the others: two curved eyebrows that seemed to be frowning but not frowning, and a pair that seemed to be weeping. Weeping with love in my eyes. I am worried about two dimples, and I am sick all over my body... Baoyu looked at it, and said with a smile: "I have seen this sister before.'"

This is a chapter of the third Bao Dai primary meeting.It seems that it should not be an extracurricular reading for an eight-year-old girl.But she likes it, even loves it, no matter whether she understands it or not, or how much she knows, she is willing to read it over and over again, from childhood to growing up.However, when she was eight years old, she didn't know that it would really affect her life. The boy rested his chin and listened, but not very seriously.The body is still, but the eyes hesitate.He is a whole year younger than his sister, but he is more beautiful than his sister. He has a gentle and sweet face, slightly curly hair, long eyelashes, big eyes, and a small mouth. He is completely made according to the version of Western dolls. Yes, like all dolls, she had a face of porcelain, smooth but pale.

A girl and a boy read, one listens, two angel faces, a tree with fragrant and fragrant flowers, and bees are busy flying among the flowers, but it only makes everything more quiet, like a Western oil painting, and it is Italian literature and art. The kind of biblical pictures about religion in the Revival. If it weren't for the sudden noise of quarrels in the room and the sound of broken porcelain, it would really make people feel that this is the paradise in the painting. But the quarrel broke everything. One woman was crying wildly, and the other questioned with trembling voice: "You lied to me! You said you changed everything before I came back. But you still gamble, smoke opium, and keep her. You say, What should I do now? Should she go, or should I go?"

The man was speechless, so he could only throw things, vases, mirrors, teacups, and the crisp breaking sound followed one after another, making people's hearts shattered with the sound again and again. The girl's reading stopped, and she looked at the boy speechlessly.There is a clear look in their eyes, which is commonplace and helpless.However, the same fear and patience, written on the girl's face is indifference, but on the boy's face it is blank.But in short, they experienced together, endured, and endured until the day when they couldn't bear it anymore. The boy asked: "Sister, is Mom leaving again?"

The girl didn't answer. She couldn't answer.At the age of eight, no matter how precocious she is, she cannot predict the answer to her fate. Then, the reading continued.Still calm, but after a while, tears streamed down her face. Ms. Huang's second grandmother, Ms. Zhao Yifan, is thirty-two years old this year, but she looks twenty-three at most.This is not only because she looks good, but also because she is fashionable. The face like a full moon in the clear sky, with Aisi's head curled to one side, has a name called "cloud covering the moon". Although the long and thin eyebrows are trimmed and curved, no matter how they are frowned, they will not look like a smoke cage. Chunshan, a pair of But the eyes are well-deserved starry water, below is a straight and straight nose that is rare for people of the yellow race, the lips are already well-defined and even more beautifully painted with Western lipstick, and the chin is a bit too plump and not angular, so the collar is always She was pressed down very low, revealing her snow-white neck. A string of pearl necklaces hung on her neck. The beads were full and round. She wore a tight-fitting jacket and an awning skirt. They were all fashionable dresses brought back from Europe. When she was sitting by the piano, Slightly raised her head to sing English songs, her long hair brushed aside, she flicked it suddenly, revealing her face, just like "clouds break through the moon and flowers make shadows", she is more beautiful than the stars in cigarette advertisements.

Even in the eyes of her children, she is noble and distant, far away and unattainable. She has a prominent background, wears gorgeous clothes, speaks perfect English, and has the most advanced theories and concepts.It is unimaginable for such a woman to stay quietly in the home of a late Qing Dynasty widow, sitting among a large group of concubines and the dense atmosphere of opium smoke as a young mistress.But there are only these things in her husband's house: a cigarette bed, a gambler, a concubine, a little-footed old lady, and an antique dealer. There is no income at all, and he has nothing to do with selling his ancestral property, but the second master Huang Jiaqi is still obsessed with collecting antiques, holding parties, and entertaining actors, and never tires of it.Seeing foreign money being spent like running water, only getting the reputation of a prodigal son, I still don't know how to control it.What are the troubles you can't get past?As long as there is the comfort of Afulan.

