[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji":3,"chapter-the-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji-the-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji-chapter-1":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Siheyuan: Food, Love, and Family in 1960s Beijing",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":18,"prevChapterSlug":19,"totalChapters":20,"novelImage":21},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":12,"translator":16,"content_hash":17},2314051,4526,"Chapter 1: Chapter One: Past Life, Present Life","the-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji-chapter-1",1,"\u003Cp>Li Xuewu frowned, his eyes dull as he stared at the ceiling.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sounds of bugle calls, drill commands, and artillery blasts still echoed in his ears.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He tilted his head to glance at the calendar on the wall.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>November 15, 1965, Friday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If he remembered correctly, another page should have been torn off.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That would be November 16, 1965, Saturday.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He still wasn’t used to lacking phone alerts for date and time; his right hand groped uselessly beside the pillow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though it was only November, Beijing had already seen two snowfalls, and it was bitterly cold.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Elders had told him this era was colder than the future.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Listening to the wind howling through the window cracks, he cherished the meager warmth of his quilt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It wasn’t that Li Xuewu didn’t want to get up—he was literally held captive by the cotton quilt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outside, the sky was still dark; he couldn’t tell what time it was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since getting off the train, he didn’t know how long he’d slept, but the kang still swayed like the train had.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu knew he’d grown accustomed to the train’s rhythm; it would take a day or two to adapt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He was no longer the dazed man he’d been when he first crossed over; memories dripped like rainwater from the eaves, slowly filling his mind with the life of this body.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had been in this world for over two months; this was his first morning home after being discharged. Most of those two months had been spent on a hospital bed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The original owner of this body was also named Li Xuewu, nineteen years old, who enlisted in 1962 and served somewhere in the southwest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu knew the original Li Xuewu was already gone.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All that remained was a scar on his face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He himself was a transplant—a middle-aged man who’d drifted through state enterprises, aimless and mediocre, dabbling in everything but mastering nothing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Fortunately, some of the body’s memories had merged with his own; others were recounted to him by comrades.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu realized he had somehow landed in the very story he both hated and longed for.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Considering Li Xuewu’s condition made continued service unsuitable, the military consulted him and arranged a small award ceremony and discharge ritual.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu returned home, carrying his luggage and his household registration, and found his family’s residence in Beijing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since he arrived at night, little was said; he ate a bowl of rice porridge and went straight to bed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The original body lived in a courtyard house near Nanluoguxiang in Beijing, with three rooms totaling over sixty square meters, housing nine members of the Li family.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu scanned the room—it was a side chamber of a sihe courtyard, divided into three rooms. The northern room had two kangs built east and west; the east kang housed Li’s father, mother, and younger sister; the west kang housed Li’s grandmother, third brother, and his mother’s father, Liu Jia Master. Li Xuewu’s sudden return had displaced his grandmother to the east kang.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The middle room served as living room, dining area, and kitchen; the southern room had originally been Li Xuewen and Li Xuewu’s room, but now housed Li’s eldest brother and his wife.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Last night, Li’s mother had scolded him at length upon seeing her second son return.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu’s father, Li Shun, had frowned and said, “Good-for-nothing. Get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll arrange your job.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu now understood his family’s situation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His father, Li Shun, was forty, a physician at Beijing’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, who had joined in 1954 after submitting medical formulas, and supported the entire household on a salary of Grade 12, Level 4, 79.5 yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His mother, Liu Yin, had no job; she managed the household and cared for the elders.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From his mother, Li Xuewu learned many things had happened this year; she also complained that he hadn’t told the family what had happened to him in the military.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This year, the eldest son, Li Xuewen, graduated and stayed on at school as a physics instructor, began drawing a salary, and married his classmate Zhao Yafang, who also stayed on as a math instructor.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whenever she mentioned her eldest son and daughter-in-law, Li’s mother’s pride and joy shone plainly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li’s father also held his head slightly higher.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His third son, Li Xuecai, had also excelled this year, gaining admission to medical university—bringing great honor to Li’s father, who for the first time showed a look of satisfaction.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of the three sons, the eldest was absorbed in scholarship and uninterested in medicine; the second was troublemaking, injured many, and was useless at healing; the third, though mischievous, had succeeded by entering medical school, ensuring the family’s medical legacy continued.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His younger sister, Li Xue, was in her second year of high school and an outstanding student; his mother was immensely proud.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No wonder his mother was proud—in this era, who could afford to support four students, two already university-educated and one about to be?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even the least accomplished second son had graduated high school.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And now their eldest daughter-in-law was a university graduate too; both were university teachers, and everyone who met them praised Li’s mother for her capability.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This had largely restored the family’s reputation, tarnished by Li Xuewu’s earlier misdeeds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In July, a letter came from their hometown: his mother had passed away. Li’s mother took the whole family home for the funeral, and seeing her father alone and destitute, she could only weep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since his marriage, Li Shun had never managed household affairs, leaving everything to Liu Yin, who raised four children and cared for his mother, keeping the home in perfect order.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Shun didn’t know where his salary went or whether there was any surplus, yet his wife never complained, even when money ran short.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu’s father was to be brought to live in the city home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu’s father, when Li Shun spoke, flatly refused—he wouldn’t go to live with his son-in-law; it would shame his daughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only when Li Shun insisted firmly, and Li Xuewen and Li Xuecai physically carried him out, did he finally agree to follow his daughter and son-in-law into the city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu’s father was a carpenter from the village; for this move, Li Shun brought home a whole cartload of carpentry tools.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Liu’s father intended that as long as he could still move his legs, he’d never be a burden to his daughter or son-in-law.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, the Li family now lived in the side chambers of the sihe courtyard’s front yard.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Due to Li Xuewu’s special circumstances—discharged because of injury, and a combat hero—the military entrusted local authorities to properly settle him; the neighborhood coordinated with the Armed Forces Department to place him in a factory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu raised his hand to touch the scar on his face, then, under the dim light, examined the room again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The ceiling was covered with yellowed, old newspapers; the walls were speckled with grime; the windowpanes were small and grimy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Between the two kangs stood a row of cabinets, atop which sat a small alarm clock, a mirror, and several bottles and jars—probably not medicine, since Li’s father’s herbs and books were kept in the southern room.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The southern room had only one kang on the east side; the west side held several cabinets and a desk.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the middle room, near the southern chamber, stood a stove; thus, the kang in Xuewen’s room warmed up when cooking, while the two kangs in the northern room were heated by the door stove.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Marvelous Roots of Immortal Wood\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the main room stood an eight-legged table; against the wall ran a row of cabinets, and in the corner stood a sewing machine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu simply couldn’t sleep; his third brother, Xuecai, snored under his quilt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu called Liu’s father “Lao Ye”; everyone in the family called him “Da Lao.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Da Lao slept lightly; he was probably awake now, coughed twice, and got up to dress.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Xuewu looked at the brightening window and finally overcame the quilt’s hold, rose, pulled on his cotton coat, and got off the kang with Da Lao.\u003C\u002Fp>",1362,"2026-06-20T13:46:54.288Z","Qwen3-Next 80B","66306d49a9d3fe2c39fed3e9c5507322adf8521e04d8ac8489d7be4d499b744e","the-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji-chapter-2",null,1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-siheyuan-food-love-and-family-in-1960s-beiji-cover.jpg"]