Chapter Twelve
The villagers of Mujia Village are all very excited about the New Year. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, they get up at dawn and the dumplings cooked in the early morning are kept warm in the pot so they can eat them as soon as they get up.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, no one will slack off. If a familiar family comes to visit and you are still not up, you will be embarrassed.
Because he hadn't slept for long, he was woken up by Zhou Laosan and Zhou Wushi.
Yesterday, Mu Jin washed a copper coin clean and wrapped it in a dumpling. She and Zhou Si made twenty ingot-shaped dumplings together, and the copper coin was inside one of them.
Zhou Wushi picked up the gold ingots and gave them to Zhou Qiang and Zhou Laosan first, and kept the rest in her bowl.
The villagers firmly believed that eating a dumpling with a copper coin inside was a good omen for the whole year, and she was unwilling to share this good fortune with anyone else.
We ate a lot of good food on New Year's Eve, and by 3 AM everyone had food in their stomachs and wasn't very hungry.
These dumplings, which I usually can't bear to eat often, were too much to eat after just five or six.
"Hurry up and finish eating. I've been thinking about it all the time, and now that it's all wrapped up, I'd better eat it right away. After you finish, go and pay your respects to your uncles and aunts."
Zhou Wu ate her dumplings carefully, afraid that the copper coin would hurt her teeth, and she didn't forget to urge them on when she had a spare moment.
"hiss."
"What's wrong?"
Zhou Lin was eating dumplings one after another when he suddenly cried out in pain. Hearing this, Mu Jin quickly turned around and looked at him with a somewhat nervous expression.
Once the pain subsided, Zhou Lin smiled, opened his hand, and there in his palm was a copper coin still covered with a little bit of meat filling.
Seeing this, Zhou Si exclaimed with delight, "Big brother is really lucky."
"Are your teeth okay?"
Mu Jin wasn't as happy as Zhou Si. She put down the bowl in her hand and, taking advantage of the dim light of the oil lamp, examined it closely.
Zhou Lin chuckled, "It's alright, here you go, take it."
Mu Qing said sourly, "Brother, this is a year's worth of good fortune, and you're just giving it all away like this?"
Zhou Lin placed the copper coin in Mu Jin's hand and smiled upon hearing this, saying, "If Mu Jin is lucky, then I am lucky too."
When Zhou Lin ate the dumplings containing copper coins, few people in his family, except for Zhou Si and Mu Jin, were truly happy.
Zhou Ming put down the bowl, which still had a few dumplings left inside.
"Brother, you're different now that you've married. You only have eyes for your husband."
Zhou Laosan and Zhou Wushi, who were already looking dejected, looked even worse upon hearing this. Their eldest son was really acting out of line.
Mu Jin disliked Zhou Wu Shi very much, although she knew that giving the copper coins to Zhou Lao San and saying some nice words to coax them would be the best course of action.
But today he really wanted to be willful and pretend he didn't see it.
"It's getting late, we should go to pay our respects to our great-grandfather, grandfather, and great-uncle."
As night fell, a few scattered figures appeared along the village road. When they met someone on the road, they smiled and offered auspicious words.
After Mu Jin and the others left, Zhou Wushi slammed the bowl down on the table.
"This is the good husband you were talking about! Now that you've found someone good, see how much he misses you?!"
Zhou Laosan slammed his chopsticks down, "If you don't speak, no one will think you're mute."
Zhou Wu snorted, "No wonder she's so tough on me."
Mu Jin was unaware that Zhou Laosan and Zhou Wushi had even exchanged a few words because he was at home during the New Year.
As we walked to Zhou's grandfather's house, his eldest uncle and his family had just finished breakfast.
Mu Jin is a newlywed, and this is her first time visiting her family for the New Year. Her uncles, aunts, and cousins all give her a red envelope, more or less.
Mu Jin has a sweet tongue, and if he wants to coax someone, there's no one he doesn't have a prejudice against. He can easily win them over.
After visiting all the relatives and friends to offer New Year's greetings, he won over the hearts of all the uncles, aunts, and other relatives in the family.
His second aunt and grandmother held his hands and patted them, saying, "Our Lin boy is truly blessed to have married such a good husband."
Fourth Uncle pulled over a young man with cat-like eyes and fair skin; he looked both well-behaved and adorable.
“Jin-ge’er, this is your third cousin’s family. He got married a year earlier than you. Mu Feng, you two are about the same age. You should visit each other more often so you can have company when you’re working.”
Mu Feng blushed slightly and nodded gently to Mu Jin, "Second brother, huh?"
Mu Jin smiled gently, her expression tender, and she seemed like an easy-going young man.
"This is your eldest cousin's family, Yunxiu's family, and your fifth brother's family's family..."
The Zhou family is large and prosperous. They settled in Mujia Village in the generation of Zhou Lin's great-grandfather, and now four generations live together. Although they don't have as many relatives as Mu Jin's family, they are still quite numerous.
Fortunately, Mu Jin had a good memory. After going around and recognizing everyone, she remembered the names and faces.
After exchanging New Year's greetings, as dawn broke and the sun rose in the east, Mu Jin, carrying a dozen or so red envelopes, returned home in a rather pleasant mood.
"I'm hungry, I'm hungry, Mom, bring me a bowl of dumplings."
As soon as Zhou Qiang got home, he rubbed his stomach and started yelling. He had just finished playing games with his cousins and hadn't eaten much breakfast, so he was starving.
Zhou Wushi came out of the house and scolded, "I told you to eat more, but you didn't know to eat, and now you're hungry again."