Legs crossed and half leaning half on the opium couch, holding a pipe in one hand to smoke, and holding a newly acquired enamel smoking pot in the other hand, rubbing and playing with it. Singing prostitutes, waiting for smoking and playing pipa to add to the fun-this is the most common appearance of Huang Erye, and it is also the most unbearable scene of Huang Ermai. Their quarrel began within the first year of their marriage, escalated with the birth of their daughter and son, and finally became irreconcilable. "What are your plans for the future? Is it possible that you are still waiting for Puyi to re-emerge and reward you as a cabinet minister? Can you do it? The Qing Dynasty has been down for more than ten years, and you are still dreaming! One of the daughters and sons is called 'Emperor', and the other is called 'Emperor', thank you for thinking it out!"

Huang Erye turned a deaf ear to such irony.He naturally knew that Aixinjueluo was exhausted, but he was unwilling to admit the beginning of the Republic of China. After all, he was a child of "Following the Banner" who was given the surname by the previous dynasty. He was born in a well-known family. Ask for an official position.Besides, for all the positions he may have, such as a clerk in a certain department or a secretary in a certain bureau, the salary he has accumulated in a month is not enough for him to pay for a round of tea, so why bother to suffer that grievance?It's true that the family business is not as good as before, but it's not enough to beg for alms in public.At least, this opium is still affordable, so there is nothing to worry about.

So, he was still sensual, invited friends to gamble, went to the Eight Great Alleys to celebrate Beijing opera fame, and even married his third aunt with great fanfare on the eve of his wife's delivery. His wife Zhao Yifan finally couldn't bear it anymore and left Shang at the end of the year. The youngest son, Xiaodi, who was in his infancy, traveled with his sister-in-law Huang Jiaxiu - nominally to study abroad. Study abroad!Twenty-six-year-old young mistress, mother of two, such an identity!Huang Erye was very angry and humiliated. He simply wrote off the past in Beijing and moved the whole family to Shanghai. He stayed away from those relatives and friends, and also stayed away from discussions and ridicules.

