Chapter 36: April Rice Planting
Mid-April is the time for planting rice in the southwest.
Before dawn, the crowing of roosters came one after another, vying to wake up the sleeping village.
During the busy farming season, even children like Gu Yuhe had their work cut out. Those who knew how to plant rice would work in the fields; those who didn't would help transport the seedlings.
On the ridges of the fields, the adults skillfully rolled up their trouser legs, stepped into the muddy paddy fields, and bent down to arrange the seedlings.
They looked focused, their hands moving through the mud and water, their movements quick and orderly.
Gu Jiayue was assigned the task of transporting rice seedlings with the children.
She was carrying a shoulder pole, with baskets on either end filled with the seedlings Gu Zhigeng and Gu Bailu had just pulled from the nursery. She needed to carry these seedlings to the edge of the field so that someone waiting there could take them and plant them in the rice field.
A "labor assembly line" with clear division of labor has quietly formed.
Gu Jiayue wiped the sweat from her head and thought to herself, no wonder the ancients were so obsessed with having children.
I don’t feel it on weekdays, but during the busy farming season, I realize the benefits of having more people at home.
This large family has everyone doing the same thing, and they do it in an orderly manner without delaying anything.
Looking at those families with small populations, they are busy and seem to have done a lot of work, but when they look up, they feel that nothing has been done well.
Even in a fight, numbers are an advantage! One person throwing a stone can kill the enemy.
After thinking about it, she couldn't help but smile to herself.
She recalled that when she was a child living in the countryside with her grandmother, she also had to do farm work. However, her hometown didn't grow rice, but mostly corn. May is the best time to loosen the soil and fertilize the corn.
Whenever that happened, we had to get up before daybreak and carry lunch and fertilizer up the mountain.
Occasionally, she would accidentally dig up one or two corn seedlings. Fearing that her grandmother would scold her, Gu Jiayue would pretend nothing had happened and dig another hole to bury the broken corn seedlings.
A few days later, when grandma came to see her, she found that many of the seedlings in the area that Gu Jiayue was responsible for had died.
Whenever this happened, grandma would curse and say that she had raised a useless ancestor.
Oh, when I think of those days, I feel tired and happy.
But the original owner of this body had lived a life of luxury and rarely even got sun exposure, so he had never done such rough work.
Look, after just two attempts, the skin on my shoulders was rubbed and it was burning with pain.
She frowned, but seeing everyone working so enthusiastically, she couldn't bring herself to say it out loud, so she just had to bite the bullet and continue.
"Come, Yuhe, hand me the seedlings." Uncle stood in the paddy field and shouted loudly.
Gu Yuhe hurriedly picked up the seedlings on the ridge of the field and handed them to his uncle.
The seedlings were covered in mud and water, and the whole area in front of me was covered in mud.
However, Gu Yuhe's expression did not change at all, as if he didn't notice that his clothes were dirty.
After all, he was a child from a poor family, having been working in the fields since he was young. He was used to these things, so how could he despise them? He even wiped the mud from his injury on his clothes and sat down on the edge of the field to rest.
The uncle took the seedlings, quickly divided them into small bunches, and then began to plant them.
I saw him moving his hands quickly in the paddy field, and the seedlings stood neatly in the paddy field with even spacing, like well-trained soldiers.
Gu Jiayue found this very interesting and wanted to try her hand at it.
She rolled up her trouser legs and went down to the paddy field. Following her uncle's example, she bent down and carefully planted the seedlings in the water.
But the seedlings she planted were either tilted to one side or at different depths, and some floated up as soon as they were planted.
The uncle took a look and said with a smile, "Transplanting rice seedlings requires skill. Your hands must be steady. The seedlings should not be planted too shallowly or too deep, otherwise they will have difficulty growing healthily." The uncle demonstrated as he spoke.
After hearing this, Gu Jiayue nodded seriously and tried a few more times, but still didn't make much progress.
She couldn't help feeling discouraged. She straightened up and raised her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead, but she didn't realize that the mud on her hand was all over her forehead.
"Hahaha, second sister, you look like a little cat." Gu Yuhe pointed at the mud on Gu Jiayue's face and laughed.
Gu Jiayue put her hands on her hips. "You think you're any better than me, you mud monkey!"
"Alright, what are you doing? Why don't you give me the seedlings?" As soon as the uncle said that, they both obeyed. Gu Jiayue continued to bend over and learn how to plant rice, while Gu Yuhe stood up and went to carry the seedlings over.
