Chapter 226 Proposal
Time is passing slowly, and the day of August 6th has quickly arrived.
The Zhang An family also prepared everything that should be prepared during this period.
Early in the morning, many relatives and friends gathered at Zhang An's home.
According to the custom in the village, everyone needs to come over to help pick out wedding baskets and pig legs on the day of the visit.
The wedding basket is a basket woven from bamboo strips, with a square bottom, a round mouth on top, and a bamboo lid on top.
This thing is in the village, and everyone usually uses it to pick up various grains.
As long as the big red word "hi" is affixed on it, this ordinary basket will become a joyful basket.
And inside this wedding basket were all the gifts, tobacco, wine, tea, sugar, etc. that had been prepared for a long time.
On the day of engagement, the man will invite his family and friends over.
They came over and needed help carrying these wedding baskets packed with things, and went to the woman's home to deliver the wedding.
From the past until now, when applying for a job, the more people go and the more wedding baskets come to the door, it means the grandeur is greater.
Zhang An had seen it before. When a family in the next village went to submit a job offer, they picked up sixty-six loads of wedding baskets.
The scene looked really intimidating. There was a long line of people lining up from front to back.
In the past, many families got married, and both men and women lived in the mountains.
So when it came time to propose marriage, everyone just walked over carrying baskets of them.
But now there are cars passing through many places, so everyone takes the car there with baskets, gets off the car, and continues to pick at the woman’s house.
Today, the Zhang An family did not plan to pick out many wedding baskets.
If Su Ying's family was in any village, Wang Fang would have to carry eighty-eight loads to go there.
But there is no way, Su Ying's family is in the city, and the space at home is not spacious enough.
Unlike in the village, no matter how many people come to offer employment, they can be accommodated.
If there are too many people there today, their home won’t be able to accommodate them, and it will be troublesome then.
This was also discussed by Su Shaowen and Zhang Jianguo when they were at Su Ying's house.
But this time, Zhang An prepared three cars because Li Hongbin had two.
So not only Zhang An and Li Hongbin were driving today, Zhang Ping was also pulled over to be the driver for a day.
Looking at the time in the morning, Zhang Jianguo began to greet people to get on the bus.
This time there were more than a dozen people accompanying him, all close relatives of Zhang An's family.
The two oldest elders, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Zhang, took the lead.
Because Zhang An’s grandparents are no longer here, they need to come forward to support Zhang An.
Then there are Zhang An’s two uncles and aunts, and a few relatives who have a good relationship and are eloquent.
Seeing that the time was almost up, after putting their things in the car, Zhang Jianguo and Wang Fang greeted everyone to get in the car and prepare to set off.
There are many people in Su Ying’s family today, not just Sister Su Ying and her family.
Su Ying’s grandparents and uncles also came over early this morning.
When Zhang An and his party arrived, they all came downstairs to greet them.
When the people from Zhang An's family picked up the wedding basket from the car, they accompanied them and invited them in.
Su Ying looks very good today. It can be said that this is the best day Su Ying has dressed up so far.
Zhang An didn't know that in order to dress up like this today, she got up very early in the morning and spent a lot of effort.
Not only did she put her hair up, she also put on hair accessories that are rarely used.
Especially the light pink cheongsam, which vividly reflects her original gentleness, virtuousness, poetry, calligraphy and painting.
This skirt was bought by Zhang An when he went shopping with her last time.
At that time, Zhang An took a fancy to this dress at a glance.
Then I asked Su Ying to try it on, and it surprisingly fit Su Ying's figure.
After buying it back, Su Ying never wore it once.
Today Zhang An is coming to propose marriage, and she wants to dress herself up beautifully.
After all, as the old saying goes, a man will die for his confidant, and a woman will look good for the one who pleases her.
Zhang An got out of the car and took out the bouquet of bright red roses he had prepared in advance.
Then he walked up to Su Ying and gave her the rose in his hand.
Zhang An did not buy this flower, but he got it in the space in advance.
He had wanted to go to the city to see where he could buy flowers, but most of the fashionable flowers at the moment were plastic artificial flowers.
After searching around, I found that there were only a few flower shops selling flowers.
But you can’t wait that long to buy the flowers from the flower shop.