The day Yifan left was cloudy and rainy.From then on, Huang Erye hated rainy days all his life. But after I arrived in Shanghai, it was like this almost all the year round.Patteringly, like a long and monotonous etude, it is played from the beginning to the end relentlessly, without interruption, and it is played again from the beginning, and it is ruthless to start all over again. There is no end. On rainy days, the only thing Huang Erye can do is to smoke, or invite a group of drinking and meat friends to fill the house, try to make it as impressive as possible, so that he can forget his failure in Beijing and the incident that happened on the same rainy day. unpleasant thing. That was six years ago. Now, my wife is back, but the war is still the same, and it has not improved at all.Huang Erye sighed deeply. But Second Grandma Zhao Yifan could only sigh more. Ms. Yifan seems to have never aged since she left the country. What’s more, her life seems to be going backwards, getting younger every year. Like a girl in her twenties. Both her beauty and knowledge made her unable to endure the isolated life of the Huang family's walking corpses. She no longer wanted to see the piles of rusty and musty antiques, and she didn't want to see the man from Bada Hutong who tried her best to cover up but still couldn't hide it. Go to the third concubine who is full of dust, let alone those dice made of unknown animal bones and the heavy camphor wood card table.She wanted to disperse the hazy smoke, smash those half-lit smoke lamps, and break through the lazy and old order, but the means she adopted were just like her husband's, competing to smash the cups, smashing the glass. As a result, the furniture was smashed, only my own marriage that was on the verge of breaking down and the childhood fantasies of my children. It was a cursed nightmare that ended without waking up. The sun rolled down the hill rumblingly, and dusk approached little by little. The text on the book is gradually becoming unclear.Even Huang Chang's voice gradually became hazy. "Qingwen said: "Second master sent a handkerchief to the girl." Daiyu felt bored when she heard this, "Why did you send me a handkerchief?" Because she asked, "Who gave him this handkerchief? It must be If it's the best one, tell him to keep it and give it to someone else. I don't need it now." Qingwen said with a smile, "it's either new or old." Lin Daiyu became more and more depressed after hearing this. For a while, Fang Dawu came over and said quickly: "Let it go, let's go." After hearing this, Qingwen had to put it down, and walked back, thinking all the way, not understanding what it meant." This is the thirty-fourth chapter on Baoyu's gift of handkerchiefs.Huang Di was puzzled: "Why did Baoyu give Miss Lin an old handkerchief?" "The handkerchief is used to wipe sister Lin's tears." "Why did you give it to Sister Lin to wipe her tears?" "That's what he wanted." "What do you mean?" "Comfort Miss Lin and tell her not to cry." "Why is Miss Lin crying?" "Girls always cry a lot because they have a lot on their minds." "What's on your mind?" Huang Chang looked at his younger brother.There is a world of difference between an eight-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy. She didn't answer anymore, and she didn't understand.Fortunately, Huang Di was not persistent in asking questions.The siblings sat quietly under the tree, as if between heaven and earth, only this small piece of shade was their shelter, the safest and most reliable. The sunset glow has not yet faded away, but the stars have already poked their heads out from behind the clouds impatiently, and the moon also has a shallow shadow, but there is no light, as if it is not the real moon, but just the shell of the moon.Or, the moon is still dressing up, and the shadow of the moon is just an indistinct bronze mirror that has not yet been polished.When the moon is finished washing up and turning her head, she can really see her brilliance. After a long time, it was still the Yellow Emperor who broke the silence first: "It's time to turn on the lights." The servants in charge of the lights in each room were already standing under the candles and waiting, but the housekeeper hadn't shouted a chant yet, so they were not allowed to act without authorization as usual. Huangdi liked to watch the moment when all the lights were on, as if the world changed suddenly. The flickering of the light switch could turn the night into day again. favorite game of the night. It was so easy to see the butler's fat body finally appeared at the door of the hall, Huang Di immediately ran over, held the butler by the corner of his clothes, straightened his back, and shouted in the same way as his voice: "Everyone, room, palm, lamp—” It was a brilliant scene.As if the sound itself possessed some kind of magical power, before it hit the ground, the lights in all the houses and courtyards were suddenly lit up, there were bright and dazzling white electric lamps, and there was also a big red sign with the word "yellow" hanging on the door of the house. Silk lanterns, and at the same time clusters of small light bulbs light up on the grass in the garden, just like the fairy tale world in the Wizard of Oz. Huang Di laughed, still wanting more, and ran around the garden and shouted "Every room holds the lamp" several times, until he started coughing, and then returned to stand beside his sister.Only at this time, he really looks like a seven-year-old boy, with the naughty and childish characteristics of a little boy. In addition, because of his long-term illness, he is required by adults to be quiet and polite, and his voice is slow. Language, the whole is a porcelain doll, handle it gently and slowly. The chain reaction following the lighting was another more important matter related to people's livelihood. Huang Di thought of it without hesitation: "Sister, I'm hungry." At this time, Huang Chang had already moved himself to the entrance of the brightly lit corridor, and continued to look. When he heard the question, he raised his eyes and said casually, "Mama Lin will come to you later." Mama Lin is my younger brother's nanny, a lonely rural woman in northern Anhui, who is currently