Chapter 12 Chapter Five Twelve

Cuicui was in the vegetable garden under the White Tower the next day, and when her grandfather asked her for the second time, her heart was still beating heavily, she lowered her head and ignored it, and just pinched the onions with her hands.The grandfather smiled and thought: "Let's wait and see. If we continue talking, the whole green onion will be pinched off." A joke that leads the question to another matter. The weather is getting hotter and hotter.Near June, the weather was getting hotter. The old boatman moved a dusty black pottery jar out of the corner of the house, and even spared some spare time to assemble a few squares of wood to make a round cover.He also sawed wood to make a tripod, and cut and scraped a large bamboo tube, fastened it with kudzu vines, and placed it beside the tank as a furniture for scooping tea.Since the tea mug was moved to the bank of Wumen Creek, every morning Cuicui would boil a large pot of boiling water and pour it into the mug.Sometimes some tea leaves are added to the vat, and sometimes only some rice crackers that have been scorched by fire are put down, and they are thrown into the vat while the thing is still burning.As usual, the old boatman prepared some grass roots and bark for treating herpes and sores. He kept these medicines in a prominent place at home. The passer-by used his prescriptions, and told people the source of many emergency medicines (these medicines were all learned from the army doctors and wizards in the city, of course).He stands still on the square bow boat with his arms bare all day long, and his head is often bald, with short white hair that looks like silver in the sun.Cuicui is still a happy person, running and singing in front of and behind the house, and when she is not moving, she sits in front of the door under the shade of a high cliff and plays with a small bamboo pipe.Grandpa seems to have long forgotten about the eldest brother's proposal of marriage, so naturally Cui Cui has long forgotten about it too.

But the matchmaker soon came to check his breath again, and it was still the same as before, the grandfather pushed the success of the matter to Cui Cui, and sent the matchmaker on the road.I went back and talked with Cui Cui again, but it still didn't work out. The old boatman couldn't figure out what kind of knot this matter had, and he couldn't get rid of it. Lying on the bed at night, he often fell into a kind of contemplation, vaguely realizing one thing--Cui Cui loves the second elder and not the eldest. , When he thought of this, he smiled, forced to laugh out of fear.In fact, he was a little worried, because he suddenly felt that Cuicui looked like that mother in everything, and he vaguely felt the common fate of the mother and daughter.A bunch of things from the past swarmed in, and I couldn't sleep anymore, so I ran out of the door alone, to the high cliff near the river, looked at the stars in the sky, listened to the sound of the weavers by the river and all the insects like rain, for a long time I haven't slept for a long time.

Cui Cui didn't pay attention to this matter. Although the little girl was playing and working during the day, and at the same time, her little heart was galloping for some very mysterious things, but at night, she slept sweetly. up. But everything has to change in a time.The quiet and ordinary life of this family has also been completely broken in terms of personnel and affairs because of a bunch of days that came one after another. On the one hand in Shun Shun's house, the captain of the ship, Ze Tianbao's affairs have been known to the second elder, and Nuo Song also let his elder brother know what his younger brother is thinking.The pair of fellow sufferers fell in love with the granddaughter who was pulling the ferry at the same time.This matter is not surprising to the local people. There is a saying in the border area: "Fire can burn everywhere, water can flow everywhere, the sun and moon can shine everywhere, and love can reach everywhere. "The son of a rich boat owner fell in love with the daughter of a poor family who runs a ferry. It cannot become rare news. There is a little difficulty, but when it comes to who should get this woman as a wife, do the two brothers still have to follow Chadong? Manners, a bloody struggle?

The two brothers are unlikely to use a knife in this regard, but they are not happy to have the ridiculous behavior of "lover's obedience" such as a cowardly man in a big city when love and hatred face each other. The elder brother and the younger brother were at a boat building place upstream of the river, looking at the new boat in his house, and told the younger brother all their thoughts beside the new boat, and added that the foundation of this love was planted two years ago.The younger brother smiled and listened to the words.The two walked along the river bank from the shipbuilding place to Wang Xiangshen's new mill. The eldest brother said:

"Second old man, it's good for you. You are the son-in-law of the regiment president and have a mill. As for me, if the matter is settled, I should take over the old man's hand to row the ferry. I like this matter, and I want to make Bixiyu I bought two hilltops, planted bamboos on the boundary line, and surrounded this small stream as my stockade!" The two elders still listened, and cut the grass and trees beside the road at will with a crescent-shaped sickle in their hands. When they arrived at the mill, they stopped and said to his brother: "Boss, do you believe that this woman already has someone in her heart?"

