Courtyard House: Rebirth of a Shopkeeper in 1937

Time flies, and it's already October in the lunar calendar. The late rice in the fields has begun to be harvested on a large scale. The golden waves of rice roll in the wind, and the joyful laughter of the villagers harvesting rice can be heard everywhere. However, the late rice at my maternal grandfather's house ripens a little later and will not be ready for harvest for another ten days or so.

On this busy and bountiful day, Xingbao and Guixiang were watering the cabbages with some friends in the seedbed when a donkey cart came galloping towards them. It carried several people – their senior, Wang Ping'an, and his group – who had gone to the Shanghai front to offer condolences and support, and after a month, they were finally returning. They were no longer the spirited, high-spirited individuals they had been when they set off. The returning group sat listlessly on the donkey cart, their expressions filled with deep sadness and dejection. Their hair was a tangled mess, clearly neglected for a long time; they wore the same clothes they had worn when they left, but now they were tattered and worn, covered in dust and stains. Deep wear marks from carrying heavy loads were clearly visible on their shoulders and backs, and some of the older boys' shoes were even torn open, their toes almost showing.

Xingbao and Guixiang spotted them from afar. They immediately held their breath, carefully counting the number of people. Seeing that everyone was there, they both breathed a sigh of relief, their hearts finally at ease. They quickly joined hands and ran to meet them. Upon reaching them, they noticed their senior brothers' expressions were off, their usual energy gone. Xingbao immediately abandoned his usual mischievousness and said in a flattering tone, "Senior brothers, everyone, you're finally back! We've been thinking about you every day these past few days, we missed you so much!"

Gui Xiang immediately followed suit, her little face full of sincerity, and added in her childish voice, "Senior brothers, I miss you all too! Mother often talks about you, asking when you can come back!" As she spoke, she obediently nodded to everyone, giving them a timely boost in the hopes of making her senior brothers a little happier.

The donkey cart slowly came to a stop, and the group got off. The senior students and classmates looked down at the two well-behaved and sensible little ones in front of them, and their tense nerves relaxed a little. They forced a smile from the corners of their mouths, and their voices were hoarse as if sandpaper was being rubbed, as they replied wearily, "Guixiang, Xingbao, thank you for thinking of us. We missed you too." The simple sentence revealed endless exhaustion and heartache.

After exchanging greetings, Xingbao and Guixiang, seeing that their senior brothers were in extremely poor spirits, didn't lead them to the noisy bamboo hut in front. Instead, they led them directly into the quiet main hall—a place now only frequented by overnight guests, usually very quiet and perfect for rest. The group sat around their usual table, but all were listless, heads drooping, completely lacking energy. Seeing this, Xingbao quietly went to the kitchen, retrieved some high-quality tea leaves from his own space, boiled a pot of boiling water, brewed a pot of fragrant hot tea, poured a cup for each senior brother, and handed it to them. Then, he pulled Guixiang to sit quietly on a stool in the corner, behaving themselves so as not to disturb their rest.

Perhaps it was the warmth of the hot tea that dispelled some of the fatigue from the journey, or perhaps it was the return to familiar surroundings that brought a long-lost sense of peace; the tense expressions of the group gradually relaxed. Xingbao quietly observed them and noticed that several of his fellow disciples were secretly wiping away tears with their sleeves while drinking tea, clearly recalling the heartbreaking events at the front lines. At this moment, his eldest brother, second brother, and Brother Dashan also arrived after hearing the news. Seeing their fellow disciples' expressions, they all showed concern. Seeing this, Xingbao pulled Guixiang up and tiptoed to the kitchen to explain the situation to his mother and Sister Shanshan, asking them to quickly prepare some hot food for his fellow disciples to nourish their bodies.

