In the third year of the Republic of China, in 1914, after the Spring Festival, Qin Beiyang cut off his braid on the back of his head as soon as he left the stone archway in Xiling.

When he arrived at Yongding Gate in Beijing, Qin Customs was caught and his braided with a "click". The knife made Lao Qin feel so distressed. He even wrapped his braided braids in silk and said he wanted to bury them on the edge of the ancestral tomb.

The son laughed and said, "Three hundred years ago, the Ming Dynasty fell and the Qing Dynasty entered the pass. If our ancestors had your loyalty, 'keep your head but not your hair, and you don't have your hair,' now there will be no more of us."

The Yellow Dragon Flag on the city tower has long been replaced with five-colored flags of red, yellow, blue, white and black. The national anthem has also been changed from the "Gongjinou" of the Qing Dynasty to the "China Standing in the Universe" of the Republic of China-

China stands in the universe,

Kubata,

Hua Zhou came from Kunlun,

The vast mountains and rivers are endless,

The five tribes of the Republic have opened Yaotian,

Billions of years.

The craftsman village at the base of the imperial city no longer exists. Qin Customs is no longer a hereditary craftsman who earns the salary of the imperial court. He dug out a pottery urn buried underground, where ancient books and family genealogies were hidden, and loaded them into a cart to the slums in the western suburbs of the capital.

This was originally a Camel Village, providing camels for business travelers inside and outside the mouth. The year when the Eight-Nation Alliance came, the people in the city fled and settled here. Qin Beiyang opened the window and could see the peaks of the Xishan Mountains. This was the barrier of the capital. From the Hongshan Pass of Qinglong Bridge, it winds and turns three mountains and five gardens - Xiangshan, Yuquan Mountain, Wanshou Mountain; Old Summer Palace, Changchun Garden, Summer Palace, Jingming Garden, and Jingyi Garden.

Qin Beiyang is fourteen years old and no longer a boy. He is almost over his father. His beard is like spring leeks coming out of his lips. He went to the city to find A You. In the past four and a half years, he has never forgotten this "sister".

When he arrived next to Prince Gong's Mansion, he was driven out by the guardian. After inquiring about the news, he was indeed a little maid, but the rules of the mansion were very strict and prohibited from interacting with outsiders. The tomb supervisor was a bannerman, with a surname of Guarjia, one of the eight major surnames in Manchuria. His ancestors had several famous border officials. They had entrusted Yu Yin to get the fat of the tomb supervisor and make a fortune. Qin Beiyang didn't understand that the Qing Dynasty had perished, so why did these princes and nobles still live a wealthy life?

Walking alone by the moat of the Forbidden City, the boy looked at the world in the corner of the palace, and the little emperor Xuantong was still living. The pigeon whistle sounded in the sky, and tears fell down...

Qin Customs agreed with his son that he must conceal the identity of a royal craftsman in the former Qing Dynasty - when talking about the word "天" in the former Qing Dynasty, Lao Qin felt very uncomfortable. But he could not let people know that he had built the imperial tomb, nor could he mention the tomb-controlling beast, and it would not be possible to disclose a single word. From now on, they can only be ordinary folk craftsmen.

The stones, wood and bricks carved by Qin's father and son are often ridiculed for being ugly, and therefore their wages are deducted. Qin Beiyang fought with others for this, but his father advised him to go back and told him not to cause trouble.

You should know that the aesthetics of the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China were based on complexity and reality, just like Indians like big red, green and big flowers, like the bad taste of fat meat and cabbage in the Forbidden City in Taipei. The craftsmanship of the Qin family inherits the classical aesthetics of the Tang Dynasty, follows the simplicity of the Song Dynasty and the elegance of the Ming Dynasty, just like Ru kiln celadon and Ming-style furniture, it is regarded as bland and tasteless by ordinary people.

That summer, Qin Beiyang saw a newspaper saying that a Serbian young man named Princip in Sarajevo, Balkan Peninsula shot and assassinated Grand Duke Ferdinand, the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A world war broke out between the German-Australian allies and the British-France-Russian Allies, and a bullet in Sarajevo killed 30 million people. Yuan Shikai's government remained neutral, but China became the battlefield. The Japanese army landed on the Shandong Peninsula and conquered the German colony Qingdao after the bloody battle.

