"It's good that people are okay. On the streets of Yanjiao, he took a puff of his cigarette and spoke in a calm tone.
At the rescue scene on March 13, firefighters extinguished the open fire. Photo by Beijing News reporter Wang Zicheng
新京报记者 | 左琳 丛之翔 彭镜陶 熊丽欣
Intern | Zhang Xinhui
Edit | Yang Hai
Proofreading | Zhang Yanjun
▼ Full text 4788 words About 11 minutes to read
At the time of the Yanjiao deflagration accident, 62-year-old Wei Dayong had just finished breakfast at home. Normally, in another 10 minutes, he would go to the door and window shop on the other side of the four-story building.
In the Lanzhou beef noodle restaurant next door, the boss is already busy, cutting vegetables and preparing ingredients. She used to arrive early to complete these preparations alone, and in another hour, the guys in the store would come over, and the noodle restaurant would open on time. The meatloaf shop, door and window shop, and flower shop next to it have not yet reached their business hours.
Migrant workers who pick up odd jobs, residents who exercise in the morning, and Beipiao who catch the bus pass by this simple building with a red exterior one after another. People who live in the neighborhood are familiar with it, but no one can name it, and it is usually referred to as "intersection bottom merchant". Since 29 years ago, it has stood on the main street in the center of Yanjiao Town, Hebei Province, with four shops on the first floor, guest houses on the second and third floors, and a dance studio on the top floor. There are primary schools, supermarkets, labor markets and parks near the small building, witnessing the surrounding fields turning into high-rise buildings, and accepting groups of people who come here to make a living.
Newcomers have stopped at guest houses, painters who have returned late have eaten noodles at noodle shops, young boys have gone to flower shops to choose flowers, and children have practiced their bodies in dance studios.
Some people have settled here, some people have invested their efforts here, and their lives are ordinary but happy.
At 7:54 a.m. on March 13, a deflagration occurred, all of which came to an abrupt end with the collapse of the small building.
Home in Yanjiao
On the day of the accident, Wei Dayong finished breakfast, the time was around 7:45, he was about to ride an electric car to the store, and he saw the news of the explosion on his mobile phone. He was stunned for a moment, in his life, going to the four-story building to see the store has become an important task in his later years.
The store is under the new project of the youngest son Wei Cai in 2022, and the location is very good, in the old town center, next to the subway connecting to Beijing is being built.
This is also the earliest development area of Yanjiao. More than 20 years ago, when the town was mostly bungalows and wasteland, a small building was built in the vicinity. Backdrop to a dense residential area, facing a 33-storey cultural building integrating supermarkets, electronics markets and residences, and next to the town's largest labor market, it has become the first place for many migrant workers to settle down in Yanjiao.
Wei Dayong's family was also the first small business operator from other places to come here for development.
In 2003, he took his eldest son to leave his hometown of Anyi County, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province and went north to enter the door and window industry. Wei Dayong said that it is also close to Beijing, only separated by a Chaobai River, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei market can be opened, but the rent is more than half cheaper than Beijing. He opened his first store on Haiyou Street, a kilometer away from the four-story building.
Wei Cai followed in his father's footsteps and came to Yanjiao in 2007, when he had just graduated from junior high school and was most uncomfortable with the climate. It's dry, the wind blows with sand, and more than a decade later, he has long since integrated into this northern town, and only the local accent and eating habits have not changed. In order to save money, they insisted on eating at home until now. Almost every day, he has to drive to various customers' homes to measure and install. He likes to keep his head down and do things, and only when he talks about his work does he become particularly talkative.
The scene of the incident on March 13. Screenshot of the video published on the Internet
In the first 10 years of coming to Yanjiao, the Wei family father and son caught up with the construction tide here, the boundaries of the town continued to expand outward, more buildings were built, roads were built, buses went directly to Beijing International Trade Center, and more and more people who worked hard in Beijing chose to settle here. The rent of the four-story building has also risen, and the shop of more than 20 square meters once rose to more than 60,000 yuan per year.
