Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Cutting Bamboo.
The autumnal equinox has passed, the rice has sprouted, and the sky behind Niupi Mountain is bright white, reflecting the green and golden rice fields in the valley.
On the ridge beside the field, there is a thatched house with mud walls and some potholes.
The only window was a circle around the mouth of a pottery jar. Because the jar was cracked, the thick circle around the jar mouth was used as a window. The round hole let in some light, making the room look even smaller.
There was only a wooden bed inside, covered with a yellowed and curled straw mat. On it lay a clay dog with a missing leg. It was picked up from another child's discarded bed.
There was a fluttering cloth bag hanging on the wall, covered with some chaff ash.
The last scoop of bran was now being cooked in the clay pot on the stove, emitting hot smoke.
——This is a low kitchen room in the southwest corner next to the thatched hut. The wooden barrel in the corner of the wall is leaking a little, wetting the slippery mud floor. The mortar has been covered with a layer of dust because there has been no rice pounded in it for a long time.
The stove is an old boat bow pottery stove. In the Wu and Chu areas, this type of stove is popular in every household. It is shaped like a half-leaf boat, made of pottery, and has two fire holes, one for the cauldron and the other for the tripod. The cauldron is mainly used for stewing; the tripod is generally used to boil water, and can be used to steam food when paired with a steamer. However, now the family only has a pottery cauldron, and the fire hole for the tripod is empty.
Unlike the stoves in rural areas of later generations, the stove body and the upturned chimney are only as high as the thigh.
Ji Xu needed to bend down to stir the bran porridge in the pot to prevent it from getting sticky at the bottom.
In fact, this stove is high, so it is best for people to operate it while kneeling.
But she wasn't used to this position yet.
Just last night, she traveled to the Han Dynasty before the Common Era. She originally grew up in Benguli, Niupi Township. Three years ago, when she was twelve years old, she went to the county town to find a job. Unfortunately, she was kidnapped and sold into slavery by thieves. She was then detained in the Ye Ting Palace in Chang'an and worked as a palace maid, pounding rice and washing clothes.
Until two months ago, the victory news of the northern campaign against the Xiongnu reached the capital, and the emperor was very pleased. He issued an edict to pardon all the innocent people and granted amnesty to the whole country. The original body happened to be on the list, so he was released and returned home to depend on his two younger sisters. But for some reason, half a month after he returned home, Ji Xu traveled through time and space in his sleep.
After Ji Xu digested this unchangeable fact, he got up and made breakfast according to his original life trajectory.
The old stove was filled with smoke, so Ji Xu poked the chimney with a wooden stick, and the fire inside the stove started to burn, making the bran porridge bubbling. Ji Xu broke off a handful of fern, threw it in, and sprinkled some salt, the only seasoning available at home, which was contained in a bowl made of broken tiles.
A pot of bran and vegetable porridge is ready.
It looks so dull and really makes people lose their appetite.
Five-year-old Ji Zhu was so hungry that she swallowed her saliva. She was the younger sister of the original body. She was wearing small pleated ramie pants. Because she was too thin, the trouser legs looked even more baggy.
Ji Zhu obediently placed three chipped bowls and three pairs of chopsticks, the only remaining tableware in the house.
There was no dining table at home, so the three sisters knelt around the pottery stove and ate.
"Sister, why do you eat so little?" Eight-year-old Ji Feng drank all her wine in one gulp and felt strange when she saw that there was still half a bowl left in Ji Xu's bowl.
Ji Xu really couldn't swallow the bran and vegetable porridge that made his throat ache, so he just said, "I'm not hungry, you and Xiaozhu can share it."
Ji Feng shook her head and turned her own bowl upside down. "You'll be hungry. Save it for Sister to eat later."
Such a bowl of food is also precious to them.
Thinking of the empty chaff bag in the house, Ji Feng stood up and said, "I'm going to the Feng family to herd pigs."
This is a wealthy family in Benguli. They raise more than ten pigs on their own mountain. They let them out on the mountain every morning and drive them back to the pigpen in the evening. They can earn one penny a day for this job.
It was a very good job in the countryside, and many children competed for it. After all, the wages for carrying food in the county and walking a hundred miles a day was no more than seven cents, and this was the price for adult men and women. The employer would not hire a maid who was under the age of fifteen because he thought she was not strong enough.
Ji Feng was able to get this job because his father had worked as a pig herder in that family for more than ten years when he was a child. In addition, the previous shepherd boy was fired for losing a pig, and Ji Feng just filled the vacancy ten days ago.
Therefore, I cherished it very much and rushed to Feng's house after breakfast.
Ji Zhu was by the stove, pouring out the few remaining pine cones, freeing up the empty basket and carrying it on her back.
The basket was higher than her head when she carried it on her back. The thin person tilted her head and looked at Ji Xu.
"Let's go." Ji Xu said, and as usual, he picked up a hatchet from the corner and an iron hoe next to it. These two were the only iron tools in the house.
The two of them wanted to go into the mountains to collect more firewood before winter came. This was what the three sisters discussed in bed a few days ago.
After going out and walking on the ridge, Ji Xu was able to look around.
Nowadays, "li" is used to divide the settlements where people live. The place where they live is called Benguli. It is close to mountains and water, and the land is relatively fertile. Therefore, their ancestors have settled down in this cultivated land for generations. Now it is neither big nor small, with a total of more than 50 households.
The sky was getting light and a layer of fog was rising in the distance. The outlines of houses were faintly visible in the farmland. Most of them had roofs made of reeds, straw or rush. Now the smoke from the cooking stoves was mixed in the fog.
In the nearby fields, there is a wooden well shed with four roofs. This is the water well for fifty households in Benguli. Broken tiles are carved on the wall of the well into the shape of official script: "For thousands of years, for the benefit of descendants."
