Once Young - CH 1.1

At that time, when I raised my head and looked at the sky, I felt that it was so big outside, and I wished that I would grow wings and fly away with the geese lined up in a line.

On the day I was born, the rain stopped in Beijing for several days, and the sky was so sunny that it finally looked like a midsummer.

The purple morning glory in the yard is all in bloom, and the red flowers have been able to suck out the honey, the jujube trees and the locust trees cover the shade, the cicadas are buzzing. There are dragonflies flying in the sky, and sometimes there are a few beetles with black and white flowers.

Old people enjoying the shade gathered together. The grandmother pushed the small bamboo cart and coaxed the grandson and granddaughter. The grandfather played chess while shaking the palm fan. They never watched chess or said a word, and they often argued about the vault or the stalwarts. In the commissary, there is a brand of iced Arctic Ocean soda, and the hawker covers a small white wooden box with a layer of quilt, which contains cream ice cream and azuki bean popsicles.

There are piles of children in the alley. Boy Play pinball, do pictures, and some catch crickets. They keep them in glass jars. The jars should be covered with a layer of paper, tied with rubber bands, and then pricked with a few small holes. Breathable. They would name the crickets something like “General Changsheng” and “King of the Mountain”, and then put them together and let them fight. The girls played with rubber bands and tied them to telephone poles when there was no one to stretch them. They also “hopscotch” using broken red bricks or talc used to cut clothes at home to draw lines on the ground. Small sandbags are made of rags, so gray that the original colour cannot be seen.

Although the west entrance of the hutong is the bustling Dongdan Street, there is no hustle bustle inside the hutong. Only a few bicycles have been ridden occasionally, either permanently or Phoenix. They are all black and even the bells on the handlebars are the same. It’s no wonder that not only bicycles, but every family lived a similar life at that time. The changes in Beijing are still indistinct, maybe someone can say a word and the city will be exactly the same.

However, on my birthday, something amazing happened.

Xin Viagra from the east house of our hospital was taken away by the police, saying that he and the nickname of the west courtyard ‘The monkey boys’ are hooligan outside the women’s restroom together. They peeked at the women’s toilet in the morning, and whistled at the people inside and said nonsense. Xin Viagra’s younger brother Xin Yuan felt embarrassed by the side and told them to leave. Xin Viagra found him annoying and not only did not listen to him, but also kicked him. Xin Yuan went home crying alone, and happened to see Director Zhao of the neighborhood committee come out to empty the urinal, and hurriedly turned around and left.

At noon, the police came to the courtyard to arrest people, saying they had committed hooliganism.

Someone commits a crime, and this blows up the nest. Just in time for Sunday, adults and children all came out to see. Xin Viagra is usually the most naughty and arrogant boy in the yard, but that day he was so scared that he couldn’t stand up straight. The 18-year-old boy was forced out of the house, crying while walking, calling his grandma, “Woohoo”. He couldn’t hear what he said.

When the police came, Xin Yuan was playing with a group of children at the gate of the courtyard, ” We are all wooden people, one is not allowed to talk and two are not allowed to move. ” He was really like a wooden man, standing motionless on the edge of the courtyard wall, watching his friends run over to watch the fun, watching his brother being dragged away by the police, watching his grandma sitting on the ground crying, watching the courtyard surrounded by layers of people, completely surrounding him outside.

In my later impression, Brother Xin Yuan has always been reticent to talk, always bowed his head and greeted others without looking into your eyes. Some people say that it was because Xin Viagra was arrested that he was bluffed,  so he suddenly became a silent gourd. But I think, maybe since that day, he never changed back from the wooden man.

Xin Viagra was sentenced not long after he was caught, because he explained in it that he had gathered together to watch pornographic videos, so he was sentenced to hooliganism, 15 years. Monkey’s situation was even more serious. He had a girlfriend at that time, the girl who was in the women’s toilet that day. The investigation found that they had an improper relationship between men and women, and they were sentenced to death. Before the execution of the death sentence, people from the court came to collect 70 cents of ammunition fees. It is said that his girlfriend also committed suicide by drinking dichlorvos because of this.

They were unlucky, caught up with the “strike hard” and took part in a whole life for a prank. The adults say this is life. This fate is the fate of life, but also fate.

Of course, I don’t remember any of this at all. I was just born. Because of Xin Viagra, everyone completely forgot about the little girl named Xie Qiao who was newly added to the old Xie family, so that some people in the courtyard thought I was Li Qiu.

Only my little boatman remembers me clearly, and he told me these things.