In 1924, My Uncle and I Were Both Eighteen Years Old

My name is Yang Yanyun, I am the only seedling of Western Yang, and I am eighteen years old. In Ruijin, the Yang family has four houses - Beiyang is in charge of food, Dongyang is in charge of business, Nanyang is in charge of education, and Xiyang... Is in charge of ancestral halls. My family is the poorest, with only dozens of acres of land and a main temple left. But just because of this main temple, I still have to attend the meetings of the other three families. The meaning of attending is: don't say anything when people arrive. I have no problem with that. No one listened anyway. I have a nephew named Yang Jiulin, the eldest son of Dong Yang, who is also eighteen years old. He called me uncle, but never treated me as an elder. We grew up together, drank together, and scolded those old fogies together. He is cheerful, talkative, and lovable. He is a completely different person from me. In 1924, he did a big thing - applied for the Whampoa Military Academy. His whole family supports him. Because the people of Dongyang have long understood: the world is about to change, and feudalism and autocracy cannot last long. They were even secretly raising money for the Northern Expedition. Before leaving, Yang Jiulin asked me: "Uncle, aren't you going with me?" I said I couldn't go. He smiled: "You can't bear to part with those five ruined ancestral halls, right?" I also laughed and said nothing. I didn't tell him: I wasn't reluctant to leave the ancestral hall. I just want to see, when the world really changes - will those of us who guard the ancestral hall fall first, or those of them who went out and come back first. In other words, can we still live to see each other again? My uncle and nephew are the same age, but their fates are different.