Chapter 108 The strange cry in July and a half
“Mom, I’m going to level the ground with my dad, and you can take a look at the Polygonatum in the dustpan.”
After playing with the Polygonatum, follow After his mother said this, Zhang An went out.
When Zhang Jianguo got up early in the morning, he led Dahei and the rake to the new house and had already gone to the ground.
Zhang An came to the backyard, took the rake from his father's hand and took a breath before starting to drive Dahei to rake the ground.
After the loess pulled back yesterday was paved here, the area that Zhang An planned to use as a vegetable plot was already more than 20 meters above the ground in the backyard.
This scene reminded Zhang An of a primary school text called Dad’s Vegetable Garden.
"Dad, we need to pick up some stones later and build a circle around the land, otherwise if it rains, muddy water will flow everywhere."
Zhang An held Dahei's reins with one hand and held the rake with the other, smoothing the fluffy loess back and forth.
Because Zhang An and the others dug loose soil and pulled it over to lay this land. The ground is too fluffy, so it will be fine after a while, but it is also the most suitable for growing vegetables.
"Hmm, there are still a lot of stones left in front. I can pick them up later and build a circle. Now the mud has been stepped down."
In one morning, Zhang An had almost leveled the ground. .
If Zhang An’s father, Zhang Jianguo, might have been slower, because if he held Dahei, Dahei wouldn’t dare let go and run because Zhang Jianguo couldn’t keep up with it.
But after switching to Zhang An's palm rake, Dahei started running freely, and sometimes the rake flew up. Zhang An had to put a few big rocks on the rake to weigh it down.
After leveling the ground, Zhang An also used a rake to remove a lot of grass roots and fine stones.
Finally, Zhang An and his son built a circle of stones around the vegetable patch before it was completed.
In the past few days, all the furniture and beds have been delivered. It’s time to wait until Zhang Jianguo and Wang Fang find someone to move in to the new house.
Originally, Zhang An planned to live in it directly, but the village was very taboo about this, and Zhang Jianguo and Wang Fang also paid special attention to it, so Zhang An let them do it.
Anyway, the family is just waiting for the better days. Then they can just move in and there won’t be any banquets.
On that day, ask the relatives at home to come over and help cook the bottom of the pot.
As soon as Zhang An and his son walked out of the yard, they found a tractor dragging a bunch of big guys into the village.
The father and son were just about to go back for dinner, but they were caught on the spot.
It turns out that these are the rice beating machine and flour grinding machine that Zhang Xinmin bought at home.
For such a big guy, buying two new ones will cost a lot of money.
However, Zhang Xinmin’s family helped Changqing Village move directly from the water mill era to the electric mill era.
“Brother Damin is preparing to do a big job, and I’m not worried that no one will come to grind the rice and flour.”
Zhang An looked at the machine as if it was new. Yes, but the condition is still good, and it probably looks like 70% to 80% new.
“I’m not worried about this at all. The water mill is extremely slow. After grinding, I have to sift the rice bran when I get home. Where is the convenience of using a rice beater? After the rice is beaten out, the rice bran is also divided well. There must be people who are willing to use it.”
What Zhang Xinmin said is reasonable. There are probably many people in the village who are willing to buy rice from him.
After all, it costs one dollar and one hundred catties to grind rice. If you don’t want the rice bran, you can sell it to him.
But Zhang An feels that few people in the village are willing to sell rice bran because everyone raises pigs, and rice bran is a good thing to feed pigs.
That is to say, the price of electricity has been reduced now. If it were the original price, this dollar would be enough for the electricity bill.
If you charge one yuan now, you can still make money.
Soon, the old man of Zhang Xinmin’s family found many people to come over.
Together, everyone lifted the two machines on the tractor from the road to the empty house next to his canteen.
A machine weighs hundreds of kilograms, but it is not easy to lift at all, mainly because it is too big.
But there is strength in numbers, so everyone shouted slogans, one, two, three, and he was carried inside in a few strokes.
The rest of the installation work is left to the person who came with the machine.
"Xinmin, we will go back after the move is finished."
Nothing happened, so Zhang Jianguo told Zhang Xinmin and prepared to leave.
"Sit a little longer, Uncle Jianguo, I haven't poured you any tea yet."
"Stop working, we're going home for dinner."
Back to the yard , I saw my mother still cooking.
