Break out of the courtyard

Zhang Heping went out to the right and walked along the back coast.

After passing the Houhai Street Office, the courtyards on the shore are all large houses with four or five entrances.

Zhang Heping was still thinking about how many people would live in such a big yard.

At this moment, what he was thinking about was how many trivial things happened every day in such a big house.

Going around to the west bank of Houhai, Zhang Heping stood for a while at a public toilet renovation construction site and chatted with several construction workers who had previously helped repair the gatehouse in No. 7 Courtyard.

Continuing to walk south, I encountered several little kids running wildly holding a few bunches of grapes, followed by an aunt holding a broom and chasing them while scolding them.

Zhang Heping walked to the small courtyard where they ran out, took a look inside, and found a few bunches of purple-red grapes on the grape trellis in the courtyard. He asked more questions, but no one in the courtyard was selling them.

After leaving this second courtyard, Zhang Heping suddenly acted like a wanderer on the street. When he saw a courtyard with an open door, he went in to take a look and entered more than a dozen courtyards in succession. They were either jujube trees or pomegranate trees.

Not long after, some residents found Aunt Hongxiu and blocked Zhang Heping in a small courtyard.

Fortunately, this red-sleeved aunt recognized Zhang Heping. After she learned that Zhang Heping wanted to buy grapes, she enthusiastically took Zhang Heping to the yard of her home, went to someone else's grape trellis, and asked for two bunches for Zhang Heping, confiscating every penny.

After tasting a few grapes given by others, Zhang Heping felt much better.

At least there are still people who remember his kindness and will reward him.

After a long circuit, it was already dark. He crossed the Yinding Bridge to the north bank and headed west to go home.

Zhang Heping handed the grapes to his eldest cousin Ma Lili who opened the door, and then went to the main room.

Because Zhang Bing and Ma Xiuzhen usually lived in the east wing of the front yard of Courtyard No. 95, Zhang Heping lived in the main room of Courtyard No. 7.

The east wing is empty, and Ma Xiuzhen only stays there for a few days when she comes to stay with her niece Ma Lili during school days.

The eldest sister and the second sister lived in the west wing. My eldest cousin Ma Lili said that the east door room was cooler and would not make noise when sewing clothes at night, so she stayed in the east door room.

At this time, her mother Ma Xiuzhen and her two sisters were waiting in the main room, trying to persuade Zhang Heping to turn around and make peace.

"Brother, after you went out, grandma got angry and went next door, saying that if you don't apologize to her, she won't come into our house." The eldest sister, Zhang Zhaodi, was entrusted with the important task and was the first to speak.

"Did she bring a bunch of vegetables into the city today? Where are the vegetables?" Zhang Heping asked casually, walked straight to the bookshelf, picked up the top red book, sat on the rocking chair next to him and read a book.

Ma Xiuzhen and the other three naturally knew where the bamboo basket was, and they also understood what Zhang Heping wanted to express. There was a difference between closeness and distance!

"Xiao San, she is your grandma after all. It's uncomfortable for Dad to be caught in the middle." Her mother, Ma Xiuzhen, tried to dissuade her in a roundabout way.

Hearing this, Zhang Heping became unhappy, "You mean, you want me to feel uncomfortable and make them feel better?"

"Brother, our mother didn't mean that!" Second sister Zhang Pandi said hurriedly: "We are in the same group! Right, Sister Lili!"

The eldest cousin Ma Lili responded in confusion, and then placed a plate of washed grapes on the dining table.

"It's useless for you to work together to persuade me!" Zhang Heping said impatiently: "You don't even understand the main contradiction and make me angry, so you can only live separately!"

In the next two days, no one dared to persuade Zhang Heping to apologize to his grandmother Xie Ermei.

At noon on the 30th, Zhang Heping went out to attend a class committee gathering.

On the afternoon of the 31st, he went to school to register, so he no longer had to worry about troubles at home.

……

The New Capital School No. 8 originally planned to conduct military training for a month, but the weather changed on August 2. The heavy clouds became darker and darker. There was a heavy rain on the 4th, but it failed to disperse the dark clouds. It seemed like General momentum.

On the afternoon of August 8, the school suddenly announced a holiday on the radio, asking teachers and students to go home and prepare for flood prevention.

On the morning of August 8th, Capital Radio and newspapers issued comprehensive warnings about the incoming heavy rain, reminding the whole city to prepare for flood prevention!

"What to do! Majiatun is so low, it must be flooded!" Mother Ma Xiuzhen walked around anxiously, because in the flood news report just now, Baoding was in emergency! Tianjin and Hong Kong are in danger!

