Chapter 88 Life is hard

As the war dragged on, the wartime economy fell into a semi-paralyzed state.The price of goods in the Kuomintang-controlled area is soaring, and the funds that Sicheng finally applied for from the Ministry of Education for the construction of the society have been depreciated like a pile of waste paper when they become monthly salaries.Rice, flour, oil and all food and daily necessities are getting more and more expensive, and the life of the Liang family is getting worse and worse.Like the children of farmers in Lizhuang, the children wear straw sandals barefoot, with patches sewn on their clothes, and they can only wear cloth shoes made by their grandmothers in winter.Once, the little brother accidentally broke the only thermometer in the house. For a long time, Huiyin couldn't take his temperature because he couldn't afford or buy a thermometer anymore.

Huiyin had a poor appetite, ate very little, and was always very thin.Occasionally, someone sent a small can of milk powder from Chongqing or Kunming, which is Huiyin's rare high-end tonic. Grandma is from Fujian and doesn't know how to make pasta. Sicheng learned how to steam steamed buns.Only homemade brown sugar can be bought locally. Sicheng chopped orange peel and boiled it together with homemade brown sugar. It is nicknamed "sugar cane sauce" and let the children eat it on steamed buns.Sometimes when there was really no money, Sicheng had to take a boat to a pawn shop in Yibin near Lizhuang to pawn the few clothes left at home.His and Huiyin's watches, Parker pens and other slightly valuable items were "eaten" in this way.Every time he leaves home for Yibin, Sicheng always jokes bitterly: "Let's 'burn' this watch!" "This dress can be 'boiled'."

Sicheng's younger brother Siyong also fell ill in Lizhuang.He also had tuberculosis, and his condition was very similar to Huiyin's.Before the Anti-Japanese War, Siyong presided over the second excavation of Hougang, Xiaotun, Anyang, and Chengziya, Longshan Town, Shandong, and achieved world-renowned achievements.He once comprehensively summarized Longshan Culture at the Sixth Pacific Academic Conference, and is recognized by the Chinese archaeological circle as one of the pioneers of modern archaeology and archaeological education.His work has improved the scientific level of Chinese archaeological excavation and brought it into the category of modern archaeology.

The Institute of History and Language is on the mountain, and Sicheng sometimes goes up the mountain to visit Siyong.When they were together, Sicheng always remembered that in 1931, when Siyong was less than thirty years old, he was in charge of the excavation of the Yin Ruins in Anyang Xiaotun, and he went to Anyang to watch this archaeological event.At that time, Siyong dispatched a team of one or two hundred archaeologists, who arranged them in an orderly manner.How young they were then! Now, only ten years later, Siyong fell ill and Huiyin fell ill. They are Sicheng's beloved relatives, and they are both seriously ill.At this time, Sicheng also committed his own old problems. The cold climate and difficult life made his spinal soft tissue gray matter worse.His back became more and more hunched, and his physique and energy declined severely, but he had to hold on.

The spring of 1941 was a spring full of disasters. Huiyin's younger brother Lin Heng died when he was hit on the head by a Japanese plane in an air battle defending Chengdu.Lin Heng was smart and strong, and graduated from the flight school in 1940 with the second place in the school.As an Air Force pilot, his flying history was very short, but he fulfilled his wish --- sacrificed in the air battle against Japan, and disappeared into the boundless blue sky. Sicheng did not tell Huiyin the bad news at that time, and he went to Chengdu to deal with Lin Heng's funeral.Three years later, Huiyin learned of her younger brother's death, and the belated grief still broke her heart.She wrote "Crying Three Brothers" to mourn Lin Heng and those young pilots who died in the war against Japan like Lin Heng...

In these dark days of poverty, sickness, desolation and pain, the ancient architectural art they loved, and the academic research on the history of architecture that they spent half their lives on, became the stars that illuminate their lives. The cause that the ravaged China can do its best is the only support for them to place their suffering souls on.