Text 004 Qing Dynasty old house
Xu Wen got out of the car and looked at the gate next to him.
He was a little surprised.
The creeper is lush, but it still can't hide the cracks in the white wall. These cracks are large and small, and the large ones can be seen through which the houses inside can be faintly seen.
The wooden doors on the walls are mottled with paint, and in some places they have been rotted by the rain, and the copper ring in the middle is covered with rust, which makes people worry that it will fall off if you pull it.
Just by looking at the gate, he could imagine what was going on inside.
As soon as they got out of the car, the vehicle behind them drove away. Jing Cheng untied the purse around his waist, took out a key from it, and walked over and inserted it into the keyhole.
Old-fashioned copper keys, old-fashioned homogeneous ancient locks. The metal friction made a hoarse sound, the wooden door was staggered open, Jing Cheng turned to the side, and said to Xu Wen, "Little gentleman, please come in." ”
Xu Wen was still surprised, and the ball on his shoulder moved, rubbing his cheek.
Xu Wen came back to his senses, passed in front of Jing Cheng, and walked into the door.
Instantly, the cicadas roared.
There are two big trees growing inside the door, which look like camphor, and the trunks of the trees may not be hugged by three or four people. In the middle of summer, the green trees were luxuriant, and a huge shadow was cast around him, and Xu Wen's dryness suddenly disappeared.
"What a big tree, how many years has it been?" Xu asked, looking up.
"Qing Jiaqing has been more than 300 years. Jing Cheng said.
Xu Wen was a little surprised. He knew it was an old mansion from the beginning, and he didn't expect it to be so old.
There was another door behind the tree, and between the two doors, there should have been two rooms on the left and right, but now there was no room for the tree, leaving only half a roof and a few broken brick walls.
Looking at the location, this should be the original gatehouse, probably because there is no way to weigh the relationship between the tree and the house, so it has to be like this.
The second door, though, looks beautiful.
It is made of bricks, with heavy eaves above, and layers of fine brick carvings, with beautiful lines, and the shape of strange birds and monsters can be vaguely seen. It's a pity that the time is too long, and it has not been well maintained, the brick carving has been blurred, and the bricks in some places are directly broken.
Xu Wen walked over and touched the black brick edge, the cool touch penetrated through the skin, he turned around and said with a smile: "It is worthy of the old mansion of Wanyuan, it is really exquisite." ”
As soon as his gaze touched Jing Cheng's face, he was stunned for a moment.
Since the first meeting, this person has been polite and detached, cold, as if nothing has anything to do with him. But now, he was staring at the brick gate, his eyes hooked, and some strange emotion was floating in his eyes.
"Mr. Jing?" Xu Wen called out twice in concern, walked over and patted him on the shoulder.
Jing Cheng instantly gathered his expression, stepped forward, and gently stroked the door frame: "The original door panel of this door is made of fine mahogany, and it is inlaid with bamboo lattice, I remember that it is a ...... with back lines."
Uh, it turns out that this is not just a decorative entrance, but actually has a door panel?
Xu Wen knows that mahogany is a very precious wood, and a set of mahogany furniture on the outside market is tens of thousands of yuan, and such a large wooden door is indeed worth a lot of money, which shows the great amount of money that was built at the beginning. But it is precisely because of such a large amount of money that this door panel will be lost......
Xu Wen looked at the empty door frame and couldn't help but feel regretful.
"It's a shame, but hasn't anyone lived here for a long time?"
"My husband grew up here as a child, then left for some reason, and only returned a few years ago to regain ownership of the place. Many of them were away for some reason, and he could only hear some information about this house indirectly. ”
Jing Cheng said a little vaguely, but combined with what happened during this time period, Xu Wen had already roughly guessed what was going on. Most of them are inseparable from the war decades ago. However, after so many years, I can still get back the property rights, and my luck is quite good.
Jing Cheng calmed down completely, and walked inside with Xu Wen across the door. After only two steps, Xu Wen let out a soft "ah" sound.
Inside the door was a hall, which may have been very grandiose, but now it is completely unrepresented.
Half of the roof tiles were missing, leaving only bare beams and pillars, covered with wool felt and the like, to keep out the wind and rain a little. Even so, there are a large number of water traces left on the walls and floors, and the traces are very old, which shows that the rain leakage is very serious, and it is not a matter of a day or two.
There may have been green bricks on the ground, but now there is not much left, and the bricks are almost completely broken. In order to fill the gaps, cement was poured in those places, as if they were patched with large patches, which did not fit.
The windows on the wall are scattered and scattered, and it can be seen that it was originally a very fine wooden stained window, and every wooden strip and every prism is very exquisite. But now six of the ten windows are missing, and the rest of the wooden strips are broken and crooked, as if they are about to fall at any moment.
This house...... It's too broken. Big is big enough, maybe fifty or sixty square meters, worth four or five of Xu Wen's dwellings in Beijing, but if it is broken like this, it is impossible to live in it.
