Chapter 12 Sorghum wine.1

How did the red sorghum in Northeast Gaomi Township turn into a sorghum wine with a rich aroma, a sweet aftertaste like honey after drinking, and no damage to brain cells after drinking?Mother once told me.My mother repeatedly reminded me: the family secrets must not be leaked easily, the first is to damage my family’s reputation, and the second is to prevent future generations from reopening the shochu company and lose the advantage of exclusive management.The craftsmen in our area, as long as they have some unique skills, have always preferred to pass on to their daughter-in-law rather than to their daughter-in-law. This rule is as strict as the laws of some countries.

My mother said that the shochu pot in our family had a considerable scale when the father and son of the Shan family operated it. Although the sorghum wine at that time was not bad in taste, it was definitely not as mellow and sweet as the later ones. .What really makes our sorghum wine have a unique flavor, and it is the one who is the best among dozens of breweries in Gaomi County. It was my grandfather who killed the father and son of the Shan family. What happened after the genius burst out and stood up the facade.Just as many important discoveries are due to accident and mischief, the reason why my family's sorghum wine is unique is because my grandfather urinated in the wine basket.Why can a soak of urine turn a crate of ordinary sorghum wine into a crate of high-grade sorghum wine with a distinctive style?This is science, I dare not talk nonsense, leave it to the brewing scientists to study. ——Later, my grandma and Uncle Luohan made further experiments, explored repeatedly, summed up experience, and created a simpler, more precise and accurate blending process of using the urine alkali attached to the old urine tank to replace the urine.This is an absolute secret, and only my grandma, my grandpa and Uncle Luohan knew about it at the time.It is said that the blending time is in the middle of the night, and the feet are quiet. Grandma lights incense candles in the yard, burns Sanmo paper money, and then holds a waist-tucked medicine gourd, and mixes medicine into the wine tank.When grandma talked about blending, she deliberately showed her obedience and made infinitely mysterious appearances, making peepers hairy and thinking that my family was insane, and it was a business with God's help.So our family's sorghum wine overwhelmed everyone and almost monopolized the market.

Grandma returned to her mother's house for three days suddenly, seeing that it was time to return to her in-law's house again.For three days, she didn't think about eating and drinking, and she was in a trance. My great-grandmother cooked good food and talked sweet words, but my grandma ignored her like a wooden person.During those three days, grandma ate very little, but her complexion was very good.Her snow-white forehead, rosy cheeks, and dark circles surrounding her eyes are like the bright moon in a halo.The great-grandmother was nagging: "Little ancestor, you don't eat or drink. Did you become a fairy or a Buddha? You made my mother feel uncomfortable!" The great-grandmother looked at my grandma who was like a meditation Guanyin, and the two A small, white teardrop jumped out of the eye socket.Grandma leaked two confused lights from the slits of her eyes, looking at her mother, as if looking at the dark old fish crouching in the river from a high embankment.Great-grandfather just woke up from his drunkenness the second day after grandma came home, and the first thing he didn't forget was Shan Tingxiu's promise to give him a big black mule with fresh eyes.He seemed to be able to hear the rhythmic click of the mule's hooves hitting the ground when the mule was galloping.That mule was black, with two eyes like lamps and four hooves like cups.The great-grandmother said anxiously: "Old man, what do you think my daughter won't eat?" The great-grandfather squinted his drunken eyes and said, "It burns her! It burns her badly. What kind of score does she play?"

Great-grandfather stood in front of my grandma and said angrily, "Girl, what are you going to do? Marriage is a string of thousands of miles. No kindness, no husband and wife, no hatred, no husband and wife. Marry a chicken as a chicken, marry a dog as a dog. Your father and I You are not a high-ranking official, nor are you a golden branch and jade leaf. It is your fortune to find such a rich man, and it is also the fortune of your father and me. Your father-in-law will give me a big black mule as soon as he opens his mouth. What a grandeur..." Grandma sat still and closed her eyes.Her wet eyelashes seemed to have been brushed with a layer of honey. The roots were thick and full, crossed and touched into a line, and cut out between the eyelids like a dovetail.The great-grandfather stared at grandma's eyelashes, and said angrily: "You don't have to pretend to be deaf and dumb with your eyes and wings. Unless you die, you will be the ghost of the Shan family. There is no place for you in the tomb of the Dai family." !"

