Hongxing's family lives on the east end of Huangling Village, which is the highest mound in the village. The courtyard is surrounded by a brick wall that the villagers of Huangling Village envy. This was built by Wang Jicai when he was the accountant of the brigade. At that time, the brigade built a school, and his family built a fence. The school was built, and the walls of his house were repaired.

The villagers reported that the wall was built with bricks and tiles from Wang Jicai's corrupt brigade.

Directly south of the enclosure was a more imposing gatehouse, with two red painted gates with two large black iron rings. There are four adobe bungalows in the courtyard, located due north. It belongs to the main house. The west house is a cowshed made of adobe, with a wooden shelf on top and some tile tiles. There is an old cow that cultivates the land inside.

Next door to the cattle pen is a pigsty with a large fat pig. And the southwest corner is the toilet and chicken coop. Wang Jicai built a "three-storey" chicken coop on the edge of the toilet pit. The first floor is where the rooster and hen sleep at night. The second and third floors are nests for hens to lay eggs. In total, there are twenty-five hens and one big red rooster.

Wang Jicai divides labor, feeding the cattle is his task, and feeding the pigs is the task of the old woman, and leading this group of chickens is the task of this big red rooster. Every day, when the sky is twilight, after the rooster crows, as soon as the morning comes, Wang Jicai's wife opens the door of the chicken coop, and the big red rooster leads the group of hens to the mound behind the main house to eat insects. In the south, a simple grass hut was built, which stored forage for the cattle.

In the local area, people pay attention to building a house to build a main house first, and the local people are used to taking the north as the right. After the main house is built, if you have the ability to build the east, west and south rooms in turn, the order must not be messed up. This is a local house building in feng shui to pay special attention to, is to follow thousands of years of house building customs, no one dares to disobey. Otherwise, it will incur ominousness, the light family is poor, and the heavy one will commit a bloody disaster.

One year, there was a man named Sun Chouniu in the village, and he and the brigade applied for a new address, and he chose a relatively high address. This Sun Chouniu has a strange personality, he wants to build the west house first, and then the main house, and he wants to break this rule in this village.

So they broke ground and began to build the west house. And the West is designed to be taller than the main house of all the houses in the village. After the house was built, people went to visit, and people saw that Sun Chouniu's west house was raised high, surpassing the main house of all people's houses, and it was a new building with good wood, wood frame, brick wrapping, and a new and neat building.

After the new house is built, they are ready to step on the stairs. In the local countryside, the roof of a one-story building is called "stepping on the building". That is, a small attic is separated from a herringbone tile house with wooden planks, so that the grain can be dried and the sundries can be stacked. The wooden planks that step on the floor must not have moisture, because the wooden floor will be deformed as the days go by. Therefore, after the house is built, when it is time to step on the building, they have to pile up fuel in the new house to smoke the floor slab.

And Sun Chouniu's family also stacked the floor slabs of the whole house in the new house as usual and began to smoke it.

One night, at about 2 o'clock in the second half of the night, the whole village was asleep, and suddenly heard a commotion in the village, with chaotic footsteps, sighs, and wheezing, and then I heard someone crying out in horror: "It's on fire! It's on fire!

People woke up from their sleep and put on their clothes and went out to watch. As soon as I went out of the street, I saw the fire in the north of the village, and people knew that Sun Chouniu's house was on fire. The blazing fire burned half of the sky red, fiery red, and illuminated the whole village as if it were daylight.

People hurriedly ran to put out the fire, some carrying buckets, some carrying basins, and some holding shovels to Sun Chouniu's house. But when I got to the scene, the house of Sun Chouniu's family was built too high, there was no support around, the water could not be poured so high, and the shovel and broom could not reach, and the wooden planks used to step on the floor were all pine planks, and the pine wood was very oily, once burned, it was equivalent to adding oil to the fire, and the fire was burning more and more.

The fire grew bigger and bigger, emitting a terrifying "howl howl" roar and "crackling" sparks flying in all directions. People were in a hurry and had no choice but to stand around and watch as the five buildings burned to ashes.

Sun Chouniu knelt in front of the ruins and wailed! while the villagers began to talk and talk in the streets. It is said that Sun Chouniu did not follow the ancient law and violated the rules of the ancients to cause disasters and fires. Therefore, from now on, no one in Huangling Village will dare to violate the ancient law and be unconventional.

And the four main houses of Wang Jicai's house were built in accordance with the ancient rules. The four tiled houses are divided into three rooms, one large and two small, Hongxing and her grandmother live in a small room, Hongxing's two younger brothers also live in a small room for the convenience of studying, and Hongxing's parents live in a larger two-room house.

Hong Xing's father is named Wang Jicai, who is thin and has sharp beak and monkey gills. Although tall, he is small-minded, stubborn, closed-minded, greedy, stingy, money-loving, and scheming. He has a pair of triangular yellow eagle eyes, with the characteristics of eagle-like snooping and alertness, and his activity law is also somewhat similar to that of an eagle. Where can he take advantage of it? His sense of smell is as sensitive as that of an eagle. If there is a traveling merchant or hawker, driving a donkey cart or a flat pole to carry goods, and come to Huangling Village to peddle it, he must not meet Wang Jicai, otherwise he will have to be grabbed by his steel claws to escape.

Once, a middle-aged man selling watermelons from other places drove a donkey cart to Huangling Village to sell a cart of watermelons. The car was parked on the side of the street in the middle of the village. At noon, the sun scorched the streets, and the donkey shook its head and tail as the sun roasted it, and its hooves trembled.

