In the third year of the Republic of China, in 1914, after the Spring Festival, just out of the stone archway in Xiling, Qin Beiyang cut off the braid on the back of his head.

When he arrived at Yongding Gate in Beijing, Qin Customs was grabbed by someone and "clicked" his braid, which made Lao Qin feel distressed, and wrapped his braid in silk and said that he would be buried on the edge of the ancestral grave.

The son laughed and said: "Three hundred years ago, the Ming Dynasty fell, the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, the ancestors of our family, if you had this loyalty, 'keep your head without hair, keep your hair without your head', now there is no one of us." ”

The yellow dragon flag on the city tower has long been replaced by red, yellow, blue, white and black five-color flags. The national anthem was also changed from "Gong Jinou" of the Qing Dynasty to "China Stands in the Universe" of the Republic of China -

China stands majestically in the universe,

Kuo Bayun,

Huazhou came from the top of Kunlun,

The rivers and lakes are mighty and the mountains are continuous,

The five clans of the republic open Yaotian,

Billions of years.

The artisan village under the roots of the imperial city no longer exists. Qin Customs is no longer a hereditary craftsman who eats the imperial court. He dug up a pottery urn buried in the ground, where ancient books and family genealogies were hidden, loaded it into a cart and pulled it to the slums on the western outskirts of the capital.

It was originally a camel village, providing camels for business travelers inside and outside the port. In the year when the Eight-Nation Alliance came, the people of the city fled and settled here. Qin Beiyang can open the window to overlook the peaks of the West Mountain, which is the barrier of the capital, since the red mountain pass of the Qinglong Bridge, meandering through the three mountains and five gardens - Xiangshan, Yuquan Mountain, Wanshou Mountain; Yuanmingyuan, Changchun Garden, Summer Palace, Jingmingyuan, Jingyi Garden.

Qin Beiyang is fourteen years old, no longer a boy, almost bigger than his father, and his beard is like a spring leek coming out of his lips. He went into the city to find Ah You, and in the past four and a half years, he has never forgotten this "sister".

When he arrived next door to Prince Gong's mansion, the mausoleum superintendent's mansion, he was kicked out by the gatekeeper. Ah You's news inquired, she is indeed a little maidservant, but the rules of the mansion are very strict, and it is forbidden to associate with outsiders. The mausoleum superintendent is a banner man, surnamed Guerjia, one of the eight surnames of Manchuria, and his ancestors have produced several well-known feudal officials. Qin Beiyang didn't understand, the Qing Dynasty had perished, why did these princes and nobles still live a rich life?

Walking alone by the moat of the Forbidden City, the young man looked at the world in the corner tower of the palace wall, where the little emperor Xuantong still lived, and the pigeon whistle sounded in the sky, and tears fell down......

Qin Customs agreed with his son that he must conceal the identity of the royal craftsman of the former Qing Dynasty - speaking of the word "former" in the former Qing Dynasty, Lao Qin was very uncomfortable. But he can't let people know that he has repaired the imperial tomb, let alone mention the tomb beast, and he can't leak half a word. From now on, they can only be ordinary craftsmen of the people.

The stones, wood, and bricks carved by the Qin father and son were often ridiculed for being ugly, and wages were deducted. Qin Beiyang started to fight with others for this reason, but was persuaded by his father to go back and ask him not to cause trouble.

You must know that the aesthetics from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China are complex and realistic, just like Indians like red, green and big flowers, like the bad fat and cabbage in the National Palace in Taipei. The craftsmanship of the Qin family, inheriting the classical aesthetics of the Tang Dynasty, following the simplicity of the Song Dynasty and the elegance of the Ming Dynasty, is like Ru kiln celadon and Ming-style furniture, but it is regarded as dull and tasteless by the laity.

In the summer of that year, Qin Beiyang saw a newspaper saying that in Sarajevo in the Balkans, a Serbian young man named Princip shot and assassinated the Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Ferdinand. The war between the German-Austrian Allies and the Anglo-French-Russian Entente broke out and became a world war, with a single bullet in Sarajevo killing 30 million people. Yuan Shikai's government remained neutral, but China became the battlefield of World War I, but the Japanese army landed on the Shandong Peninsula and conquered the German colony of Qingdao after the bloody battle.

