Chapter 30 Section 6

The next morning, he got up early and walked around the house like a ghost. She learned the lesson from yesterday, knowing that the quarrels at night belonged to the night, and she didn't need to get angry with him during the day, so she took the initiative to ask: "You woke up so early?" "Well, I'm used to it. I'll make breakfast." She got up from the bed: "I said that I started a business, so I went to make some breakfast. Do you eat noodles? I will cook it." He repeatedly replied: "Eat, I will eat noodles." She went into the kitchen, boiled the water, and then went to the bathroom to wash up. Guessing that the water was about to boil, she ran to the kitchen. After waiting for a while, the water boiled. She put the noodles on, took out two bowls, put Add oil, salt sauce, vinegar, bean paste, sesame oil, etc., chopped green onion, patted garlic, and put a little pepper, add boiling water to make noodle soup.

Once the noodles were cooked, she took them out with a colander, put them into two bowls, and made two bowls of fragrant noodles with chopped green onions. After they had breakfast, she went to wash the dishes and asked him to accompany her in the kitchen.While washing, she said: "You don't know how to cook. It's okay for me to cook first, but you can't think that women should cook for granted. I hate patriarchal men the most. My father doesn't like to cook. I I really hate him for that. If I were my mother, I would have lost my father a long time ago. You have to learn to cook slowly, and you can’t just eat ready-made food.”

"I can cook, and I'll do it at noon," he stated in a statement. But he didn't cook at noon, because they went to her parents' side. She wanted to talk to her mother about the artifact several times, but she couldn't.She knew that her mother was an educated woman with a strong sense of equality between men and women, and she absolutely could not tolerate the patriarchal trick of "Bao Yazi".But she knew that her mother was not capable of transforming "Bao Yazi" at once. If her mother came forward to educate "Bao Yazi", it would only mess things up.

So she decided not to say anything to her mother. But being a mother is really careful, and she soon noticed that she was a little restless, so she asked her, "Are you two okay?" "Well, I'm just a little worried about having a baby." "Birth?" "Actually, I have been living with him for a long time, but after so long, we are not pregnant, and we have not taken any measures." The mother comforted and said, "How long is this? Less than a year, right? According to the doctor, the possibility of infertility needs to be considered only when the husband and wife have been together for more than one year. Take your time, don't worry, there will be no chance of infertility." questionable."

Going back to the new house to sleep at night, both of them felt a little uncomfortable.She didn't want to touch him first, for fear that he would use this as an excuse to force her out again with the artifact.And he seemed to see that her determination was firm, so he didn't dare to act rashly. In the end, the two of them did nothing and just fell asleep. That's how it goes. During the day, the two are a harmonious little couple, cooking and eating, and cooperate very well; at night, the two become weird couples, either you don’t touch me, I don’t touch you, or they are hot It was a joy to gnaw and hug, but no matter how passionate he was, he would never forget that broken stick, and he took it out at the critical moment.But she naturally refused to give in, and the two fought each other, and in the end she was so angry that she was hard, while he was so angry that he was soft, so they died down and went to sleep separately.

She doesn't know how to end this matter, and she has no one to consult, because no one has ever encountered such a thing. If she tells it, ten out of ten will think she is crazy and making up. This "stick-breaking battle" lasted for a month, Ding Yi was on fire all over, and "Bao Yazi" completely extinguished the fire, and went to bed every night, as if he had completely forgotten about it. .Sometimes she pretended to be asleep and rolled into his arms, but he didn't respond.This made her feel very boring, so she had to get out by herself. She once wanted to find a chance to burn the broken stick, but she felt that it was a temporary solution instead of the root cause, and it might even backfire, angering him and doing worse things.Even if he doesn't offend him, he can go to Manjialing and ask the master on the mountain for one, or even a few, or a bunch. Anyway, it doesn't cost much, it's just a branch, the uncle cuts it That's it.

The key is to find a way to "burn" that broken stick in his heart. So, she began to look for a kindling to burn sticks, and plunged into the library to search for information about broken sticks. At that time, the Internet was not widespread, so the so-called "search" could only be searched in the newspapers and books of the library. It was really like finding a needle in a haystack. I didn't find any, and I went to the bookshelves to search on the spot. I looked at the bookshelves row by row, and took out one by one to look for them, but I still couldn't find anything.

