Ba Zong's rural life [farming]

The grain seeds are sown in the seedling field and sealed with plastic film. The millet will take root and germinate in the seedling bed, and it can be transplanted into the paddy field in about ten days.

After sowing, it entered a cloudy and rainy weather. Spring rain is as expensive as oil. It has been rainy for several days. It is rare that people did not complain, but were happy to see the results.

On rainy days, the villagers stay at home except for necessary work. It doesn't mean that they don't have to work on rainy days, but the grain seeds have just been sown and they can't be inserted into the fields, so they are free during this time.

Although farm work has been suspended for a while, life will continue. The period of waiting for the seedlings to grow coincides with Qingming, and every household in the village has to prepare for ancestor worship.

Compared with other families, Ruan Xishi had to go up to the mountain to pay homage to his grandfather earlier. It was a village rule that new graves had to be worshiped in advance, so he had to prepare for grave sweeping as soon as he planted the grain seeds.

Fruits, wine, meat, incense paper wallets and other things needed for grave sweeping are not sold in the village, so I have to go to the town to buy them, because the Qingming Festival is approaching, the town is very lively these days, and the market is full of chickens, ducks, geese and incense paper money. People come and go.

Ruan Xishi went to the bun shop to buy ten red bean paste buns, and then went to the pork stall to buy a piece of pork and a pig's foot. The reason for buying the pig's foot was that Ruan Xishi was reluctant to slaughter the chicken at home as a sacrifice, but it seemed too much to use only pork to go to the grave. Shabby, so I compromised and thought of using pig feet instead of whole chickens.

Then he went to the old shop near the old market to buy paper money incense candles.Although his grandfather taught him that there are no ghosts and gods in this world since he was a child, people turn into mud after death, there is no such thing as soul reincarnation in the underworld and hell, and there is no need to do any form after death. It's just spiritual sustenance.Those who say that if you don’t burn paper money, the dead will have no money to spend in the underworld are just deceiving ignorant people. You don’t need to spend a lot of time buying paper money, paper houses, gold mountains and silver mountains to burn.But Ruan Xishi still firmly believes that grandpa just went to another world. He lived in that world as he did in this world before he was alive, and he also had the needs of food, clothing, housing and transportation, so he never perfunctory in the matter of going to the grave. Others said that he should prepare something. Whatever he wants to do, he buys and does it.

Because of the bad weather, Ruan Xishi didn't take Lu Ze to stroll around the town for a while, and the two of them prepared to go back to the village after shopping for the things they needed.

Lu Ze and Ruan Xishi stood under the big banyan tree at the entrance of the town and waited for the car back to the village. When Lu Ze was bored, he caught sight of Zhu Wen who was staying near them nonchalantly. Choose how you spent your time.

Zhu Wen has already changed the suit he used to wear, and changed into casual clothes like the Romans, he doesn't look like an elite in the business field, but looks like a young unemployed young man with nothing to do, but young people with nothing to do in the small town There were a lot of people, and he was inconspicuous among them, so naturally he couldn't arouse Ruan Xishi's suspicion.

After getting on the bus, Ruan Xishi put all the things he bought today on the ground. He bought too many things, and he was exhausted after carrying them all the way. In addition, they didn't have extra time to eat wontons when they came to town this time. It would be well past lunchtime, and he was hungry.

With this in mind, Ruan Xishi bought a few more buns when he bought them. He untied the plastic bag containing the buns, handed them to Lu Ze, and asked, "Brother Lu Ze, are you hungry? If you are hungry, eat first." Baozi, I'll cook when I get home."

The steamed stuffed buns made in large batches by the steamed stuffed bun shop in the town don’t look good, and because they’re squeezed and pressed all the way, the steamed stuffed buns have long lost their original shape, and they’ve gotten cold, making them hard to swallow.But Lu Ze was probably really hungry. Ruan Xishi put the buns in front of him, and he picked one up and put it to his mouth and took a bite.

Although the buns are cold, they are still decent buns in essence. The shop that sells buns is a time-honored shop in the town. The buns are famous for their thin skin and thick filling. belly.

When Ruan Xi saw that Lu Ze ate it, he also picked up one and ate it. The taste of this bun has not changed a bit for more than ten years. Bring him a bun.Every time grandpa came back from the town, he would squat on the stone bench in front of the house long ago, waiting eagerly for his grandpa to come back. When he saw his figure appearing on the road, he would happily go up to him all the way. He took a bag of steamed buns and walked home talking and laughing with his grandpa while eating.

Although the taste of buns has not changed for more than ten years, Ruan Xishi's life has undergone great changes. After his grandfather passed away, no one will buy buns for him again, and he will never be able to welcome his grandpa back home. It's time to go home, and the one who is eating buns with him now is Lu Ze who met by chance. However, Lu Ze will not stay with him for a long time. One day Lu Ze will recover his memory and leave here.

Thinking of Ruan Xishi like this, his mood suddenly sank, and the steamed stuffed bun became dry and hard to swallow. Lu Ze saw his reaction, and he always became very depressed these days for no reason. At the beginning, Lu Ze He thought it was the bad weather that caused him to be in a bad mood, but after observing while shopping in the town today, Lu Ze believed that the reason why Ruan Xishi was depressed from time to time was related to the Qingming Festival.

It may be that the death of his grandfather has hit him too hard, after all, he is only a child who has just grown up.