“Mom, why don’t you fry some black bean chili pepper to eat today? Our black bean sauce has already been dried.”
When Zhang An came back from Zhang Xinmin’s house just now, he smelled someone’s house. Stir-fried spicy black bean paste and stir-fried black bean paste, which brought out the greedy thing in Zhang An's stomach.
As soon as I got home, I talked to Wang Fang who was still cooking.
“Okay, you go to the garden and pick some green peppers and bring them back, and I’ll fry them for you.”
When Wang Fang heard that his son wanted to eat them, he must have been willing to do so. Do it.
And frying green peppers with black bean sauce does not take much time, just wash a few green peppers and chop them.
Just stir-fry it with the tempeh. It won’t take more than a few minutes.
In the blink of an eye, August is coming to an end.
The day after tomorrow is July half, which is what everyone calls the Ghost Festival or Ghost Festival.
According to legend, on the first day of the seventh lunar month, the Lord of Hell opened the gates of hell and released all the ghosts to wander around the world.
Let them visit their hometown and descendants at this time, and the living will worship them during this time, allowing them to enjoy the incense offered by their descendants.
But in fact, most Han families around here take out the memorial tablets at home on the first day of July, and wait until the fourteenth day of July to send out the deceased old people with less packages. In the past, only some ethnic minorities celebrated July 15th.
If there is a newly bereaved elderly person in the family, they cannot seal this kind of baggage, but can only seal a white bag without a cover.
Only old people who have been deceased for more than three years can present a baggage with a cover.
There is no ancestral hall for the Zhang family in the village. Each family has its own ancestral hall. Each family has a large tablet with all their ancestors on it.
Some people are very exaggerated. They have been keeping records since the first generation of ancestors, and their rankings are filled with information.
A few days ago, Wang Fang took out the paper money and seal paper that her family bought when they went to the market last week and began to bask in the sun.
So today Zhang An's family will start to bring the dried seal paper and paper money to seal the package.
The number of seals is quite large, because as long as the ancestors were related to each other during their lifetime, they will be given away. However, more people will be given away if they are directly related, and less will be given to those who are further away.
Every year at this time, every household has to seal several large baskets.
When Zhang An was very young, he was taught by Mr. Zhang at home to seal and write packages.
The paper money sealed inside represents the money burned by the family to the ancestors, so many people worry that their elderly people will be angry because they have no money to spend, so they seal a bunch of bags and burn them.
After sealing the money with sealing paper, write a seal on the front.
Just writing this, Zhang Anke could hardly turn his head around. Because just the question of this title is enough to study for half a day.
But after writing it twice more, Zhang An became familiar with it, and he would write it every year in the future.
It is for this reason that Zhang An's calligraphy skills are pretty good.
After eating, Wang Fang and Zhang Jianguo were responsible for sealing the packets, while Zhang An set a table next to him and started writing.
This year Zhang An’s family sealed one or two hundred seals, and it took Zhang An an entire afternoon to finish them.
The finished furoshiki needs to be tied together back to back with straw ropes torn from rice dumpling leaves.
Between these two bundles tied together, there needs to be a piece of money for the groom and two pieces of paper to pay the groom.
This is a baggage. The main purpose of the grooms who put it in is to ask them to send the paper money to the corresponding person according to the name on the baggage after the baggage is burned. inside.
After evolving into later generations, some people began to print ghost coins and sell them to everyone specifically during this period or during the Qingming Festival. Everyone bought the ghost coins produced by Tiandi Bank and sealed them in bags.
"Anzi is writing the package, have you finished it?"
Zhang An was about to finish writing his own package, and his second uncle came over with a large basket of packages.
"I will finish writing it soon, there are still a few left."
After I finish writing my own, I will also write to my second uncle's family.
This is not over yet. After writing about the second uncle’s family, I still need to write about the third uncle’s family.
Sometimes I have to help some neighbors nearby to write together. Zhang An said that he has to write thousands of packages in a year, and his hands are still very tired.
"Zhang Bin, come here and watch your brother write. It's time for you to start learning. Your brother had already written by himself before he was in junior high school."
Zhang An While writing, Uncle Zhang called his son to come over to study. This matter really requires someone in the family who knows how to do it, otherwise he will be in trouble.
The adults of their generation are worried that if they ask outsiders to write, if they are not very good at it, they will not be able to reach the elderly if they make mistakes. Then there will be elderly people from other families down there. If the elderly in your family don't have money to spend, that would be extremely unfilial.
