Chapter 630: Writing Couplets
So, after the three of them packed up their things, they headed towards home.
After returning home and taking a rest, the old man said, "Get ready!"
As soon as Zhou Yimin’s grandmother heard it, she knew what her husband was going to do next.
Get up and prepare things.
Soon all the things needed to write couplets were prepared.
"Swish——" the tip of the pen fell on the red paper, the ink spread instantly, and the strokes were vigorous and powerful.
Zhou Yimin held the inkstone and looked at his grandfather's wrist hanging over the paper. His knuckles turned slightly white from the force and the tip of his nose almost touched the paper. The sunlight fell on his gray hair, giving it a layer of gold.
"Grandpa, your handwriting is more powerful than last year." Zhou Yimin praised sincerely, the ink stick in his hand still turning slowly, the fragrance of ink mixed with the smell of steamed buns wafting from the kitchen, spreading in the house.
The old man didn't look up, but the corners of his mouth slightly raised: "I'm old and weak, and this is all I can think of."
After he finished writing the first couplet, he dipped his brush into the inkstone and wrote the next couplet, "A family that accumulates good deeds will have more than enough celebration."
When the pen turned, a drop of ink accidentally splashed on the red paper. He quickly scraped it lightly with his fingernail. Although it was not completely removed, it added a bit of lifelike liveliness.
Grandma came in with a plate of fried peanuts and put it on the table: "Take a break before writing. Eat something."
She looked at the words on the red paper, her eyes smiling into crescents, "Our old man's handwriting is still neat and tidy. If I put it on the door, passers-by will praise it."
Zhou Yimin took the opportunity to push the ground ink toward his grandfather's hand: "Take a breath, I'll grind some more ink."
He picked up the ink stick and continued to spin it. The ink was already thick enough to reflect a person's figure. "What do you write on the horizontal scroll?"
"Just write 'a bumper harvest.'" The old man peeled a peanut and threw the shell into the dustpan on the corner of the table. "This year's wheat harvest is good, so I hope the fields will also do well next year."
He took a sip of hot tea to moisten his throat, then picked up the pen again. This time he wrote more slowly, with the tip of the pen moving across the red paper like plowing a field, and each stroke was placed steadily.
Zhou Yimin watched his grandfather write and suddenly remembered that when he was a child, every year at the end of the year, the main hall of his house would be crowded with villagers who came to ask for couplets.
My grandfather was like this at that time, sitting in front of the square table, helping to grind ink. The fragrance of ink mixed with laughter in the room was the strongest smell of the New Year.
Although it is not so lively nowadays, the two of them, writing and polishing together, give them an indescribable sense of security.
When the horizontal scroll was finished, the sun had already climbed to the middle of the window frame.
The old man spread the written couplet on the ground. The black characters on the red paper sparkled in the sun, like a layer of gold.
Zhou Yimin squatted down to help hold the corner of the paper, fearing that the wind would come in through the crack in the door and mess up the ink. The scent of ink lingered at his nose.
This is probably what the New Year looks like, with the blessing of ancestors, the company of family, and hope flowing from the pen.
After writing the couplet, in order not to waste time, Zhou Yimin immediately started to paste it.
The paste in the coarse porcelain bowl looked the same white as glutinous rice. Zhou Yimin dipped some in it and smeared it on the door frame. His fingertips were sticky.
"A little higher on the left!" The old man stood on the threshold and gave orders, holding an unfinished brush in his hand, with ink sparkling on the tip of the brush. "Yes, right, right, this is the right position. Look energetic!"
As soon as Zhou Yimin put up the second half of the couplet, the entrance to the courtyard became lively.
When Aunt Wang came in with half a bag of roasted peanuts, the old man had already spread out new red paper on the kang table.
The paper was bought from the town's supply and marketing cooperative the day before through someone else's help. It was cut into a neat square with neat edges, and it glowed warmly under the dim oil lamp.
"Everyone, sit down." The old man took off his reading glasses and wiped them, then poured half a bowl of water into the inkstone. "Yimin, come and grind the ink."
Zhou Yimin hurried over, picked up the ink stick and swirled it in the inkstone.
The ink stick was what my grandfather had used for most of his life. The edges and corners were rounded. After turning it around in clear water for more than ten times, the ink gradually thickened and became black and thick, like a block of indissoluble night.
"What do you want to write?" The old man picked up the brush, blew some air on it, licked the tip of the brush gently in the inkstone, and the ink dripped down the brush tip, forming a small dot on the red paper.
Carpenter Li quickly handed over a piece of paper: "I copied it from the calendar, 'Your body will be as luxuriant as the pines and cypresses, and your life will be as long as the southern mountains.' Do you think it works? My old lady at home is always worrying about her health, so I'll post a couplet about health to give her peace of mind."
The old man squinted and looked at it, then put the note aside and said, "That makes sense. Nothing in life is worse than having a strong body."
