Chapter 5
After the meal, and after Shu Shouyi finished his medicine, the two aunt and nephew started pulling weeds.
Meanwhile, as the hour of Chen (7-9 AM) arrived, Pang Zhishan, who had been waiting at the threshing ground, gradually received the villagers.
He cleared his throat with a few light coughs and briefly explained the background.
"...That's the thing. Two orphaned children have settled in our village. Yesterday, many people went with me to see them. The thatched hut on the mountain was missing everything from small items like needles and thread to large items like pots and pans."
It's hard to imagine two little kids managing to make a living. Since we're all neighbors from now on, why not lend a hand when the children are in trouble? I propose that everyone chip in and give them some everyday necessities.
Some of the elderly people in front of Pang Zhishan felt that the scene was extremely familiar.
Ten years ago, in the same place, under the same circumstances, Pang Zhishan said the same thing.
To be honest, we'll be from the same village from now on, so donating some things is indeed reasonable, but...
"Why are there more disaster victims fleeing to our prefecture and county? If we keep helping others settle down, our own lives will become difficult."
A not-too-loud complaint suddenly rang out in the crowd, and Pang Zhishan, who was already sharp-eared and sharp-eyed, heard it clearly.
His words of encouragement to donate were stuck in his throat, and the anger at being undermined by his own people made his dark face turn red rapidly.
After a brief pause, Pang Zhishan's eyes widened in anger. He shoved the complainer out of the crowd and demanded through gritted teeth, "Pang Liuzi! What nonsense are you spouting?!"
Pang Zhili shrank back, startled by the glare, and said, "Big brother... why are you looking at me like that? I'm just telling the truth."
Talking back!
Pang Zhishan was furious. He didn't consider himself a fool who couldn't distinguish between right and wrong, so how could his brother, who was born of the same mother, be so reckless?
If there weren't so many people around, he would have taken off his shoe and given him a good beating with the sole to teach him a lesson.
"truth?"
"That's bullshit!"
“Natural disasters and man-made calamities are unpredictable. Who would want to leave their home and flee thousands of miles to escape famine?” Pang Zhishan held up his hand and made a “six” gesture. “Six people! A family of six, and because of this famine, four of them are gone! Do you know how difficult it was for them to even reach our county?! The chaos in the Central Plains had just subsided, and no one dared to go that way. They deliberately took a detour of hundreds of miles. But how many people starved to death during those hundreds of miles of detour?!”
"You've been a bit of a scoundrel since you were a kid, and I can't seem to control you no matter what I do. I'm already too lazy to talk to you about small things, but this is a big matter that requires everyone's help, so don't you dare mess with me and embarrass me!"
After being subjected to a furious tirade, Pang Zhili felt as if he had been drenched in dog blood and dared not utter another word.
Pang Zhishan suppressed his anger, composed himself, and continued to persuade everyone.
“The county is considerate of our Wupai Village’s limited land, and just like ten years ago, only one refugee family was allocated here. Moreover, it was a carefully selected family with a small population. Since the higher-ups are so considerate, we should naturally be sensible and do our best to settle them down properly.”
"I know that asking everyone to contribute will make some people feel uncomfortable and uneasy, but isn't life all about your family helping me and my family helping you?"
"What family can live a good life if they live in seclusion?"
Pang Zhishan talked until his throat was dry, trying to reason with them and appeal to their emotions, but after a long time, no one stepped forward to be the first to donate.
He felt incredibly frustrated. Even though Pang Zhili had already shrunk back and hidden himself in the crowd, he still managed to pinpoint the turtle's head and glance at it sideways.
Having exhausted all other options, Pang Zhishan gave Wang Jincai a wink, signaling him to take the lead and shout something.
After all, his family delivered firewood up the mountain last night. If no one else donated anything, wouldn't his family be at a disadvantage?
Having received a tip, Wang Jincai indeed spoke up to cooperate.
“The village chief is right! It’s really not easy for those two little kids. Many people saw it last night, right? I carried two bundles of firewood up the mountain. Not only that, but before I left today, I also asked my wife to bring some vegetables from the field.”
"Let's all be compassionate and do this as an act of good karma."
Actually, before coming here, everyone was already prepared for today's donation. However, Pang Zhili interrupted them earlier, so everyone wanted to wait and see if they could skip the donation.
Now that Chief Pang and Wang Jincai had gone this far, it would be unreasonable not to speak up.
Then someone echoed Wang Jincai's words, shouting, "I can bring two stools from my house over there."
"My family can give me an old piece of clothing."
My family is offering a wooden barrel!
"My family has a pot!"
Pang Zhishan had a good memory and wrote down the items from each company without needing paper or pen.
After calculating that he had almost raised enough for household expenses, he brought up the matter of needing to contribute his labor.
“That house was left by my eighth great-uncle. He passed away many years ago, and the house has been uninhabited for a long time and is in disrepair. There are only two rooms in total. The room where we sleep leaks when it rains, and the shed and stove where we cook have collapsed in half. There are many other places that need to be repaired.”
