Chapter I

The Zhu family's compound in Sanlu Town should really be regarded as a family with a head and a face.

There are two entrances in the front and back, left and right, and there are more than a dozen houses in total. The vaulted gatehouse is built in a grand style: a color of official kiln green tiles, red pine columns, white ash joints, and water mill carved blue bricks. The bean green granite used for the corner stone and the pressure plate is engraved with delicate and delicate patterns, the flowers and birds have "the lotus canal reflects the water", "the plum is happy", the insects and beasts have "the pine crane with longevity", "the unicorn sends the child", "the lion rolls the hydrangea", the knife skills are exquisite, the exquisiteness is convex, and it is not the hand work of ordinary country craftsmen at a glance. The door is made of hard oak wood in the mountains, and the lacquer is painted, and it is not broken for 10,000 years. A pair of golden bronze rings are embedded in the waist of the door.

That's all. What's more, it is said that somewhere in the old mansion there was once a jar of yellow gold bricks buried.

Zhu Siye, the head of the old house, heard people talk about this strange incident countless times when he was very young. At that time, the Zhu family was not down. There are hundreds of acres of land at home, dozens of large and small livestock, and a lot of long-term and short-term workers are hired during the busy farming season. In the past, he squatted on the hot soil kang in the stable, listening to the old groom with white hair. The old man said that when he recounted, his expression was unpredictable, and his face was mysterious, and he said that Zhu Siye's grandfather was a burly and powerful young man, who did not like to read, and liked to use guns and sticks since he was a child. He has passed the martial arts examination in the palace examination, one horse and three arrows, and the arrows hit the eye of money, and he is a celebrity in this area. He was awarded the post of military lieutenant general by the imperial court, led the troops to the border, built the soil as a city in the desolate land outside the fortress, reclaimed the barren land, blocked the east and killed the west, repeatedly made military exploits, and the military discipline was very strict, and he never harassed the people for no reason. In that year, because of the disturbance of the Golden Sword Sect, the border army was ordered to pursue, kill, encircle, and suppress, and the two sides fought fiercely for more than a month, causing mutual damage, and their morale was extremely low and impetuous. In addition, the military department deducted military salaries and dragged on food, grass and winter clothes for a long time, which caused unanimous dissatisfaction among the officers and men. Riots and bloodshed occur on a daily basis. General Zhu Wuju, a military commander, relied on his rich life experience to sniff out the possible crisis from this noisy chaos. He immediately decided to send his wife, son and daughter to another country, and then exchanged half of his life savings into gold bricks, gold cakes, and gold bars, found a blue and white porcelain altar layer by layer, and then sealed the altar lid with oil paper rosin, and buried it by himself on a dark and windy night. I heard that it was in the back garden of this house, but no one knew where it was. Not long after, the border soldiers rebelled, slashed and killed, and corpses were scattered all over the field. General Zhu was also killed in the rebellion. After his death, the location of the pot of gold became a permanent mystery.

My father said something similar. He told Zhu Siye that there may be something about this altar of gold, maybe it is just a myth that exists, otherwise in the past few decades, the back garden has almost turned upside down, under the corner of the wall, in the hole of the tree, and in the wall, he has searched and searched and searched, dug down three feet on the ground, and the fist-sized soil has been slapped open and smashed, and it has almost passed the Luo sieve, why is there no trace of the gold brick? When my father said this, his face was sallow, his expression was melancholy, and he coughed violently from time to time. At that moment, his body was irretrievably destroyed, and he was extremely weak with a cane all day, and his head was drenched in sweat when he walked a few more steps. Zhu Siye knew that what his father inherited from his grandfather was a huge industry, and if he bothered to manage it, it would not be difficult to revitalize the Zhu family. But it just backfired, this second-generation single son, introverted since childhood, unwilling to speak, grew up to only listen to music and paint, sleep flowers and ask willows, ignore crops, do not operate businessmen, and live a drunken dream life of wandering wreckage. In his later years, because of a firework and red powder, he had a grudge with the rich gentry of the state city, and he sued the government for the crime of defiling the temple and corrupting the etiquette, and he was dismissed from showing off his talent and fame, and was heavily fined, and half of his family property was gone; in the next few years, he caught up with the drought, and the land was not harvested, and the tenants deceived the owner and cowardly, saying that the harvest was not good and refused to pay the rent and grain. A large family sits and eats empty, and within a few years, an industry will be kicked out. Therefore, by the time Zhu Siye grew up to become a teenager, the Zhu family's compound had long existed in name only, with nothing on the surface, and an empty shell inside. When he was 12 years old, his father, who was only in his forties, finally died of a chronic illness. The loss of his father at a young age is painful to the bone, and the deepest thing left in his memory is not only the sad sorrow, but also the sad cry.

