Chapter 6 Chapter 4 Details of Midsummer

For a while, Jiang Caicai liked to take out her mother's mirror, hide in the kitchen, and take pictures of herself again and again.Finally, once, when her mother saw her, Jiang Caicai was in a hurry, like a thief who stole a chicken and was caught on the spot.She tried to hide the mirror, but broke it—she was lost, absent-minded, stuttering.Mother swept away the shards of glass on the floor, very angry: "Ugly people do mischief! No matter what photo you take, people look ugly, but no matter how you take photos, they will not become beautiful!" Cai Cai ran outside with her head down, her heart flustered like a puddle of snow.She looked at her own reflection in the running water and saw the blue cloth clothes washed white on her body, ah, how wonderful it would be if she could get a light green dress!But she is so ugly, with dark skin, a flat nose, and a big mouth, and she is not pretty enough from left to right—ah, if only she could be as good-looking as Jiang Sien's bride!

She sat sullenly by the water's edge, thinking that it was unthinkable that she was not beautiful.She looked up at the sky, the blue sky was beautiful, and she envied the blue sky; she looked down at the water, the river was beautiful, and she envied the running water... She looked at it, and suddenly felt that although she was not beautiful, she could see so many beautiful things , is also very good.So she gradually became happier and ran away in a hurry. At that time, in order to save money, Caicai and her brother's hair were cut by their mothers. The two brothers and sisters have exactly the same hairstyle. Although the canine teeth are different, they are easy to wash and dry.Cai Cai ran wildly in the sun every day, tanned even darker than a boy, and wearing her brother's clothes that didn't fit, she couldn't tell that she was a girl at all.She followed the boys in Jiangcun every day, and learned almost all the boys' skills: jumping from under the tree into the water and swimming, and swam to the other side of the Dongjiang River in one breath; Carambola, guava...; use bamboo sticks as slingshots to shoot down birds from trees with small stones; burn straw to smoke voles; use green bamboo sticks to beat water snakes; use long bamboo sticks to stick gray rice dumplings to catch cicadas; empty hands to catch dragonflies Feed the ants; gather together to shoot mud bombs; play "net fish" in the grain drying field; play hide-and-seek at the end of the village after dinner; bet on glass beads during the Chinese New Year, play cards to win dolls...

In the beginning, it was always "net fish", scissors hammer paper, whoever loses will be the fishnet, catch people with bare hands, hold hands with whoever catches, and form a fishnet.Along the way, the fish became fewer and fewer, and the nets became longer and longer. At the end of the run, everyone was sweating profusely. The boy took off his vest, crumpled up, ran to his window and threw it into the house.After a while, for some unknown reason, several children started fighting.With punches and kicks, the weak child was injured, his nose was bleeding, and he sat down and cried bitterly.Winning stood aside with arms crossed, giggling, everyone gathered around to have a look, and Jiang Caicai also gathered around to look, watching her start to cry inexplicably, the more she cried, the more sad she became, as if she was the one who was beaten Like yourself.They all laughed and threw mud and grass on her until she looked like a little madman.But she was only chasing happiness, and didn't know how to hold grudges. After a while, the man stopped crying, and she was fine, and soon started yelling again, and everyone continued to play.

In the end, they always sat down and played with mud, which can be played in several ways, the mud bomb game being the most fascinating.The children sat around in the sun-drying field, with a ball of wet mud in their hands, and each of them shaped it into a rice bowl. After making it-"one, two, three", they heard "slaps" repeatedly, and the clay bowls hit the ground. , to burst small holes of different sizes, the one that has not made a hole, or the one that has just made a hole, but the hole is the smallest. You need to get mud from your own mud ball to fill up all the other holes.Caicai likes this the most, she plays the best, her mud balls are getting bigger and bigger, and finally swallowed all the other mud balls, and she is high-spirited all day long, like a rooster who has won a battle.