He held the red paper with his left hand, with his right hand suspended in the air. With a slight shake of his wrist, the tip of the pen began to "move" on the paper.
With a "swish" sound, the first stroke of the character "身" (body) falls obliquely on the left side of the paper like a pine leaf. The stroke starts lightly and ends heavily, and the ink color turns from light to dark, with a steady force.
Zhou Yimin was so engrossed in watching that he even forgot to turn the ink stick in his hand.
When grandpa wrote, his back was no longer hunched, his waist was no longer bent, and his whole body was like an old pine tree. The tip of his pen moved across the red paper, sometimes as fast as a meteor, and in a few "swish" he drew out the skeleton of a character.
Sometimes it was as slow as drawing a thread, the tip of the pen trembled slightly on the paper, and the ink was piled up layer by layer, revealing a heavy feeling.
Aunt Wang leaned over the edge of the kang, not noticing that the peanut shells she was peeling were all over the floor. "Your handwriting is getting better and better! Last year, my family hung up the couplets you wrote, and we had a calf in the spring!"
The old man didn't respond, his eyes were just fixed on the red paper.
When he wrote the character "茂" in "年年茂", he suddenly paused, and the tip of the pen turned lightly at the vertical hook of the grass radical, like a willow leaf swaying in the wind, and then he pulled the pen down and stopped.
The ink spread slightly on the paper, and the whole word suddenly came alive, as if one could see the branches and leaves of pine and cypress shaking.
"Done!" He put his pen down next to the inkstone, straightened up and pounded his back.
Zhou Yimin quickly handed over the clothespin, carefully pinched the edge of the couplet, and hung it on the rope in the yard. The red paper rustled in the wind, and the ink characters shone bright black in the sunlight, like a layer of gold.
"It's my turn, it's my turn!" The Zhou family kid came forward, holding up a melon seed. "I want 'a bumper harvest'! My dad said that the wheat harvest was good this year, so I have to put up a post to suit the occasion!"
The old man smiled and nodded, dipping his brush in ink again.
As the pen tip fell, Zhou Yimin suddenly discovered that the white hair on his grandfather's temples seemed less noticeable in the scent of ink, and even the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were filled with a light warmer than the sun.
The ink in the inkstone gradually became lighter, and Zhou Yimin added some water and continued grinding.
There are more and more couplets hanging in the yard, all red, like a field of blooming flowers.
Some people want "safety and good luck when traveling out, and good health and good fortune at home."
Aunt Wang prayed for "peace, happiness and longevity every year, and good fortune every year".
The scent of ink mixed with the burnt aroma of roasted peanuts drifted in the wind, warming the entire yard.
When the sun climbed to the top of the bamboo, the clothesline in the yard was already hung with red couplets.
Carpenter Li held the painting "My body is like a pine or cypress, growing luxuriantly year after year" in his hands, and stroked the vertical hook of the character "茂" with his fingertips again and again. The scent of ink mixed with the smell of sawdust on his body, tangling together in the wind.
"Please take a rest, old man. I'll go back and paste it first!" He tucked the couplet under his armpit and put it into the bamboo basket in the corner - inside was a newly made wooden comb with pine branch patterns carved on it, which was a thank-you gift to the old man.
One of them was holding a piece of Sanzi with the words "Safe Travels" written on it and was bending over to put it on the stove. "Auntie, this Sanzi is freshly fried, try it and see if it's crispy."
She stuffed a handful of wood into grandma's hands, the smile in her eyes like the sunshine in the yard, "Let the head of the family chop wood for you later, he is the best at judging the fire."
Zhou Yimin had just helped her roll the couplets into a tube when he saw her walking briskly out of the yard. The hem of her red cotton-padded jacket swept over the threshold like a happy red butterfly.
Aunt Wang paused while peeling peanuts and poured half a bag of roasted peanuts onto the table on the kang. The peanut shells rolled on the coarse cloth with a gurgling sound.
"My wife said yesterday that she would make a new straw basket for you."
She pinched the edge of the couplet that read "Peace and Happiness Every Year" and looked at it in the sunlight. "These words are bright. If I put it in the main room, it will definitely bring good fortune!"
As he said this, he ran home, with the bamboo basket dangling on his arm. The eggs inside made a soft "crackling" sound. They were for grandma to nourish her body.
The Zhou family kid clutched the couplet that read "Abundant Harvest", stuffed the melon seeds into the old man's hand, and bowed with a red face: "Thank you, Grandpa! I'll go back and ask my dad to stand on a ladder to post it, and I guarantee it won't be crooked!"
He ran two steps and turned back, pointing at the couplets in the yard and shouting, "Mine looks the best!"
Everyone in the yard laughed, and the laughter startled the sparrows under the eaves, which fluttered over the clothesline hung with red scrolls.
As Carpenter Li walked to the entrance of the village, he ran into Grandma Zhang, who was carrying a basket. "Carpenter, was this couplet written by Grandpa Zhou?"
