Chapter 20 5. Mat roll

The old man lived a long life for four years, which gave him enough time to create a crop-like authority, and at the same time to create romantic stories that have been handed down to this day.During the slack season, the owner does not need day laborers, and only the grandfather and the blind man with one eye are left in the backyard.The handlebar type is also in charge of feeding the animals, and sleeps in the animal house at night, leaving the old man alone in the long-term house.The handlebar-style ears are not easy to use, which fulfills all kinds of styles of grandpa and grandma. Both the old man and the old man are disturbed by the wildness of human childhood because they were less educated by civilization. The dark and narrow long-term house seems to be unable to accommodate their romantic stories. Only returning to the embrace of nature can ignite the desire for love and love. A passion that burns desire.The old man came out of the window on the back wall of the Changgong House, and carried the old woman through the green shade of Amorpha fruticosa, and came to a pond, where there was a small wedge-shaped island protruding into the pond. There are green umbrellas, white and pink wild lilies are blooming on the thick and furry grass, and crystal dewdrops are hanging on the furry wild wheat ears, reflecting the stars in the sky.That is the place where the waterfowl mate among the flowers, but the handlebar type found the "fish essence" there.

According to the handlebar style, a big black catfish and a bright white striped fish often surfaced at night when the moon was half hidden by the clouds, splashing and rattling the water, shaking the lotus leaves in the pond, and then Tangled together, they jumped out of the water, and jumped on the grass like a carp.The white striped fish kept twisting its body and tail, and the black catfish kept jumping up and down.The wild duck got out of the reed in surprise, splashed a stream of water and flew into the sky.One black and one white "fish essence" stood upright from the grass again, and crawled frighteningly onto the willow.Seeing the handlebar style, I was terrified and felt hot all over, so I mustered up my courage at dawn and went to the edge of the island to insert a circle of jujube needles.

The old master had never heard the story of the fish spirit, but he was worried about his daughter's big feet.In the era when women were all wrapped in "three-inch golden lotus", the big feet of lotus seeds have become a universally recognized family scandal.The old master entrusted more than a dozen matchmakers with a lot of money, shuttled back and forth within a radius of 200 li, and conducted dragnet lobbying. When people heard that it was a big foot, they seemed to have seen a monster; Proved to be a monster.When Lianzi was twenty years old, a middle-aged salt merchant from Nanyang lost his wife.Women in seaside fishing villages do not bind their feet, and salt merchants do not dislike women with big feet.He heard that there was a beautiful woman with big feet by the Baihe River who was waiting in his boudoir, so he came to visit him specially.When he came, the old master asked Lianzi to run back and forth in the yard with a string abductor, and caught the right one with his sister-in-law to abduct the string.When the salt merchant saw that the lotus seed had a face like peach blossoms and a slim figure, he was fascinated. He was shocked to come down to earth for the daughter of the big foot fairy, and immediately offered the dowry.My grandma doesn't worry if she doesn't have a husband's family, but if she has a husband's family, there will be earth-shattering news in a hurry.

It was not dawn that day, and the old master counted with his fingers that the sedan chair to welcome the bride had already left Nanyang, only to suddenly find that the girl Lianzi who lived upstairs in the back was missing.He hurriedly rode to the road to stop the sedan chair and said that his daughter was seriously ill, so he could only change it to "good". Shang returned the betrothal gift and sent a message saying that Miss Lianzi had a bad life and asked the Queen Mother in the sky to pick her up.The salt merchant was a sentimental master, so he asked the guards to carry back the dowry, saying that Miss Lianzi was also from his family after she died, and he wanted to send the coffin back to her hometown for burial.The old master was so anxious that he built a fake grave overnight at the "Old Lady's Grave".The salt merchant burned an incense watch on the fake grave, said, "Your beauty is unlucky!", and left with tears.