She doesn't like playing cards, because playing cards requires money, and when she has no money, she gambles on paper dolls, a game that rich people can afford.She doesn't have a doll, and others don't want to play with her, so she can only watch from the side, gradually feeling lonely.She went to sit under the water weng tree, alone, watching the boats on the river come and go. The cargo ship was loaded with all kinds of items, ranging from grass ash to stones.She likes to watch the red star passenger ship that is full of people. There are all kinds of people on the ship. They stand on the bow and look at the scenery. Envious.

Where did the ship come from?Where are you going again?Sitting under the tree, she thought, gradually thinking far away, thinking of those distant and vast places that she had never been to or heard of.She began to envy the birds in the sky, how nice it is to have a pair of wings!Fly freely in the sky, and fly wherever you want!She often stroked her arms, as if a pair of wings could grow there, but no matter how hard she tried, her wings just couldn't grow. This matter really taught her nothing to do. Seeing the boats coming and going on the river, she sometimes had a whim, if one day, a boat came from afar, stopped by her side, and took her to a distant place, how wonderful it would be!

When the water apples matured, Jiang Caicai gave up the idea of ​​going far away.Water apples smell delicious and taste delicious.It has a big core hidden in its hollow. The south wind blows the leaves, and the fruit of the whole tree "Kuang Kuang" and "Kuang Kuang Kuang" keep ringing. Sitting under the tree, Jiang Caicai thinks that sound is very interesting, it is Funny sound.On the days of strong wind and heavy rain, ripe apple apples fall down and float on the water one by one. They are yellow, green, and crisp, as if the Dongjiang River suddenly bears a lot of fruits, which is very unique and fun.

When the water apples are almost finished, the guava will be ripe.Pick the guava in your hand, it is heavy, smell it, it has a bitter fragrance, if you throw it into the water, it will sink to the bottom at once, and it will never pop up again.Guava is a bit sweet, but also a bit bitter. It is densely packed with hard seeds, which cannot be chewed. They are often hidden between the teeth and cannot be picked out.Do not eat too much guava, you will become constipated if you eat too much, and you will not be able to poop.But it is impossible not to eat more when you are hungry and facing a whole tree of fruit.The children squatted in the latrine with their stomachs covered for a long time. They had no choice but to obediently drink the water weng flower tea made by the adults. It is made from the dried flowers of the water weng tree. It is dark black and bitter. .

There is an orchard in Zhangwu Village on the opposite side of the Dongjiang River. The orchard is near the water. There are many mangoes and carambolas in it. I don’t know who planted it and no one cares about it.The children often swam to the water and plucked it secretly to eat. The fruit was not yet ripe, and it was about to acidify people's teeth, but before the fruit was ripe, the whole tree was eaten. The fruit satisfies the hunger, but it cannot satisfy the hunger. Those half-grown boys, who are hungry, like to light a fire on the rice field after harvesting, and use a slingshot to shoot down the birds and burn them to eat.Or smoke the voles with smoke and bake them.When they couldn't hunt birds and smoke voles, they caught grasshoppers and cooked them.Even if they see cockroaches, they will not let them go.Sometimes they risked their lives to take down the wasp's nest, opened the holes one by one, and took out the fragrant yellow wasp worms to eat raw.

When they were most hungry, they ate water snakes and frogs. They were a group of children who were not afraid of death. They once beat snakes with green bamboo branches, chased them into other people's houses, killed them, peeled them, and roasted them. Makes people drool. When the wind is strong, it often blows the straw with sparks flying all over the sky, and often ignites the whole haystack, burning it into a pile of ashes.The child whose clothes were unfortunately burned still has scars all over his body. Cai Cai is afraid of snakes.Once, a chased snake turned around and bit her, and fled away quickly.Jiang Xiazi told her that it was a poisonous snake, maybe it was a five-paced snake!She will die if she takes five steps forward!She had already taken four steps forward in a panic, stopped suddenly, and did not dare to move again.She stood where she was, tears streaming down her face.The other children scattered and she just stood by the water's edge until dark.Later, her heart broke, and she walked home bravely, only to find that she was not dead, and she felt the fear of the rest of her life after the catastrophe.

