Chapter 22 Etiquette
I heard before the New Year that Mr. Feng would set up a stage in the village and invite a troupe to perform during the New Year. I guess it should be today.
Otherwise, even if everyone else went out to visit friends and relatives, Zhou and Xia Yujiao should still be at home.
Both Jiang and Xia Youtian felt relieved.
The two of them hurriedly took out the new wheat seeds and new rapeseeds.
Jiang divided the new wheat seeds into two portions of equal weight, put them into two unused pickle jars, sealed the jars, carefully hid one of the jars in the closet, and stuffed the other into Jiang's dowry box.
After hiding the new wheat seeds, Jiang rummaged through the boxes and cabinets and found a very inconspicuous old basket.
She filled the basket with two layers of rags and stuffed a lot of straw on top of the rags, making the basket particularly suitable for holding eggs or something.
Then, Jiang wrapped the two new rapeseeds in clean hemp paper, and then wrapped them in layers of oil paper. She did this five or six times before stopping.
Jiang put the two oil paper bags into the basket, then took a large coarse porcelain bowl and turned it upside down on top of the oil paper bags. Finally, she hung the basket on the beam.
Xia Daohua was dazzled by these operations.
Seeing Xia Daohua staring at her intently, Jiang felt very embarrassed. She smiled and explained to Xia Daohua:
"This will keep rats away."
The Xia family seemed to accept that Xia Daohua seemed to have forgotten everything, and needed to learn everything from scratch, no matter what common sense it was. No one questioned her. On the contrary, everyone was very patient with her.
After walking on the mountain road for half a while, Jiang was a little tired. Seeing that Xia Daohua did not raise any new questions, she called Lihua for help and settled the children down, washed them, and let them sleep for a while.
Xia Youtian had already boiled water and called the children to come over to wash up. He also took a wooden basin and filled it with hot water to soak his feet. While soaking, he dozed off.
Jiang woke Xia Youtian up with a smile, wiped his legs and feet with a cloth, and asked him to go to bed. However, she still refused to rest and continued to put away the things she brought from her mother's house.
In addition to cotton clothes and new rice seeds for the children, Shen and Wang also brought them some food.
There were pickles of basil leaves and beetroot, spicy cabbage made in the Xian way, a big bag of fried meatballs, and a big bag of thumb-sized yellow croakers.
Knowing that Jiang attached great importance to etiquette and was not the kind of person who would eat alone, Wang specially made tofu balls because she knew that Jiang would give some to her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law.
As for the meatballs, I let the children eat them to their heart's content at grandma's house, but I didn't want to bring them back.
Jiang didn't notice Wang's little thoughts. As she sorted out the food, she couldn't help but sigh at her sister-in-law's kindness to her, and her heart was filled with warmth.
After cleaning up, Jiang felt that everything in front of her eyes was getting dark.
But she didn't dare to take off her clothes, she just lay down with them on and took a nap, for she was afraid that her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law would come to visit her before she could.
Jiang has always attached great importance to this basic etiquette. She would rather be busy and tired than make a mistake.
It was not until dusk that the Xia family members came back one after another.
The sound of the crowd opening the courtyard door startled Jiang, who was already sleeping uneasily. She hurriedly got up, splashed some cold water on the marks on her face, quickly combed her hair, and made sure her clothes were properly dressed before opening the door.
The Xia family members were excitedly discussing the high stage that Mr. Feng had sent people to build and the opera troupe that came from afar. Although they basically couldn't understand what the glamorous characters on the stage were singing, this did not affect their enthusiasm for watching the opera at all.
Beiguan Village hasn’t invited a theatre troupe for a long time.
In a dilapidated border town like Beiguan Village, if it weren't for a landlord like Mr. Feng who loved ostentation, it would probably have been impossible for people to witness such a grand scene in decades.
Beiguan Town is a big town. There are often big markets and temple fairs in the town, and occasionally there are opera troupes coming to the town to perform.
But what seems to be a common thing to the people in the town is extremely new to the people in Beiguan Village and has an indescribable attraction.
In Beiguan Village, there are some people who have never left the village in their entire life.
The farthest we went was just to a town and attend the market.
Jiang waited until the noise outside died down before she took two bowls and went to her parents-in-law's residence.
There were two bowls, one filled with perilla leaves, beetroot, and kimchi, and the other filled with fried tofu balls and crispy, tender, and thumb-sized small yellow croakers.
Jiang handed the bowl to Zhou:
"My mother and my eldest sister-in-law brought back dishes that were cooked in the way Liushutuozi and Bangchuidao did. I thought that although these were home-cooked dishes, the way they were cooked was new, so I should give them to my parents to try first."
Zhou knew that Jiang was not a secretive person, so she nodded with satisfaction:
"Good boy, you have a heart."
Jiang sat for a while, then went back to her room, combed her temples a little, and then took the bowl to deliver it to the other families one by one.
This time, her family only sent a bowl with five things in it, and they really wanted to taste it. But she stacked the things in the bowl high to make it look sincere.
The couple in the first room were whispering something in the room. When Jiang knocked on the door, there was a rustling sound. Liu opened the door with an unhappy look on her face, and when she saw that it was Jiang who knocked on the door, her face became even uglier.
When she found out that Jiang had come to bring her food, she didn't say anything polite. She just hurriedly put on a perfunctory smile, took the bowl, and slammed the door without even letting Jiang in.
Jiang was so angry that she wanted to ask her sister-in-law in person what she meant.
But she was a person who valued etiquette. Others could be rude, but she could not do such a thing. In the end, she said nothing and walked back to her room with heavy steps.
She took several deep breaths before she calmed down and took the bowl to the second room.
Sun was always harsh in his words, but when his family could take advantage of him, he would often become exceptionally amiable.
When he saw Jiang coming to deliver food, he praised Jiang and her family so much that Jiang's face turned red. She could not help but break free from the hand of her second sister-in-law Sun and ran away.
The third sister-in-law's attitude was relatively normal. She was neither as rude as the eldest sister-in-law nor as overly enthusiastic as the second sister-in-law. Instead, she made a few polite remarks appropriately.
Jiang really liked her third sister-in-law's attitude.
Although she knew that her third sister-in-law secretly looked down on her.
But when the two of them face to face, the third sister-in-law at least does her job on the surface so that no one can find fault with her.
Jiang only sighed secretly in her heart, and as if she was afraid that someone would hear it, she swallowed the sigh tightly into her stomach.
Jiang knocked on the door of the fifth room.
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(End of this chapter)
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