The Wei family participated in the development of Yanjiao and also enjoyed dividends. In 2014, they finally bought a house to live in, and Wei Cai also met his wife from Handan, Hebei Province, and later had a daughter.
In recent years, the development of the town has slowed down, the market is close to saturation, and the work of Wei Cai's family has gradually decreased. Rents for shops in small four-story buildings have also fallen. Seeing the opportunity, Wei Cai rented a store of more than 20 square meters here.
Wei Cai said that there are many residential areas nearby, and there are many customers who come to see the doors and windows. They became friends with many customers in the neighborhood, and sometimes they would say hello to each other when they went for a walk in the park.
But for a door and window shop, it's too small. "I can't put many samples, and I panic when I go in. Wei Cai said that they could only serve customers there, and they could not work or cook. At noon, my mother always cooked a meal and sent it to my father, who was looking at the shop. There is no separate toilet in the store, so you have to turn around and go to the backyard, but after all, this is also their "home".
In this "home", they open around 8:30 a.m. and close around 6:30 p.m., when the surrounding restaurants are bustling with people, which is the peak time of business.
After the deflagration accident, business was affected, and it became troublesome to take over the work, which became something that Wei Dayong was reluctant to mention. On March 17, four days after the deflagration accident, Wei waited for customers on the street. He seemed to be more receptive to the change than his father.
"It's good that people are okay. On the streets of Yanjiao, he took a puff of his cigarette and spoke in a calm tone.
"It's not money that can be calculated"
Like Wei Dayong, at the time of the deflagration accident, the hostess of the flower shop was about to leave for the store. Her mother-in-law remembers that at this time, her daughter-in-law picked up the phone and received the news that the store had been bombed: "As soon as she heard this, she hurriedly ran to the store, and when she got to the place, she saw that the whole building had collapsed, and she cried at that time." Ten years of hard work is gone. ”
This year is the 10th anniversary of the opening of the flower shop, and in the hostess's plan, this small shop of more than 20 square meters will continue to open until she can receive a pension, and then go to travel, relax, and live every day quietly. The nearby merchants don't know her real name, but they all like to follow the store name of her "Duoduo", she doesn't care, so she should come down.
Wang Yun, who opened a flower shop four or five hundred meters away, remembers that Duoduo said that he was a native of Hulunbuir, and later came to Beijing and became a white-collar worker sitting in an office. "There's a lot of traffic here, and there's a lot of customers. Duoduo's mother-in-law said.
Zou Wei is a native of Yanjiao and has been delivering goods to the flower shop since 2014. According to his observations, since the beginning of the lease of this building, there has been no time when the house is vacant. The flower shop has at least 100 customers a day, and Wei Cai often sees young people in their twenties and thirties and delivery riders coming and going in and out of the shop, which is much more than his own shop.
The two shops are next to each other, Wei Cai sometimes goes to the store, and can always see the owner of the flower shop coming back from the purchase and moving things from a small car, but most of the time, it is Duoduo who is busy in the store, wearing casual clothes and light makeup, sometimes accompanied by "There are so many people in this world", cutting the roots of the lilies, thorning the roses, letting some squeamish grass and flowers absorb water in time to wake up the flowers, regularly spraying fresh-keeping and disinfection agents, the sun shines in, and the day's business begins.
A flower shop before the deflagration accident. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Wei Cai deals with steel all day long, and he has no habit of buying flowers at all, but the store next door is too beautifully decorated.
The sign on the red background is a white, lively font of the store's name, the floor-to-ceiling glass windows are clean and bright, the warm yellow light in the room is poured, the wall is a row of cabinets and shelves, there are gray-green leather chairs, there are small round tables covered with white tablecloths, bottles and buckets of flowers spread on the ground, orange tulips, green peonies, white lilies, crimson roses...... The room is filled with fragrance at all times.
There are all kinds of delicate vases in the store, all of which have been collected from all over the world little by little in the past 10 years, and one of the celadon vases brought back from Beijing has been treasured by her for seven or eight years, and she has been favored by customers several times, but she is not willing to sell.