Grandma sneered. Great-grandfather raised his hand and slapped grandma across the face. The rosiness on grandma's cheeks faded away with a bang, and her face was all blue and white, and then the cyan and white gradually became more colorful, and her face was like a rising red sun.Grandma's bright eyes flickered, she gritted her teeth, gave a sneer, gave her father a vicious look, and said: "I'm afraid, if, then you don't even want to see a mule hair!" Grandma lowered her head, picked up her chopsticks, and picked off several bowls of food that were still steaming like wind and clouds. Then, she threw a bowl into the air, and the bowl spun sideways in the air, shining with a cloudy porcelain light.The bowl flew over the beam of the house, was stained with two old ashes, fell slowly, rolled on the ground, turned half a circle, and buckled on the ground, with the bottom of the bowl facing the sky.Grandma threw another bowl, and this one hit the wall and broke in two as it fell.The great-grandfather was so startled that his mouth needed to move, and he remained silent for a while.The great-grandmother said: "My child, it's food!"

After my grandma threw the bowl, she burst into tears. The cry was melodious, full of emotions, and full of water. The house couldn’t contain it, overflowed to the outside of the house, and flew into the fields. It was the sound of fertilized sorghum at the end of summer. Harmony together.In the long and bright crying, grandma was full of thoughts. She recalled over and over again the experience of the three days from leaving home in a sedan chair to returning home on a donkey.Every scene, every sound, and every smell in the three days reappeared in her mind... Horn and Suona... Qu'er has a small tune... Tick Tick Tick... Moo Moo Haha... Is it? Li wah... babble... babble... babble...the green sorghum was blown into red sorghum, the rain curtain hung in the clear sky, two thunderbolts flashed one by one, the rain was like hemp in disorder, and the noise was like numbness , Crowded, crowded and rainy feet slanted, and then straight up and down... Grandma remembered the heroic behavior of the young bearer when he was robbed by passers-by on Toad Hollow Road. He was the leader of the bearers, like the leader of the pack of dogs .He must have been twenty-four years old, and there was not a single wrinkle on his sturdy face.Grandma remembered how his face was so close to her at that time, how those two hard lips like clam shells pinched her own lips.At that moment, the blood in grandma's heart suddenly stopped, and then burst out like a bank, causing every tiny blood vessel to tremble slightly.Grandma's toes were cramping and her abs were twitching wildly.It was the vigorous sorghum that cheered their revolutionary actions back then.The almost imperceptible pollen scattered by the sorghum permeated the space above the heads of grandma and the bearers... Grandma tried thousands of times to keep that youthful and exciting moment, but she couldn't keep it, it was always fleeting, But the face of the man who looked like a rotten radish in the cellar reappeared repeatedly, his ten fingers hooked together, like the claws of a bird.And the old man with the pigtails, and the bunch of yellow brass keys hanging from his belt.Grandma sat quietly, although she was dozens of miles away, the strong smell of sorghum wine and sour lees seemed to be wafting around her mouth.She remembered that the two men who acted as women were like two drunken chickens fished out of wine, with wine oozing out of every pore... He cut off so many sorghum with that small sword with a round blade, From the horseshoe-shaped stubble of the broken sorghum stalks, sticky dark green juice oozes out, like the blood of sorghum.Grandma remembered that he said, after three days, you just come back!Grandma remembered that when he said this, the long dark narrow eyes shot out like sword blades.Grandma already had a premonition that what awaited her would be an extraordinary catastrophe.

In a sense, heroes are born, and heroic temperament is a potential undercurrent, which is transformed into heroic behavior when encountering external incentives.My grandma was only 16 years old at the time, and she had embroidered flowers and grasses since she was a child, she had studied red needles, needles for embroidery, scissors for hinges, long cloth for wrapping feet, sweet-scented osmanthus oil for combing hair, and other girly things to accompany her. New Year's day.She only came into contact with the east neighbor sister and the west neighbor sister. How did she develop the ability and courage to deal with major changes later?How did she cultivate her heroic character that she can grit her teeth and hold on even though she is afraid in the face of danger?These are things that are hard to explain.

