Liu Xinwu's The Bell and Drum Tower

This book tells the story of what happened in the area of Beijing's Bell and Drum Tower on December 12, 1982, from 5:00 am to 5:00 pm. In an old courtyard, Xue Da Niang gets up early in the morning to pack up her things and wait for Master He of Tongheju to come to organize the banquet because her second son, Xue Jiyue, is getting married today. Instead, Mr. Xue went to the back of Shichahai to walk and play boxing as usual. The first daughter-in-law, Meng Zhaoying, was late in arriving, and Xue Da Niang was so anxious that Xun Lei, a young man from the same courtyard, helped her to put up big red letters of congratulations on both sides of the courtyard door. Xun Lei's father is a retired worker, now repairing shoes for business. Xun Lei grew up with a strict family, study seriously, good foreign language results, after graduating from high school, unexpectedly recruited by the foreign affairs department, sent to foreign training. This summer he returned to China to work as an interpreter in an important department. At this time, the young man Lu Xichun is riding a bicycle to the house of Damian Xue. He works in a small restaurant near Chongwenmen. The master chef of the Tongheju restaurant, Mr. He, who took early retirement to allow his son to fill in for him, saw Lu Xichun's pure heart and eagerness to learn, and took him on as an apprentice. Today, Lu Xi pure is for the master to Xue family wedding banquet. Living in the outer courtyard of the courtyard three south room is the Peking Opera actress Tantai Zhizhu. She was persecuted in the "Cultural Revolution" and was sent to the button factory as a packer, and ordinary car mechanic Li armor married. Seeing that she was a happy couple with two children, Dame Xue asked her to accompany her eldest daughter-in-law to welcome her. However, Pu Yangsun, who sang the young student for Tantai Zhizhu in the troupe, and the two accompaniments suddenly came to complain of an emergency: Old Zhao, who played the Jinghu, and Old Tong, who played the drums, had been dragged away by another, more famous actress. Li Kai hated Pu Yangsun, who was full of women's spirit and performed with his wife, and angrily ran away. Tantai Zhizhu went to look for her, and the one who accompanied Meng Zhaoying to welcome the bride had to be replaced by Zhan Liying, who was across the street from Xue's family. Zhan Liying graduated from university in the 50's, kind-hearted, warm, but speak in a high voice, do not know the importance of, and capricious, often offend people. 1957 was classified as a rightist, reformed for more than 20 years, and a metallurgical technician in Sichuan married to this day, living apart. This is not a happy life, let this person to meet the bride, Xue Danniang heart some regrets. Living in the backyard of the courtyard is a director Zhang Qilin. He should have been this morning to visit the country, because the plane was changed to take off in the afternoon, so let his daughter Zhang Xiu Zao to help him organize the bookcase. Zhang Xiu Zao, a student at Tsinghua University's Water Conservancy Department, has secretly fallen in love with Xun Lei, but Xun Lei has already fallen in love with Feng Wanshu, a graduate of the Beijing Foreign Language Institute, who is also in the same organization, and she is secretly heartbroken. Xun Lei's father, Master Xun, is not happy with Feng Wanshu, who smells like a foreigner. He is a native of Hebei, before the liberation of the countryside and Guo Dunzi enlisted in the army together, in the rain of bullets and life and death ****, and then into the city as a worker. 1960, the two wives were pregnant at the same time, it was said that if one side of the male side of the female side of the birth of a child, so that the two children grow up to get married. Guo Dunzi later devolved back to his hometown in the countryside, poor and sick and died. Today, his daughter Guo Xing'er is coming to Beijing to see Master Xun's family. Xing'er family in the countryside to engage in the responsibility system after the rich, today she entered Beijing for the first time, got off the train carrying a package first to Tiananmen Square to take pictures, and then to Wangfujing climbed the long-desired three-storey department store building are open, and then bought a big bag of wine, cakes to Xun family. She met Feng Wanshu, she is generous, but do not understand what Feng Wanshu said "computer", "information" and so on, then asked Feng Wanshu know do not know a kind of wild grain called wild grain in the field will be swollen face when people eat it. The first person to come to the Xue family for the wedding banquet was Lu Baosang, a 29-year-old bachelor. He comes from a family of commoners. His father, Lu Shengqi, was a beggar in the Beijing Beggar's Gang and was once bribed by the authorities with steamed buns to fight students propagandizing against starvation and the civil war. His mother, Huang, was said to be the daughter of a "soldier Huang" who sold insect medicine in Tianqiao before the liberation. Lu Baosang inherited from his parents a full body of rogue gas, do not bring gifts, into the house to ask