The atmosphere of the flower shop was infectious, and when it came to a day worth celebrating, he began to be happy to pick out bouquets of flowers for his wife and mother, brilliant red roses, and blooming carnations, which could make the cherished person feel better. Duoduo always gave him a discount happily, so that this foreigner of about the same age would come home with warmth.
If you have been to the flower shop, you can know that Duoduo is a person who loves life. It's also a kilometre or two from home to the store, but she prefers to walk, listen to birds and feel the temperature of the wind rather than cycling. When the sun is shining, she plays badminton with the proprietress of the upstairs guest house, and when she wraps flowers, she smiles and greets the camera who comes to visit the store.
The flowers in the flower shop are basically A-grade flowers, which are the favorites of the flowers, large and fresh, blooming brilliantly and warmly, and when they are wrapped, there are many flowers and leaves, and they are full of vitality.
The flower shop's short video account is full of new styles that have been conceived by flowers, sometimes in the shape of rabbits, sometimes in gift boxes that go with seasonal fruits. The 17 reviews on the review platform basically mentioned that the bouquet was "beautiful" and the boss was "good".
Many people have become regular customers of the flower shop, and a regular customer will order a bouquet of flowers in the shop every Valentine's Day and give it to the same person, and it has never been broken for eight or nine years. They will hear the flowers ask about their preferences and uses when they buy flowers, listen to their stories, and each bouquet taken from the florist is a unique "work of art".
Holidays are the busiest time of the year. On the past Women's Day, business was not bad, Duoduo and her husband sometimes had to be busy in the store until one or two o'clock in the morning, and four or five o'clock in the morning.
No one expected that on March 13, the usually calm small building would become the center of the accident. Flowers, furniture, vases, new shoes that I bought just a month ago, all came to naught.
Wang Yun saw from the video of passers-by that some of the 200 flower buckets that she and Duoduo had just bought were blown up into a passing car, and she suggested that Duoduo take a look at the loss, and after calculating it, Duoduo cried. She said that there was too much work in it, and it couldn't be counted in money. ”
Duoduo's mother-in-law said that after the incident, her son and daughter-in-law's mobile phones rang non-stop, all of which were messages of greetings, and the daughter-in-law calmed down for three or four days before reporting her safety on social platforms.
In a Nordic town near the explosion site, part of the glass of a residential building was shattered. On March 16, some residents relied on plastic sheeting to temporarily block the wind. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zuo Lin
Life came to an abrupt end
Ma Juhua was not so lucky - in this deflagration accident, the owner of the Lanzhou beef noodle restaurant who was preparing vegetables was unfortunately killed.
Just a few minutes before the accident, she called Ma Cheng, who was a small person and also ran a ramen restaurant in Yanjiao, to make a video call, but Ma Cheng was also preparing materials and didn't care about picking it up, and after seeing the accident video at 8 o'clock, he made several calls to Ma Juhua, but he didn't answer. That night, when we met again, it was already yin and yang.
"Ma Juhua" is Ma Xiulan's WeChat nickname, and most of the more than 50 Qinghai Hualong people who open ramen restaurants in Yanjiao know this young and capable fellow.
"She's tough. Ma Cheng said that Ma Xiulan left her hometown when she was a teenager and did a ramen business in Henan, Anhui and other places. Don't look at her in her 30s this year, but she has been a kitchenware agent for more than ten years, and many people have bought kitchenware from her.
Hualong people open ramen restaurants outside, and most of them rely on the introduction of fellow villagers, and they lead one by one. It is a common business model for husbands to work and wives to settle accounts, "it is almost impossible for a woman to go out and open a store alone", but Ma Xiulan is an exception. Site selection, decoration, procurement, recruitment...... Ma Xiulan settled these things alone.
In September 2023, Ma Xiulan's ramen restaurant opened. According to the rules, no guests were accepted on the first day, only relatives and friends were invited to dinner, and Ma Cheng also came. The store of more than 40 square meters is bright and spacious, the glass door that opens to the street is almost spotless, surrounded by neat yellow wallpaper, there are four or five dining tables, more than a dozen chairs, and it is full of people.
