September in the capital is not as hot as July and August, nor as biting as the cold winter. It is mild and warm, and is the most comfortable time of the year.
Cicadas are seizing the last opportunity and chirping tirelessly. The broad-leaved landscape trees on the roadside have already produced colorful leaves that are more gorgeous than flowers. As soon as the autumn wind blows, a colorful bleak scene will fall to the ground.
In a quiet alley in the heart of the capital, there is an exquisite courtyard house with a dark gate and shiny door cymbals.
Behind the two doors was a square courtyard, with houses to the east, south, west, and north, all built with black bricks and tiles. In the courtyard stood a tall persimmon tree, so tall that one person had to hug it. Its branches were laden with green persimmons, which would turn red after the frost.
There is a table made of bluestone slabs under the persimmon tree, and two elderly men in their seventies are playing chess with their beards blowing and their eyes glaring.
"Zhou Dabao, if you lose one more game, you'll have lost three games in a row. With your chess skills, you should go home and practice some more before trying again! This is so embarrassing!"
An old man with white hair proudly tapped the "pao" and "che" he had just eaten, making a crisp "pa pa" sound. The old man had broad shoulders and long legs. Although his face was wrinkled with age, his features were regular. He must have been a handsome man in his youth.
"Bah! Luo Zhentian, I didn't win against you because there's no prize, and winning wouldn't be fun. Otherwise, take out that bottle of Moutai of yours, and I'll definitely win against you!"
Another short, fat old man with a red nose dropped a chess piece onto the board with a "bang". Luo Zhentian was startled, looked down at the chess move of the poor chess player, and sneered:
"You're so jumpy, you're sick! Don't worry about my wine. I'm telling you, all my good wine is for my grandson. If you call me grandpa, I'll give you some!"
Zhou Dabao was so angry that his beard stood up high: "Bah! Don't think I don't know that Wen Yuan never liked to drink. You are just stingy and use him as a shield! You were stingy when you were young, and I didn't expect you to be even more stingy now that you are old!"
Zhou Dabao is addicted to alcohol. Knowing that Luo Zhentian has a lot of good wine at home, he often comes to ask for money, which makes Luo Zhentian annoyed by him.
When Luo Zhentian heard Zhou Dabao say he was stingy, he waved for the guard Xiao Wang to come over: "Xiao Wang, come here, take away all the fruits and melon seeds. I'll save them for Wen Yuan. Don't give any to this old bastard!"
"You—! You stingy person!"
"A stingy person is better than a drunkard like you!"
"What's the point of leaving these to Wen Yuan? Wen Yuan is out on a mission, right? I'm afraid if these things of yours get rotten, he won't be able to come back!"
"You—! Shut up!" Luo Zhentian slammed the table and got angry.
The white-haired old man is Luo Zhentian, Luo Wenyuan’s grandfather.
When Luo Zhentian was eight years old, the entire Luojia Village was massacred by Japanese invaders. Little Luo Zhentian managed to escape death by hiding in a haystack, only to be rescued by a passing group of Eighth Route Army soldiers. From that moment on, Luo Zhentian hated the Japanese and insisted on joining the Eighth Route Army. The soldiers, seeing him as too young and too young to handle a gun, refused to accept him, so he secretly stayed behind for five or six days. Later, fearing his continued involvement would put him in danger, the army commander retained him to help with odd jobs.
Six months later, the army took in another boy with a similar experience: Zhou Dabao. From that moment on, the two Red Devils began to love and hate each other, competing with each other. When they were young, they competed in kills, and later in leadership and military achievements. Zhou Dabao was always surpassed by Luo Zhentian.
It was not until they both got married that Zhou Dabao finally found a way to surpass Luo Zhentian - in having a son!
Zhou Dabao had four children, all of whom were male. Perhaps the Zhou family had a genetic defect, passing on only the Y chromosome and not the X chromosome. His four sons gave Zhou Dabao seven grandchildren in a row, making the family predominantly male, with fewer females than males.
Zhou Dabao's rustic name had been a source of ridicule for him since childhood, so Luo Zhentian decided to give his children and grandchildren a scholarly air. Thus, Zhou Dabao named his four sons after the four characters "英明神武" (brilliant, wise, and powerful): Zhou Yanying, Zhou Yanming, Zhou Yanshen, and Zhou Yanwu.
But Luo Zhentian mocked him again, saying he was just mechanically copying idioms without any real meaning, and that the four pieces of raw material were supposed to be wise and powerful, which was simply ridiculous. Zhou Dabao was so angry that he spent half a month browsing the Cihai dictionary and set a ten-character motto for his grandchildren: benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness, and he insisted that his four sons embody all ten of these mottos.
Unfortunately, several daughters-in-law were unable to continue giving birth to children after the one they had given birth to, and the others were still okay, but the third daughter-in-law only gave birth to one, which obviously did not meet the target, so she had to worry about the old man's mood a lot.
In the past few years, the four daughters-in-law have passed their childbearing age one after another. Seeing that there is no hope of having more children, Zhou Dabao plans to adopt three orphans in order to complete the couplet. However, he was scolded by his wife and gave up the idea.
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