Outside the bamboo forest at the end of the village, there is a sandy beach covered with weeds.In summer, the green sand beach turns into a golden sand beach.It was a weed chrysanthemum in full bloom, with small round flower plates and thin petals, so many and so many, blooming close together, like thousands of hot suns, dazzling yellow and hot to the touch.They echo the sun in the sky, burning and burning and burning with vigor. On the side of the wall and road in Jiangcun, there is another kind of small sunflower, which is much more beautiful than wedelia, and its colors are also very rich, red, pink, white, and yellow, blooming everywhere. The people of Jiangcun like to dig them up and plant them in rotten plants. In the broken pots, many branches sprouted in one summer, spreading to the cracks of the bricks, embellishing the broken houses into flower houses. When the production team was disbanded and the family divided the fields and cultivated them, my mother had some spare time.Throughout the summer, my mother served flowers and plants in the front yard. She planted Seven Sisters Rose, Fire Butterfly, Red Banana, and fragrant Frangipani, Michelia, Mizilan... Caicai came back from the outside, Encountering a burst of floral fragrance head-on, elusive and intoxicating.Caicai likes to secretly pick small jasmines and put them in her pockets. No matter where she goes, she can smell the faint fragrance all day long. So one day, Caicai ran through the Qingshi alley and found that the front yards of every household had flowers and plants, and some people also planted vegetables and onions beside the flowers and plants.The women gradually gained weight when they were free, and their hair was neatly combed. They washed their clothes at the pier, and they were not in a hurry to go home after washing. They often sat and chatted under the big tree. Cai Cai was not in a hurry to go home after washing her clothes, she listened with pricked ears, and heard people discussing the name of the newborn girl.What name?It's not appropriate to be called Qiaoyan, because it's not born in spring; it's not good to be called Xifeng, because it's not born during the New Year; some people say, why not call it Zhaodi, or Huandi, or Zhuandi, or Shundi?Some people also said that it may not be successful if you choose such a name, and there are often things that my brother can't call out after a thousand calls... "Why don't you call it Milan, or Hanxiao." Jiang Caicai interjected beside her. "Let's call it Hanxiao, it's both festive and nice." Everyone thinks she's got it right. The name she chose was actually used by others, and she felt very happy. She repeated the name over and over again: "Jiang Hanxiao, Jiang Hanxiao..." How interesting, as if Dong Jiang was about to laugh.She ran to see that girl several times, such a small girl, sometimes crying loudly, sometimes giggling, it was really fun. Boys are not so much fun.People are very happy when they have boys, but boys are always named by men.Jiang Caicai feels that the level of men who name their children is really limited. They name their children Jinbao, Guifa, Jackie Chan, and Jiajue—they call these rich names, but they are afraid of being envied by the sky. In addition to his big name, he also has nicknames, such as "pigboy", "paparazzi", "cowboy"... He is called every day, piggy-paparazzi-cowboy-, everyone in the village knows him, but his name is not there. people know. But most notable were the children on the family boats—those little, toddler children with round red floats, two for the boys and one for the girls, everywhere. Out of parental preference: Boys are golden treasures, and they want to pass incense and light incense lamps, while girls are losers, and they wish they could drown and save a lot of money.In the past, when a family gave birth to a daughter, she put down the wooden basin and drowned in the middle of the night, which was considered conscientious, and there were also people who were naked and thrown into the water.When the three aunts and the six wives lowered their heads to pass on the gossip, they spoke very tolerantly—it was just seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. There was only so much money and so much rice, and if one mouth was missing, the other mouths would be enough to feed.It's just that in this way, there are so few men in each village, and they will never be able to find a wife. Every time she heard these words, Cai Cai felt terrible, as if those girls who were thrown into the water were herself.She trembled in her dream, as if a hungry wolf was chasing after her. In her sleep, she ran hard in the boundless darkness. Run and run, run and run, in a blink of an eye, I ran to the depths of June. June is a good harvest.Rice is ripe in the paddy fields. This month is hot and short, and it is the busiest season for farmers. In