When Guan Ping'an returned to the village, he built the five large tiled houses he now lives in. They face south, with the main hall in the middle. The four rooms to the east and west each have a kang (kang). The old couple lived in the first room to the right of the main hall, and the one to the right behind it was occupied by the third son and his wife. The room to the west of the main hall was occupied by Guan Dashan and his wife. As the main house of the Guan family, it was a well-maintained and well-preserved household. The last tiled house to the west was occupied by the fourth son and his family.
On either side of the tiled house are four adobe houses with brick facades. In the local village, there is a euphemism for this, called "gold wrapped in silver."
What is gold wrapped in silver?
The front is made of adobe, covered with bricks, and the remaining three sides are adobe. From a distance, it looks like a brick house. In those days, this was a pretty good house.
The two rooms on the east side were occupied by the fifth brother's family in one room, and by the eldest grandson and his wife in the other. The eldest grandson married his wife last year, the second year of the famine. Not only were people starving and unable to get out of the fields, but people in every village walked hunched over. There were springs in the mountains, which never dried up even in the drought. Villagers from villages near the mountains would go up to drink the springs, filling their stomachs with water. Back when food was worth more than people, the eldest grandson's wife was bought with half a bag of flour. But she was a hardworking woman, and within six months of marriage, she became pregnant.
One of the two rooms on the east side is the home of the sixth brother, and the one at the far end is where the second brother's family, who is the least favored, lives.
The two adobe houses on the west side of the yard are the kitchen and firewood shed.
The two rooms on the east side are occupied by the grandchildren, a bunch of naughty boys. Every day after school, they play with cats and dogs and run around the yard. At night, the kangs in the two rooms are crowded with people. Guan Ping'an and his wife feel indescribable satisfaction and pride when looking at these grandchildren.
The walls of the second brother's room haven't been painted for many years, and the newspapers on the wall have turned into a yellowish brown due to age.
The kang in the room was made by Guan Laoer himself. On the kang was the kang cabinet he made when he got married. On the floor was a large wardrobe, a small table and two wooden stools that he made himself.
The cotton mattress on the kang was old, and two thin quilts were stacked in the corner. I hadn't slept at home in three or four days, and a thin layer of dust from the roof covered the quilts. A broken, warped copper basin sat on a tattered basin stand near the door. The room was utterly spartan, so shabby it lacked even a kerosene lamp.
Although they were all built of earthen bricks, the other rooms were far superior. New newspapers covered every wall, the ceilings were fixed, and two of the windows even had beautiful window grilles. In Lao Liu's room, a newly built wardrobe was placed in the most prominent position. The kang (kang) was covered with new sheets, beneath which sat a thick mattress. Two thick quilts with mandarin ducks playing in the water were stacked side by side at the head of the kang. The door curtains were new, too. In short, one could tell who was favored and who was not by looking at the room they lived in; the favored rooms had everything new.
The Guan family's yard was enormous. In front of the house, rows of onions, ginger, and garlic grew when the weather was warm. Behind the house, they used to raise pigs, chickens, ducks, and geese. Dong Xiaomai had always taken care of them, but when they grew up and it was time to eat meat, she couldn't even get a bite, let alone soup. In the past two years of famine, with nowhere to forage for wild vegetables, she hadn't raised any poultry.
A group of overlapping mountains half-embrace Guanjia Village in the vast land. A winding river flows down from the waterfall on the mountain and surrounds the land beside the village like a jade belt.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
