In the late winter of 1955, in the courtyard house of No. 17 Bell and Drum Tower Hutong in Beijing, 15-year-old Lin Sui sent away her father who died of illness and became an orphan girl guarding the south wing of the courtyard alone.
Her father was a well-known watchmaker in the capital, and he left her a house full of old clocks. This was the foundation for her to settle down and make a living, and it was also the beginning of the disputes in the courtyard. Aunt Wang from the street office in the front yard always wants to occupy her wing, and the accountant Jia and his wife from the steel rolling mill in the back yard are plotting against her property. The gossips and frivolous entanglements between the parents in the yard are like the cold winter wind, creeping into her thin life.
Fortunately, Mr. Li, the former Qing Dynasty Hanlin in the main room of the central courtyard, led her to study and become sensible. Master Zhang and his wife, an eighth-level fitter in the west wing, protected her. There was also the taciturn young man Li Jinyan, whose parents died in the Korean battlefield and who depended on his grandfather for life. On countless difficult days and nights, he handed her a bowl of hot porridge to protect her from the wind and rain.
From the wave of public-private partnership to the torrent of people moving to the mountains and countryside; from the turmoil of ten years to the spring breeze of reform and opening up; from the opportunity of the rise of self-employed people to the pain of the renovation of old cities. Forty years have passed, but the morning bells and evening drums under the Bell and Drum Tower remain the same. People in this courtyard come and go, gather and disperse. Some people have been coerced by the times and lost their true intentions, while some people have been guarding the bottom line in the wind and rain all their lives.
The little girl who grew up in the alley and was ignorant of the world has become the backbone of the courtyard. And the boy who grew up with her in the courtyard, after half a lifetime of ups and downs, finally returned to her, guarding the old courtyard, listening to the ticking of the pendulum and watching the fireworks of the world with her.
