Chapter 4 Chapter Four

The mosquito net was still burnt! Later, Zhenguan used the red satin round cloth from her grandmother's small mirror to mend. The red satin as big as a thumb was twisted and placed by the old man in advance. Now that the adults have the evidence as evidence, they always thought that she was serious about her homework!In addition to being happy in my heart, I can't help but persuade her that her body is important. When she comes back in the future, she will never forget to bring sliced ​​Korean ginseng wrapped in old calendar paper for four or five dollars. After half a month like this, Zhenguan often forgets it, so she doesn't contain much of it; she uses a small glass jar for the ginseng slices, and until the jar is full, the sending of ginseng has not stopped.

Zhenguan thought: If the accumulation continues like this, one day I can really open a ginseng shop and sell medicine in a shop. Only then did he think of opening a ginseng business, and saw Yincheng's newlywed wife walking in, Zhenguan didn't need to look carefully, he knew it was another ginseng. However, the difference this time is that with her appearance, Zhenguan smelled a strange fragrance at the same time. "Sister-in-law, give ginseng to grandma! I still have so much here!" The bride smiled and said: "I dare not take it back, Auntie should take it, otherwise the old man will be worried, and he will have to go again; if he says there are still leftovers from the previous time, he will be even more angry!"

Zhenguan couldn't accept it, so he had to accept it; while asking: "The other bag is...?" "Guess, Guess!" Zhen Guan sniffed, but couldn't say anything for a while. "Is it the bride's perfume?" "Nonsense!" Zhenguan only felt that this fragrance had soaked the entire body of the hand boy, it should be a very familiar name, so it was said that he could blurt out it without having to think about it! Seeing that she was stumped, the bride wanted to reach out to untie the knot. Zhen Guan stopped Yi and said: "Don't look, I know this fragrance, I have smelled it since I was a child!"

She was thinking of several names in her mind at the same time: Agarwood, unlike, sandalwood, not all, musk, not all... Does she have Tibetan incense? The sister-in-law and the sister-in-law looked at each other and smiled, Zhen Guan finally had no choice but to say: "What the hell is it? I'm so anxious!" The bride had no choice but to reveal the mystery. Zhenguan saw that she unwrapped a folded small red package in order. Inside was a pile of dark fragrance-colored powder wrapped in water-red cellophane. Zhenguan couldn't recognize it, and sighed: "What is this?"

The bride said with a smile: "It's the end of locust root, mixed with various spices, including—" Before Yi could finish speaking, Zhenguan had already said: "It's for Bao Xinxiang! So the Dragon Boat Festival is here!" Probably even her grandmother couldn't tell clearly how long this custom has been passed down among the people, and Zhenguan even thought: it is very likely that the great-great-grandfather migrated from southern Fujian hundreds of years ago, it was like this. She has been sensible since she was six years old, and every year until the day before eating rice dumplings in May, she goes around to inquire about: the neighbors, the relatives and the same family, who has a newly married daughter-in-law, and when she finds out, she flies two The bride would come out with a lacquer box in her hand, smiling, and sew fragrances in the shapes of monkeys, tigers, eggplants, gourds, capons, etc., and divide them into equal parts.

When I was young, in order to compare who begged for more fragrance, Zhenguan often went to another family after begging, with colorful decorations on her body, buttons and buttons, until the fourth grade of elementary school, because boys would laugh at them , I didn’t dare to hang up, but I still went to the bride to ask for Xinxiang, and I only had to hide it in my schoolbag or pocket... Collected in five or six years, the pile of Duanyang sachets was lost and scattered, and I don’t know where to get them. Now Zhenguan only has a yellow tiger and a purple eggplant: The tiger is only as big as a longan, and it is made of yellow poplin cloth. The back and the four parts of the feet are marked with ink pens; especially the eyes are like lacquer spots, and it is still a smart tiger!

Such a smart tiger was almost stolen by Yincheng and the others; even boys would love it after seeing it, and only after seeing it can tell about the kind of activity it has all over its body. The eggplants are sewn with purple tribute satin; just talking about the thoughtfulness of choosing this fabric is enough to judge how dexterous the person who made it is.Because the skin of the eggplant is shiny, the ordinary purple cloth cannot be fully imaged, and it is not vivid enough. Looking at the green stalk on the top, it is simply freshly picked in the vegetable garden... The purple and yellow that she cherishes so much have always been kept in the mother's nanmu box. This fragrance has really been smelled since she was a child. After thinking about it, Zhenguan asked the bride again: "Sister-in-law, prepare yourself Do you want to make Xinxiang? How many do you need to sew?"