He felt more and more pity, and turned his head to look around, and saw garbage piled up in the corner of the wall, and the wires and telephone lines above were tangled in a mess, and a worn-out red T-shirt hung on one of the ropes, which looked more and more messy. Jing Cheng was so excited to see the lack of door panels at the door just now, what kind of mood would it be to see this, Xu Wen couldn't imagine it.
"After the gentleman left, the house was rented out. Sublet to many households, they don't know how to cherish it, let alone maintain it, and they toss a good house into what it is now. ”
Jing Cheng's voice was calm, but there seemed to be many undercurrents hidden underneath. Xu Wen touched the wall next to him and said his true words: "It's a pity to be like this." But at that time, it was not easy to live, and it was too demanding for them to maintain the house or something. ”
Jing Cheng didn't speak, and after a while he pointed to the back and said, "This is the foyer, and the main hall is in the back." ”
The two walked out of the door across the hall from the foyer, through a small patio, to the main hall at the back.
The main hall is really large, with two floors, and the area of a single floor is two as large as the foyer. The house was a little better preserved than the previous foyer, but it was full of all sorts of rubbish, most of the windows were blocked by these things, and the environment was very dim.
Xu Wen frowned, turned around, and was suddenly stunned.
The blocked windows are only part of it, and the darker the place, the more visible the light. Xu Wen saw a corner of the hall, where there was a carved window, the latticework was still intact, and through it he could see the outside scenery.
The view is very simple, just a plantain tree. The banana leaves swayed gently in the wind like a fan, green like a transparent jade. The wooden window is like a picture frame, and the vigorous vitality of the green is like a picture frame, but it seems to overflow through the frame.
Xu Wen had long heard of the garden of Wanyuan in the painting of scenery, but he never thought that this ingenious framing composition would make such a simple "painting" have such a strong visual impact.
Xu Wen's attention was completely attracted to the past, and he couldn't take his eyes off it at all.
“...... This place used to be called the Four Seasons Hall, when it was built, it was built with the theme of Four Seasons, a total of 12 flower windows were set up, and the scenery from each window was different, and the four seasons were distinct, each with its own feelings. Jing Cheng's voice came slowly, with a kind of empty distance.
"It's beautiful. Xu Wen praised sincerely.
"It's a pity that it's now unrecognizable, and the Four Seasons Hall has no other appearance. Jing Cheng sighed softly.
"It's a shame. Xu Wen is also sincere.
"Little sir, do you think so too?" Jing Cheng turned his head to look at him, his eyes flashing with a faint light in the dim light.
"Of course. This window is really beautiful, and it is always a pity that something beautiful is destroyed. Xu asked.
"It's great that the little gentleman can think like that. Jing Cheng whispered, and there was a certain light in his eyes that became brighter.
Xu Wen didn't pay attention, he looked around, his eyes gradually adjusting to his surroundings, and he saw more details clearly.
He remembered what Jing Cheng said before, his great-grandfather named Lian Mo grew up here when he was a child. He didn't have any real feelings about this great-grandfather who appeared inexplicably and left an inheritance to himself, but now when he saw this house, he suddenly saw a child, standing in a spacious and clean hall, looking back at himself.
Xu Wen's heart moved, and he suddenly asked, "May I ask where my great-grandfather and his old man are buried, can I go and pay respects?"
Jing Cheng stared at him, and after a while, he nodded lightly and said, "Of course, please come with me." ”
Xu Wen followed Jing Cheng, passed through the back door of the main hall, came to the courtyard at the back, and walked along the cloister to the depths of the courtyard.
The yard is half open space and half pond. All sorts of weeds grew wildly in the clearing, and there was a well in one corner, the fence of which was half-decayed, and beside it was a wooden barrel, which was also half broken. Through these weeds, the Taihu Lake rocks by the pond can be faintly seen. They stubbornly stand there, maintaining the last of the dignity of this once beautiful courtyard.
As they walked deeper and deeper, Xu asked in his heart, could it be that his great-grandfather was buried in this mansion?
Why?
Qiuqiu had been sitting honestly on his shoulders, but now when he saw those fluttering weeds, he suddenly kicked lightly and jumped down, and the black figure quickly disappeared into the grass.
Xu Wen glanced at Qiuqiu, and when he came back to his senses, Jing Cheng stopped.
"This is the monument of the gentleman. Jing Chengdao.
His voice was low, like the wind rising, and Xu Wen was excited.
In front of him is a white wall and a few bamboo poles, and there is a stele on the bamboo wall, made of black granite, on which are written in the familiar thin gold body with three simple words - unfinished grave.
"What does this mean?" Xu asked, a little puzzled.
"Before my husband passed away, there were some unfulfilled wishes, and he never forgot them, and asked me to choose this name. Jing Cheng stared at the stele and said flatly.
"What wish?" asked Xu Qian.
"Restore this old house and restore it to its original appearance. Jing Cheng replied.