The courtyard: the atmosphere of human life

Seeing the father and son coming in, Darong's mother hurried forward and looked her eldest son up and down. This eldest son was the apple of her eye, and she was afraid that he might be hurt.

"Are you okay?" After looking around, Darong's mother asked again worriedly.

"It's okay. We didn't catch up with him. He ran too fast. He must be someone familiar around here. He knows the road better than I do."

After running for a long time, Sibei felt thirsty, so he picked up the teacup on the table and started drinking it.

"Your son ran out like a rabbit. I lost one of my shoes and couldn't catch up with him. Luckily, that guy ran away. If we had fought hard, he wouldn't have had any help. This stupid kid is really hopeless."

Darong's father took off his shoes and brushed the dirt off his socks while recounting the past four generations of his family.

"Is Darong okay?" He looked at the darkened small room and asked worriedly.

"It's okay, she was just scared. She just drank some hot water. I asked her to lie down early. She will be fine tomorrow after she calms down."

Darong's mother brought a bowl of hot water to Darong's father. The cold wind in the middle of the night instantly soaked through Darong's sweater, and Darong's father ran in such a hurry that he didn't even have time to put on a cotton jacket.

"Okay, let's go to bed and rest. We all have to get up early to go to work tomorrow."

When Darong's father heard that Darong was fine, he felt relieved.

The next day, before dawn, Xiao Ling knocked on the gate.

"Fourth brother, I heard that you went after some hooligans last night? Is elder sister okay?"

Xiao Ling and Sibei are classmates. She has been following Sibei around every day since she was 14 years old. She often comes home to help Darong's mother with work. Her little thoughts are obvious to everyone in the family.

But this child really doesn't care about other people's opinions. No matter how much her father dislikes her, she still brings him delicious food to school every day.

"Sister is fine, and the gangsters didn't catch up with us. Why did you come here so early? How do you know what happened at night?"

After Sibei went out, he took the hot pancake and egg from Xiaoling's hand and walked towards the school while eating.

"I know everything about you." Xiao Ling walked side by side with Sibei with a smug look on her face.

Sibei'er and Xiaoling have been classmates since the first grade of junior high school. Now they are in the third grade. Although they are still studying in school, neither of them is good at studying.

But in that era, you could go to work in a factory after graduating from junior high school, so both of them were just muddling through their days and waiting for graduation.

There are four children in Yuan Shouli's family. In addition to Yuan Furong and the fourth son Yuan Fusheng, there are two younger ones.

The third boy, Yuan Fuhua, has been stubborn since he was young. When he gets stubborn, he will break a stick without begging for mercy. The fourth boy, Yuan Fuying, is young and a girl. She has always been well protected by her brothers and sisters. She is the kind of person who will never talk back when she is bullied outside.

Because Darong is the eldest, neighbors usually refer to the couple as "Darong's father" and "Darong's mother". This way of addressing is common in the southern suburbs of Yutian, and no one knows when it originated.

After what happened last night, Darong was still in shock. During lunch, she told her mother again and asked her four brothers and sisters what time to pick her up and which door to go to. Darong's mother nodded in agreement.

Before we finished our meal, the third child, who lived with grandma, came running back with Xizi.

"Sister, are you okay?" The third brother looked at his sister nervously and asked as soon as he entered the room.

Darong didn't expect that in just half a day, even the third child at her grandmother's house in Zhouzhuang knew about her encounter with the gangster. This is really the case of good news never traveling far, but bad news travels far and wide.

"I'm fine, I just went out with your brother. The man didn't do anything to me, but I kicked him down." Darong looked at her brother who was worried and said quickly to comfort him.

"It was a good thing I wasn't at home yesterday, otherwise I would have caught him and beat him up. My brother is so stupid." The third brother sat on the kang angrily, scolding the bicycle hooligan yesterday.

"Come on, you're so small, you may not be able to use a thin son." Darong's mother glanced at her stubborn son and said with a pout.

Xizi is a puppy that the third brother picked up last year. It was the coldest day of the year. He saw Xizi, freezing to death, on his way to school, so he took the puppy in his arms and took it home.

Although Darong's mother had a bad temper, she had a very simple and kind heart. She was not well educated, but she followed the teachings of the older generation, respected Buddhist etiquette, and believed that life was paramount. Looking at the snow outside, she decided to keep the puppy.

Because it is a thin breed of dog, it was named Xizi.

As the dog grew up, the family discovered that its IQ seemed to be higher than that of ordinary puppies. Not only was it very smart, it also seemed to understand the ways of the world, and its ability to understand was somewhat unexpected.

"I think so too. It would be great if Xizi could pick me up and drop me off in the future. I think he could be more reliable than your brother." Darong broke off a piece of steamed bread, dipped it in the soup and threw it to Xizi.

Xizi was eating steamed bread in silence, but it seemed to understand what Darong said. When Darong went out, it followed closely at Darong's feet.

"Oh, are you really going to take me to work?" Darong looked at Xizi at her feet and touched its head with a slightly doting look.

Xizi really accompanied Darong all the way to the factory gate.

"This is our factory. You can go home now. Do you know the way?" Darong said happily to Xizi at her feet.

Although she said this, Darong was just joking with Xizi. After all, she knew that this dog was very good at finding the way.

It often travels back and forth between Zhouzhuang and its home in the town by itself and has never been lost.

"Woof!" As if responding to Darong, Xizi barked, then turned around and left without looking back.

In fact, Darong didn't take Xizi's decision to send her to work seriously, but that night when she got off work, Xizi really appeared at the factory gate.

"Did you come here by yourself?" Darong looked at Xizi in disbelief.

"Sister, this dog is here to pick you up. It followed me when I just went out. I thought it was going to grandma's house again." When Sibei arrived at the gate of Darong's factory, he saw Darong talking to Xizi.

"Oh my God, this dog is really smart. I just made a joke to our mother during the day, and it went out to send me to work. It turns out that it followed me to learn the Tao." After listening to Sibei'er's words, Darong widened her eyes again.

From that day on, Xizi really picked up and dropped off Darong to and from get off work every day, rain or shine.

The thin dog did not have a thick layer of fat and its hair was not long enough. On cold nights, it would shiver and lie under the street light at the factory gate waiting for Darong. The security guards rushed over twice at first, but when they found out that the dog was there to pick up Darong, they were all amazed at the dog's intelligence.

"Mom, we're back." Darong and Xizi walked into the house together. It was already nine o'clock in the morning. The cold wind was blowing outside, and Xizi's legs and feet were shaking all the way.

As soon as he entered the door, Xizi lay down beside the stove, squinting his eyes listlessly.

"Mom, is Xizi cold? He doesn't look very energetic today." Darong squatted on the ground and touched Xizi's head with some concern.

"Maybe it's because it's too cold outside these days. It's been waiting for you at the factory gate every day. It must be sick." Darong's mother leaned in to take a closer look at Xizi, and couldn't help but worry too.