At this time, there were women carrying empty wooden buckets to draw water from the well. Most of them had neat buns and wore wooden hairpins. They wore short jackets that were either white or gray, knee pads tied around their waists, and baggy trouser legs. The shoulder poles creaked when they walked.
Ji Xu didn't look around too much to avoid arousing suspicion, but she could sense everyone's gaze on her. After all, she had been missing for three years, and everyone was very curious about her sudden return.
"Look, is this the little girl Xu who was kidnapped by the thieves in the county a few years ago? She has grown up in the blink of an eye, but she looks thinner than before."
Looking at the receding figure, people were talking at the well.
When talking about this incident three years ago, everyone still remembers it.
When the Ji family split up, it caused a lot of uproar in Bengu. The uncle and aunt were extremely jealous. Because the eldest daughter-in-law Jin gave birth to a boy, the uncle gave away the tiled house with a small courtyard and 20 acres of land to the eldest wife before he died.
The second daughter-in-law, Tian, gave birth to three daughters, but she was only given a thatched hut next door. The comparison was so shabby.
To make matters worse, not long after the family split up, Ji Gui from the second branch, Tian's husband, wanted to save face and build a tiled house as soon as possible, so he went to work for others to earn money. Unexpectedly, he lost his life in an accident.
The widowed mother, Tian, was left to raise her three daughters alone. Although her eldest daughter, Ji Xu, was only twelve years old at the time, she was very sensible. She went to the county town alone to find a job to supplement the family income. Unexpectedly, she met thieves on the way and was abducted and sold.
Speaking of Tian, she has been a strong-willed and competitive person since she got married. If it were an ordinary person, she would not be able to survive after losing her husband and daughters one after another. But she held on, gritted her teeth, and said that she would find her eldest daughter.
"It's her. Tian's widowed mother searched all the surrounding counties, but who would have thought she would be sold to the imperial city of Chang'an? She's lucky to have come back alive."
"This maid, working in the palace, must have saved a lot of money... Unfortunately, half a year ago, Tian heard the news and went to Chang'an by the Mian River to look for her. But her boat capsized, and even her body was fed to the fish. She didn't get to enjoy the good life."
"Money? I came home half a month ago with nothing but linen clothes and a pair of straw sandals."
"I passed by and took a look. Her family still eats bran."
"That's right. What kind of money can you earn from being a slave for three years? It's better for us to be registered as citizens."
"Aunt Liao, is it a coincidence that your Guangzong is looking for a new bride? I see that this girl's family is poor, so she will definitely be able to save you some money for the bride price! Promise her three hu of rice, and she will definitely become your new bride!" The speaker was Wang Mazi. In his early years, he had stolen cucumbers grown by Tian Shi. He was caught by Tian Shi, and they tore each other from the field to the roadside, where many people laughed at him.
The woman in the bean sprouts straightened up, wiped her sweat with a towel, and glared at Wang Mazi, "If I marry her, I'll have to feed her sister and two mouths. I won't do such a loss-making marriage. It will bring poverty to my family."
**
After walking about two miles, the fields gradually became smaller, and they arrived at a peak on Niupi Mountain. Niupi Mountain, named for its resemblance to an ox spleen, is divided into over a hundred peaks, some of which were owned by older generations; others are village assets, and anyone in the village can come to cut wood and collect firewood. This peak belongs to the latter group.
Walking deeper along the worn-out mountain path, Ji Zhu would occasionally squat down to pick up pine cones, and soon she had picked up half a basket.
Ji Xu did not chop wood, but instead looked at a clump of bamboo.
"Sister, bamboo is not resistant to burning." Jizhu thought she wanted to cut bamboo for firewood, so she said.
I thought Ji Xu had just returned home and had forgotten, "Pine trees are resistant to fire."
She is five years old now and often goes out to dig wild vegetables and collect firewood. Her thin face is tanned, with distinct facial features. She blinks her eyes and looks at Ji Xu with a puzzled look.
"If you don't want to burn it, use it to weave things." It would be a shame to burn such good bamboo.
After her grandmother, the head chef, retired, she was unemployed and would do bamboo weaving to kill time at home. After get off work from the hotel restaurant, she would often help the old lady by handing her tools. She knew a little bit about the work, so now it was a good opportunity for her to weave bamboo to earn some money.
The original body's mother died in a boat capsize half a year ago. In the past six months, the two younger sisters have relied on the occasional bean porridge donated by the rich people in the village, and from time to time they use their belongings to exchange for some bran and salt with the villagers, and add the wild vegetables they find themselves, eating one meal and skipping the next, barely making ends meet. Now they are all malnourished and skinny.
The original body was also sold to the Yunting Palace as a slave for three years. The bones were so painful that Ji Xu felt them when he touched them.
We can’t eat bran at home anymore, we need oil and water.
This clump of bamboo is Yinshan bamboo, which grows in the shade. It has green bark, lush branches and leaves of varying thicknesses.
There are some things to pay attention to when choosing bamboo. If it is too old, it will be brittle and hard; if it is too thin, the bamboo joints will have white powder and will not be tough enough, so it is also not acceptable.
You should choose those that are about two years old, with green bark, slender branches and moderate thickness. They are most suitable for breaking bamboo strips and weaving.
She only picked out three suitable ones, cut them down neatly, and trimmed the bamboo branches. She also piled the branches aside and took them back to make brooms.
After cutting down the bamboo, she went to find some dead pine trees to cut down. The sound of the axe felling trees could be heard from the woods.
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Note:
Jungu and Junjiu: mother-in-law and father-in-law of the husband’s family.
"Er Ya" says: "If the aunt or uncle is still alive, they are called Junjiu and Jungu; if they are dead, they are called Xianjiu and Xiangu."
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