When writing such a package, it is okay to just write about yourself. However, if you have just finished writing about yourself and want to write for someone else, you should pay attention to the title and signature of Yang Shangxiao.
No, Zhang An was so used to writing about his own family just now that he almost wrote his second uncle's name as his father's.
For example, the ones from Zhang An’s family and the two uncles’ families are relatively easy to write, but in the end, the maternal family members of the two families need to write separately. At that time, they will have to look at the tablets copied by their families.
Zhang An wrote and taught Zhang Bin all the way.
My father and the three brothers were all kidnapped, and none of them are very good at writing.
Fortunately, Mr. Zhang had been teaching Zhang An back then, otherwise he would have had to ask Mr. Zhang or Mr. Zhang to help him write it now.
Before I finished writing about the second uncle’s family, the third uncle’s family also came over.
Zhang An wrote from the time he finished his meal in the morning until he finished his meal in the evening, and there was still a part left.
This kind of work is really tiring, mainly because my hands are so sore.
Zhang Bin watched Zhang An write part of it, and also tried to write a few. Finally, he felt that his handwriting was too ugly, so he stopped.
The younger brothers and sisters behind them don’t pay much attention to writing now. When they usually use pencils, their writing is a bit sloppy, and the teacher doesn’t pay much attention to it.
Zhang Bin’s hard pen writing is okay, but his soft pen writing is unreadable.
In the past, for Zhang An and his friends, the teacher forced them to write well and correctly. They had to write in regular script.
When Zhang An came home from school, he had to be pulled by Mr. Zhang to practice calligraphy.
So Zhang An’s correct handwriting took many years of practice.
The people in the village are only of Zhang An's generation. No matter how well they read, they can still write neatly.
“Let’s eat first, and then write after finishing the meal.”
When Wang Fang prepared dinner, there were still dozens of unwritten items left in the basket.
"Mom, don't worry, there are still dozens left here. I will put them away after I finish writing."
There are only a few dozen left, Zhang An gritted his teeth I just insisted on finishing it.
At night, my hands are sore.
On the night of July 14th, after worshiping the ancestors and finishing dinner, it is time to burn and deliver bags.
At the entrance of Zhang An's courtyard, Zhang Jianguo had built a fire pit with several stones, and Zhang Jianguo began to build it with his sealed bags.
The same thing is being done at the door of every house in the village.
After the base was built, we started to light the fire from below and began to burn it.
Adults will take out the corn cobs, potatoes, and sweet potatoes at home and burn them together in the pile of bags.
It is said that eating the things cooked in the fire for burning furoshiki can make you healthy and eliminate all diseases.
The baggage was burning at home, and suddenly there was a frightening cry from the side.
It shocked everyone who was burning buns nearby.
The old lady Li across the door was frightened. She kept saying that she always provided good food and good food to her family's ancestors, and begged them not to scare her.
This old woman usually does a lot of bad things, and she has something in her heart.
But I have to say that the sudden sound really scared a lot of people, especially today, when everyone was burning buns.
The village was filled with smoke and gloomy wind, and it was hard not to think of those things.
After calling for a few times, I stopped hearing it.
Just when Zhang An thought it was gone, he suddenly screamed again.
The sound was a bit miserable, and the scream was creepy.
Zhang An frowned, followed the sound with a flashlight, and Zhang Jianguo behind him and Wang Xinrong from his second uncle's house in front of Zhang An's house also followed.
Walking up the ditch at the door, Zhang An searched for a long time and found a long lump of something in the ditch, which looked fleshy.
Zhang An took a branch and gently moved the big mass. At first he thought it was Tai Sui.
It turned out that this guy could move. After being poked by Zhang An with a branch, he came out with a flat head, a long tail and four short legs, and planned to run away.
"The enthusiastic horse made me jump. It turned out to be a big four-legged snake."
Seeing this thing, the good neighbor cursed, thinking that his ancestors It's coming to light.
"Something is wrong, something is so wrong. This four-legged snake would never enter the village no matter what I told you before. Why did it come here this time and be so big?"
Zhang Jianguo thought It took me a long time to figure it out. This thing is very afraid of people and usually won't crawl into the village.
That is, when the water rises, they will appear in river ditches, otherwise they are usually found beside streams or caves in the mountains.
(End of this chapter)