The sound of firecrackers is one year old. It is customary to call Chinese New Year's Eve the thirtieth day of the Chinese New Year's Eve. In the old days, Chinese New Year's Eve was only the last day of the year, not the Spring Festival, which was actually the beginning of spring. On the day of the beginning of spring, people will have many customs during the Spring Festival. It's just that after the unification of Great Xia, many small neighboring countries became its vassals.

In order to facilitate its rule, Bactria unified the calendar, and although it retained the festivals and customs inherent to the vassal states and their indigenous peoples, it also promoted some major festivals and their related rituals to the whole country. Among them, the Spring Festival was moved from the beginning of spring to Chinese New Year's Eve, which is still used today. Chinese New Year's Eve has become one of the most important days of the year.

For ordinary people, what they care about is not whether the Spring Festival is Chinese New Year's Eve or the beginning of spring, the New Year itself is the most important day of the year.

The New Year, the New Year, is to cross the New Year, the old year's unsatisfactory, the last year's unsatisfactory will be left in the New Year. When the New Year is crossed, it is only with hopes and expectations for the new year. The Chinese New Year is the hope.

Perhaps in this world, among the few ordinary families or even poor families who have more things than the rich and wealthy, the end of the year should be counted as one of them.

At the end of the year, ordinary people will buy two catties of meat, and they must tell the butcher shop owner to get more fat, and bring it back to make dumplings to be fragrant enough. I will also buy a piece of freshly ground tofu, which means to be blessed, or stewed with cabbage, or fried to golden brown, only at the end of the year, frying and cooking will not feel like a waste of lard. The men in the family will always bargain for a few pennies with the long-grinding mouth with the fish basket on their backs at the market, and then carry the fattest and freshest one home, and there will be an extra pot of fish soup or a braised sea bass on the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. There are fish every year, and there is more than one fish every year.

For the rich and noble, the Chinese New Year is to hang a big red lantern in the courtyard of the house, and a newly painted door god is posted at the door. The most face-saving thing is to ask a famous celebrity or calligrapher to write a few Spring Festival couplets. On the first day of the new year, the host will deliberately take the guests who come to pay New Year's greetings and stop in front of several doors with ink treasures posted for a few more hours.

The elderly and children are the most happy to celebrate the New Year. Older people like to be lively, and they like to have children and grandchildren in the house. At the end of the year, the children and grandchildren of the family who are officials, study tours or do business will return to their hometowns before the end of the year, and the old people look forward to the moment when the children and grandchildren are full of children and grandchildren, and the family reunion is a moment. From the beginning of the year to the end of the year, I look forward to the next year's Chinese New Year's Eve.

In the eyes of children, pressing New Year's money, wearing new clothes and setting off firecrackers is the New Year. The children of wealthy families are in the alleys and streets, followed by domestic servants with all kinds of fireworks, and from evening to late at night, they can hear the sound of crackling firecrackers and see colorful fireworks blooming. Behind them would be ordinary children, but they could only watch another group of children light the core twist and clap their hands under the fireworks, or watch the group of children stand in the distance and plug their ears with their hands, and watch their servants light a long string of red and thick firecrackers like chili peppers. When the firecrackers run out, the plainly dressed but brand-new children run over and crouch on the ground to find a few red bamboos that haven't exploded from a pile of confetti. They would go to an open space where no one was around, carefully break the firecrackers, and pour the gunpowder out of them together, a small pile. After being ignited, there are small fireworks, very low, very dark, very short, but they are extremely brilliant in the eyes of children. Their little faces are as red as the paper of firecrackers.

Zhifu City is the southernmost city of Yinxun Prefecture, and it is more than 30 miles from the south gate to go out of the city. One of the largest inns in the city is called Yue Binge. In the past two days, the business of the inn has become deserted, but the shopkeeper is not worried. After a year of busy work, I have already made a lot of money. On the morning of the thirtieth, the inn, which was not going to open, was knocked on the door by a group of three. The shopkeeper, who wanted to thank the customer, saw the young man with a man on his back take out a piece of silver, but the merchant grinned and settled the three of them into the three best rooms in the store.

The shopkeeper told a few people apologetically that the guys in the inn had already taken leave for the New Year, so they couldn't prepare meals, and the young man in black only said that it was okay, so he asked the shopkeeper to prepare hot water in the bathtub for the three of them.

The skin and flesh on Yun Xuelan's body, who had already woken up, had not yet fully reborn, so he put on a wide white robe. The boy sat at the window and looked at the somewhat sparsely populated street, which was not deserted by the red lights on both sides of the street. Seeing Ding Ye with a stinky face walking into the inn, Rin Tan, who had a cold face and couldn't see his expression behind the young man, was carrying a large bag and a small wrap, and couldn't help but laugh dumbly.

Previously, Ding Ye said that he was going to the ready-to-wear shop on the street to buy a few new clothes for a few people, so he would take Rin Tan with him. The young man didn't say a word, and he didn't move under his feet, just looked at Yun Xuelan, who was still half-lying on the bed at that time. The young man said that since he should have a good meal for the New Year, he asked Rin Tan to go with Ding Ye, and went to the restaurant in the city to ask if it would open in the evening and order a table for Chinese New Year's Eve.