On the first Dragon Boat Festival after passing through the door, the bride has to make incense herself and distribute the etiquette to the children of the neighbors. At the time of her grandmother, it seems that she still adheres to it very seriously.Later, in the generation of her mother and aunt, she could barely hold on.However, in the past few years, I don’t know whether it’s the young bride’s female celebrity, poor craftsmanship, or she really has no free time, but she has changed it year by year; A few grandmothers who are good at needlework do it for them—so, when Zhenguan heard that his new cousin said that he was going to make two hundred fragrances by himself, he felt fresh and surprised.

In the past, every time she heard grandma, aunt, and even her own mother boast about how tidy and beautiful the newly stitched fragrance was when she was a bride for the first time, she would respond like this: "Why don't you give me one?" ?” The adults laughed at her: "Ah Zhen Guan, where were you then?" She said: "Even if I'm not here, wouldn't you choose a good-looking one to keep?" Although the adults laughed at what she said as a child, they also felt that it was reasonable afterwards, so they asked each other: "That's right! Why didn't I think of keeping one? It's good as a souvenir!"

Thinking that her cousin dared to do it by herself, she must have excellent skills... "Sister-in-law-" Zhen Guan couldn't help feeling hot in his heart: "I'll make an order with you now, I want several!" The bride smiled and said, "Are you embarrassed to ask for it? Xinxiang is going to be distributed to girls and boys!" Zhen Guanlai said: "I don't care! Where's the cloth? Where's the cloth? Sister-in-law, I'll accompany you to the cloth shop to cut!" The bride said: "It's all done long ago. I'm in the room. I'm just cutting the cloth now. How can I make it in time?"