After dinner, Mother and Sister Shanshan, along with Guixiang, tidied up the kitchen and washed the dishes, the clinking of the bowls and plates making a crisp sound. The others remained in the main room, sitting together in the dim light, illuminating their solemn faces. They listened quietly as Wang Ping'an and his group recounted their experience of visiting the front lines in Shanghai. One of the senior students spoke first, his voice still tinged with exhaustion: "After we left the port, we were so grateful to Uncle Song for helping us find a vehicle in Yongfeng, otherwise we don't know how long we would have been delayed. We arrived in Changsha smoothly the next afternoon and met up with the local student delegation. We waited in Changsha for two more days until all the students from various places had arrived before we boarded a boat and sailed down the Yangtze River together. Along the way, the river was packed with cargo and people, so crowded that you couldn't see the end of it, and there was an atmosphere of panic everywhere!" He paused, took a sip of tea to moisten his dry throat, and continued: "According to the boatmen, the waters around Shanghai have been blockaded by the Japanese. Except for a few foreign ships, other ships can't get in at all. They even went so far as to bomb the Shanghai North Station, so now the only way to enter Shanghai is from the South Station. We had no choice but to disembark in Changzhou, transfer to a train, and take a long and bumpy journey before finally making it to Shanghai."

Then, another senior student took over the conversation, describing the scene in Shanghai. His tone was heavy with sorrow and grief, and his voice trembled slightly: "When we arrived in Shanghai, we realized it was a completely different world, worlds apart. On one side was a battlefield engulfed in flames, with smoke-filled ruins everywhere, broken walls and rubble everywhere, collapsed buildings and twisted steel bars scattered about. The air was thick with the acrid smell of gunpowder and blood. Human life was cheap, and soldiers and civilians lived a life of uncertainty, barely able to feed themselves. Countless people lost their lives in the war every day; on the other side..." The foreign concessions were a scene of dazzling lights and revelry, with foreigners in their finest clothes indulging in pleasure in dance halls and restaurants. They treated our country's war like a real-life movie, completely disregarding our suffering. This starkly contrasted with the horrors of the battlefield, leaving one deeply distressed, filled with both anger and helplessness. I had only heard scholars say that our nation had been weak for a long time, but I hadn't truly grasped it. I always thought we were just slightly inferior to other countries. Only after arriving in Shanghai and witnessing it firsthand did I realize how vast the gap was between us and other nations!

Upon arrival, we immediately went to the wounded soldiers' camp, as arranged by the visiting group, to comfort the soldiers who had been wounded while defending the country. As soon as we entered the camp, the horrific scene shocked us all: wounded soldiers were everywhere, some with broken arms, some missing legs, their wounds still bleeding, trembling with pain, their suppressed groans and screams of agony rising and falling, unbearable to hear. It wasn't until we saw girls our age, suppressing their fear and sorrow, carefully changing dressings and cleaning pus-covered wounds while weeping, their movements gentle and meticulous, that we snapped out of our daze. Suppressing our discomfort and nausea, we stepped forward to help carry stretchers, transport the wounded, and deliver urgently needed medicines and supplies to the front lines. There, we saw too many severed limbs, walked through trenches covered in red gore, the soil beneath our feet soaked in blood, sticky and clinging. We also personally experienced the roar of enemy artillery and the bombing raids; when shells exploded around us, the massive shockwaves nearly blew us away. The fear of being on the brink of death is still terrifying to think about now. The gap between us and the Japanese was too great; their weapons and equipment were far more advanced than ours. Our soldiers could only rely on their flesh and blood to hold them off! As he spoke, the senior student sitting in the middle turned ashen-faced, his eyes reddened, and tears streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks, dripping onto his clothes. His voice choked with sobs, and he could no longer speak. He could only lower his head in anguish, covering his face with his hands, his shoulders trembling uncontrollably. The classmate next to him quickly reached out and gently patted his shoulder, offering silent comfort, before continuing his story. Each person would speak for a while, but would become too emotional to continue, and someone else would have to take over. The whole storytelling process was intermittent, which made people feel the tragedy on the front lines even more.