She also talked about it with her father on the sidelines. She didn't say anything explicitly, but said that she came across a text related to Chinese folk marriage customs in teaching and wanted to find some relevant materials for reference. Ding Yi, who never cared about her father's folk literature, suddenly asked about related topics, which really flattered her father. Copies, got a lot back. Ding Yi looked around and found no similar records, so he pretended to be discussing academics and asked, "Father, have you ever heard of any folk method to make a son?" Dad frowned and said, "This doesn't belong to the scope of folk literature research. Folk literature research refers to literary forms that have been circulated among the people, including..."

She hurriedly said: "I also know that this is not the scope of your folk literature research, just to check." Her pedantic father couldn't help, so she had to go to her not so pedantic mother: "Mom, have you heard of the folk method to make a boy?" Mother always cares more about family than academics, and she immediately thinks about her daughter: "Does Xiaoman care about this?" She hesitated for a moment, and half admitted, "It's not that he cares, it's their ancestors in Manjialing who care." "This idea is bad, it's patriarchal."

"I know, I don't agree. I just want to ask, if those patriarchal people want to have boys, what methods do they use? If I know their methods, I will do the opposite , give birth to a daughter, and piss off those old feudalists." "I don't know what method those people used, but I heard that there is a "Secrets of the Qing Palace", which was circulated in the palace, about how to give birth to boys and girls." "Really? Probably what method?" "It seems to be counting the days, and then deciding which side the men will sleep on and which side the women will sleep on according to the days."