She looked at the couplet, her eyes narrowed into slits, "My family hasn't written 'Family Happiness' yet, so I'll go and ask for it now!"
Carpenter Li pointed behind her and said, "Go quickly. There are not many people here now. The old man is taking a rest."
When he put pen to paper on the last piece of red paper, the old man's wrist shook slightly.
He placed the brush into the inkstone, and the brush shaft clanged against the edge of the porcelain. A few drops of ink splashed out, forming small black spots on the bluestone slab.
He leaned back and leaned against the quilt at the head of the kang, his chest rising and falling with his breathing, and there were some black spots on his gray beard, as if a black butterfly had landed on it.
"Finally I've finished writing." The old man let out a long sigh, his voice filled with fatigue. He raised his hand to rub his sore shoulders, and his knuckles left several red marks on his shoulder blades.
The sunlight shone in through the window and fell on the back of his hand. The bulging blue veins could be clearly seen, like old tree roots entangled in the soil.
Zhou Yimin handed over a cup of warm tea and felt a pang in his heart when he saw his grandfather's hands trembling slightly as he drank the water.
"Grandpa," Zhou Yimin squatted beside the kang and helped collect the scattered red papers, "You look so tired. Don't write next year. Let everyone go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy ready-made ones. The printed ones are also beautiful."
He remembered that when his grandfather was writing the last few couplets, the tip of the pen paused on the paper several times, and the sweat beads on his forehead slid down along the wrinkles, and he didn't even have the strength to wipe them away.
The family is not short of these things, so Zhou Yimin doesn't want to see his old man work so hard.
Although not all the people in the village would come to ask for couplets, at least one-third of them would come, so more than thirty couplets would be written.
This is no small project.
The old man put the teacup on the kang table, and the bottom of the cup made a slight sound when it hit the table.
He waved his hand and wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand: "It's okay, I know my own body well."
He looked at the red couplets fluttering in the wind in the yard, which were particularly dazzling in the sunset. "I write couplets not to save trouble, but to express my thoughts. For us farmers, the New Year must have the fragrance of ink written by hand, which is the reunion."
"Your grandpa is just stubborn." Grandma came over with a freshly wrung hot towel and put it on the old man's face.
"When I was writing the second to last copy just now, my hands were shaking so much that I couldn't hold the pen, but I still insisted that it was okay."
While she was wiping the old man's face, she winked at Zhou Yimin, asking him to stop persuading him.
The old man let grandma wipe her face, but the corners of his mouth slightly raised: "What do you know, that's the strength of the pen, not the shaking of the hand."
Even so, he still looked towards the kitchen and said, "The sweet potatoes in the pot should be cooked, right? They smell good."
Zhou Yimin didn't say anything more. He silently poured out the remaining ink in the inkstone and rinsed it with clean water. The ink on the ink stick was washed away by the water, revealing the warm wood texture.
He then inserted the scattered brushes into the pen curtain one by one, his movements so gentle as if he was protecting some treasure.
The old man was watching from the side and suddenly said, "That wolf-hair brush was given to me by my teacher when I was young. I've been writing with it for 30 years and it's still so easy to use."
Grandma had already started to tidy up the table on the kang. She folded the unfinished red paper neatly and stuffed it into the wooden box at the end of the kang. She also put the wooden box containing the ink stick and inkstone into the corner of the cabinet, muttering to herself, "We'll need these things next year."
She picked up the peanut shells on the ground and swept them into the dustpan in the corner. "The peanuts and fried dough sticks I picked today are enough to last until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month."
The old man stood up slowly, and Zhou Yimin hurried forward to help him. His palm was aching from the pain from his grandfather's elbow, and he was thinner than the last time he came back.
"I'll go collect the ropes in the yard." The old man pushed Zhou Yimin's hand away and walked into the yard with his crutch. Every step he took was steady, and the sound of the crutch hitting the ground seemed to be counting the beats of the years.
The setting sun stretched the shadows of the three people very long, overlapping in the yard.
Zhou Yimin climbed up the ladder to take down the clothesline, his grandmother put the collected clips into the sewing basket, and his old man squatted in the corner, sorting out the things left by the villagers.
The wind blew in from outside the courtyard, bringing with it the laughter and joy from the distant households pasting couplets, as well as the faint scent of ink, which lingered in this small courtyard for a long time.
After everything was done, Zhou Yimin sat down in a chair exhausted. At this time, Zhou Yimin's grandmother said, "You came back too late last night, and I forgot to ask you if you went to Yanzi's house to deliver something before you came back?"
She was really a little worried. Zhou Yimin had been busy recently and had forgotten these important things.
What Zhou Yimin's grandmother is more concerned about is that Zhou Yimin will be 20 years old next year. Zhou Yimin used this as an excuse before, saying that it is useless to be anxious.
Zhou Yimin answered truthfully: "I gave it to you, and I gave it to you again."
When the old man and Grandma Zhou Yimin heard about these gifts, they felt relieved.
(End of this chapter)
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