Grandma didn't feel much heart-pounding pain during the long crying, but felt a kind of pleasure to vent her depression. While crying, she relived the happiness and joy, pain and sorrow of the past, and the sound of crying was wonderful. The image doesn't come from her mouth, but the music from afar that accompanies the beautiful and ugly images overlapping in her mind.In the end, grandma thought, life is nothing but grass and trees, so if you risk your life, what are you afraid of? "It's time to go, Jiu'er." The great-grandmother said, calling grandma by her baby name.

go go go go go! Grandma asked for a basin of water to wash her face, applied white powder, and red rouge.Facing the mirror, she untied the hairnet at the back of her head, and the heavy mass of hair spread out, covering her grandma's back.Grandma stood on the kang, her satin-like hair cascading down to the crook of her legs.She held a pearwood comb in her right hand, and with her left hand, she wrapped her hair around her shoulders and held it in front of her chest, combing it strand by strand.Grandma's hair is surprisingly lush, black and shiny, and is slightly yellowish at the ends.Grandma tied her combed hair tightly at the root, tied it into several big flowers, stuffed it into a hair net woven with black silk threads, and fastened it with four silver hairpins.The bangs on the forehead are trimmed with scissors, and the upper edge of the eyebrows are cut tightly.Grandma bound her feet again, put on tall white cotton socks, tightened her trousers, and put on embroidered shoes, which highlighted those little feet.

It was these little feet that grandma first attracted Shan Tingxiu's eyes, and it was these little feet that first aroused lust in Yu Zhan'ao, the bearer.Grandma is proud of her feet.As long as you have a pair of small feet, you don't have to worry about marrying even if your face is full of pockmarks; as long as you have a pair of big feet, no one wants you even if you look like a fairy.Grandma, with her small feet and handsome face, was a model of beauty at that time. ——I think that during a very long period of history, women’s feet were alienated into a quasi-sexual organ, and the petite and exquisite pointed feet gave men at that time an aesthetic pleasure that contained many erotic elements—grandma tidied up, Giggled out of the house.The great-grandfather pulled out the donkey, and put a quilt on the donkey's back.In the watery eyes of the little donkey, grandma's beautiful figure was reflected.Grandma saw the little donkey staring at her, and in the donkey's clear eyes, there was the brilliance of intelligence and comprehension of human beings.Grandma cheated on the donkey.Instead of sitting sideways, as women ride mules, horses and donkeys, she sits with the donkey's spine between her legs.The great-grandmother asked grandma to sit sideways, but grandma tapped the donkey's belly with her heel, and the little donkey lifted its hoof and walked away.Grandma held her head high, her eyes straight ahead.