People are squatting under the shade of the trees on the eaves, holding straw hats or shaking their necklines to keep out the heat. The peddler shouted loudly, and after a few shouts, he summoned Wang Jicai. When Wang Jicai heard the news, he walked with quick and swift steps, holding his rickety back and holding his hands behind his back towards the direction where the shouting sound was made.

When he saw a man selling watermelons in a donkey cart, he walked into this man with a smile and accosted: "Brother who sells watermelons, where are you melons?"

At this time, the people who were sheltering under the eaves and trees watched Wang Jicai come over, and they thought that this Wang Jicai would have a good show to watch as soon as he came, so they all stood up curiously, patted the soil on their buttocks, and gathered around to watch the excitement.

The man replied: "Big brother, you can choose, it's not sweet and you don't want money!"

Wang Jicai asked again, "Where did you get the melon?"

"I came in from a place in Chunyang County that produces good watermelons. ”

"Is it a melon from Chunyang County?"

"How can this be fake?"

"Don't fool us!"

"This big brother, if it's not Chunyang's melon, it's ten for a fake one!"

This man didn't know that he had been sucked into the trap step by step by Wang Jicai.

The people passing by listened to Wang Jicai and the melon seller getting up, and they all stopped and curiously gathered around to see the excitement.

Wang Jicai said again: "However, saying that this melon is from Chunyang, it is just what you said, and we don't know, we can only know if we eat it." Do you dare to let everyone pay for one for free? If everyone unanimously says that this is Chunyang's melon, we will buy yours. ”

The man said: "Big brother, I bought this melon with money, how can I eat white food?"

Wang Jicai watched this man get angry when he was incited, and he was not very calm, and then asked, "How many catties do you have in this car?"

The man glared at him and asked, "What, this car is all you want?"

Wang Jicai said: "I have to ask you how many catties this car has. ”

The man said, "Five hundred and sixty pounds." ”

Wang Jicai said: "Don't fool me, I think it's up to five hundred and thirty pounds." ”

The man said, "I don't know my melons better than you?"

Wang Jicai said: "I'm afraid you don't know as much as I do." ”

The man's anger came up again, and the two bull's eyes were bulging, and he said, "This big brother, you can really raise the bar, or let's bet?"

Wang Jicai said: "Bet on it?"

The man said, "What if it's 560 pounds?

Wang Jicai said, "What if it's five hundred and thirty catties?"

The man said: "I don't want this carload of melons, I'll give it to you!"

Wang Jicai said: "I'm always afraid that you are talking big!"

The man said, "Big brother, are you cowardly?"

Wang Jicai said: "I'm afraid that you will regret it then!"

The man patted his chest and said, "Our old man spit and smash a pit, regret it, that's what women do!"

Wang Jicai said: "The people present are all witnesses, and no one will regret it when the time comes!"

The man said: "I will never regret it! I don't believe that our grandfather will pull a hook in front of this father and fellow villagers?"

The man stretched out his crooked index finger, and Wang Jicai also stretched out his crooked index finger, and the two hooked together. More and more people gathered to watch the excitement, and at this time, everyone watched the two fingers hooked together to do it!

The man immediately shouted, "Here, find a big scale, pass the scale!"

Wang Jicai said: "Let's ...... slowly"

The man immediately laughed and said, "What's the matter, big brother, are you scared? If you don't get a gold diamond, don't take this porcelain job!"

Wang Jicai smiled and asked, "How much is the error?"

The man said: "The error is up and down two catties." More than two catties is considered a loss. ”

Wang Jicai said: "Okay, a word is a certainty!"

So Wang Jicai immediately asked everyone to bring a large measuring wooden rod scale and handed it to the man to check the scale first. Then everyone helped to unload a cart of melons, took a big basket, put the basket on a rope, filled a large basket, took a flat pole and threaded it into the rope, two people lifted it, the man looked at the scales, and one person supervised.

The scale is full of baskets, and then a basket of scales, and the man holds a pen and records on the side, until a whole car of watermelons is weighed, and a calculation is five hundred and thirty-one pounds.

The man's face turned white as soon as he "swished!" With so many people in the village surrounding him, hundreds of pairs of eyes stared at the man, and beads ......of sweat the size of beans immediately oozed from the man's forehead and back.

The man thought: "This car was weighed when it was loaded, 560 catties and a tael is a lot, and it was taken away after the scale was paid in Chunyang! How could it be less than 30 catties of melons?......

“…… Oh, I remember, when I passed by the door of the house, my wife took three or four melons and went. She said, 'Can't you eat two melons next to a man who sells melons?' and I took three or four of them. How did I forget about it?...... Ahem, this woman hurt me......

After a while, the man raised his head and saw so many pairs of eyes staring at him fiercely, he couldn't lose face, so he waved his hand and said, "Take it! Take it away! Take it all! Hurry up!"

Wang Jicai immediately sent someone to call his wife and children to watch the melon. He went home and brought a basket of burdens, and picked up seven loads and fourteen baskets of watermelons, and brought all the man's cart of watermelons home. The man's cart full of watermelons immediately became empty, and there was not even one left, and it became an empty car.

The man waved his whip and shouted at the donkey to turn around and walk out of the village.

The people watched the man on the street under the scorching sun, with the sound of the donkey cart rolling on the uneven street, "clucking", step by step towards the outside of the village, when leaving the village, the man raised his cuffs and wiped the corners of his eyes.