However, in the winter after his father's death, God made matters worse, and his mother, who had always been tough, also came to the end of her life. It was a cloudy and cold night, it was snowing in the sky, as if there was still a sharp wind, Zhu Siye sat in front of the bed to accompany him, and saw that the complexion on his mother's face turned from red to gray, and vitality was slipping away from her body little by little. A charcoal fire was raised under the kang, which crackled and was covered with two layers of quilts, but my mother was still so cold that she gritted her teeth. The leaves trembled like a leaf. He leaned over and added a padded coat to his mother so that she could be warmer. At this time, the mother suddenly stretched out the pair of dry and thin hands, tightly grasped his arm and did not relax, and then took out a blue cloth bag from under the pillow, signaling him to open it, Zhu Siye took the heavy cloth bag with one hand, put it on the edge of the kang, untied the knot with one hand and then rolled over layer by layer, when the last red cloth was uncovered, what appeared in front of him was a pair of thick and bright silver bracelets and a gold bracelet. The mother's hands trembled, her mouth opened and she gasped, as if she wanted to say something, but at last she could not speak, her head tilted, and tears seemed to overflow from the corners of her eyes. Mother took her last breath.

With the help of family members and friends, he hastily buried his mother. After the funeral, Zhu Siye looked around blankly, not knowing where to go. He carried the blue cloth bag to the pawnshop in Fucheng. The pawnshop is located at the mouth of Dingjia Lane. The wooden fence gate has a big "dang" written in thick ink on the powder wall. He didn't walk in at once, but wandered around the door, wandering repeatedly. He knew that as long as he stepped through this door and handed over the blue cloth bag to the counter, he could get a pawn ticket and a stack of shining silver, and if he had money, he could go to the restaurant to fill his stomach and buy a clean new cotton coat, and then what else could he do? The weather was still sunny that day, and the midday sun was sufficient, and the brilliant sunlight shone on the body of a twelve-year-old boy, making him warm and comfortable at the same time feeling very empty and lonely.

He looked down and saw that the cuffs of the padded jacket were worn out, a hole was broken in the elbow, and a cotton ball of white flowers bulged out, and a small patch was made on the knee of the padded trousers, which was delicately ironed. This is still the hand work of my mother before her death. From now on, his clothes may still be torn, but where is the mending man who threaded the needle and thread under the lamp? The little blue cloth bag was in his arms, next to his flesh, and his ribs were rigid, what else did he have besides this blue cloth bag and an old cotton coat, and his micro body? Standing at the door of the pawnshop at this moment, he suddenly remembered his mother's dying eyes, how lonely, so lamenting, so hopeless, helpless and helpless, and at the same time read the true meaning hidden in the depths of his mother's gaze. Since marrying into the Zhu family at the age of eighteen, she has been silent for decades, has not complained or regretted, endured rumors and rumors and the downpouring of the clansmen, and worked hard to support the family for her father. Then, when she left the little property left in her family to her young son before she died, the misery in her heart must have reached the extreme. Could it be that she had already concluded that this young child, the "fourth son" raised by her, was also a loser and was doomed to achieve nothing? Thinking of this, he resolutely turned around and strode away from the Ding family's pawn without stopping for a moment.