"I do not believe." "Boss, do you believe that this mill will belong to me in the future?" "I do not believe." So the two entered the mill. The second elder said: "You don't have to—old man, let me ask you again, if I don't want this mill, but I want that ferry boat, and this idea was two years ago, do you believe it or not?" The eldest brother was really surprised when he heard that, he looked at the Nuosong Erlao who was sitting on the horizontal axis of the roller, and knew that the Erlao was not joking, so he stood a little closer, stretched out his hand and patted the Erlao on the shoulder, and wanted to pull the Erlao down .He understood it, and he smiled.He said, "I believe it, you are telling the truth!"

The second elder looked at his brother and said honestly: "Boss, believe me, this is the real thing. I've planned to go there a long time ago. If my family doesn't agree, if the other side agrees, I'm really going to get a ferry! ——You tell me, what about you?" "Father has listened to my words and asked the Yangma soldiers in the city to be Baoshan for me, and he went to the ferry to say goodbye!" The intention of going was just because the old man said that cars have roads and horses have roads, so I took the road. "The results of it?" "I can't get any results. The old man has a plum in his mouth and can't explain it."

"Where's the road?" "As for the road, the old man said that if you walk on the road, you have to sing a song for three years and six months on the high cliff of Duixi in Bixiyu. If you sing Cui Cui's heart softly, Cui Cui will belong to me." "That's not a bad idea!" "Yeah, a stutterer can sing but can't speak. But it's not my turn. I'm not a bamboo sparrow, and I can't sing. God knows that old man's intention is to marry his granddaughter to someone who can sing. Waterwheel, prepare to marry someone properly!" "Then how are you?"

"I want to sue the old man and ask him to tell the truth. Just one sentence. If it doesn't work, I will go to Taoyuan with the boat; if it works, even if I want to support the ferry, I will agree to him." "What about singing?" "This is your specialty. If you want to be a bamboo sparrow, go ahead. I won't stuff your mouth with horse manure." Seeing his elder brother like that, the second elder knew how troubled his elder brother felt about this matter.He understands his brother's temperament, which represents the rough and straightforward side of Chadong people. If it is done well, he will spare no effort to others, and if it is not done well, his uncle will be one and the other will be two.Why didn't the old man want to walk on the road when he failed on the road; but as soon as he heard the confession of the second elder, he knew that only the two elders had a share in the road, and he couldn't mention his own affairs.Therefore, he was a little bit annoyed by luck and a little bit indignant, which naturally couldn't be concealed.

The two elders came up with an idea, that is, the two brothers went to Bixiyu to sing together on a moonlit night. Don't let people know that they are two brothers. To serve the granddaughter who rowed the ferry.The elder is not good at singing, and when it is the elder's turn, the second elder will take his place.It is very fair for the fate of the two to determine their own happiness.When he suggested it, the elder thought he couldn't sing, and he didn't want to ask the second elder to make a bamboo sparrow for him.But the poet's personality of the second elder made him very persistent in asking his elder brother to implement this method.The second elder said that this must be done, and everything would be fair.

The old man thought about his younger brother's proposal and made a wry smile. "Mother, I am not a bamboo sparrow, so I asked my brother to be a bamboo sparrow! Well, that's it, we each take turns singing, and I don't need your help, I will do everything myself. The owl in the woods, the voice is not pleasant , when you want to be lucky, you still call it yourself, without asking for help!" After they settled the matter, they counted the days. Today is fourteen, tomorrow is fifteen, and the day after tomorrow is sixteen. The next three days are exactly the weather of the big moon.Now that the weather is mid-summer, it is not too hot or cold in the middle of the night. Wearing a white jersey sweater jacket, I go to the high cliffs where the moon shines, and follow the local customs, very honestly and frankly, to be a "newborn calf" for a yellow-flowered girl. Sing.When the dew fell, the singing became dull, and when it was time to go home, I hurried home while the moon was waning.Or go to those familiar mills that work all night, lie down in the warm barn and take a nap, waiting for the morning.All the arrangements are very natural, although the two of them don't understand what the result will be, but they also see it very naturally.The two decided to start with the luck of the night to compete in this kind of competition recognized by local customs.