The sun gradually rose higher, and the sunlight shone on the paddy fields, reflecting a dazzling light.
But the surrounding villagers were still planting rice seriously. Their movements were skillful and quick, as if they were tireless.
Even grandma didn't rest. Although she was old, her speed in planting rice was not slow at all. Many young daughters-in-law could not compare with her.
Her eyes were focused, her hands intertwined constantly. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead, but she simply wiped them away with her sleeve before continuing to work.
Gu Jiayue looked at her grandmother's figure and secretly encouraged herself in her heart: Grandma is working so hard at her age, how can I give up easily!
So she regained her spirits, carefully observed her uncle and grandmother's movements in planting rice, and constantly adjusted her posture and strength.
Gradually, her planting began to become more orderly. Although her speed was still not as fast as that of her uncle and others, it was a great improvement compared to before, and a satisfied smile appeared on her face.
At noon, the sun was high in the sky, scorching my body. The water in the paddy fields had also become warm, and the soil was a little hot from the sun.
Gu Jiayue's back was already soaked with sweat, and her clothes were sticking tightly to her body.
Her face was covered in sweat, which kept dripping down her cheeks and disappeared into the mud and water in an instant.
Her lips became chapped due to the heat, but she still gritted her teeth and persevered.
"Oh, you kid, why don't you take a rest?" Mother Li looked at her daughter's sunburned face, her eyes full of heartache. She hurried over and put her hands on her head.
But the mud on her hands accidentally dripped onto Gu Jiayue's hair. Mother Li was in a panic for a moment, her expression full of self-blame.
"Jiayue, take Zhigeng and Bailu back first and see if the meal is ready." Grandma Gu also spoke.
Today is the first day of transplanting rice seedlings, and everyone is busy. At first, grandma saw Gu Jiayue following three children to transport the seedlings, but then she disappeared and thought she couldn't bear the hardship and went back.
She kept her head down planting rice without looking around. If Li's mother hadn't called her name, grandma wouldn't have noticed that she was planting rice in the field.
Grandma was surprised and moved. This child was really honest. She grew up in a marquis's mansion and had never done such rough work.
But then again, Grandma couldn't help but feel a little proud. He was indeed the child of the Gu family, able to endure hardships and not spoiled at all.
"Oh, okay, grandma." Gu Jiayue didn't act pretentiously. She was sore all over at the moment and she didn't even have the strength to plant one more seedling.
She washed her hands and feet casually in the rice field, then walked home with her two younger sisters.
Gu Yuhe, who was carrying rice seedlings in a basket, saw this and was filled with envy. He thought to himself, "I want to go home and rest too. Working under the sun is really too much."
"What are you looking at? Don't you see there are no seedlings in the field? Why are you still standing there?" Grandma picked up a ball of mud from the field and threw it at the dazed Gu Yuhe.
Gu Yuhe sighed, resigned himself to his fate and threw the rice seedlings into the field, mumbling, "Grandma, I want to go home too."
"Huihuihui, what can you do when you go back? You are a man, how can you go back and eat for free? Work quickly, or you will have no lunch if you work slowly!" Grandma said sternly with a stern face.
At this moment, she had already forgotten that Gu Yuhe was her most beloved grandson.
Gu Yuhe thought, he was exhausted all morning and couldn't even eat? Wouldn't that be miserable?
He immediately stopped making a fuss and had to work at the door, hoping that grandma would give him more dry rice at noon because he was well-behaved.
Hua Chao stayed at home to cook today.
Originally, Hua Chao also wanted to go to the fields to work, but the Gu family felt that she was Gu Jiayue's maid and not a member of the Gu family, so they felt embarrassed to ask her to work in the fields, so they let Gu Jiayue make her own decision.
Gu Jiayue naturally disagreed. It was not easy for Hua Chao, a teenage girl, to accompany her from the Marquis' Mansion to this remote village to suffer hardships. How could she be asked to work in the fields?
After much persuasion, Hua Chao finally agreed to stay at home and cook.
And this morning, Grandma Gu had said that everyone was busy planting rice recently, so the meals couldn't be too simple. In addition to corn rice, they could also add some rice. Grandma Gu even took out the meat she had bought last time during the Flower Festival and said generously, "You can cook it however you want!"
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