She is not interested in these, she is only interested in the broken sticks in Manjialing, so she said: "The Secret Book of the Qing Palace is definitely useless. If it is useful, the emperor has not given birth to a lot of boys? How could there be several What if the emperor has no son to inherit the throne?" "That's true." "Do you know any other customs about this?" "Some are even more superstitious. For example, eating jujubes and lotus seeds when getting married, they all sound like the word 'zi'. In fact, 'zi' did not specifically refer to sons in Chinese in the past." Seeing that her mother had also become pedantic, she knew that there was nothing to ask, so she stopped asking and ended hastily. Finally, she thought of her elder sister. Although her elder sister did not study folk literature, she used to major in anthropology and later changed to a major in computer science. She should know something about it.She spoke directly to her elder sister and did not hide too much. Although it was embarrassing, she still told her elder sister the general situation. My sister said: "I haven't done anthropology for a long time, and I never heard of such a custom when I was doing it." "Could it be something unique to Manjialing?" "It's possible. The world is so big, there are so many wonders, especially in places with inconvenient transportation, and the folk customs are even more diverse. There is no way to compare them with others. Of course, they all do their own thing." "How do you think this custom came about?" "It's hard to say. Generally speaking, customs that have no practical meaning at all are difficult to maintain. Of course, this practical meaning refers to the actual effect that people can observe in the state of civilization at that time. For example, using animals to worship gods, It seems that there is no practical effect now, but when science is not yet developed, people can observe the actual effect. If you kill a sheep and enshrine it in front of the ancestor's spiritual tablet, it happens that the harvest of that year is quite good, although There is no causal relationship between them, but people at that time did not realize this, and they would feel that there was a relationship." "However, if a sheep is sacrificed to ancestors in the next year, but the harvest is not good, won't people doubt this custom?" "Hehe, maybe people at that time didn't have such a scientific way of thinking. They didn't know that enough facts were needed to prove a causal relationship. If they killed the sheep in the second year and worshiped their ancestors, but the harvest was still not good, they would find There are individual reasons to explain the past, for example, it rained on the day of the sacrifice, or the sheep was not fat enough." "Why lie to yourself?" "It's not self-deception, but because people don't have the ability to give scientific explanations to natural phenomena, but people need to give explanations, because it is directly related to their survival. For example, people want to Find out why. When science has not yet developed enough to explain these natural phenomena, people will grab some superficial phenomena and make some plausible explanations.” "You're right. Maybe the customs in Manjialing are also to explain some natural phenomenon, because there seem to be more boys born there." "yes?" "I went to Manjialing to hold a wedding this time, so I took a closer look. I saw a lot of boys following us a few times ago, and I thought it was a girl who went to the fields, but this time, everyone in the whole Ling should be dispatched. Now, all the boys and girls have come, and I found that among those children, boys are the majority." My sister felt incredible: "There is such a thing? Could it be that they did something to the baby girl?" She shuddered: "God, that's terrible." "If you had told me this before you got married, I would have advised you not to marry him, but it's done now." "You can leave even if you end up." "Of course you can leave, but he definitely doesn't want to divorce, because he can marry you. It's very good in their Manjialing, and it's also very good in their hospital." "What is the glory of marrying me?" "Why not beautiful? How many doctors in their hospital can find young and beautiful foreign language graduate students and foreign language teachers from famous universities as wives? He divorced you, and it is impossible for him to find someone stronger than you, so He definitely doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to leave. If you force him to leave, he may choose to die together. He is a surgeon, and it is so easy to do this kind of thing." She thought of what he had said about "abolishing" his third brother-in-law, and felt that he didn't have such thoughts or abilities, so she couldn't help asking in panic, "Then what should I do?" My sister comforted me and said, "I'm just considering the worst possibility. He shouldn't be so bad. He still loves you very much, but he still sticks to his patriarchal custom in his whole family, and he can't bear to lose both. .” "If I force him to choose between me and Custom, what do you think he will choose?" The elder sister fell silent, and said after a long time: "It's really hard to say, but forcing him is not an option. You need to talk to him more, enlighten him, and pull him to your side." A day later, my sister called: "It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that magic tool can really make a son born." "Are you also superstitious?" "I'm not superstitious, but there are some things that science hasn't found an answer to yet. Maybe there is some scientific truth, but we don't know it yet. For example, some people have special abilities. We don't believe it, but some scientists do." "What scientific reason can an artifact have?" "Who knows? Maybe the branches of the man tree contain some kind of chemical substance? For example, it is more alkaline. Doesn't it mean that women who are alkaline in their bodies are more likely to have boys?" She didn't expect this: "Then what do you mean?" "I just want to explain why there are more boys in Manjialing. There is another possibility. I heard that men ejaculate when women orgasm, and women are more likely to have boys. Using a magic weapon, is it like adding foreplay? Women are more likely to have boys. Easy to achieve orgasm? You can ask Xiaoman, what is the usage of that artifact, if it is to help women achieve orgasm, then there is nothing wrong with using it." "But what a waste of a broken stick for such a sacred hour!" "In fact, there are many similar tools for sale in foreign countries. Of course, they are not made of tree sticks. There are silicone ones, plastic ones, and many others. Some single women buy them to solve their sexual needs, and some couples buy them to increase the fun of the boudoir." She has never heard of this: "Is there such a thing?" "Yes." "How do you know? Could it be that you and your brother-in-law..." "We haven't used it, but I know there is such a thing. There is an adult goods store in the shopping center near us. I didn't know what kind of store it was before, so I ran in and found out that it was selling sex products. There were a lot of men. that thing." "So, Manjialing is quite advanced, and it has caught up with the United States." "In fact, imitating the penis is a very ancient custom, a kind of 'reproductive worship'. Many ethnic groups have it. It is made of wood, stone, painted on murals, carved on utensils, and it is found all over the world. Only However, when science developed later, people knew that the penis was nothing unusual, but it was just an organ on a man’s body, so they no longer worshiped it. Manjialing may still be preserved to this day because it is relatively closed.” "The people there are not happy to come out of the mountains." "Xiao Man is an exception. He happened to meet you again. Maybe there are some customs in Manjialing that will eventually be defeated by you." "Then I really don't know whether it helped them evolve or broke their tradition." "Evolution requires abandonment of old traditions, and evolution cannot be achieved without abandonment." "Then what do you mean?" "It depends on what you want," my sister analyzed. "If you can't accept the artifact, don't force yourself. If you follow the principle of giving it a try, you can try it. If you feel wronged, stop. I don’t feel wronged, and it can even add fun. In fact, there is nothing wrong with it. The key is that he is stubborn this time, and it’s not a problem for you to keep stalemate like this. If you really give birth to a son after using that thing, then It's not a bad thing, anyway, sons and daughters are your own children; if you still don't have a son after using that thing, you can also educate him and let him know that Manjialing's things are not so brilliant." She was a little moved, and her sister told her: "Make sure that thing is clean, and tell him not to be reckless, not to hurt you, or bring you infection." After thinking about it for days, she finally decided to give it a try.