Courtyard House: New Life, New Silly Zhu

Chapter 119

Life went on uneventfully, and before they knew it, it was 1957.

He Yuzhu got up early this Sunday, not because he had another banquet to prepare, but because Sunday was an unlucky day and no one was having a wedding, so he could rest for the day.

"Why did you get up so early, Brother Zhu?" Yang Lifang asked curiously, peeking out from under the covers.

"Isn't it Sunday? Our family hasn't gone out in a long time. How about we go out for a stroll today?" He Yuzhu asked with a smile.

Yang Lifang was delighted to hear this and said, "Okay, where shall we go?"

He Yuzhu reached his hand under the covers, pinched Yang Lifang's cheek, and said with a smile, "Anywhere is fine, but you have to get up first."

Yang Lifang slapped his hand away and said coquettishly, "You're so annoying, your hands are so cold and you just stick them in and touch me like that."

After saying that, Yang Lifang sat up, but the quilt was still wrapped around her body.

"Brother Zhu, you're all dressed, why aren't you going out yet?" Yang Lifang asked He Yuzhu.

He Yuzhu chuckled: "No rush, I'm afraid the heat in this room will dissipate as soon as I open the door."

"Ugh, get out of here, I need to get dressed." Yang Lifang blushed. Even after being married for so long, she still wasn't used to He Yuzhu seeing her naked.

He Yuzhu laughed heartily: "Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore. Really, I helped you take your clothes off, what are you being shy about?"

Yang Lifang rolled her eyes at him and urged, "Get out of here, you filthy scoundrel!"

He Yuzhu left the room and went straight to the side room, calling out at the door, "Yushui, are you awake?"

He Yushui was hiding under the covers reading a comic book when she heard her brother call her. She quickly replied, "I'm awake, brother. What's wrong?"

"I'm off today, do you want to go out and have some fun?" He Yuzhu asked.

Upon hearing about going out to play, He Yushui immediately perked up, quickly crawled out of bed, and excitedly said, "Great! Brother, I want to go ice skating at Houhai."

At this time, Houhai Lake was covered with a thick layer of ice, making it a playground for children.

"No problem, I'll take you. You go wash up first, I'll make breakfast." He Yuzhu said and went home to make breakfast.

It's called making breakfast, but it's really just making dumplings. Northerners love to eat dumplings in the dead of winter.

Dumplings are eaten from the beginning to the end of the year, and they are eaten on every festival, without missing a single one of the twenty-four festivals. Even so, the number of times we eat dumplings is still relatively small.

Of course, it was impossible to eat dumplings often in this era. On the contrary, eating dumplings every few days was considered a treat.

However, He Yuzhu is different; he can eat whatever he wants, except that the filling isn't pure meat, but vegetarian dumplings.

After the family finished eating dumplings, they walked in a large group towards Houhai.

Upon arriving at the gate, He Yuzhu saw that no one was inside, so he led his family to another place.

"Brother Zhu, isn't the gate to Houhai right here? Where are we going?" Yang Lifang asked with some confusion, glancing back at the gate that was already far away.

"Sister-in-law, there's one thing you absolutely have to try when you come to Houhai," He Yushui said with a mysterious smile.

She and her brother both knew that there was no entrance fee to Houhai, or rather, they never entered through the main gate.

You should know that the entrance fee to Houhai is 5 cents per person. At this time, 5 cents can buy a bowl of hot wontons. It's better to save the money for the entrance fee and eat a bowl of wontons instead.

Although Yang Lifang worked in Beijing, she had never actually been to Houhai before, so she went with the brother and sister.

After walking for a short while, we came to a low wall. Several people had already crossed the wall over the protruding part and entered Houhai.

He Yushui excitedly pointed to the spot and said, "It's here! This place is still here!" Then He Yushui let go.

She ran over to her sister-in-law's hand.

She ran up to them and waved to the two people behind her.

"Brother, sister-in-law, hurry up!"

He Yuzhu and Yang Lifang walked over. He Yuzhu said, "Xiaofang, go in. Don't feel guilty. The Forbidden City is free, but you have to pay 5 cents to enter Houhai. So we people in Beijing have never paid a penny to Houhai."

After He Yuzhu finished speaking, he took the lead and stepped over the wall, reaching out to pull the two of them into Houhai.

Unlike the sparsely populated area at the main entrance, Houhai was already bustling with activity at 9 a.m., with many people already ice skating.

He Yuzhu and He Yushui both wore the same expression, as if saying to Yang Lifang: See, everyone is like this.

Ice skates in those days were very rudimentary; so rudimentary that you could skate as long as you tied something slightly sharp to the skate.

So when you come here, you can see many strange and unusual shoes.

Some even had a tree branch tied to their cloth shoes and used them to skate on the ice.

He Yushui, being a young woman, was naturally too embarrassed to skate like that, so she took her younger sister to the skate rental area by the ice rink.

By this time, people were already making wooden ice skates, which weren't expensive, but they could only be used in the skating area, except...

Families with plenty of money hardly ever buy them, so vendors renting out ice skates have emerged.

They found three pairs of shoes that looked to be of good quality in the pile, paid for them, put on the skates, left their original shoes at the rental place, and planned to take the new skates with them when they returned them.

These shoes can't be left lying around. You know, a pair of shoes costs several dollars these days. If you leave them here and no one is watching them, someone might just snatch them away.

The three of them started gliding on the lake, or rather, Yang Lifang was being glided along by He Yushui and He Yuzhu.

Although some people played on the frozen rivers in the countryside, back then, the rivers in the village belonged to the landlords, so these people dared not play there.

After liberation, Yang Lifang was focused on her studies and didn't have time to go to these places to play, so she can't ice skate now.

However, for some people with a strong sense of balance, ice skating is a very simple thing. For example, Yang Lifang was able to skate on her own after skating for more than ten minutes.

Of course, if you have poor balance, like the young man in front of He Yuzhu, even though someone was supporting him and letting him glide slowly, he seemed to have stepped on something, his feet kept wobbling, and after a while he stumbled and fell flat on his backside in a "Wild Goose Descending on Sand" style.

The three of them didn't skate very fast, but He Yuzhu was exhausted, and steam was coming out of his head.

"I can't take it anymore, I'm exhausted." He Yuzhu plopped down on the grass, panting heavily.

He Yushui and Yang Lifang held hands and glided together on the ice. When she saw her brother's performance, she giggled and said, "Brother, you're not good at this either. You're not as good as me."

Yang Lifang spun around gracefully, gliding in front of him, and said with a coquettish smile, "Brother Zhu, are you up to the task?"