for cigarettes and sugar, but also think that cigarettes and sugar specifications are not high. The groom Xue Jiyue today is not happy, he remembered for the marriage of the aggrieved and difficult. In order to buy his fiancée a gold-plated radar small Kun watch, parents used to save money for 3 years of frugal savings. He also has another kind of unspeakable suffering: a windy and snowy night, a woman took the initiative to court with him, he actually did not succeed, which caused serious trauma to his psyche. The bride Pan Xiuya in a photo studio to do a bit of invoicing, collection of negatives chores. Her father was originally a small businessman, after liberation in the wash and dye store as a clerk; her mother's mother's family was also originally a stall, operating wigs. Growing up in this kind of family, Pan Xiuya had a very high sense of inferiority, so she often put up a show to customers like most salespersons, looking for a little spiritual fulfillment. She does not look for "love" but mainly considers whether it is "suitable". After a frustrated attempt to change her status by courting the son of a professor, she picks Xue Jiyue. A rented car takes her to Xue's home and the wedding banquet begins. Zhan Liying picked up the bride back, busy back to their own house to take care of the two guests, the two were pulled together by her hard to talk about the object. The male party JI Zhiman is Zhan Liying college classmates, now teaching math in secondary schools, more than 40 still unmarried, hobby stamps. Female Mu Cherry live in this courtyard, and the Xue Damsel's two rooms connected to the room is her home. She moved to the time is not long, is a doctor, often live in the unit infirmary, so Zhan Liying did not know her. In the early years of the founding of the country she married on impulse a hero who was disabled in the war against the United States and Korea, and took the name Muying. After being guaranteed admission to the university, the concept changed, and the hero divorced, married a classmate Ge Zunzhi, renamed Mu Cherry. "During the Cultural Revolution, Ge Zunzhi became mediocre and unambitious, so she divorced Ge and fell in love with a minister who had just resumed work. Zhan Liying hard to pull her and JI Zhiman meeting she had to come to see, but only to JI Zhiman to ask for a minister of the coveted stamps. Director Zhang Qilin's home at noon is also not quiet. Just promoted to intelligence station chief Pang Qisan asked him to buy a book from abroad, an anonymous letter and uncovered the administrative director of the bureau in the process of housing allocation of power for personal gain. At the climax of a wedding banquet at the Xue family's home, a drunken and greasy Lu Baosang plays a scoundrel and humiliates Lu Xichun, saying that Lu's father worked as an errand boy for johns and prostitutes in brothels before the liberation of China. Lu Xichun was so hurt that he wanted to hit Lu Baosang, but he didn't want to spoil the Xue family's happy event, so he sat down under the cooking hut and cried. When Lu Baosang is a wild animal and lifts the table, he is paralyzed by Yin, a bone-setter at the same table, who hits him on the acupoint. Yao Xiangdong, a middle-school student who has gone downhill due to improper education, blends into Xue's house with the congratulatory people and steals the bride's radar watch and the gift money intended for the chef. When the bride is aggrieved, the kind-hearted Master Xun allows Xun Lei to take the money to buy the same watch, lying that it was picked up by a thief who left it outside the door and returned it to the Xue family. Living side by side with Tantai Zhizhu's family is the old editor Han Yitan. He had nurtured many new poets and had been pestered by unhinged "literary youths". Today, a speculative and morally corrupt "newcomer to the literary world" came to claim a manuscript that had been canceled seven years ago and humiliated him in front of him, almost driving him crazy. Tantai Zhizhu, who has been torn down and whose husband is nowhere to be found, wanders the streets and sees a group of old people sunbathing under the Bell and Drum Tower, talking about the past and the present. Grandpa Hu tells of working as a laborer in the Forbidden City 50 years ago, and old Mrs. Hai tells of the lotus market in Shichahai 40 years ago. In the courtyard, the wedding banquet was about to end when Xue Jiyue's elder brother, Xue Jihui, returned. He worked as a team leader in the transportation team, got up this morning and led the team to grab the task, and on the way to help people repair the car, missed the family event. Xue Daniang was touched by Lu Xichun's simplicity and kindness, and said that they would be relatives in the future. At this time, Zhang Qilin sat in the plane still considering the work of the unit, realizing that time is money. Xun Lei, Feng Wanshu, Zhang Xiuzao, Guo Xing'er several young people are preparing to meet, exchange information and discuss the mission of young people. ...... Life comes in a thousand shapes and sizes, and the Bell and Drum Tower stands tall, immortalized as a witness to social history and personal destiny.