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bloodlandsbook > Qingers pastoral life > Chapter 56: Lantern Festival (1)

Chapter 56: Lantern Festival (1)

  On the eighth day, early in the morning, the sun came out warmly. Ziqing thought of the vegetable field at home and saw that it was time to harvest, so he told Zifu that they would sell vegetables the next day. Zeng Rui Xiang went to see the vegetable field and said that before the New Year, the green onions and celery were pulled out, leaving the field empty. Since there's nothing else to do, why not turn over the field and plant something else?

  Shen said, "If we cultivate the empty land in this small courtyard and plant some vegetables, it will be enough for our family to eat. As for that vegetable field over there, I think we should leave it vacant for a while and plant all watermelons instead. Selling watermelons is more profitable than selling vegetables."

  Zi Qing was thinking about how to bring up the issue with his family, but unexpectedly Shen Shi brought it up himself, which made things easier. It seems that Shen Shi also had a plan in mind.

  The whole family was busy digging in the small courtyard, when the doorbell rang. Zi Qing wondered who it could be this time, as her mother had said that all the expected guests had already arrived.

  Zi Qing opened the door to find that it was Zhou Zhuang who had come, carrying some small pastries and giving Zi Qing a pair of embroidered flowers, which he said were brought from Beijing. Zhou Zhuang told Zi Qing about the glass matter, asking if she had inquired about it, a piece of ordinary window-sized glass would cost ten taels of silver. Zi Qing calculated that her family's annual income was five taels of silver, plus the output of their land, they could live quite well, but two years' worth of living expenses to buy a piece of glass for a window seemed a bit extravagant. Yet, thinking again, since they had already used red sandalwood and nanmu wood, why be stingy about this? Zi Qing was still lost in thought when her brother Zi Fu suddenly poked her head with his elbow to wake her up.

  Originally, this time Zhou Zhanggui came to buy the oil vegetable strips from our family. Last time he brought some back and gave them to his master's old man, who unexpectedly loved eating them, especially after eating too much greasy fish and meat during the New Year. The slightly bitter fragrance of the oil vegetable strips was particularly welcome compared to other green vegetables. His master had wanted him to come over and buy some for a long time, but felt that it wasn't suitable to disturb people during the big New Year's festival, so he delayed until today. Since he came once, he couldn't just buy a little, so Zhou Zhanggui settled on sending one batch every other day, 200 catties at a time, and also brought some to the restaurant. The price was set at five cents per catty, with payment made in full each time. This time he took away 200 catties.

  See them off, Shen said this master is really our family's nobleman, at home whatever we plant will not worry about selling, everyone chatted and laughed for a while, still turning the earth.

  Zi Qing thought that this year she would try to cultivate seedlings early, after all the southern sky was warm and sunny. She decided to use cucumber seeds again, it didn't matter if they were wasted. This time she soaked them in warm water for two whole days, changing the water almost every two hours, and at night she placed them by the stove, where there was residual warmth. Because she used a broken clay pot, no one paid attention to her. Two days later, she threw them into the vegetable garden in the courtyard, covering them with thick straw. This time everyone couldn't help but notice.

  Zi Qing said seriously: "Isn't Xiao Ji also sleeping on straw? The vegetables are the same too."

  Everyone who heard it burst out laughing and thought she was just talking nonsense.

  It's Lantern Festival in the blink of an eye, Shen's family made a lot of tangyuan with round trays, fried some with oil, and arranged them neatly. Zeng Rui-xiang took Zi-fu to the old house early in the morning. It turned out that on Lantern Festival day, they had to go to the ancestral tomb to burn incense and offer sacrifices to their ancestors, similar to Winter Solstice. Last year, because of his own busy schedule with moving houses, he didn't go to the front house, so he hadn't noticed.

  The Shens picked up some candles, incense, firecrackers, and a piece of braised pork, a whole fish killed and cleaned, no fruit, picked up a few large dates, a plate of fried tangyuan, all in all about a basketful, just as they were ready, Zeng Ruixiang and the others returned.