On the same day, Ma Xiulan wore a long dress, greeted everyone with a smile, and served her own hand-made lamb and northwest stir-fry. During the banquet, she talked and laughed with everyone, talked about her hometown and life, and everyone wished her a prosperous business.
Not long after, Ma Cheng also came to Yanjiao to open a ramen restaurant, and the two became closer.
Ma Xiulan likes to be lively, often cooks a table of dishes in the store, invites nearby friends to dinner, Ma Cheng often goes, and knows that this little man is a straight temper. She doesn't rub sand in her eyes, and she can't listen to this friend speak ill of that friend. Even if she hears it, she never takes sides, she will invite two people to dinner and mediate in person.
Her shop is always clean, just like herself, clean and clean, "never leaving anything in her heart." ”
On March 16, there was still no traffic near the site of the deflagration accident. Photo by Beijing News reporter Zuo Lin
In Ma Cheng's eyes, Ma Xiulan is still a warm-hearted eldest sister.
Before opening the store, Ma Xiulan told him a lot of experience in site selection and decoration. The kitchenware he bought from Ma Xiulan was affordable and durable. A few weeks before the deflagration accident, Ma Cheng's stove had a slight abnormal noise, and after Ma Xiulan found out, she specially sent a video to tell him to check which parts can eliminate the abnormal noise.
For Ma Xiulan, this new store is a new beginning.
"She wants to make more money. Ma Cheng said that Ma Xiulan's daughter needs money to study, she needs money to support her parents, and her brother, who has a chronic illness and family difficulties, also needs money.
Although this idea is urgent, Ma Xiulan will not treat herself badly. She loves beauty, cosmetics are expensive, she doesn't wear the same clothes seven days a week, and the closing time comes according to her mood. Most of the residents who work in Beijing come back from work, it is already past seven or eight o'clock, and some restaurants will open until about ten o'clock in order to make more money, but Ma Xiulan's shop often closes at eight or nine o'clock.
She misses her children the most, and every year on special days such as birthdays and Children's Day, she will buy gifts for her daughter, and every time her daughter has a winter vacation, she also comes to Yanjiao to live with her.
Before the Spring Festival, Ma Xiulan and her daughter had a brief reunion in Yanjiao, and when school was about to start, her daughter returned to her hometown. Years later, Ma Xiulan recruited a new man, who is usually in charge of ramen, and she is responsible for stir-frying.
Ma Cheng heard from his buddy that Ma Xiulan was very good to him, and he was paid a salary before he had worked for a month. On March 12, the night before the explosion, Ma Xiulan asked him to bring all the dirty clothes, and there was a washing machine in the store, and she washed them together. After the deflagration accident, the store disappeared and the clothes could not be found.
On March 15, Ma Xiulan's father and brother rushed from Hualong to Yanjiao. At noon that day, Ma Xiulan's family took her back to Hualong. In the afternoon, in the villagers' WeChat group, another elder took the place of Ma Xiulan's father and announced the news of Ma Xiulan's death. The villagers replied, may the deceased rest in peace.
Knowing that "Ma Juhua", who sells kitchen utensils, died in the deflagration accident, the people of Hualong, Qinghai, who do a ramen business in Yanjiao, miss her. On the third day after the accident, in between cooking ramen noodles, they talked about this smiling and attentive woman, saying that she was "capable" and "kind-hearted", and lamented that she had left the world in her 30s.
On the fifth day after the accident, the cordon was still blocked at the intersection, and neither Wei Cai nor Duoduo had a chance to take another look at the shop.
Duoduo's family comforted her that after a while, she could find a suitable store and continue to open a shop. Wei Cai's family also plans to choose a new location to open a store, and they don't plan to leave. After coming to Yanjiao for almost 20 years, they have overcome difficulties and adapted to this place, and now they always have to start a new life.
(At the request of the interviewee, all names in the article are pseudonyms except for Ma Xiulan)