When he left the city, he came to the bank of the river alone, and wept secretly in the dry woods. He began to sob, then to tears, and to cry, smashing his fist against the trunk of the tree as he cried. After weeping bitterly, he walked to the river again, waved a sharp stone to dig a round hole in the thick ice, then took out the small blue cloth bag in his arms, wiped the snow, gently placed it on a piece of bluestone, and kowtowed respectfully, and then he stood up and slowly put the blue cloth bag into the ice cave. With a splash, the cloth bag soon sank into the blue water. Strings of bubbles rise on the water skin. Zhu Siye straightened up, patted the soil on his hands, raised his head and looked up, the blue sky was scarce, and he let out a long breath. When he returned to the empty house, the first thing he did was to find what he could eat, boil it in a pot, eat it to his heart's content, tighten his belt, and turn around and grab a shovel. He stood in the courtyard, looked around for a while, and then slowly walked out of the Zhu family compound that was once prosperous and rich in the past, and the voices of the people were noisy and prominent.

From then on, there was a ragged young man in the countryside, he ate cold food, wore ragged clothes, spoke coldly, was scolded and scolded, took off adobe for people during the day, helped the merchants carry mountain goods, and took care of the garden for the rich man's house at night, carried water and vegetables, pushed the mill and grinded the noodles, and worked hard for a day without earning a few small money. He doesn't ask for much, as long as he has a full stomach and a place to rest at night, he will be content. After growing up to the age of eighteen, Zhu Siye developed into a stick guy, with big hands and feet, strong and strong, and his body seemed to have an inexhaustible strength. Thinking about the road ahead, he decided not to work as a helper anymore, and people would have to stand on their own and do something on their own. He had no money, so he picked up a load of firewood every day to sell in the city, and set off before dawn, and rushed to Fucheng on dozens of miles of mountain roads, only to be a little bright; the roosters of every household had just crowed twice.

Later, after accumulating a little money, he and others teamed up to sell smuggled salt outside the customs, poured leather goods, and even packed coffins for people to be buried, and smuggled tobacco paste and soil in deserted villages and wild shops at night. He was reluctant to spend all the money he earned, no matter how much it was. I only want to eat three meals a day, and I try to wear as many clothes as I can, but I can't put on a slightly complete old clothes outside. He asked someone to make a wooden box for himself, there were no holes on all sides, he cut a hole in the lid of the box, and when he had money in his hand, he threw it in, and then opened it when the box was full, and the change was made up, and the silver ocean was buried under the old elm tree behind the house. At the age of twenty-six, he took out all his savings and bought fifteen acres of good land and two oxen in one go, and when he first drove the oxen to plow in his own field, he could not express the joy and sorrow in his heart. Huang Jianniu mooed and dragged the wooden plow, shaking his head and tail, and the iron plowshare blade cut through the soft and fertile black soil, making a pleasant sound. He stopped the plow, grabbed a handful of dirt and held it in his hand, it was cold and damp, and it was sprinkled along his fingers, and the fat black oil soil could bloom even if he sprinkled a handful of sand. He shouted and urged the plough ox, raised his hand and whipped it, and the whip exploded with a loud crisp sound.

After pouring some money in the autumn, he took advantage of the situation to buy forty or fifty acres of cheaper barren mountain land, leveled and repaired, and piled up manure to prepare for sowing rice and buckwheat in the coming year. In this way, snowballing step by step, Zhu Siye relied on his good figure, a pair of strong hands, his own shrewdness, ability and thrift work, and at the age of 30, he restored the former glory and reputation of the Zhu family compound, and became the richest man in several nearby villages and towns.

In the autumn of the thirty-first year, it was said that he had hired Liu Xue'e, the third daughter of Liu Yongen, a veterinarian in East Twenty Miles, as his wife. According to the customs of the village, he prepared a hundred silver dollars, two horses of silk, six sheep, a pair of gold bracelets, twelve loads of grain, forty zhang of cotton cloth, and forty zhang of muslin as a bride price. It is still talked about today.