  Shen let Zi Qing change into sheepskin boots, and only then did Zi Qing know that on the Lantern Festival day, regardless of whether they were male or female, everyone could go to their ancestors' graves. Zi Qing couldn't understand what kind of rule this was. However, Old Master said that this year, because Zeng Rui Xiang had split off from the family and built a new house for the first time, they needed to go offer sacrifices to their ancestors and thank them for their blessings, so everyone in the family had to go.

  When I left, I took the mountain road behind the village. Looking back, I saw that several households in the village had wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys, and the distant mountains were a hazy grayish-black color. The nearby rapeseed flowers, however, shone brightly in the sunlight, with large patches of yellow stretching out before me. Bees flitted about in the midst of the blossoms. If I hadn't been afraid of getting my boots dirty, I would have liked to roll around in them. No wonder women in ancient times always came out to "tread the green" in spring - it's a time when everything is yellow and green, and even the air is filled with the fragrance of fresh grass. It's truly the perfect season for taking a stroll.

  Ziying had seen the advertisements for Jeju Island before, and the golden rapeseed flower sea had flowed into the pockets of Koreans. In fact, when Ziying was a child in the countryside, there were also many fields of rapeseed flowers, one after another, high and low, more natural, not inferior to those on Jeju Island. However, later on, most of the villagers went out to work, leaving behind only the elderly and children to guard the land, so piece by piece, the fields became desolate, and every time Ziying saw them, she couldn't help but sigh.

  When they arrived at the grave, they couldn't joke around anymore. The old man led everyone to line up in order, men on the left and women on the right. The men lit incense while the women didn't. When the firecrackers went off, the men held their hands together with the incense and bowed. Tian's family took out a tray and first bowed, then knelt down. Everyone followed Tian's lead and kowtowed three times. They surrounded the grave in a circle and burned the wrapped packages. Tian placed a stack of paper money around each package, also made of grass paper. While burning them, he muttered, "All you wild ghosts listen up! The scattered money outside is what we use to show respect to you, don't snatch what doesn't belong to you and harm my ancestors' wealth." Zi Qing couldn't help but burst out laughing at this, earning many disapproving glances. What could she do? It was just too ridiculous - ghosts that listened so obediently? After burning the packages, they still had to put a circle of paper money around the grave, weighing it down with stones. At the same time, they also placed a circle for their close ancestors nearby.

  On the way home, walking on the ridge between fields, Zifujust picked a rape flower and insisted on putting it on Ziqing's head. Ziqing refused, and they started chasing each other on the ridge, looking like they were out playing. They were stopped by an old man's loud shout. Seeing that the grass in the field had grown tall and the duckweed was emerging from the pond, but no tadpoles were seen yet, Ziqing suddenly thought of the tangerine tree in her aunt's vegetable garden. She quickly told Zifu and called on Zilong to go with her to the old house on the other side. To their surprise, Eldest Sister's family had not left yet. Ziqing couldn't help but admire her uncle's shamelessness.

  Three people and the old man said a word, found a hoe to go to the vegetable field. The old man was afraid they would dig badly, so he took it himself. Later, the old man also said that several more had grown under the orange tree next door, if you want them, just ask.

  Three people carried six small saplings back home, and Zi Qing originally wanted to plant them all in the small courtyard. However, Zeng Rui Xiang said he wanted to plant two osmanthus trees in the courtyard and had already made an appointment with Zeng Rui Yu to go into the mountains the next day to find some. So Zi Qing planted two tangerine trees in the courtyard, and the rest were planted in the large courtyard's empty space where chickens were raised. The leaves of citrus trees all have a strange smell, which the chickens won't eat.

  Benlai Zi Qing still wanted to find a camphor tree to plant in the yard, so that there would be no mosquitoes in the summer and it would be cool. But unexpectedly, everyone unanimously opposed it. It turned out that this tree would drop green insects as thick as fingers in the summer, which were terrifying.

  Zi Qing had no choice but to give up.