Upon hearing this, Sheng Liancheng hurriedly pulled out a string of five hundred firecrackers from under the kangqin.
He led his sons out of the house, hung the firecrackers on the clothesline outside, and lit the fuses with a match.
In Northeast China, most families do this: instead of putting the firecrackers they buy in a cupboard, they stuff them under the kang (a heated brick bed).
Most kangqin (a type of zither) are placed at the end of the kang, and even though it's at the end, it's still warm.
So the firecrackers, warmed by the heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed), didn't get damp at all, and when lit, they made a loud, crisp crackling sound.
During the Chinese New Year, the more noise the better; the louder the firecrackers, the better off the family is.
However, these days, most firecrackers only have five hundred, two hundred, or one hundred shots; those firecrackers that can easily have thousands or tens of thousands of shots are almost nonexistent.
Moreover, apart from ordinary firecrackers, such as double-bang firecrackers, there are very few other fireworks.
Anyway, even if they did have them, most families couldn't afford them. They would just buy a couple of strings of firecrackers, listen to the noise on New Year's Eve, and go through the motions.
The Sheng family does have quite a few firecrackers, which are something Sheng Xiping always keeps on hand when hunting.
So at this moment, Sheng Xiping took out ten and led his younger brothers to set off firecrackers in the yard.
Then, a series of clanging and banging sounds came from the Sheng family's courtyard, making a huge commotion.
The two maids, Sheng Yunfang and Sheng Yunfei, dared not watch from the courtyard, so they stood at the doorway, covering their ears.
Sheng Xitai was bold. He stood in the yard with his brothers, not covering his ears, just watching the firecrackers explode, clapping and jumping around.
"This is so much fun, bro, put one more, put one more!"
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