Zhang Dayou and his brothers chose a location at the foot of North Mountain. There was plenty of wasteland there, and when the children grew up, they could build nearby. It was also convenient for quarrying stone. Furthermore, it was far enough from the village entrance that the family could hide on North Mountain if anything happened. So the three brothers helped each other build their houses, and their shouts could be heard from 100 meters away.
Zhang Dayou's house is closest to the foot of the mountain, so its walls are the highest. They are all made of large bluestones, a typical northern courtyard house.
The vermilion gate was just painted last year when a wedding was held. When you enter the gate, you can see three fruit trees planted on the east and west sides of the yard. The two trees on the west are jujube trees. They are many years old and were transplanted directly from the mountain. The tall leaves can block some sunlight in summer.
Not far from the west wing, there is a tall grape trellis. Under the trellis is a large bluestone table and several stone benches. In the summer, the family likes to sit here to eat and enjoy the cool air.
The persimmon trees on the left near the kitchen were also transplanted from the mountain. Every year, the fruits from these three trees make the children in the family very happy.
A well was dug not far from the tree. With this well, the family no longer had to fetch water from the village entrance year after year. Aside from washing clothes in the river, the well met all the family's needs. Because the family had small children, the wellhead was built high and covered with a metal plate.
The open space in front of the east and west wing rooms is perfectly level. It's used to dry corn and sweet potatoes, as well as dried wild fruits from the autumn harvest, mushrooms, fungus, and other mountain products. The entire yard is very clean and well-organized.
On the left side of the courtyard, along the wall, were three rooms: the outer kitchen, the second a small warehouse where we stored vegetables for drying in the fall, jars of pickled vegetables for winter, and a few grains. The last, a utility room, housed the family's farm tools, baskets, and other miscellaneous items. There was also a cellar beneath the kitchen, accessible through the open path, where we stored the family's grains.
A small cellar had been dug in the east wing of Zhang Guoqing's main house, unknown to anyone except his parents and Zhang Guoqing. It contained the family's hidden treasures, such as the pair of gold bracelets and two gold rings that Zhang Guoqing's mother had brought as a dowry; a box of jade pendants, jade plaques, and jade rings that Zhang Guoqing had hidden away during the village landlord reckoning; three gold bars and two bags of silver dollars that had been bought with wild animals before liberation; and a dozen or so wooden and jade ornaments that Zhang Guoqing had privately collected, several of which were cracked.
Little Guoqing once asked Zhang's father about it. He said he didn't know if it was worth money. He just followed his father to the landlord's house to deliver the game when he was a child. He happened to see the landlord carefully wiping it, so he guessed it was worth a lot.
As for Zhang's mother, she planned to give the gold bracelet she brought as dowry to her eldest sister-in-law after a hundred years, and the two gold rings had already been given to her two sisters as dowry.
Zhang's father had told little Guoqing not to tell anyone about this, or he'd be robbed and thrown in jail. He also promised that he could pick half first, and the rest would be divided among the three brothers a hundred years later. Little Guoqing was smart enough not to tell anyone.
Next to the kitchen is the east wing, which has three rooms. This is where the eldest brother Zhang Guofu and his family live. Now the children are small. The eldest nephew, who is over 10 years old, lives alone in one room. The second and third children, who are 8 years old, are twins and live in another room. The little niece lives with the eldest brother and his wife.
There are five western wing rooms built on the right side of the front yard. The first two are for the second son, Zhang Guoqiang. The couple has only two children and it is spacious enough for them to live in.
The last two rooms belong to the third son, Zhang Guoqing. When he got married last year, he connected the two rooms to create a suite. Villagers who came and went without paying attention simply sat on the pit. Zhang Guoqing knew Zhou Jiao was a bit of a germaphobe. He set up a small living room and study outside, and rarely opened the bedroom, usually entering from the small living room.
Zhang's father used the empty room in the west wing as a granary. In the countryside, the crying of children is especially loud late at night. The second son's child is young, and his wife is a big mouth. Using the middle room as a granary can also avoid conflicts between the two brothers.
The two east wing rooms of the main house served as the couple's bedrooms and a storage area. Mother Zhang used them to store dried pheasants and rabbits, as well as grains, eggs, brown sugar, dried meats, and other local produce. Only Mother Zhang had the key; no one else could enter. The second son's wife had tried to enter, but Mother Zhang scolded her several times. No one else in the family had ever been inside the storage area except Zhang Guoqing.