June, if you go out from Jiangcun, you can reach the harvest field by any road.The sugar cane in June is strong, the peanuts in June are full, and the banana trees in June form a forest by the water. They are like beauties dancing hand in hand, graceful and graceful. The banana leaves flutter and stretch in the breeze, and the banana flowers are brilliant. Open, sweet as honey, surrounded by bees and butterflies... But the protagonists of June are not them. The queen of June wears a golden coat, dignified and proudly mature. Farmers hold sickles in their right hands and ears of grain in their left hands. Feel solid and secure. Caicai went to love the fields, and she learned the skills of labor earlier than other children.She started harvesting rice seedlings when she was five or six years old, and planted rice seedlings next to her mother when she was seven or eight years old.Ever since she could pick up a scythe, she has been mowing.She seems to be a natural farmer, she loves the earth like a fisherman loves the sea, and is obsessed with the earth. During the busy farming season, she followed her parents all day long. She did everything: mowing, threshing, and tying straw. She was very diligent, and she was very happy. The day of June is the face of a child.The sun was shining just now, but suddenly the sky was full of dark clouds, and the showers came, wetting the full grains again and again.It often takes all the strength of a farmer to fish the wet millet out of the bucket and transport it back to his own paradise.Every evening when we came home, everyone was so tired that they fell into a deep sleep as soon as they got out of bed. However, no matter how hard and tired, the earth is always worthy of praise, the harvest is always worthy of praise, and the heat of June is always worthy of praise. In the dusk of June, it cleared up after the rain, with wisps of evening clouds wandering across the horizon, dyed a transparent orange-red color, the blue sky was as deep as the sea, and connected with the earth at the end of the river.At that time, the sun just set at the junction of water and sky, and half of it was already submerged in the river.The evening wind blew across the river coolly, breaking the whole piece of the sunset piece by piece. Countless gold and silver jumped up on the water surface, fell on the water surface clangingly, and finally sank to the bottom of the water. From time to time, a boat passed by on the water, with a flag on the bow, and light blue cooking smoke coming out of the small chimney at the stern, and the women on the boat were also cooking.In Jiang Caicai's eyes, there is no more moving scenery than this. On such a beautiful evening, how can a person stay out of it?She put the sickle away and plunged into the water.She was very good at water, and she lay on her back on the water, letting the small steamer pass by in the middle of the river, making waves and gently lifting her up. Beside her, water lilies are blooming in clusters of transparent purple flowers.She thought they were so beautiful that she tried to reach out to stop them, but they just passed by. June passed, and it was July.The river water in July is full and full, and the starry sky in July is clear and ethereal.People move the altar to the riverside, facing the cool wind in midsummer, and tell all kinds of wishes to ghosts and gods. Someone spread red paper, sieved fine flour with a sieve, and asked ghosts and gods to divination.If anyone has a daughter who is not married, they come to ask: "Where will she marry in the future?" The magical chopsticks moved tremblingly, pointing to the southeast.According to this instruction, the matchmaker went to the southeast to make a kiss. People yearn for the life of immortals. It is said that after practicing, people can become immortals—all immortals are mortals—they can live forever after becoming immortals. Enjoy bliss, but you have to pay the price of love - gods cannot fall in love and get married. So the Seventh Sister in the sky, the fairy who thought of everything, was severely punished by the heaven.But despite this, she has been worshiped eternally by the world.The Seventh Sister Star and Dong Yongxing are separated by the Milky Way. It is said that there is a kind of bird that sympathizes with them and flies to the Milky Way every Tanabata to build a bridge for them to meet. On the Seventh Sister's Day at the beginning of July, on this night, girls from Jiangcun gathered in the Jiangcun ancestral hall to pay homage to the Seventh Sister.If any girl does not go to worship, she will not be able to marry in the future.This is a grand festival, and the girls began to prepare before dark. They went to the field to pick all kinds of beautiful flowers and fruits, cleaned the wide courtyard, filled the jars with clean water, and put the flowers and plants Go up, dress up the