Chapter 62 Section 62

That night, the old lady was woken up by the sound of jingling in the middle of the night.She was dreaming that a toad was jumping towards her with a copper coin in its mouth, and suddenly the copper coin fell from its mouth and fell to the ground, making a crisp and pleasant jingling sound.When she woke up, the sound of jingling was still lingering in her ears, as if it came from a dream. The old lady was sweating a little. She sat up and wanted to sleep quietly. The clanging sound has not died away. She rubbed her ears lightly, but the voice was still there. But this time I heard it clearly, the voice came from the main room.

Could it be that a toad really jumped into the house with money in its mouth?she thought. The moonlight outside the window was very bright, if not for the rooster crowing, it would have seemed dawn.The old lady put on her shoes, put on her coat, and walked into the main room.There are several glass tiles on the roof of the main room, and the moonlight penetrates through the glass tiles and falls on the center of the main room.The old lady raised her head and looked at the glass tiles, thinking for a moment that she was in an ancient dry well. The sound of jingling came from the "wellhead", as if calling her to go there.

The old lady took out the ladder from the corner, put it on a slightly lower beam that could be leaned on, and then climbed up step by step.The higher you go, the more clearly you can hear the voice. What is the sound?The old lady thought as she climbed.It really seems to be the sound of copper coins. Before the delivery man's wife died, copper coins were everywhere.Hang it in the key chain for decoration, clamp it on the keyhole of the door cabinet as a spacer, give it to children as a toy, and stuff it in the mouth of the dead as a funeral... But now it is difficult to find the shadow of copper coins.

The ladder tilted to the side several times, and the old lady moved the ladder back to its original position with both hands.When the bearer was alive, he often hung the burden on the beam of the house. If there was any movement at night, she would step on the ladder to climb up the beam to have a look without waking him up.The bearer has been running for a day, he is too tired and needs to rest. Over time, she has developed a good ability to climb ladders, and she can use her own strength to put the ladder back in place when no one is holding it. Finally, she climbed to the top. The clanging sound was nearby.

After searching for a while, she finally found the source of the sound. It turned out to be the sound from the largest main beam.A copper coin is nailed to the beam.Maybe the tiles are not tight, and the air is leaking.The wind blows in through the cracks in the tiles, and it just hits the copper coins, making the copper coins tremble and bump against the nails, making a sound that only belongs to metal. In this area, building a house not only requires choosing an auspicious day for breaking the ground, but also choosing a good day for building the beam.A piece of red cloth should be hung on the main girder, with brush characters such as "Fuxing Gaozhao" or "Great Auspiciousness" written on it.In addition, copper coins should be hung on the main beam.Since copper coins were scarce later, people had to use coins instead.On the day when the beams were erected, the masons wanted to get red envelopes, and the neighbors stood under the new house, waiting for the owner of the house to throw happy candies and small red envelopes from the roof.When the master waits for the mason to say "Auspicious day and auspicious time", he throws candies and small red envelopes down one by one.The small red envelopes are filled with small change in very small denominations.The adults just wanted to have fun, while the children scrambled and even fought.

The old lady shook her head and said to herself, "Oh, so it was this thing that made the noise." She went down the stairs and went back to sleep, but she couldn't sleep well, her mind was full of the scenes of building the house and putting up the beams.The bearer spread candy and red envelopes on the roof, and the villagers grabbed them below. The old lady sighed and said, "Why haven't I heard it ringing before? Could it really attract money?"