The eldest cousin Ma Lili was also restless under the influence of her second aunt Ma Xiuzhen.

"Shut up!" Zhang Heping roared, still lying on the table, quickly calculating something on the paper, "Majiatun is close to the mountains. If grandpa and the others were not stupid, they would have hid in the mountains long ago, and they would be safer than us. !”

"But what do they eat? It rained heavily there for seven consecutive days!" Ma Xiuzhen was still very worried.

"It's summer now, will there be a shortage of food on the mountain?" Zhang Heping looked up speechlessly and asked loudly: "In the past two years, they even gnawed the bark of the trees, will there be a shortage of food?"

"If you have nothing to do, hurry up and buy a cart of firewood!" After Zhang Heping finished speaking, he started calculating again.

The eldest sister Zhang Zhaodi frowned and asked, "Brother, shouldn't we be stocking up on food?"

Zhang Heping didn't even bother to answer such silly questions.

The second sister, Zhang Pandi, glanced at the pieces of paper that Zhang Heping had written densely on, and quickly pulled the eldest sister away, "Sister, our family is not short of food, but we have to worry about whether so much food will be flooded!"

After his mother Ma Xiuzhen left with her three sisters, Zhang Heping was still writing hard.

"groove!"

Zhang Heping stopped writing in horror and was stunned for a long time...

According to the meteorological data played on the radio this morning, and Zhang Heping’s comprehensive calculations, from August 8 to today, August 2, at least more than 7 million acres of land in the east and south of the capital were flooded!

Seeing that his son Zhang Heping was stunned, Zhang Bing couldn't help but ask: "Xiao San, should we move back to No. 95 Courtyard? This place is too close to Haizi. If the water rises..."

"No need!" Zhang Heping put away the hand-drawn map and a pile of draft paper in front of him, "There are safety zones around the Forbidden City. The previous emperors and officials had already considered flood control and flood discharge issues. The only thing they had to worry about was water and power outages. Cut off the fire, and have lightning strikes!”

After finishing speaking, Zhang Heping turned off the radio and closed the antenna outside the house.

Then, he ran to the kitchen and opened the bamboo cover on the square sink. With the reflection of the white tiles on the inner wall, he easily found a few bugs in the water. He quickly scooped the water into the sink next to him and poured it out to clean the sink. Red brick cistern.

After the faucet on the water tank was turned on, Zhang Heping checked the wooden food storage cabinet in the kitchen again... no mice had entered.

Considering that the window might be accidentally broken by flying branches, Zhang Heping moved the row of grain storage cabinets under the south window to the east and west walls, and placed the pickle jar on the west wall in front of the masonry cupboard to the left of the reservoir. , the firewood on the east wall was moved under the window.

While he was busy, his mother and three sisters returned from buying firewood.

Zhang Heping greeted them from the south window and asked them to throw firewood in directly through the vertical cracks in the steel bars of the window.

After finishing the kitchen and eating lunch, her mother, Ma Xiuzhen, became anxious again. It was still a problem in her hometown.

Zhang Heping simply asked his mother Ma Xiuzhen and his eldest cousin Ma Lili to go out to buy candles and batteries, and gave the key to the east wing of No. 95 Courtyard to Chen Liqin, the Zhou family's daughter-in-law, so that they could stay in the east wing temporarily in case of flooding. By the way, help look at the house.

After all, the foundation of the east wing is half a meter higher than the two adjacent wing rooms.

It was night, with lightning and thunder, and the Zhang family in No. 7 Courtyard pulled the switch early.

The three sisters huddled together in the west wing and shivered, while candles were still lit in the east wing where their parents were.

Zhang Heping stood behind the glass door of the main room, looking worriedly at the big elm tree swaying outside the door, for fear that it would fall or break off a large branch!

Fortunately, the heavy rain fell quickly, and the big elm tree no longer swayed greatly. It acted as a protective umbrella for the small courtyard, slowing down the impact of the rain.

The next day, August 8, the rain continued unabated.

Mother Ma Xiuzhen was instructed by Lao Zhang to put on a raincoat and go to Courtyard No. 6. When she came back, she said that the main house and the east and west wings were leaking.

There was nothing that could be done about it. Zhang Heping had previously persuaded Zhang Cuishan to hire someone to inspect the house, but this stupid cousin refused to agree in order to save money!

At the end, her mother Ma Xiuzhen looked at Zhang Bing with an expression of embarrassment, "She still refuses to come..."