After the farce of the fake funeral was staged, the old head fell ill. The old boss couldn't figure out how the lotus seeds flew out from the back upstairs.He called Lianzi's elder brother and sister-in-law to interrogate her.My brother and sister-in-law said, the two of us live on the lower floor of the back building, and we are guarding the gate!The door bolt is inserted every night, and the door stick is still supported; the side door from the front yard to the back yard is also locked, and the key is tied to your waistband.Not to mention such a big person, even a gnat would never want to fly out!Dad, let's admit it, it's God's will!

The old boss secretly called the handlebar style again.The old master asked: "Tell me the truth, I will never blame you. Have you ever seen lotus seeds go to your long-term house?" See." The old master asked again: "Didn't you hear any movement?" The handlebar said: "When I go back to the master, my ears are not good, so I didn't hear anything." The old master was anxious, "Don't pretend Deaf and dumb, I don't believe you can't see anything wrong!" The handlebar said tremblingly: "When I go back to my master, there was fish spirits in the pond. Since I inserted the jujube needle, nothing happened. It’s gone.” The old master said: “Don’t talk about fish spirits and fish monsters, just say that there is something wrong with Chang Gong’s house?” The handlebar type said: “If there is something wrong, only my mat is not clean The owner said: "What's wrong with the mat?" The handlebar said: "One night, it was hot and humid. I went from the cattle house to the long-work house to get the mat. The mat would automatically roll on the bed, and when it rolled, it rolled into a mat tube. The mat tube Rolled out of the bed, stood upright again, moved to the corner of the wall and trembled. I think this is a summer mat made by people in the mountains. There are many ghosts in the mountains, so I didn’t dare to move the mat tube.” The old head rolled his eyes, “Look Didn’t you see the little one?” The handlebar said, “There’s no one on the bed, it’s just that there’s an extra peg on the wall behind the door.” The old master asked, “What? A peg?” The handlebar said, gesturing, “ Yes, prongs, prongs that can hang things." The old master asked: "What's wrong with the prongs?" The handlebar said: "I turned around and went out of the house, and the prongs touched me. When I touched it, I said, hey, what's the weather like?" Is it so hot?..." The handlebar type swallowed a mouthful of spit, and closed his mouth again.The old head asked anxiously: "Tell me, how hot can the prongs be?" He stammered and said, "Back...back to the master, the prongs...the prongs are hot...they are sweating When I touched it with my hand, it was sticky... sticky... sticky." The old master was stunned for a moment, blood rushed to his face, he gritted his teeth and said, "Why don't you pull it out, poke it out, chop it up with a knife Already?" The handlebar said, "When I go back to my master, I took off my straw hat and hung it on a peg. This thing can only be covered, right?" The old master slapped himself in the face She slapped her hand, closed her eyes and said, "You go, but I still can't figure out how she flew out from the back stairs!" "Boss, the old paulownia tree in the backyard has grown crazy, and its branches are sweeping against the tiles on the back building. There is a bowl-sized branch next to the window of the back building, should I saw it off?" He straightened his body and listened, but without catching his breath, he fell down on the bed with his eyes wide open, and never woke up again.

After the uncle of unknown origin told the story, he stretched out his hand to me and said, "Nephew, how much will you give me for drinking just because of this 'mat roll'?" I gave him two good cigarettes and two bottles of old wine, Plus twice the travel expenses.He counted the points and said: "There is another 'nasty joke'!" I no longer have the courage to listen to the privacy of my grandfather and grandmother from the last century.He said again, "Okay, I'll keep it for you!" I don't know what kind of "nasty jokes" he left behind.But I know that not long after the grandfather returned to Zhang'an, he led the grandmother to place an offering on the ancestral grave, kowtowed three times, and said, "Father, mother, I will bring back a daughter-in-law for our old Zhang's family." Facing the west again, she knelt down, burned a yellow watch, kowtowed her head three times, and said, "My lord father-in-law, Lianzi and I will worship heaven and earth!" The old woman saw that the burning yellow watch turned into a few red butterflies flying around. When he got up, he cried and said, "Huang Biao got up, and my father recognized you too!"