As he spoke, he took out some warm dumplings from the pot and gave him a few cloves of garlic.
Seeing Mulan behind him, he said, "How much did your aunt and the others give you? Give it to me."
Mu Jin looked bewildered. "Huh?"
"Don't play dumb. When you went to pay your respects for the New Year today, your aunt and the others must have given you red envelopes. These are all social obligations. What's wrong with returning the money I gave out earlier?!"
Mu Jin laughed in exasperation. "Mother, I didn't know there was such a custom in the village. The money a new husband receives from the bride in his first year must be handed over to his mother-in-law. I'll have to ask other families in the village later if there are any other customs I don't understand, so that you won't think I'm pretending to be stupid and make you angry."
Zhou Wu was speechless. There was no such rule in the village. If Mu Jin really told everyone, wouldn't all the women and husbands in the village laugh at her for being a mother-in-law who coveted her new husband's money? Her sisters-in-law would laugh at her to death too.
Seeing that Mulan was not working, Zhou Wu turned to Zhou Lin, putting on a pitiful expression as if she had been bullied by her husband.
“Look at your husband. I’ve only said a few words, and he keeps going on and on. Sigh, being a mother is really hard. Last year, when you got married, the family spent a lot of money. Your fourth brother will be taking the imperial examination in the spring. Everything will cost money. It’s not that I’m after your money. Sigh.”
Zhou Lin was caught in the middle, torn between the two of them. Seeing that Mu Jin's expression wasn't good, he didn't dare to speak.
“Mother, what are you saying? If the family were really in a hurry, would A-Lin and I be holding onto our money? You’re really blaming us so badly.”
Zhou Wushi knew that she couldn't get the money from Mu Jin today. If she forced him to hand it over, the whole village would probably know by tomorrow.
He glared at Zhou Lin, "You can't even control the people in your own house, you good-for-nothing."
Zhou Linping was scolded for no reason. Her husband had said that he would take out the money if needed, so she didn't know why her mother was still so angry.
Mu Jin pulled him back into the house and took out the money box made by Zhou Lin from the cabinet. Inside was a money bag embroidered with hibiscus flowers.
"Go and close the door and lock it."
As Mu Jin spoke, she took out the red envelope from her bosom and, together with Zhou Lin, carefully checked it over.
The Zhou family fled from elsewhere, and although they have been settled there for generations, they are still not as wealthy as the families in Mujia Village.
Because all the relatives gave sixteen coins, no more and no less, for good luck.
There were twelve red envelopes in total. Two relatives who were not so close to me gave me eight coins each, for a total of one hundred and seventy-six coins.
The hibiscus were strung together with rope, one hundred coins per string. He then took out twenty-four coins from his purse to make it a round number.
“I had saved up 123 coins when I was at home, and I brought them all with me. Adding the money I earned from selling wood carvings last time, I have 391 coins. If I save up another 9 coins, I will have 400 coins.”
Mu Jin smiled, and as she spoke, her tone gradually became lighter.
Zhou Lin looked at him tenderly, secretly determined to earn money this year so that her husband could smile more.
Mu Jin clapped her hands, "I had forgotten about it."
As he spoke, he took out the copper coin that Zhou Lin had given him, which he had already wiped clean, and put it in. "Now, I only need to save eight coins."
Zhou Lin chuckled. The three strings of one hundred copper coins lay quietly in the money box. Influenced by Mu Jin's joyful mood, he felt inexplicably at peace and happy.
"This year I will make more wood carvings and save up an ounce of silver, then I will exchange it for silver ingots."
Mu Jin smiled and nodded, about to put it in the cabinet, but then stopped, as if she had thought of something.
“Ah Jin, now that we have more money, I’m worried about storing it in chests and cabinets. Go out and secretly get a shovel, let’s hide it underground.”
Mu Jin's main concern was that if Zhou Wushi came to search the house while he was away, and she actually found it, it would be like throwing mud into the river—there would be no way to get it back.
Zhou Lin laughed upon hearing this, "No need to dig. When I was a child, Uncle Heng gave me a little wooden bird, which I loved. I was afraid that my mother would take it and give it to my fourth brother, so I secretly dug a hole under the bed and hid it underground."
That was the first time in Zhou Lin's more than 20 years of life that he had hidden something. Fearing that Zhou Wu would find it, he dug it very secretly, but he was still worried for a long time.
As Zhou Lin spoke, he moved the bed aside and knocked on the innermost corner. The knocking sound indicated that there was no one there.
Xiao Zhoulin cherished that wooden bird very much, because the earthen hole was surrounded by a circle of tattered cloth, with a wooden board on top, for fear of getting it dirty.
"It's still there."
Zhou Lin smiled and took out the wooden bird. It was so lifelike that when he shook it up and down, its wings would move. It was far more exquisite than any wooden carving he had ever made.
"Uncle Heng's cooking skills are really good."
Mu Jin touched it lovingly and played with it for a while. Afraid that Zhou Wu would call them, she quickly put it and the money box into the earthen hole, hid it well, and carefully covered the wooden board with a layer of soil.
“I have left twelve coins outside for emergencies. If you need money, just tell me.”
Mu Jin put the twelve coins into her purse, but dared not hand them over to Zhou Lin yet, fearing that he might soften his heart and be coaxed away by Zhou Wu Shi.
Zhou Lin nodded and moved the bed back to its original position.
Actually, a few hundred coins don't need to go to such great lengths, but one can't be too careful. If Zhou Wushi really manages to steal it, Mu Jin will be disgusted with herself.
It's better to be cautious, especially since three hundred coins is not a small amount for them.
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