ancestral hall, and when it gets dark, Fu Po will light up lanterns and hang them high on the eaves. When everything is arranged properly, all the stars in the sky will come out. All the girls here, big and small, have already had dinner and ran out of their homes to gather in the ancestral hall.They first sat around together, ate peanuts and fruits, and pointed to the stars, pointing out which one was the Seventh Sister Star and which one was Dong Yongxing. The night deepened little by little, and when the time came, the girl would kneel down, burn incense and worship, and pray silently, hoping that she would marry a good man who is rich, good-looking, knowledgeable and considerate in the future.After paying homage to Seventh Sister, everyone carried buckets to the river to fetch water. Those who walked in front might see the fairies coming down to wash their bodies.Fu Po said that the river water on this day will not rot for a long time and can cure all kinds of diseases.The girls picked Qijie water, each went home, and put the divine water into sealed bottles. After Qixi Festival, with bright stars and bright moon, every night is cool and comfortable.The third grandma sat under the old banyan tree and told Suxin stories.Caicai leaned over and heard the third grandma say: "When we were young, it was a long time ago. At that time, it was different from now. Girls had to bind their feet. Under the longan tree over there, there was a daughter named Hehua who looked like a lotus. Pretty, just two or three years older than me, always taught me how to do needlework, and has a very gentle temper. When she was sixteen or seventeen, the family made a marriage for her, and she was going to marry to the opposite Zhang's house. Just the night before the wedding, The lotus fell into the water and died." Suxin raised her head, her eyes sparkled with sparks: "Why did she drown herself?" The third grandma didn't answer, and said after a long time: "Who knows, she is very sad. The world is hard, and there are always people who can't survive. If you live until now, your granddaughter will be as old as you." Suxin's mother heard it from a distance, ran over quickly to pull Suxin, and scolded the old man, "Grandma, you are too, what are you talking about to children!" The third grandma burst into tears: "I am suffering too. I have raised seven sons, but I have no one to rely on when I am old, and no one to take care of me when I die..." Caicai was heartbroken to hear that, she leaned over, hugged the third grandma's knee, reached out and wiped away the tears on her face: "Grandma, don't cry, you still have me." The third grandma laughed: "Well, Caicai is still there." Third Grandma stroked her face gently. Seven days after Qixi Festival, it will be July 14th, the Fish Basket Festival on July 14th, which is a festival of ghosts. On the night of the fourteenth, the moon was big and round, reflected in the water, like a piece of precious round jade, which sank from the fairy palace to the bottom of the water.The moonlight blew thousands of miles away, the night wind blew across the river, and the waves glowed with silver light. The whole river was radiant from top to bottom, and river lanterns drifted in this gorgeous moonlight, like dark river trees suddenly blooming. glowing flowers. Jiang Caicai was enjoying the shade under his grandfather's knees, and the story of his grandfather has been told.Then she heard grandma say, one river lamp and one ghost—the river lamp illuminates the path of the water ghost, and only then can the water ghost be reborn as a human.In order to compete for the river lantern, water ghosts will fight in the water, so on the night of July 14th, you must not go to the water's edge. Own scapegoat. However, the river lanterns near and far flow in front of your eyes, mysterious and beautiful, not scary, but fascinating.The river lanterns are of different sizes and shapes, which make people imagine.Which hand lit which lamp?Which one misses the other?Even if he turned into a ghost, still remember?On the flickering river, in this ever-changing night of ghosts and gods, there will always be a river lantern that can illuminate the way of Jiang Mantang, right? A river lantern in the shape of a lotus flower was stranded on the bank, Cai Cai ran over, and was about to reach out to take it, when she suddenly thought of grandma's words and felt scared.She turned around and ran home, took off her shoes, climbed into bed, covered her head with a quilt, and fell asleep early. The next day, when the sun came out, there were one or two river lanterns that had been sunk by the wind and waves and rested on the water plants on the bank. They had completely lost their mysterious color and the power to summon ghosts and gods.The children still bravely climbed to the water weng tree, jumped down high, and fell into the water with a "boom", splashing high water. The water weng tree in July is the most attractive. The tall old tree is full of densely packed small fruits.The jellyfish are green in color at the beginning and hard as small sand heads. They grow densely throughout the whole tree, and each one is so bitter that birds and insects don’t eat them. They can always grow in good condition until July.The sun has blazed violently for half the summer, and they slowly turn red. The red water weng is sour, and if you eat too much, you will have diarrhea.After the Ghost Festival, the water weng's skin turns purple and soft. Pick one and put it in your mouth. It is sweet and sour, which makes people have endless aftertastes.The gluttonous children stayed all afternoon in the trees, the big branches were full of leaves, and no one knew where they hid above.When it was time to eat in the evening, the women stood at the door and shouted loudly, and several little guys slipped down from each water weng tree. After the rice was planted, the farmers and the fields had a period of leisure. In the sunny afternoon, after eating enough, the old man sat on a low stool and dozed off, while the middle-aged farmer sat under the tree in front of the door, taking pictures. Talking on his thighs, he didn't take the hoe out of the field until the sun slanted westward. In the long and lonely afternoon, whenever the bamboo whistle outside the window screamed "Bi-Bi-Bi-", several naked children shot out of the door like arrows.The mother wanted to call the child to stop, but the child disappeared like the wind, only to hear the cicada on the top of the tree screaming desperately: "Hot! Hot! Hot!..." The most comfortable life is the old bachelor Jiang Lao under the big banyan tree. He feeds the whole family by himself and is not hungry. He has already moved a stool and sat under the big banyan tree, facing the river wind, singing: I pat my thighs and sing a song Everyone laughs at me for not having a wife I have money to marry a pretty girl I have no money to marry a pimple woman Pox skin lady, eat a lot of food 屙 shit 屙 a few baskets piss into the sea fart beat the gong "Boom-boom-boom-" The last sound dragged on for a long time, far and near, and people laughed out loud. Those fat women also took advantage of the afternoon to carry a large basin of clothes to the pier for washing.The huge water weng tree is like a parasol, covering the scorching sun. This waterside pier is like a summer resort, with good wind and good water, and infinite clear scenery.Then the clothes were washed very slowly, and even stopped working completely, just talking about the family's faults.Big and small news, big and small events of dozens of families in small villages, there are endless topics to talk about. Another young girl made an appointment to wash her body in the river. They were all shy and did not dare to take off their coats. They all went into the water in flowered clothes, soaked in the shallow water under the shade of the trees, splashed sparkling water, and played with each other. .Because they are girls, they are not very familiar with water, so they don't dare to swim. At the head and tail of the village, where wedids and waterfowls belong, the mud beside the water is sizzling, and there are big smelly bubbles coming out, and the water lilies are moored there. They stick their black roots into the black mud, and they grow crazy in a few days, forming a large forest.Their roots are extremely luxuriant, mixed with silt, growing out of the forest, a large black area, filled with filth, and living with cool and slippery water snakes and frogs.Their leaves are dark green, with powerful veins embedded in the thick flesh, stretching out wantonly, so plump and plump, no matter how reserved a pig is, it can't help being elated when seeing this.The women picked baskets and cut the lotus leaves back to feed the pigs. Some people simply opened the pig houses and let the pigs run to the river to eat the lotus leaves. In the evening, the pigs returned with their big bellies covered in mud. It is difficult to connect this crude and vulgar pig-feeding plant with gorgeous and beautiful flowers, but the water lotus is so beautiful that it can enter the most beautiful and noble halls of the flower world. The filthy silt and drifting dust did not detract from its peerless elegance in the slightest. Caicai also went to cut pig vegetables, and was in a daze while cutting. There was such a long period of time, and I never forgot that flower in my heart.On a starry summer night, my parents quarreled, my father went out for a stroll, my mother sat alone by the bed and cried, Jiang Yibo hid in a corner in a daze, Jiang Caicai lay on the balcony, counting the stars, thinking all the way Looking at the clump of flowers and plants, thinking and thinking, thinking about the dream. (End of Chapter 4)