Without the weekly work schedule, time seems to fly by, and before we know it, it's Qingming Festival.
In Zhoujia Village and even the entire Qingshui Town, Qingming Festival is the most important festival besides the Spring Festival.
During this period, people not only clean the graves of their own relatives and ancestors, but also worship their common ancestors together with their clan. After the ceremony, the whole village gathers together for a final meal. This practice serves both to remember deceased relatives and to strengthen the bonds between living relatives.
Every village with the same surname shares a common ancestor. The ancestor's tomb in Zhoujia Village is located on a small hill to the left of the paddy field opposite the village. Standing there, one can overlook the entire village.
The day before Qingming Festival, before dawn, Li Xiuju took the glutinous rice she had bought earlier and went to a family in the village with a stone mill to stand in line and grind the rice into flour.
After finishing breakfast, Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu went out early to pick the freshest mugwort.
Artemisia grows mostly in fertile plains with abundant rainfall. Li Xiuju said that behind the ancestral graves of Zhoujia Village, there is a dilapidated white wall, and artemisia grows abundantly around there.
Although the spring rain had subsided, the new sun had not yet risen. The wild grass on the ridges of the fields was covered with morning dew. Zhou Chenyu and Baoyu ran towards the dilapidated white house. Halfway there, their trouser legs were soaked.
"Sis, it's right there!"
Zhou Baoyu straightened his hat brim and pointed to the desolate white-tiled roof high above the opposite paddy field. Startled by him, the egrets hidden at the foot of the mountain took flight and flew into the sky in a line towards the distance.
Zhou Chenyu looked up at the sky and thought of the poem in her Chinese textbook, "A line of white egrets soars into the blue sky," which perhaps described such a scene.
Zhou Baoyu pulled up his pants, crossed the ridge to the other side, and then a big head popped out of the grass: "Sister, Mother was right, there is mugwort here!"
"Zhou Baoyu, you're in such a hurry to be reincarnated! Wait for me!"
Zhou Chenyu came to her senses and saw that Zhou Baoyu had already run to the other side. She followed him while cursing and walked along the wet paddy field ridge to the end, where there were stone steps leading up to the main entrance of the deserted white house.
The house was dilapidated and overgrown with weeds. The pomelo tree next to the house, like the bare house, had only two withered pomelos hanging from it.
"You know what, this place is actually quite suitable for filming a horror movie." Zhou Chenyu walked over to Baoyu and poked his shoulder. "Hey, is this place haunted? Such a nice house is deserted, is there some kind of strange story behind it?"
The house had been there since Zhou Baoyu could remember, and he truly knew nothing about what had happened before.
"Sis, are you scared?"
Zhou Chenyu scoffed, "When I'm at work, I'm more resentful than a ghost, what's there to be afraid of?"
"Go to work? What does 'go to work' mean?" Zhou Baoyu frowned, peering at her with wide, worried eyes. "Sister, have you lost your mind again?"
"You're the one who's out of your mind, you're all..." Zhou Chenyu stopped herself, she could scold him, but she couldn't scold herself too. She cleared her throat, "What does mugwort look like? Let me see."
Zhou Baoyu picked a tender, green, serrated plant from the low grass at his feet, which looked a bit like a dwarf version of garland chrysanthemum. "Sister, this whole area is full of them. Pick the tender ones and fill the basket so we can go back."
"OK."
Zhou Chenyu took the example given by Baoyu and squatted down to pick them up. He filled his palm with them and put them all into the basket. He repeated this action until the sunlight shone on the white walls and eaves, the dew evaporated, and the mugwort leaves drooped withered. The basket was full of mugwort.
Zhou Baoyu hid under the eaves to shield himself from the sun and took the opportunity to look inside the house. Zhou Chenyu stood upright in place and heard a bell ring.
Following the direction of the sound, a strong and fat water buffalo emerged from the woods, grazing on the wild grass on the ground, the bell tied around its neck ringing incessantly.
Behind the water buffalo, a boy of about fifteen years old was holding a thin bamboo stick and watching the buffalo graze.
"It's so pitiful that he's out herding cattle at such a young age," Zhou Chenyu couldn't help but sigh.
Zhou Baoyu walked up to her and said, "Sister, don't you remember again? Raising cattle is not something that ordinary families can afford. Out of the sixty households in our village, only three can afford to raise water buffalo."
What?
Zhou Chenyu looked at the little boy she had called pitiful, who turned out to be much richer than herself. Her heart sank once more: "The clown is myself."
After gathering the mugwort, the two carried their baskets to the stream, washed each mugwort thoroughly, and then returned home.
Li Xiuju had already finished grinding the flour and returned, and was frying peanuts in the kitchen. "Do you have any mugwort?"
Zhou Chenyu showed the basket in her hand, "Yes, there are many, all washed clean."
"Great! Mom can knead the dough and make the mugwort cakes soon."
Li Xiuju poured the roasted peanuts out of the pot, had Baoyu crush them, added an appropriate amount of sugar powder, and made a sweet peanut filling.
She boiled a pot of water, poured in the washed mugwort, scalded it, and boiled it to extract a dark green liquid. Then she changed the water and repeated the process until the water turned a light green.
Li Xiuju kneaded the softened and blackened mugwort into a ball, put it into flour, and gradually mixed in flour and hot water to form an evenly distributed dough.
Zhou Baoyu brought over the prepared peanut filling and went to the kitchen to boil water. Once the glutinous rice cakes were ready, they could be quickly put into the pot.
Li Xiuju sat beside a clean round winnowing basket, with fillings at her side. She broke the mugwort dough into small pieces, each about half the size of a fist. She pressed her thumb into the center, supported the bottom with her index finger, and slowly kneaded the dough into thin wrappers. She added two spoonfuls of filling, then folded the wrappers over and shaped them into balls.
Zhou Chenyu, squatting nearby, was extremely curious. She reached out and took a small piece, quickly making one following Li Xiuju's steps. "Grandma, how is this?"
Li Xiuju observed for a moment and smiled, "It's wrapped very beautifully."
Baoyu found it amusing and came over to join in the fun, but his attempts at wrapping the dumplings were less than satisfactory. Either the wrappers were too thick and the filling was too little, or the wrappers were too thin and the filling was showing.
He only ordered a few, but Li Xiuju stopped him from doing anything and even gave him a good beating.
After the mother and daughter filled the winnowing basket with the wrapped glutinous rice cakes, Li Xiuju took the basket to the kitchen and carefully slid the rice cakes along the edge of the pot into the water. After simmering over low heat for a while, the water turned into a slightly sticky green color.
Zhou Chenyu was in the main room and could already smell the fresh fragrance of mugwort.
Li Xiuju scooped out the cooked mugwort cakes and placed them in another winnowing basket to cool. Then she coated each one with oil to prevent them from sticking to her hands. "Here, the cakes are cooked. Try them."
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