In 1915, the light snow solar term, Qin Beiyang's fifteenth birthday. He overlooked the fragrant mountains at the mouth of the camel village, and the frost leaves all over the mountains were red than the flowers in February.

Half a month later, Qin Beiyang quietly entered the city and went to the mausoleum to supervise the Guerjia Mansion to see if he could see Ah You. When I arrived at the door, I found that there was a seal, and the whole mansion was empty. After inquiring with the neighbors, I found out that something big happened - last month, the owner of the mansion was poked to death by a little maid with scissors.

Qin Beiyang rushed to the Beijing District Court - it was originally the yamen of the former Qing Dynasty, and after the establishment of the Republic of China, the administration and the judiciary were separated, so that there was an independent court. It happened to coincide with the opening of the Gualjia case, and the public was allowed to observe. Qin Beiyang paid a few cents and sat in the auditorium.

This case has a great impact, and the black pressure is full of people. The judge appeared in court in a black robe and first escorted the suspect. Sure enough, it was Ah You, much taller than six years ago, his skin was even paler, his face was still a child, but his body was about to bud.

The judge first asked the suspect's name, Ah You's voice was low, like a mosquito calling, she said that she didn't know what her surname was, only that her name was Ah You.

"Which one?"

"The ghost of ghosts."

Hearing such an answer, Qin Beiyang's heart was hot, and he still took the word "ghost".

The judge asked Ah You again, how long had he been in Gualja Mansion? What do you usually do?

The girl timidly said that six years ago, she was sent to the mansion. Nominally a little maidservant, she was actually imprisoned in an underground secret room and grew up in darkness. There were other girls in the chamber, most of whom had been bought from traffickers, and all of them over the age of twelve were sent to their master's bedroom after menstruation, never to be seen again.

Qin Beiyang, who was mixed in the auditorium, couldn't help but have his eyes almost red. Thinking of the promise of the mausoleum overseer back then, he was completely deceived by him, and he really wanted to dig up Guerjia's coffin and whip the corpse!

The judge was also pitiful, so he didn't continue to ask, and turned back to ask the clerk: "Why hasn't the victim's family arrived yet?" ”

The victim had no children, his brothers and sisters were all dead, his wife died early, and several concubines came out of Bada Hutong. They each went back to their old jobs, and even participated in the "prostitute petition group" advocating Yuan Shikai to be emperor.

However, there has always been a marriage between Manchu and Mongolia, and the victim had a cousin, who was actually the king of Doro County, Ordos, Mongolia. The prince of the county sent a prince to Beijing from outside the mouth, one to take over the inheritance, and the other to observe the trial in court.

Outside the courtroom, there was the sound of camels, and everyone looked at each other. The sixteen-year-old little king stepped into the courtroom through the main entrance. He wore a Mongolian robe with a black bear skin jacket and mink hat, and a string of beads from the former Qing royal family hung on his chest.

In the camel village of western Beijing, there are often camel teams from Chahar and Rehe, and Qin Beiyang is also aware of the characteristics of the Mongols. This little county king is a standard northerner and southerner, with red lips and white skin, a delicate face, and a pair of almond eyes, just like the Peugeot Xiaosheng of the Han people.

Although he was young, he walked with a heroic posture, as if he was still bending his bow and shooting arrows on his horse, and he brought out a cloud of dust from the courtroom, mixed with the cold wind of the north. He bowed to the judge and sat on the seat of the victim's family, with a kingly demeanor.

The judge summoned the witness to the scene, and it was the detective who handled the case, Ye Kenan of the Beijing Police Department.

Hearing this name, Qin Beiyang immediately cheered up. After six years, the detective has turned 30 years old, and he is still dressed in the style of the Japanese Metropolitan Police Department, but he has a mustache.

Ye Kenan took off the police officer's hat and recounted the details of the case on the witness stand - the victim intended to rape Ah You, but he didn't know that the girl was fierce by nature, picked up scissors to defend herself, and stabbed the victim's carotid artery, causing her death.

There was no rhetoric, and Ye Kenan presented evidence from the police investigation, which showed that the victim had always been bad. In the words of the next century, it is to imprison young female slaves and kill many children, just because the officials protect each other, and it is not over. There was another uproar in the auditorium.

The judge asked the victim's family for their opinion, and Xiaojun Wang waved his hand, and the Beijing dialect was straightforward: "Your Excellency, don't ask me!" Judge how you want! ”