Zhang An learned about packaging from the employees in the store, and then planted some in the space himself.
This way you don’t have to worry about the flowers withering easily after buying them in advance.
After Su Ying's grandfather greeted Zhang An's two grandfathers to go upstairs, the people behind him also started carrying things into the house.
Fortunately, Su Ying's family is not from a local ethnic minority, so no relatives came out to block the door.
Otherwise, Zhang An’s two aunts would have had to fight for a while before they could enter the house.
When we arrived at the house, everyone helped place the things brought by Zhang An’s family in front of the heaven and earth tablets.
At this time, it was Mr. Zhang’s turn to take action.
Because he is the oldest person in Zhang An’s family, he also plays the role of Mr. Esli today.
Usually when getting engaged, Mr. Aili needs to come out and sing four lines of opening and closing.
So Mr. Zhang arranged his clothes and prepared to open and close them for Zhang An. (There are many dialects, so I won’t write them down)
Despite his age, Mr. Zhang’s voice is very powerful.
Then they went to Su Ying’s house and sent someone to start ordering gifts, usually the elders of the family.
So naturally it was their old man’s turn to come forward in this matter.
At this point, the marriage between the two families has been decided, and they can only wait for the wedding date to marry the new daughter-in-law.
At lunchtime, the uncles of Su Ying's family all received orders from the elders in the family.
It is necessary to entertain these relatives from Zhang An's family, let them have a good time, and fulfill the friendship of the landlord.
So at the wine table, a war without gunpowder began.
Except for Zhang An, who needs to drive, the others are basically accompanied one on one.
But they seemed to have misjudged their goal. When it came to drinking, uncles like Zhang An really weren't afraid at all.
Not only them, but also the drinking capacity of the few accompanying female compatriots should not be underestimated.
I know that once, when Zhang An invites people, he always invites people who drink heavily.
Even Zhang Jianguo, who was usually persuaded by Zhang An to give up drinking, indulged in a drink today.
At the end of the meal, the male compatriots aside, the people at the table really admired these female compatriots.
After half a bowl of wine was poured out of the porcelain bowl, the person only blushed slightly, not too much.
This is also the reason why Changqing Village has trained its children to drink alcohol since childhood. When necessary, they should not be timid at all.
. . .
After the marriage proposal, Zhang An’s family’s life returned to the village as before.
In August this year, the temperature was extremely hot.
Even though it is already the middle of the dog days of summer, it is considered the hottest period of the year. But during this time last year, Zhang An didn't feel so hot.
After dinner, I originally wanted to lie down in the yard and enjoy the breeze to cool off.
Unexpectedly, leaning on the recliner, Zhang An felt like an electric blanket.
If Zhang An’s family had a temperature gauge, they would find that the temperature this year is much higher than in previous years.
Although a calm mind naturally cools down, and Zhang An's heart is indeed quite calm, the physical high temperature cannot be lowered.
So Zhang An stopped lying down, got up and walked towards the river.
In such hot weather, I would be sorry if I didn’t take a dip in the river.
“Hey, where are you two going?”
Halfway through, Zhang An saw Huang Ming and Zhou Yang in front of him.
So Zhang An chased after him, and several people walked side by side towards the entrance of the village.
"The weather is too hot and I really can't stay at home. We are going to swim in the river for a while to cool off."
"That's good, let's go together."
Originally The three of them planned to go downstream, because not far away was the place where Zhang An and the others often swam.
But when they reached the bridge, they found that the place where they usually went was now crowded with people.
This is usually a paradise for children to play in the water, but today many adults also came.
It seems that it is not Zhang An and the others who are afraid of the heat this year, but the temperature is too high during this period.
In previous summers, some adults would come to the river to take a dip, but it would not be like today, with a bunch of people staying on the river beach.
“Let’s go up there, there are too many people here.”
Seeing so many people, Zhang An no longer wanted to go there and squeeze with them.
“Okay, let’s go upstream.”
Zhang An doesn't like crowds of people when swimming in the river.
The main reason is that there are too many people, and Zhang An doesn’t want to go there and squeeze in together.
Another Zhang An was worried that if some ignorant Piwazi peed in the river, it would be fucked.
So Zhang An chose to go to a place where there are no people up there, which is less crowded and cleaner.