The eldest daughter-in-law, Zhang Cuilan, only has the key to the kitchen cellar. There are only two keys there, and one of them is still in the hands of Zhang's mother. It is said that it is used to prevent the second daughter-in-law from stealing food and bringing it back to her parents' home.
As for Zhou Jiao, she was pregnant right after she got married, so she wouldn't take anything back to her parents' home. It's impossible for her to secretly give it to her uncle's family except for her grandparents.
Furthermore, she only bought a 220-yuan brand-name sewing machine out of the 300-yuan betrothal gift from the Zhang family and the 500-yuan three-turn, one-ring watch. She already had a watch on her wrist, so she didn't buy a new one. The bicycle Zhang Guoqing had owned when he was in junior high school was still about 80% new. When she got married, she brought the fabrics given by her grandmother, her own clothes, and the wardrobe and wooden box arranged by her grandfather.
The Zhang family did not split up, but each wife's dowry could be kept. It was said that the 800 yuan was calculated from the 300 yuan betrothal gift of the eldest son of the Zhang family and the 500 yuan of the second son. No one knew how it was calculated. Anyway, the third son got 800 yuan. If it was less, he would make up for it himself, and the more was kept privately by the third daughter-in-law.
Because of this, I heard that the second brother Zhang Guoqiang and his wife had a fight, because the second daughter-in-law Lin Juhua married without even a suitcase and wearing patched clothes. The second brother was angry and felt sorry for the 500 yuan. He usually borrowed the eldest brother's bicycle when he went out.
So, with the more than 300 yuan of private money that Zhang Guoqing gave her later, Zhou Jiao probably had more cash in her hands than the entire family combined, almost reaching 3,000 yuan.
No one but Zhang Guoqing knew about this money, as he was afraid others would get to know about it. Especially when his family members questioned him, he would insist that he only had 300 yuan for the betrothal gift and 100 yuan left over for the dowry, plus Zhou Jiao's personal savings, which was less than 500 yuan. He would also give examples of how much money Zhou Jiao had spent on him before, how much she had bought him snacks when she got pregnant, and when she had spent money on what, regardless of how others questioned him.
In fact, apart from the pension that Grandpa asked to keep secret, some people could calculate it. For example, her mother-in-law should know how much she had, but she was smart enough to fool everyone.
In addition to the main hall where the whole family eats and chats, there are two rooms in the west wing on the right. These are the rooms of the two sisters of the Zhang family. Except for the occasional visit from them, they are basically vacant. Relatives and guests who come to the house stay in them.
The backyard is huge, at least three times the size of the front yard. It is divided into three parts, with a plot in the middle for growing vegetables and sweet potatoes.
In every corner inside the wall, loofahs in summer, pumpkins in autumn, and winter melons are planted closely together. Pumpkins can be used as a staple food and are the most planted.
At the back, in the right corner of the mountain, there's a row of thatched houses with a simple kitchen inside for roasting pigs. Two pigs are kept in a pen next to it, and about 10 chickens are kept in a small bamboo-enclosed area not far from the pen, to prevent the chickens from wandering into the vegetable patch and causing trouble.
The thatched house on the left side of the backyard wall is the family's toilet. For convenience, they paved the ground with bluestone to make a squat toilet, just like those in the city. After use, you can just flush it with a bucket of water. The only thing is that in the northern winter, it is very comfortable to use the toilet in the toilet.
There is a back door a few steps away from the toilet, which is used to go directly to Beishan to collect firewood. If you want to go to Beishan, you don't have to go out the main gate and go around in circles, you can go out the back door directly.
When autumn comes in Northeast China, the whole family starts collecting firewood. Firewood is needed throughout the winter until the snow melts in the spring of next year, not to mention the several kangs in the house.
It's not easy to get coal briquettes in the countryside, not to mention that firewood in the mountains is free, so no one would go to the city to buy coal briquettes. But people in the city would buy firewood, and now some families in the village have labor to chop firewood and carry it to the city to sell.
After the first snowfall in Northeast China, winter begins, and every household strives to gather firewood, prepare winter clothing, and stock up on food. While leaving the city in the cold of winter might be inconvenient, now is the early days, and one can still buy grain at a premium, or trade fine grains for coarse grains. The Zhang family has been collecting firewood these past few days, occasionally hunting pheasants and rabbits to satisfy their cravings. The Zhangs are hardworking, and now there are several towering piles of wood not far from the back door.
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