The date of marriage is set on the 16th day of the ninth lunar month. When the wedding came, Zhu Siye killed three fat pigs, and asked someone to invite Wu Da Tongue, who was said to have been the chef of the palace dining room, from the drunken immortal building in Fucheng, to cook wine and food, and also called a group of three classes of drums to blow and beat, which was very lively. The sedan chair was borrowed from the retired eunuch's house, with emerald green sedan curtains, white copper sedan poles, draped with apricot water red silk, and the four corners of the sedan chair were drooping with golden Yingluo and purple red tassels. The sedan chair man is a young and strong guy selected by several towns, with broad shoulders and round waist, a body of tendon meat, dark blue bloomers, azure Arhat gown, gold thread pinched edge and silver thread lock edge. The feet are soap-soled cloth boots, and the fish scale wraps the legs to catch up with the thousands of waves, which makes life more and more vigorous and capable.

When it was dark, the cannon sounded a few times, and the sedan chair carrying the newlyweds was carried into the door slowly. Relatives and friends rushed out, hugging and scrambling to watch. A few hangings of Liuyang earth red hanging on the high branches at the door exploded, green smoke was rising, debris flying red, the children screamed, covered their ears and retreated straight back, but they were itchy, and as soon as the sound stopped, they swarmed up to grab the squibs that had not exploded all over the place. A group of people to welcome relatives came to the door, the sedan chair man fell off the sedan chair, the sedan curtain was high, and the bride who was waiting on the side hurriedly stepped forward to support the newlyweds who were covered in red to get off the sedan chair. The newcomer entered the door, and the banquet outside was opened, five towns and eight villages, relatives and friends, sat down in order, and the wine and food were listed, big fish and meat, rare poultry and seafood were all prepared, people greeted, laughed and scolded, drank wine and fished meat in large gulps, and the forehead was covered with hot sweat. There are people in the pergola outside the courtyard gate to deal with the guests, arrange to entertain tobacco leaves and tea, and stop for a while to go to the table. The banquet is changed with the withdrawal, and the flowing water banquet is not dispersed for three days and three nights.

In the evening, Zhu Siye should deal with all the relatives and friends and come to the cave room. In the middle hall of the cave room, a huge red velvet letter was cut, and the white window paper was pasted with red and green window flowers. The bride sits upright on the kang, covered in red light, red hijab, red jacket and trousers, red curtain and red tent, red scarf and red quilt. On the table, a pair of dragon and phoenix candles as thick as children's arms were lit, and the candle shadow shook red, reflecting a red color everywhere, full of magic and happiness. Zhu Siye turned around and closed the door, and suddenly felt a heat in his heart, he copied the purple Venus scale rod that he had prepared earlier, walked closer, gently picked up the newcomer's hood, and looked at this woman who will be stirring rice with herself, a bed and quilt, and living in one place for the rest of her life: the matchmaker did not lie, and the Liu girl was really born with good eyebrows and beautiful appearance. The two lips are neither thin nor thick, Zhou Zhou Zhengzheng is like a pair of flying butterflies, and like the petals that have just been picked in the early morning and are still condensing with dewdrops;

Liu Xue'e sat cross-legged. At the moment when the veil was removed, like all newlywed girls, she inevitably blushed with embarrassment. But I quickly got used to it. She reached out and patted the edge of the kang and whispered, "It's been a busy day, you can rest too." Zhu Siye hurriedly shook his head and said, "Just stand for a while, I, I'm not tired at all." Liu Xue'e said again: "It's been a lot of trouble for several days, and the iron man is tired, why aren't you tired?"

"I'm really tireless, you rest. Zhu Siye owed the corners of his mouth and said, "Why don't I just sit here?" With that, he turned around and picked a wooden stool and sat on the edge of the kang.