Looking at the bride in front of her, Zhen Wang suddenly had the illusion that she had returned to her childish days?When she ran to someone's house, she looked up at the bride like this, and asked in the same way: "What kind of money do you have? Is there a monkey boy? Is there a capon?" "Yes! Yes!" But she heard her cousin answer again and again: "Rat, ox, tiger, rabbit...there are all twelve zodiac signs!" On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, when the sun is shining in the middle of the day, every household will fill the well with water tanks and washbasins one by one. This water is called: noon water. According to the legend: the water at noon is not bad for a long time, and it can cure diarrhea, stomachache and other diseases. In addition, add calamus and banyan leaves to the noon water, and then use it to wash the face and bathe the body. The skin will be fresh, clean, tender, and free of impurities... When Zhenguan got up early this morning, he heard the sound of someone cleaning the water tank; the scooping sound of the spoon and ladle on the bottom of the clay tank, trying to get rid of the last drop. It was said to be piercing, but she didn't feel that way. It is because this sound has long been connected with the past life and has grown together, so that today the flesh and blood are inseparable. Coupled with the fact that she has not lost her childlike joy for the New Year's festival and time, from Zhenguan's ears, the scratching sound is even touching. There was a constant smell of steamed zongzi from under the stove. Last night, her sister-in-law and sister-in-law didn't know what time to make the zongzi? Zhen Guan came all the way to search for food, the closer he got to the kitchen, the more he understood what it was like to be hungry. When she was near the water tank, she remembered the scraping just now: The water tank is naturally empty... Just as she was about to switch places, Yinyue smiled and said, "Leave the water for washing your face in the bucket over there!" Zhenguan found water, and while washing his face, he heard Yinyue say: "Yincheng is laughing at you, saying that you are such an adult, and you are still begging for fragrance from sister-in-law!" Zhenguan was splashing water in his face, because he said: "Oh! He doesn't want it? Then why did he always go ahead and get the tiger away first, so that I only got monkeys and pumpkins?" Just talking, I suddenly took a sip of water, which not only choked my nose, but also spilled it from my nose like a watering can. Yinyue came forward to pat her on the back, and when she was about to hand her the towel, she suddenly heard the bride approaching and said: "Fifth Uncle and Grandpa, please sit in the living room, Grandpa told everyone to come and see the ceremony!" Zhenguan wiped his face dry, thinking: who is this fifth uncle?Does the fifth uncle who is a doctor in Tainan still have a father? wrong! The fifth uncle and grandfather are brothers, and the great-grandfather passed away long ago. Photos and altars have been enshrined on the Buddha table in the front hall... What kind of relative is this fifth uncle and grandpa? However, she quickly figured it out—what fifth uncle and grandpa, what a long list of titles, isn't it just fifth uncle? !It's just because of women's humility and backsliding that they seldom address their husbands in the same generation; the bride of the family behaves according to the etiquette, but she is so ignorant and makes a fuss--the bride hears that she is like a mouse, and she only thinks of herself One year old, to share such a big family, is really respected from the bottom of my heart. When she got married, looking at her various behaviors, Zhenguan thought of such a poem: "A woman's way of a woman is like the scriptures of etiquette". If you are a daughter, maybe you should report it to your parents!Because people who look at the bride will praise her parents and tutors. ——Perhaps there were so many of them, and they appeared at the same time all of a sudden, and because they hadn't seen each other for a long time, Fifth Uncle didn't recognize them very much, but he had a slight impression of Zhenguan: "Oh! It was Shui Hong who was born after twelve months of pregnancy. The daughter?" The rest were almost "uh, huh" in the past, and then continued to talk about his reason for coming; some people from Zhenguan sat with him for half a day, and finally understood that the fifth uncle was here to discuss property. In the twenty-five soft-shelled turtle farms left by my grandparents Azu, the three brothers each got eighth. The fifth uncle married a Tainan woman who opened the business there. Anyway, people are in a foreign land, and this fish farm has always been looked after by the grandfather and the third uncle regardless of you and me. Now that the fifth uncle is getting older, things seem to be shorter; Zhenguan heard him say in the last sentence: "—I am The ancestral house and the house here have always been big houses and three-bedroom houses, but I bought it myself in Tainan, and the extra one should go to us, so it should be!" How can the next generation of children and grandchildren hear such discordant and unfraternal words?No wonder Grandma Zhenguan asked someone to invite the third uncle and his wife, and at the same time sent them away. ——Zhen Guan was so happy that he went back to the stove to eat rice dumplings. Yincheng used to laugh at her as a "rice dumpling"; from the fourth day of May, when the steamed rice dumplings were first picked up from the fire, until the smell of rice dumplings completely disappeared in this house, in seven or eight days, she was able to do three things. Meal only eat rice dumplings but not greasy. After eating the zongzi, Zhen Guan licked his tongue and teeth, stretched out his hands, and quietly read a few pages of his book. However, when she inadvertently glanced at the watch case, she felt another worry in her heart: because she thought of the water coming at noon. Zhenguan rushed straight to the ancient well in the backyard, and saw the bride, Yinshan's wife, and Yinyue sisters, who were dividing their labor and cooperating, or picking up, or mentioning——Zhenguan shouted: "What about me? What about me? Just Missing me? Yinchan wants to come, but he doesn't make a sound!" The two cousins ​​said with a smile: "It's important that you read the book, we'll be fine with our hands and feet!" But Yinchan said: "I'm afraid you won't mention it! You like to mention it, but it's hard to handle? Oh! Take this!" As he spoke, he handed the bucket to her——Zhen Guan took the lead bucket, and he was delighted, with an inexplicable excitement; it had been so long since he touched this! She approached the edge of the well, put down the rope slowly, and then looked out to see that the bucket had reached the end of the well, then made a gesture, tilted it slightly, and saw the lead bucket tilted, and water was being poured into it at the same time... When Zhenguan felt the weight of the water in the bucket in his palm, he slowly retracted the leash one by one foot and half a foot; when the lead bucket appeared on the surface of the well again, Zhenguan looked at the clear water, Almost shouted out: Ah!Noon water!Noon water! In this way, after pumping and lifting, lifting and pouring, after repeated several times, many water tanks and containers were full. When Zhenguan was helping the bride to wash the calamus again, he suddenly remembered something and said, "I'll come right away in the front hall!" She actually remembered: when she first saw Uncle Fifth, there seemed to be a small red sore on his right forehead; now she should ask Grandpa to keep him, and leave after washing the afternoon water, or go back to Tainan However, the fifth mother-in-law might not keep it for him—the hall was surprisingly quiet; Zhenguan cried out inwardly; the fifth uncle must be gone! Sure enough, she just came to the horizontal window, and only heard the third uncle's voice: "Hey! This Ayan is also very old, why can he still say such words like lifting a horizontal firewood into the stove, and he didn't think about it? Back then How many fish farms are sold at home, so he can go to Japan to study medical school!" Her grandfather didn't speak, but the third uncle said: "Actually, what's the matter with the flesh and blood? He needs the land, and he can give it to him, but for the sake of the land, he said such cold words, what brother does he have in his heart?" "Ugh--" With a long sigh, Zhenguan could tell it was her grandfather's tone: "In this world, if you want to find a real brother now, there are only three of us, and only we are the elders to let him have some——ah, we meet once again." Once you get old, how many times can you be a brother?"