Although the river over there is relatively deep, Zhang An is not worried at all because they have good water qualities.
It is said to be upstream, but it is actually next to Zhang An's nest.
Passing by the melon field, Zhang An specially picked a watermelon and took it with him to soak in the water and eat it later.
Although Zhang An’s melon patch had already picked a lot of watermelons, Ding Yi called people to come over and pull them out several times.
But now in this land, there are still some mature ones and some immature ones.
However, Zhang An estimates that this is almost the last batch. When the last small melons grow up and mature, this watermelon season will be over.
When he arrived at the river, Huang Ming couldn't wait to jump off the bank.
This guy is like a big fish, making a lot of splashes in the river.
Huang Ming entered the water and dived to the middle of the river before he got his head out of the water.
"What are you two waiting for? Come down quickly. The water is so comfortable."
As he said this, the guy dived into the water again. When he came out again, he was still Shaking his hair.
Seeing Huang Ming swimming freely, Zhang An and Zhou Yang also entered the water one after another.
As soon as I touched the water, the feeling of heat disappeared instantly and was replaced by a feeling of coolness through my body.
Then Zhang An dove into the water, planning to take a dive.
Unexpectedly, after swimming for a while, I encountered a large black shadow at the bottom of the river.
Soon Zhang An recognized that the dark shadow in front of him was the big herring that had been placed in the river before.
The big herring swam over and didn't stick to Zhang An as usual. Instead, it got under Zhang An's body.
Then Zhang An felt as if he was being lifted up by something.
It was only then that he realized that the big herring probably recognized him and swam over here.
Then it discovered that Zhang An had sunk to the bottom of the water. It might have thought that Zhang An was drowning and wanted to carry Zhang An out of the water.
For this reason, Zhang An felt that it was very worthwhile to release this big guy before, because it was so cute.
Zhang An thought, then turned over and swam in the water, and patted its smooth fish head with his hand.
At this time, the big herring realized that Zhang An was not drowning, so he swam over to follow Zhang An.
After a while, Zhang An heard Zhou Yang and Huang Ming calling him from the water.
Then I patted the big herring and let it swim to it by itself.
After all, it’s not good for Zhou Yang and Huang Ming to see it. Maybe tomorrow they will make up a story about mermaid love and spread it in the village.
"Ah, what's wrong?"
After surfacing, Zhang An asked Huang Ming and Zhou Yang.
“Ouch, you have been diving for so long, I thought you had fallen inside, and I was planning to go down with Daming to find you.”
Huang Ming and Zhou Yang were indeed a little scared just now, because Zhang An has been diving down for several minutes.
"Haha, I've reached my limit, and I'm ready to come out even if you don't yell."
It was only then that Zhang An discovered that his water quality had become better than before.
I just didn’t feel anything at all after being in the water for so long. This is probably another benefit of the space.
"Brother An Zi, how did you master the skill of holding your breath?"
The few people found a big stone to lean on, and Huang Ming couldn't help but ask.
When Zhang An dived to the bottom of the water just now, he didn't use his hand to time it.
But as a rough estimate, it takes about four or five minutes.
And seeing how relaxed Zhang An was when he came out, he probably could stay in the water for a while.
As for himself, he can only hold himself in the water for a minute or two at most, and a little over two minutes is already the limit.
“Well, I don’t know about this, because I haven’t practiced it before, but it’s better not to practice this thing deliberately, maybe it will disappear after you practice it.”
Huang When Zhang An talked about practicing holding his breath, the joke about the breath-holding competition naturally appeared in Zhang An's mind.
Three people went to compete, but everyone only found the third place standing on the podium.
The first and second places have always been empty, and the results have not yet been determined.
Everyone just thought that these two people were masters and could last in the water for so long.
I didn’t expect that when I finally pulled him up, everyone rolled their eyes.
So don’t hold it back deliberately, just come up when you feel you can’t stand it anymore.
Don't keep forcing yourself. By the time you want to get up, you won't be able to get up.
“Come on, come on, come and have a melon.”
Zhang An leaned against the big rock on the shore and opened the watermelon he just picked with one punch.
The three people just leaned on the big rock and floated on the water.
You can enjoy watermelon while taking a bath, which is so cool.
(End of this chapter)