“Everyone has just planted the wheat. I know that each family still has some late rice that hasn’t been dried and stored yet. There’s a lot to do in the fields. But by the time we finish working in the fields, winter will be coming. We can’t let the two little ones live in a leaky house all the time, can we?”
"How can anyone withstand a snowfall in winter, lying in a drafty, snow-leaking house?"
After appealing to their emotions and seeing that the atmosphere was just right, he seized the opportunity to assign each family how much work to do and when to start helping the Shu family repair their house.
...
Shu Wanxiu's initial enthusiasm vanished after pulling up just a small patch of weeds, leaving only exhaustion.
Needless to say, Shu Shouyi was small, and the grass was much taller than him. But he was too young to know his place, so he just imitated Shu Wanxiu, burying his head and bending over to pull it up. In the end, he used all his strength to pull out a single blade of grass and fell on his bottom due to the inertia.
"The grass roots are too firmly planted, I can't pull them out." Shu Wanxiu was so tired that she wanted to lie down and rest, but her hands were still tightly gripping a clump of grass.
She tried to pull out as many grass roots as possible.
Because the grass roots break off in the ground and cannot be removed, the ground cannot be turned over without a hoe.
Last night, everyone helped pull up a small patch of weeds in front of the house. Before she started working today, she estimated that if she worked hard in the morning, she could cultivate a vegetable garden. After resting at noon, she would try to turn the soil with sticks or stones in the afternoon, and finally try sowing some vegetable seeds.
"Phew~" After nearly falling on her backside like Shu Shouyi, Shu Wanxiu finally pulled out the deep-rooted weed from her hand.
She shook off the dirt, threw the weeds into a pile, broke off a branch about the thickness of a thumb from a roadside bush, held it in her hand, stripped it to the bottom to remove the leaves, rubbed it back and forth a few times, and when she felt there were no prickly parts, she handed it to Shu Shouyi so that he could use it to dig and turn the soil.
An hour later, Shu Wanxiu straightened up, looked back at the field where she had finished weeding, then looked up at the glaring sun in the sky. After wiping the sweat from her face with the back of her hand, she said to Shu Shouyi, "Shouyi, stop digging. Come with your aunt down the mountain to fetch a pot of water and boil some for us to drink."
Shu Shouyi carefully put down the branch that had been worn down. Perhaps his legs were numb from squatting, because when he stood up with one hand on the ground, his body swayed a little, but he didn't complain. He obediently said, "Okay."
Shu Wanxiu experienced the inconvenience of living in abject poverty within twelve hours of arriving at her new home.
Look, there's no basin or bucket. If you want to boil some water, you have to carry the pot down the mountain to fetch water again.
It's one thing for myself, but even little kids with legs shorter than carrots have to climb up and down repeatedly.
Shu Wanxiu wanted to use her skills to improve her life as soon as possible, but she was not good at farm work or housework. By the time she was sixteen, her only strength was weaving.
There was no loom in the new house, and buying one or having a craftsman make one would cost a lot of money... so she couldn't change her current situation.
Shu Wanxiu was feeling depressed. After boiling water and giving Shu Shouyi a bowl of water, she sent him off to rest.
Although it's autumn, the sun is strong enough today; it's not suitable to work hard at noon.
She sat on the threshold of the main room, where the occasional mountain breeze made it relatively cool. While resting, she opened the vegetable seeds that Aunt Chen had given her to see which vegetable would be suitable to plant first.
The dried lotus leaves unfold layer by layer, each leaf containing different kinds of vegetables, including winter mallow, coriander, cabbage, wormwood, radish, water spinach, and flat vegetable.
All of them are seasonal vegetables, but the time from planting to harvesting is different, and the difficulty of planting is also different.
For example, cabbage and radish take about two months to grow, but they are durable and can be stored for a long time.
Winter mallow and flat lettuce are quick to harvest; with plenty of fertilizer, they can be harvested in a month or two. Winter mallow can be harvested many times, enough to eat throughout the winter, while flat lettuce is a year-round vegetable; once planted, it can be eaten all year round, as it grows back after each harvest.
She chose to plant two vegetables first: winter mallow and flat vegetables, because they can be harvested earlier and are relatively easy to plant.
The radish is good, but the soil needs to be deeply tilled before planting, which is something she can't do right now, so she can only leave it for later.
Pick out the two types of seeds you plan to plant today, repackage the rest, put them in the old bamboo basket in the main room, and hang them on the wall.
After closing the door to the main room, Shu Wanxiu rubbed her back and went back to her room to rest for the afternoon.
A note from the author:
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1. Regarding the vegetables mentioned in this chapter, their ancient and modern names:
Winter mallow: Winter amaranth
Coriander: Cilantro
菘: Chinese cabbage
Chrysanthemum greens: garland chrysanthemum
Radish: white radish
Spinach: Bolancai
Flat vegetable: Leek
2. Regarding rice-wheat rotation, although the historical period of this article is fictional, rice-wheat rotation already existed in the Tang and Song dynasties.
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