In 1915, the Xiaoxue solar term, Qin Beiyang's fifteenth birthday. He looked at Xiangshan at the entrance of Luotuo Village, and the frost leaves all over the mountains were redder than the flowers in February.

Half a month later, Qin Beiyang quietly entered the city and went to the tomb to supervise Guarjia Mansion to try to see A You. When he arrived at the door, he found that the whole house was empty with a seal. He inquired with neighbors and found that something big happened - last month, the owner of the mansion was stabbed to death by a scissor by a maid.

Qin Beiyang rushed to the Beijing District Court - it was originally the yamen of the former Qing Dynasty. After the establishment of the Republic of China, the administrative and judicial departments were separated, so there was an independent court. It happened that the Guarjia case was held and the public was allowed to listen. Qin Beiyang paid a few cents and sat in the auditorium.

The case has a great impact, and there are people everywhere. The judge appeared in a black robe and first took the suspect. It was indeed A You, who was much taller than six years ago, and his skin was paler. His face was still a child, but his body was about to bloom.

The judge first asked the suspect's name. Ayou's voice was low, like a mosquito calling. She said she didn't know what her surname was, but only knew that her name was Ayou.

"Which ghost?"

"The Ghost's Ghost."

Hearing this answer, Qin Beiyang felt aroused. He still chose the word "小".

The judge asked Ayou again, how long have he been in Guarja's mansion? What kind of work do he usually do?

The girl said timidly that she was sent to the mansion six years ago. She was nominally a little maid, but was actually imprisoned in an underground secret room and grew up in a dark place. There were other girls in the secret room, mostly bought from human traffickers. Anyone who was over twelve years old was sent to the owner's bedroom after menstruation and never met again.

Qin Beiyang, who was mingling in the auditorium, couldn't help but his eyes turned red. Thinking of the promise of the tomb supervisor back then, he was completely deceived by him, and he really wanted to dig out Guarjia's coffin and whip the corpse!

The judge was also pitiful to A You, and did not continue asking. He turned around and asked the clerk: "Why haven't the victim's family arrived yet?"

The victim had no children, and his brothers and sisters died, his wife died early, and several concubines came from the Eight Great Hutongs. They each went back to work on their old jobs and even joined the "prostitute petition group" that advocated Yuan Shikai's claim to be emperor.

However, the victim had always had a cousin, who was the Prince of Ordosdoro, Mongolia. The prince sent a prince from outside to Beijing, one to take over the inheritance, and the other to attend the trial in court.

There was a sound of camels outside the court, and everyone looked at each other. The sixteen-year-old prince stepped into the court from the main gate. He was wearing a Mongolian robe, a black bear leather jacket, a mink hat, and a bead string given by the former Qing royal family on his chest.

There are often camel caravans from Chahar and Rehe in the Camel Village in the west of Beijing, and Qin Beiyang also knew the characteristics of the Mongols. This little prince is a standard northerner and southern person with red lips and white skin, elegant face, and a pair of almond eyes, just like a beautiful young actor of the Han people.

Although he was young, his walking posture was quite heroic, as if he was still bent his bow and shooting arrows. He brought out a ball of dust from the court, mixed with the cold wind in the north. He bowed to the judge and sat on the seat of the victim's family, with his own kingly demeanor.

The judge summoned witnesses to be present, and the detective who handled the case, Ye Kenan of the Beijing Police Department.

Hearing this name, Qin Beiyang immediately cheered up. After six years, the detective was thirty years old, and he was still dressed in a Japanese police station, but he had a mustache.

Ye Kenan took off his police officer's hat and described the detailed process of the case on the witness stand - the victim intended to rape A You, but he didn't know that the girl was strong by nature. She picked up scissors to defend herself, poked the victim's carotid artery, causing her death.

Without verbal confrontation, Ye Kenan presented evidence of the police investigation, indicating that the victim was always in a bad state. In the next century, he imprisoned young female slaves and killed many children, but because the officials protected each other, he left it alone. There was another uproar in the audience.

The judge asked the victim's family for their opinions, and the little prince waved his hand, and the Beijing dialect was in a straight voice: "Judge, don't ask me! Just judge how to judge!"
Chapter completed!