A merry lunch is over. Although it is a pity that Xie Pu and Xie Hanzhi were unable to join, but without Mrs. Xie to stir up the situation, the atmosphere at the banquet has been very good, which can be regarded as a fortunate thing.

After eating, everyone returned to the second gate. The Song family was old and needed to take a nap, so Xie Meijun helped her back to the courtyard. Yang Yuan went to play with Xie Yingfen. It's just that Xie Yingfen was worried about her younger brother, so she had to run around Xie Hanzhi's yard before going back. Xie Yingrong was urged and persuaded by the two girls around her, but she couldn't go anywhere, so she had to continue to go back to the house in a daze. Xie Yinghui felt that lunch was a little too much, and when she saw Xie Mulin and several brothers discussing going to the garden to have a look, she also became a little interested. She didn't want to climb high and look far away, but simply heard that there was a long corridor with glass windows in the garden, and she could take a walk without fear of wind and snow, so she also wanted to take a look.

The group came to the gate of the garden lively.

This is next to Xie Hanzhi's courtyard, and when everyone approached, they thought that the little brother was still sleeping, so they deliberately lowered their voices. Ma Lu Yao's wife smiled and led the way, the garden gate was not locked, she first said a few words to the mother-in-law guarding the garden gate, and then invited all the young masters and ladies into the garden. Xie Mulin and the others hurriedly rushed in curiously.

This garden, the garden gate is not spacious, it is the ordinary two doors, after entering is a shadow wall in front of it, there are flower and grass patterns carved on it, the workmanship is quite exquisite, but it is a little old, and there are mottled stains in the corner of the wall, which does not show the exquisiteness of this sculpture.

The shadow wall obscures the view of the garden in front of you, but there are entrances to the verandah at the left and right ends. Really, on both sides. This was originally a very typical Peking copyist verandah building, but the political officer who installed a glass window did not know where to invite a craftsman to do the work, and actually built a wooden wall outside the beauty of this verandah, and then installed a carved wooden window on the wooden wall, and the window was inlaid with glass. To be honest, the workmanship is still very exquisite, but it is somewhat obscured from view, and the glass windows are quite laborious to clean. Xie Mulin walked into the corridor, looked at the one-sided glass window, and felt that this design would only come in handy in winter or rainy days, and other times it would really get in the way.

But thanks to these glass windows, the wind and rain from the outside are blocked, and the corridor is quite clean, and there is no mud, rain and snow traces. There was an old gardener and his wife stationed in the garden for a long time, responsible for taking care of the flowers and trees in the garden, and there would be servants who would come to clean it for ten days and a half - of course, if the host needed to entertain guests, then someone would definitely send someone to do the careful cleaning work in advance - so people did not feel any discomfort when walking in the porch. Probably the old gardener and his wife often open the windows to ventilate, so the verandah is not stuffy, and there is a faint smell of incense, which seems to be used to dispel dampness and repel insects.

Xie Mulin walked a few steps, looked at the scenery outside the window, and felt that this was indeed a good place to exercise his body in winter. This circle of verandahs has been walked down, excluding the non-flat part, it is almost 200 meters, and a round trip is almost the distance of a standard stadium track and field. Walking a few laps here every day, are you still afraid that a few brothers and sisters will not be able to get fit?

Xie Pu described the garden as "not very good", which is not wrong. Compared with the garden in Guiyuan and the Xie family's mansion in Huyin's hometown, this garden is indeed mediocre, and it can't even be called any design. This is a garden built on a rectangular boundary, and the rockery facing it is not stacked with lake stones, but seems to have been made of large gray-white stones and ordinary earth. According to Cuijiao, it is rumored that it was the soil dug up when the pond was dug.

Such a rockery, well-behaved, does not have any special shape that can be praised by readers, nor does it have a winding design, let alone the mystery of the secret room hidden in the belly of the mountain. It is an ordinary rockery, almost five or six meters high, and the purpose is to make a stepping stone for the hexagonal pavilion above. From the flat ground to the pavilion, the verandah also rises along the hill and becomes a climbing corridor – also with glass windows.

The rockery is dotted with flowers and vines, but in this season, it looks more like some dead vines and weeds. There is a pond at the bottom of the mountain, which is a relatively rigid irregular oval, connected to a bamboo hut on the right-hand side, there is an open flat land in front of the bamboo hut, on which stone tables and chairs are placed, and a lot of bamboo is planted behind the bamboo hut. It's a place to enjoy tea – not in winter, of course, where it can be cold.

When entering from the main entrance, the verandah on the right hand side leads to another Xuan Hall, the place is much more spacious than this bamboo house, it is a regular pavilion building, there is a waterway in front of it and the pool under the mountain, leading the water of the lake of Shichahai outside to come in, it is not a stagnant water, and a small stone arch bridge is added to the waterway meaningfully. That piece of building, together with the bamboo hut under the rockery, is the kind of hospitality in this garden, and it is also the only two large building groups in the garden.

Other than that, there is nothing to say about the scattered flower beds, bamboo groves, vegetable patches, etc. There is a back door in the northeast corner of the garden that leads to the small pier by the Shicha Sea, but that door is locked almost all year round. However, the young masters and ladies in other mansions have heard that they will go out through the back door of the garden and take a boat to play on the Shicha Sea. The Xie family didn't have any children to do this kind of thing before, and Xie Pu and the Wen couple, who were in charge, were not fun-loving, so they naturally didn't need this outlet. As for the future, it depends on the hearts of the Xie family's brothers and sisters.

Near the back door there were several cottages, where the old gardener and his wife lived. On the south side of the garden, there was also a small door leading to the stables and servants' quarters, which were usually locked. If the old gardener and his wife wanted to get out of the garden from there, they had to ask the doorkeeper on the other side to open the door. However, because there is a vegetable patch in the garden, the kitchen man occasionally goes into the garden to pick some fresh vegetables grown at home, which is much cheaper than buying them from outside.

Scemulin walked around the garden with his siblings, and it didn't take long. Everyone agreed that this garden was really normal, and if there was a better place in the future, it would be better not to greet any friends here—a bit of a fall. Everyone is accustomed to seeing a good garden, and their vision is relatively high, and this garden is more useful for them, that is, they can take a walk.

But......

Xie Mulin looked up at his third brother Xie Huizhi, he was in good health, and his temperament jumped out, the persuasion of his brothers and sisters could not stop his excited heart, and while he was unprepared, he had already run along the climbing corridor to the top of the rockery. He stood in the pavilion, looked at the scenery to the east, showed a bright smile to the brothers and sisters down the mountain, and beckoned, "Come and see!" It's not a big wind at all! See so far! You can also see the Forbidden City! ”

Xie Mulin was immediately interested, and also trotted up along the climbing corridor. Xie Xianzhi and Xie Jinzhi followed. Xie Yinghui fell behind, stomped her feet, wrapped her cloak tighter, and reluctantly followed.

When Xie Mulin walked out of the climbing corridor, he felt a chill in his face, but it was true that the wind was not strong. She walked to the pavilion, stood beside the third brother, looked to the east, and suddenly gasped.

The sunlight was scattered from the clouds, shining on the vermilion walls of the silent imperial city in the distance, and the beauty was truly indescribable.

After hundreds of years, after several cold and summers, Xie Mulin actually saw the familiar Forbidden City again, as if it had not changed at all. She blinked, and before she knew it, two lines of tears had slipped down.