After the grandfather forced the ancestors in the grave to recognize the legitimacy of him and the grandmother, he found the "dragon vein" on the "turtle cover land" left to him by the ancestors, and built a well. "land" became watered land.And led my grandmother to open an acre of wasteland on the beach of Baihe River. Then, the old man made a sensational news in the whole village. At that time, due to the shift of silkworm cocoon market to the south, Zhang An's mulberry gardens were deserted year after year, and many people destroyed the mulberry gardens to grow grain instead.A family uncle who has produced the "five clothes" wants to sell the one-acre "zusang" left by the great grandfather.A rich man surnamed Wei from a neighboring village had long been eyeing this small mulberry garden, saying that it was like a wedge inserted into the Wei family's land boundary, cutting off the Wei family's land, and that he had to buy the mulberry garden if he wanted to make a fortune.The documents for buying and selling mulberry gardens are all written, and the fingers are dipped in inkpad, and they are about to be pressed.All the mulberry trees in the garden were crying, and their bodies were covered with sticky red tears.The old man hurried over and said, "Wait a minute, this mulberry garden is the inheritance left by the Zhang family's ancestors. You can't call it Wei, but you have to call it Zhang!" Live, I will give you this mulberry garden!" The grandfather put a money bag over the wall and said, "I bought this mulberry garden!" He bought an acre with the wages he had saved for many years. "Zusang".The rich man of the Wei family said: "Okay, you can guard the mulberry garden and eat mulberry leaves!" But the grandfather learned the unique skill of pinching mulberry branches. The price of pinching mulberry branches in one mu of mulberry garden is equal to the price of planting ten mu of grain. Prosper every year.The rich man of the Wei family was so jealous that he couldn't close his eyes when he was about to die. He left a message to his son: "I'll give you 30 years to bring over the mulberry garden of his old Zhang family!"

With the mulberry garden, the love legend between the grandfather and the grandmother has a new scenery.It is said that on summer nights, the breeze penetrated into the mulberry garden, combed the green branches and leaves of the mulberry trees, and propped up romantic green umbrellas.Everyone in a village can hear the night birds singing in the mulberry garden all night, and the leaves of the mulberry trees are shaking until dawn. Under the green umbrella, the grandmother also had a nightmare, dreaming that a pile of loess was weighing heavily on her heart, making her breathless.The old man went out of the village with a shovel at night, and came back at dawn and said, "How is it? Is your heart refreshed?" The mound above was gone, but someone leveled the mound and planted two small pine trees, attracting pairs of turtledoves and magpies. The "Old Lady's Grave" has since lost its peace.At night, the female ghosts without a husband's family, with their hair bare and their arms bare, lighted green ghost lamps, and wandered silently around the small pine trees, waiting for their own men to come and claim them.The old woman's face changed in shock, she put her hand on her heart and said, "Don't wait any longer, you're all going to your husband's house!"

One of the biggest flaws in the days of grandpa and grandma is that only my grandpa grew out of their love seed.This is due to the fact that Zhang An's daughters who are binding their feet and daughters-in-law who have already bound their feet like to make fun of my big-footed grandmother, begging for mulberries around her, and they must be freshly picked mulberries growing on high branches by her.The old grandma said: "I thought I was telling me to pick the stars!" She took off her shoes, climbed up the tree barefoot, and threw the mulberries under the tree, one on the left and one on the right. Grabbing mulberries, playing crazy enough, the old grandma grabbed the branch and made a flicker, jumping down from the tree with a "boom".It was because of the "boom" jump that night, the human-like fetus was aborted.The tribe said that the "boom" was so severe that the old grandma suffered from inability to conceive and had multiple miscarriages before she became pregnant with my grandpa.Uneasy, the old man bowed his hands to the mulberry tree and said: "Brother Sang, if my woman stepped on you and annoyed you, I will apologize to you right now, and let us reconcile! The fetus in her stomach The baby recognizes you, you are his boss, please don't worry!" Sang Shu nodded to him.The old man was busy watering the mulberry trees.The grandmother also picked mulberry leaves to make tea, and mulberries for food.My father said that this coincided with the temperament of the mulberry tree that Li Shizhen wrote down, and kept my grandfather, the only seedling.By the time my grandfather was five years old, he had become a "Sangzhi Zhang" known to everyone within a radius of a hundred miles. The family not only ate steamed buns and flat food, but also sold them at the "Xiaoman" meeting. When Sangzhi came back, he had to eat green onion pancakes, fried steamed stuffed buns, and spicy soup that were one level higher than baked buns and flat food.