Once grandma left, she never looked back. At first, my great-grandfather held the reins of the donkey, but as soon as she left the village, grandma took the donkey reins and held them herself.Great-grandfather followed the donkey, kicking and stamping. There was another thunderstorm in three days. Grandma saw a piece of sorghum on the right side of the road the size of a milling pan. The leaves were withered, showing a conspicuous withered white in the dark green.Grandma knew that there was a deep thunderstorm there, and grandma remembered that last year there was a deep thunderbolt who killed her accomplice Qian'er, a seventeen-year-old girl with burnt hair and torn clothes. There are vertical and horizontal patterns on the back. Some people say that those patterns are tadpole script in the sky.It was rumored that Qian'er killed herself for money and ruined a child born to a big girl.It has a nose and an eye.Said that Qian'er was going to the market and heard a child crying at the intersection. When she went over, she saw it was a baby in swaddling clothes. She opened it up and saw a red boy in the baby's clothes. Eighteenth, the moon was at noon and went to Zhengxi, and gave birth to a child named Luxi.Father has married the second sister Zhang, big foot of the West Village, and mother is going to marry Scar Eye of the East Village.Reluctantly throwing away his own flesh and blood, father blew his nose and chi chi chi, mother wiped away tears, and shut his mouth and dared not cry for fear of being known by passers-by.Lucky Lucky Lucky Luxi, whoever picks up whoever.Wrap one zhang and one in silk, and send it to the ocean for twenty, and ask kind passers-by to save their lives.People said that Qian'er took Lingluo and Dayang, but threw the boy into the sorghum field, and was struck by thunder.Grandma and Qian'er are close friends, so of course they don't believe in these legends, but when they think about the uncertainty of life and death in this world, they feel sad and melancholy. After the thunderstorm, the road surface was still very wet. The road surface that had been beaten by the intense rain was rough and clean, and a layer of soft sludge was condensed in the depressions.The little donkey once again printed clear hoof prints on the road, and the scattered cornflowers were a little old, and the soil splashed by raindrops hung on the flowers and leaves.Katydids lie down on grass stalks and sorghum leaves, trembling their silky long beards, cutting their transparent forewings, and making a mournful cry.The long summer is coming to an end, and the atmosphere has already revealed the serious taste of autumn. Groups of grasshoppers, feeling the autumn atmosphere, dragged their belly full of seeds from the sorghum field, and began to gather on the hard road. Ass digging into hard pavement to spawn. Great-grandfather broke a piece of sorghum stalk and slapped it on the rump of the tired donkey. The donkey clamped its tail, walked quickly for a few steps, and then resumed its leisurely pace. The donkey queen hummed the "Hai Maozi tune" popular in Northeast Gaomi Township, and my great-grandfather made up and sang nonsense: Wu Dalang felt sad after drinking poison... seven intestines and eight leaves of lungs trembled up and down... an ugly man marries a handsome wife, and the family is in trouble... ...Ah-ah-ah-my stomach hurts and I'm in Wuhan University-I just look forward to the second brother's business...I came home to avenge my brother and kill him... Listening to great-grandfather's random singing, grandma's heart skipped a beat, and a shiver came from her heart.Three days ago, the image of the young man with a dagger in his hand and raised eyebrows suddenly appeared.Who is he?What is he going to do?Grandma thinks that she and this powerful man have never met before, but they have been chatting with each other, and an encounter has come and gone in a hurry, like a dream but not a dream, half awake and not awake, in a daze, like seeing a ghost.Let it be fate, grandma thought, and couldn't help but let out a long sigh. Grandma believed in letting the donkey rein, listening to Wu Dalang's aria sung upside down by her father, the wind blows, the fire blows, and she arrives at Toad Hollow.The little donkey lowered its head and raised its head, its nostrils were tightly closed, and its four hooves hopped on the spot, refusing to move forward.Great-grandfather beat its rear with sorghum stalks and its hind legs. "Come on, bastard! Come on, you donkey bastard!" The sorghum stalks beat the buttocks, and the donkey not only did not move forward, but retreated. At this moment, grandma smelled the terrifying stench .Grandma jumped off the donkey, covered her nose with her sleeve, and pulled the donkey's rein forward.The donkey raised its head, grinning, with tears in its eyes.Grandma said: "Donkey, grit your teeth and go there. There is no mountain that cannot be climbed, and there is no river that cannot be crossed." The donkey was moved by my grandma's words. Grandma's feet didn't touch the ground, and her skirts were rolled up, like red clouds fluttering.When passing the dead body of a passer-by, grandma glanced sideways, it was filthy and glaring, a million fat maggots had eaten the man to nothing but scum. Grandma escaped Toad Hollow with the donkey and got on the donkey again.Gradually, I smelled the sorghum wine smell brought by the northeast wind.Grandma tried to embolden herself thousands of times, but she was still terrified as the ending approached.The sun was rising and burning very vigorously, white smoke rose from the ground, and grandma's back felt cool.The village where Shan's family lives is far away, and in the increasingly thick aroma of sorghum wine, grandma feels as if the bone marrow in her spine is frozen.In the sorghum field on the west side of the road, a man sang with a pitted voice: Sister, you go forward boldly iron jaw cast steel bones Build up the embroidery building from now on sprinkled hydrangea hitting me on the head Drink a pot of red sorghum wine with you "Hey, opera singer! Come out, you are not lush, Lu Bulu, what a crooked tune!" Great-grandfather shouted at the sorghum.