On December 12, 1982, from 5:00 a.m. to 5:12 p.m., a series of seemingly ordinary but interesting events occurred in the area of Beijing's Bell and Drum Tower.
The Xue family in the courtyard did a happy event, and did not expect that there were various thrilling scenes at the wedding banquet;
The director who realizes that time is money;
The female college student is in love with a young translator, and the young translator and his object are disturbed by a rural girl;
A "romantic woman" who has been divorced twice, boldly pursuing a deputy minister;
At that time, the descendants of the Beijing Beggar Gang came to the wedding banquet to eat and drink heavily, and did not want to be paralyzed by a silent old man;
A warm-hearted man who annoys people at every turn;
An old editor was shaken by the anger of a "literary rookie"...
Bureau chiefs, editors, translators, university students, workers, doctors, actors and other people gathered together.
These are the various characters in the first novel "Bell and Drum Tower" created by contemporary writer Liu Xinwu.
"Bell and Drum Tower" won the second Mao Dun Literature Award. On September 23, 2019, "Bell and Drum Tower" was selected into the "New China 70 Years and 70 Novels Collection".
After experiencing the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution for ten years, each character in the book has his own troubles and expectations for life.
As the book says: Things in the world are like this, you can easily clean up the complicated superstitious customs, but it is difficult to eliminate the original superstitious psychology that exists in people's hearts.
The drum tower is in front, and the red wall is gray tiles.
The bell tower is in the back, with gray walls and black tiles.
Standing tall, constantly greeting the next line, the next day, the next month, the next generation.
No matter how things change, one thing is certain – unless some unforeseen catastrophe occurs, Beijing's Bell and Drum Towers will live on forever as a witness to social history and personal destiny.