When I returned to Zhang'an with my father, the story of the grandfather and grandmother had already had a tragic ending.My father said that in the world belonging to Zhang An, a man with superhuman strength and spirituality who tried his best to control his own destiny and an equally strong woman were just two strong grasses in nature. The wisdom from the land gave them brilliant and rough pleasures, but in the end they failed to escape the disasters of nature. When the grandfather was fifty years old, there was a plague of locusts, and there was no harvest; lice also appeared on the mulberry tree, which sucked up the sap of the mulberry tree.Those who can eat the most are the most vulnerable to hunger.The old man drank the "Moon Shadow Soup" for a whole winter, and he stood upright on the bed and watched the old woman cry.The old grandma said: "Father, you can't cry! I haven't seen you cry before. When you cry, I feel confused." The old grandpa said, "I'm crying for you. I'm about to leave and I can't accompany you. It’s gone.” The grandma said, “It’s a big deal, let’s go together! Our baby is eighteen, so we don’t have to worry about him anymore.” The old grandpa said, “There’s only a handful of sweet potato leaves left in the house. I can't survive the grass sprouts!" Just as he was speaking, the northwest wind rushed in through the door, rustling the broken grass on the ground and swirling in front of the bed.The old man suddenly lost his temper, poked his neck and said to the wind: "What are you in a hurry for? The world still owes me ten sandwiches!" Then he said to my grandmother: "Go and close the door, don't let the wind come in, I will I still want to fight with God!" The old woman hastily closed the door and put her back behind the door.The old man looked sadly at the roof and said, "Mother, pawn the irrigated land and the river beach, just to keep an acre of grandparents." The old lady went to Xinpu with a stick, and came back with ten meat-stuffed biscuits and a bag of grain grits in a handkerchief.The clerk in the grain workshop followed her with a little donkey, and brought back a bag of grain.The old man said: "Hurry up and boil a pot of corn grits, to make a bed for yourself, and to wake up the baby after eating it. I have something to say to him." He ate ten meat-stuffed biscuits in one go, fearing that his intestines would burst. Without taking a sip of water, I regained my energy immediately, stood up again and said, "His mother, it's not that we can't live, it's that God doesn't tell us to live. I still have to leave the strength of these ten sandwiches to the world, and let God see." Look." Then he tightened the belt around his waist and left the village with the shovel on his shoulders. When he came back, he said: "Okay, I've dug our graves. But I still have a pack of meat sandwiches left. I haven't run out of strength, and I have to grind a bucket of corn for our baby before leaving." He said After grinding a bucket of corn grits, I ran out of strength, so I lay down on the bed, called my grandfather and said, "Son, my parents left you a bag of grain and an acre of mulberry fields, so you can go on." Right. Since you came to this world as a human being, you can't get down." From then on, the old man stopped eating and lay motionless with his eyes closed, but tears crawled out of the corners of his eyes.The old grandma said, "Father, what are you thinking about?" The old grandpa said, "I miss that wheat stalk, and I want you to prop up my eyelids again." Then I'll catch up with you with wheat stingers." That night, the grandfather jumped three times on his heart, and he never jumped again.The old grandma finished mending the patches on my grandfather's padded jacket, boiled a pot of corn grits, exhausted her energy, and said, "Father, wait for me!" climb up. The old man and the old woman left only one grave, because the old man only dug one grave.