leaning against the kitchen wall and listening to the skirting.Cui Ma, the nanny of sister Huang Chang, is sitting next to her making dumplings. She is a little deaf, and always misses key sentences. From the three fingers she raised up, she could tell that "that master" refers to the third concubine Sai Chang'e. Mama Lin shook her head backwards, motioning Mama Cui to lower her voice, and said with her lips curled up, "Didn't you say that? The second master promised this and that when he married her and entered the house, so he won't leave." "Tsk tsk! Madam, don't you want to die of anger when you hear this?" "It's all lord's absurdity! If you want me to say, that sister Yao is not very good-looking, she should have been kicked out long ago. She has been in the door for so many years and she can't give birth to a boy and a half girl, so she wants to fight with her wife? She is a monster all day long. Which eye can see it? Look at the way it walks, it doesn't look like a good thing." Mama Lin twisted a few times as she spoke, exaggeratingly imitating the waist of the third aunt. Cui's mother couldn't help laughing: "That's right, she's far worse than the master's new goddaughter, Miss Bai. When I first saw her, I thought she was a female student." "What are you doing for a daughter? You're bluffing. Isn't it...hehe, I heard that the current Shanghai girls are all fashionable to dress up as schoolgirls, and they say that guests will be extra generous when they give money." "Tsk tsk, where did you hear this?" "Where else do you need to listen? Those guests of the master will come to talk about this one day? The previous one was discussing to focus on holding the Huaguo beauty pageant, saying that he would make Miss Bai the president." "Shh, don't let your wife hear that." "Afraid to hear? Everyone knows about it. The two of them were riding in a carriage, Miss Bai was wearing a gauze hat with long tassels, and the master was waving a stick, ostentatiously around the entire Bund, for fear that no one would see him. I heard that the master still I wrote a lot of poems praising Miss Bai and published them in newspapers to promote her." "Yo, isn't that the same as when you were an actor in Beijing?" "What do you think! No face!" "No face!" "Hmph, it's about the rich!" "Rich man!" Only at this time, Mama Lin and Mama Cui are intimate, harmonious, and like-minded.The master's quarrel made them sincerely express the philosophical emotion of "rich does not necessarily lead to happiness". When they sighed and talked with each other like this, they became two philosophers, the most calm, tolerant and wise thinkers in the world.As a result, the small and trivial conflicts and rifts in the daily life disappeared without a trace, and they were united like never before, with utter sincerity and intimacy, and felt that the responsibility was so great that it was so big that "Heaven will send a big responsibility to the people".Because the couple who were busy arguing had no time to take care of their children, the burden of taking care of the children fell on them, and they, the most righteous and kind heroes in the two worlds, had a duty to do so.Moreover, from the bottom of my heart, both of them are old servants brought over from the old house in Beijing. They grew up watching the siblings grow up, and their affection for the children is indeed more cordial than that of Zhao Yifan. Usually Cui's mother gets back to the topic first: "It's just suffering the child, poor, so pitiful!" When she was talking, her hand didn't stop for a while: pinching a pot of glutinous rice that had been cooked and let it cool down. Form into small balls, then put the minced meat into the rice balls and knead them together. After a while, roll the glutinous rice meat balls in egg juice, and then fry them in a frying pan.This is called Hefei meatball, which is her hometown dish, and Huang Chang's favorite is to eat it. Lin's mother replied: "That's right, my brother should be hungry. As long as I know I'm noisy, I don't care about my son. If it's not for us, sooner or later my son will starve to death." She is the only nanny of the boy in the family. Noble, so even when confessing his heart, he never forgets to mention the word "brother" all the time. It seems that this will increase the weight of his words and appear more legitimate. And the younger brother who was "fortunately" she didn't "starve to death" had already ran in from outside, begging in a low voice, "Mother Lin, I'm hungry." "Poor, so pitiful!" Mama Cui sighed again.And Mama Lin took an egg from the egg bowl she had just boiled and handed it to Huang Di: "Take this first to satisfy your hunger, and eat it all at once. Tell my sister, let's eat meatballs today." Huang Di thought for a while, and made an inch of it: "Is there any pine nut candy?" Mama Lin also thought about it, and promised proudly: "Yes, Mama Cui makes meatballs, and I make pine nut candies." The so-called "pine nut sugar" is to pound the pine nut kernels into powder and add rock sugar crumbs. The method is undoubtedly much simpler than glutinous rice meatballs.According to the rules of the Huang Mansion, the second master and his wife's meals are served separately from the young master's and the young lady's, and although the young master's and the young lady's meals are served at the same time, they are cooked separately, and she and Cui Mama are in charge of their own affairs, but today, such a special day , she has more important things to do, which is to "listen to the wall".And Cui's mother also took the special division of labor on this special day as a matter of course, and she didn't feel disobedient at Lin's self-talk. Instead, she was very interested and told her younger brother: "It's your sister's favorite Hefei meatballs." , ask her if she is happy?" Satisfied, the younger brother smiled shyly, ran out, and reported it to his elder sister as if it were a big event: "Mother Cui said, she made you meatballs today, are you happy?" My elder sister stared at the fading sunset and the gradually brightening moon in the sky, her eyes were serious, and after a while, she suddenly solemnly said, as if swearing: "When I grow up, I will treat Mama Cui well!"