The young man in the black felt hat and the young man in black went out for about two hours. Ding Ye took Rin Tan to a few ready-to-wear shops recommended by the innkeeper, and walked in one by one, trying on one piece of clothing, and every time the young man asked the young man which one was good, the latter would frown and say that they were all good-looking. A man like Ding Ye, who chooses clothes more than a woman and must wear them one by one, is also the first time that the shop owners have met him. There are some impatience with this person's mother-in-law and mother, and they don't let themselves be idle during the New Year, so it's hard to miss your business. But when I thought about it, if I could really make this deal, it would be a good start and end for a year, and I would be patient and laugh with it.

But Ding Ye tried a few clothes he liked, but he was not in a hurry to pay, first bargained with the boss, and after the boss agreed to the price offered by the young man with a dark face, the young man actually buttoned the black felt hat on his head, said to the black-clothed young man beside him, and then looked at other houses, and then walked out of the store. Behind it was the cursing of the shopkeeper.

The black felt hat boy visited three or four stores in a hurry, but fortunately, many shops were not opened, otherwise I am afraid that I would have to go shopping from Chinese New Year's Eve to the third day of the new year. In the end, Ding Ye returned the same way with Rintan, and asked the boss to wrap up the few clothes he had selected before. After seeing the two of them, the expression on his face was not like the New Year, but like a shopkeeper who had crossed the robbery, and when he saw the young man in black take out the silver, he finally pulled his mouth to the root of his ear, and said auspicious words while embarrassingly compensating the two for his previous rudeness and neglect.

Ding Ye didn't care about these snobbery, and said that business was booming and took Rin Tan to the next one. Later, the young man in black was reluctant to pay for Ding Ye. No matter how the young man in the black felt hat scolded him for being stingy or sneering, the young man whose heart was colder than his face was unmoved. In the end, Ding Ye said that these clothes were bought for Brother Lan, and Rin Tan opened the purse without hesitation. The angry Ding Ye was like a toad along the way.

The two of them went to ask a few restaurants in the city. The few guys who are still open say that the seats are fully booked early, or the cooks have taken over the work of cooking for other people's homes, and they really can't spare the manpower to cook for them on Chinese New Year's Eve. Rin Tan, who didn't take the initiative to say a word along the way, asked Ding Ye what to do. The black felt hat saw the appearance of the black clothes dying, and thought that a table of delicious food was missing him, and he was even more angry. He said casually, let the young man go to buy vegetables, fish and meat and go back to the inn to do it, and walked forward angrily, and when he saw a vendor selling local snacks, he turned his head and asked for money, but the figure of the young man in black was gone.

Ding Ye, who was penniless, wandered on the street for a long time and returned to the inn after most of his anger, but as soon as he turned into the main street where the inn was located, he saw Rin Tan carrying the purchased ingredients, and there was a scene that Yun Xuelan saw at the window.

After receiving some more silver, the innkeeper left the kitchen and lobby to the three with a smile, and returned to the backyard to open a small stove with his wife to prepare their Chinese New Year's Eve dinner.

Yun Xuelan sat at the table closest to the kitchen, rolling out the dumpling wrappers. Ding Ye behind him seemed to treat the pork belly and leeks as a young man in black, and he chopped it extremely hard when he cut the knife, but it really seemed that he could chop Rin Tan into dumpling filling. The black-clothed young man who was shaving fish scales with his back to Ding Ye pursed his lips, and the knife in his hand cut faster, as if he was scraping the young man's face, which looked like a woman. Yun Xuelan heard the change in the strength in Rin Tan's hand, and the young man just smiled, but the rolling pin in his hand rolled more and more gently.

The night is dyed red by the lanterns that fill the streets, and the sound of firecrackers and fireworks lighting up the night sky is frequent. Inside the door was a table of not-so-stellar meals and two plates of steaming dumplings.

Ding Ye, who has always been greedy, is not in a hurry to move chopsticks today, although the young man is casual on weekdays, and he is not distinguished from Yun Xuelan, but he is also from a big family, and some rules are to be paid attention to.

Yun Xuelan raised his wine glass, the young man wanted to say something sensational, but when he watched the two people staring at him and unconsciously fell on the food on the table, the brewing emotions were broken, and he said "Happy New Year".

The three wine cups are full of thoughts, and the three hearts are worried.

The black felt boy has been wandering for many years, only hearing the old voice, and not seeing the New Year. When both parents are full, the Chinese New Year's Eve reunion dinner has become a dream, and when I wake up, I am full of tears. Now the three people at the table are not reunited, but the heart is very warm after eating Chinese New Year's Eve, the young year's wish is hidden in the bottom of the heart, and the people here will not be separated in the future.

The young man in black drank in his throat, his face turned red with frost, and his heart was cold and lotus blossomed. When he was young, he was homeless, and the walking corpse was sent under the fence. Yulan Nirvana has worries. People's hearts are complicated, and he distinguishes the true from the false. Floating in the four seas, he escorted him to the end of the world. Spur the horse, and he wins the world for him.

Yun Shao wears a cloud robe, and he is homesick. In previous years, there were four people sitting at the table in the village, and the fourth was a reunion, which seemed to be not a reunion. Now in the hall, there are three people who have a meal, if it is really three people, it is better to be reunited than to be reunited.

Yun Xuelan looked at the increasingly brilliant fireworks in the city through the window paper, if it is in this state, within a country or even within the four seas, every household has meat in the dumpling filling during the New Year. If only the sound of firecrackers is heard on the street, but there is no sound of iron horses' hooves. If you look up, you can only see fireworks and stars, and there will be no wolf smoke and beacons. This is the New Year's wish of the young man, and it is also the long-cherished wish of the people of the Yun family for generations.

The amber in the lamp and the spirit in the young man's chest are intoxicating.