The woman smiled, she turned around gently, took a cup of hot tea that had been brewed early and handed it to Zhu Siye, and moved closer to take off the green velvet hat on his head for him, brushed it with a feather duster, and gently placed it on the kang table. Zhu Siye enjoyed such care, only to feel a gentle breeze blowing all over his body, cool and comfortable, making people feel relaxed and comfortable. In the past ten years, since the death of his parents, he has been running around the township, eating and drinking, working hard like cattle and horses, no one to make up for the torn clothes, and having to guard the pot table by himself when his stomach is so hungry that he has to guard the pot table, the frost morning and the cold moon are like iron, and he has never dreamed of such warmth? Zhu Siye suddenly felt that his throat was dry and choked, his heart was sour, and for a while, he had a strong desire and unspeakable maternal attachment to the slender and delicate young woman in front of him, and his blood was boiling, he opened his arms and hugged her, and buried his head deep in the woman's chest.

At first glance, Liu Xue'e was not surprised, and felt huge panic and incomparable embarrassment at the sudden actions and wanton affection of this tall and sturdy man. When she was drinking tea, she had carefully observed this strong young man, with freshly shaved hair, a bright blue scalp, a broad forehead, a square face, thick eyebrows, big eyes, rough hands and feet, and a body that was as strong as copper cast iron. At first glance, he knew that he was a good master who tended to the crops, and he would never let himself go hungry. In addition, as a daughter's family, she naturally already knew all the things that could happen when she got married.

"Little boy, do the door pier,

crying and crying for a daughter-in-law;

What do you want your daughter-in-law to do?

Light the lamp, speak,

Make shoes, make socks. ”

Through this childhood song, she is clearly aware of her responsibilities and obligations as a woman. All of this was also prepared in the depths of her thoughts, but she didn't expect his intimacy to come so suddenly, so violently, which made her feel like numb for a while, and she didn't know what to do.

After Zhu Siye subconsciously made this move, he was also very uneasy in his heart, he felt guilty and frightened for his recklessness, he was afraid of hurting the woman, and it was not good to separate immediately, so he had to hug her and force her to calm down, and a layer of fine sweat had broken out on his head and face. The bride felt the slight trembling of the other's body, and knew that he was also sorry for his frivolity and impatience, so she leaned over his shoulder, stretched out her palm, and stroked him on the back of his head, comforting him in a silent language. Zhu Siye raised his face and asked: "I really have no sense of proportion, don't you blame me?" Liu Xue'e smiled and said: "What do you blame? I am the daughter-in-law you married, and I am not a New Year's painting, is it difficult to paste it on the wall as a scenery to see......

Zhu Siye stepped forward and asked: "Good man, you tell me, why don't you get angry when I am, right?" Liu Xue'e said: "That's still fake, from now on, you are the owner of this house, you are my man, you can be as good as you say." Unless you drive me away, I will depend on you whatever you say. ”

"God, you're my dearest person. Zhu Siye kicked away the stool, grabbed her in his arms, walked to the kang in a few steps, pulled over a bed of red satin quilts and gently let go, and pecked her face. The bride was shy and evasive, and her face was crimson. Zhu Siye turned around and wanted to extinguish the candle, but Liu's daughter hurriedly stopped and said, "I can't extinguish it, this will be lit all night." The two of us are being husband and wife in a dignified manner, so what are we afraid of seeing people. Zhu Siye agreed, leaned on the kang, and turned his head to see that the newcomer had taken off his headdress and was loosening a shiny and silky green silk. Turning sideways and unbuttoning the red undershirt, the front placket is open, and inside is a close-fitting white cloth undershirt. The bare skin was white and fine, like a patch of snow in the wilderness. The high **** is volt with the breath. Zhu Siye only felt that his hands and feet were sore, and he was dizzy. At this time, Liu Xue'e half-knelt on the kang, and untied the big red belt around her waist, the belt of the married girl was sewn with half a red silk, six inches wide and more than three feet long. Zhu Siye raised his head, only to see a dazzling red in front of him, red and red, like lightning across the sky on a rainy day, like the warm sun in spring and March, and like a meandering fire dragon with fangs and claws straight down to the sky, shaking its head and tail and rushing towards him...... (To be continued.) )