Lu Ze looked at Ruan Xishi's lowered eyebrows, and Ruan Xishi's long eyelashes fluttered with his emotions, making people feel sorry for him. He couldn't help saying: "This steamed stuffed bun tastes really good."

Ruan Xishi originally thought that a person like Lu Ze who had never experienced hardship would not like this kind of cheap buns, but after hearing Lu Ze's sudden words, he seemed to have received some kind of affirmation and promise, Suddenly his mood improved, he looked up at Lu Ze with a smile on his face, and said, "Brother Lu Ze, if you like it, you can buy some food next time you go to town."

Probably seeing Ruan Xishi's brilliant smile, or maybe being infected by his emotions, Lu Ze just felt that the steamed buns that were a little hard to swallow became delicious.Originally, he just didn't want to take Ruan Xishi's good intentions and make Ruan Xishi embarrassed. After all, in the 30 years before his life, no one had dared to give him such a stuff that was not good either in terms of appearance or taste.But he will find that a word or a performance of his own can make Ruan Xishi's mood better. He seems to be satisfied with a certain emotion, and the whole person is also in a happy mood.

The village was still shrouded in the continuous spring rain, and through the vast rain and fog, everything was a bit unreal, but this did not affect Ruan Xishi's good mood at all.He and Lu Ze walked along the village road, and when they passed an old house with three entrances and three exits, he heard voices talking inside, and his curiosity drove him to go over and take a look inside.

It turned out that several village women were grinding rice inside, and when they saw Ruan Xishi suddenly appear, the village women stopped their work and greeted him with a smile: "Shizi, you're back from town, what did you buy today? "

Ruan Xishi was discovered by someone, and he stopped hiding. He walked into the house openly, and replied: "I went to buy some things that I need to go to the grave during the Qingming Festival. Aunt Zhang, sister-in-law, do you want to make cakes?"

Mrs. Zhang put a spoonful of soaked rice into the hole in the middle of the stone mill, and replied with a smile, "Yes, this is not the Qingming Festival, so grind some rice milk to make hair cakes for ancestor worship."

Pushing the stone mill, Aunt Zhang asked Ruan Xishi: "When are you going to pay homage to your grandfather, Shizi? If there is time, I will send you a piece of rice cake after I have finished steaming it, and let you take it to pay homage to your grandfather."

The rice that was ground by the stone mill turned into rice milk, which flowed out from under the millstone, then flowed down the canal to the outlet, and flowed into the next bucket below, a sticky bucket.

Take such a bucket of rice milk, take it home, add baking powder and brown sugar, spread it on a steaming tray, put it in a pot and steam it, it will become a honeycomb-like hair cake, this thing is not something you can eat every day , because grinding rice pulp requires a lot of labor, and it is only done during the holidays.

Ruan Xishi naturally likes to eat fat cakes. When he was a child, during the Chinese New Year, his grandfather would soak half a bucket of rice and bring him here to grind the rice milk. He was not tall enough, so he moved a bench to stand on it and poured rice into the opening on the millstone. Grandpa He is responsible for pushing the stone mill.The grandparents and grandchildren worked hard for half an afternoon before they got enough rice milk for two loads of fat cakes, one to make salty cakes and the other to make fat cakes, which was enough for the grandparents and grandsons to eat for a Spring Festival.

Now that grandpa is gone, the chances of eating fat cakes will be greatly reduced in the future, Ruan Xishi is not polite to Aunt Zhang and the others, she evens out a few fruits from the bought ones and puts them next to the stone mill as a thank you.

The village used to be poor and backward. Everyone had little money, and they belonged to neighbors. Talking about money hurts feelings. The first thing that was accepted by people was bartering. m.Later, the living conditions improved, and everyone became more generous with the little things. If anyone made something delicious today, he would share a little bit with his good neighbors. Some were sent back, back and forth, and the neighbors became more and more harmonious in these exchanges.

On the way home, Ruan Xishi explained to Lu Ze: "That old house is the ancestral house of the largest family in the village. There are the most people named Zhang in our village. They were the first to come here to take root. After years of development, their descendants There are several nearby villages. Everyone separated and left the ancestral house. Because there were few people in the village before, everyone lived together, so the ancestral house has all kinds of equipment, such as stone mills and water wells. I Grandpa said that when he first came to the village, there was no well dug at home, and he had to fetch water from the well in the Zhang family’s ancestral house every day. Like Aunt Zhang and Aunt Zhang just now, they are the daughters-in-law of the Zhang family. , There are many ancestors, and the tomb-sweeping on the Qingming Festival and Chongyang Festival is very large-scale, and a lot of things need to be prepared, so they go to grind rice milk to make hair cakes."

Lu Ze nodded in agreement while listening: "No wonder they grind so much rice milk, their house must be very busy on Qingming day?"

Ruan Xishi pushed open the door to let Lu Ze in, then turned around and closed the door before continuing, "On that day, the Zhang family from several surrounding villages will come back, there are probably hundreds of people, and they will split up, and a group of people will pray to one place. Let’s have a meal together, and then we will go back to our respective houses. When I was young, I was very envious of the Zhang family’s peers. There are many relatives in their family, and they are very lively during the holidays, because our family is only me and grandpa. I still ask Grandpa, when will our family be able to spread like the Zhang family, and when I grow up, I still feel that my question is very naive."

As he said that, he felt embarrassed, and lowered his head to sort out the things he bought. Lu Ze only saw the tips of his red ears.