Chapter 410 Chapter Eighteen

The old farmer said anxiously: "You can help me!" The grandfather said helplessly: "It's not that I won't help you. The fetus-borrowing ghost has already married your granddaughter. If you insist on anything, I'm afraid it will hurt your granddaughter." The old farmer froze for a moment, spread his hands and asked, "Then tell me, what should I do? The most important thing for a girl is to be innocent. If you let go of your hands, won't my granddaughter have no way out? Her parents If you don’t scold her to death, other people’s spitting stars will drown her. Please, help me no matter what!”

Grandpa took a deep breath, shook his head and said, "Then let me try." Seeing that his grandfather finally let go, the old farmer hurriedly asked: "What do you need, just tell me. I will try my best to find it for you. Do you want a mahogany sword? Do you want to buy yellow paper to draw symbols? Do you want me to borrow a Taoist priest's uniform?" " Grandpa shook his head and said, "Just bring me some ashes, and then give me a whip for whipping cows." The old farmer's son was puzzled, "What do you want with ashes and whips?" The old farmer scolded: "It's this time, what else do you care about him? Just get everything ready!" The old farmer waved his hands and stamped his feet, as if he hated his son.

The old farmer's son said, "It's not hard to find these things. There's a lot of ashes in the stove, so you can take as many as you want; the whip for whipping cows is not difficult, I have one at home. I'll find it for you." The old farmer urged: "Get it quickly!" The old farmer's son put down the woman in his arms, and immediately jumped out like a rabbit. Grandpa said again: "You old man, don't rest, and make me some jujube tea quickly. The dates in the tea should not be even numbers, but odd numbers, three or seven are fine. Don't have too much water, just one teacup. it is good."

The old farmer got the order and immediately went to prepare red date tea.The girl's boudoir was very quiet, she didn't seem to notice the noise outside at all, it was so quiet that one couldn't help but feel a little worried. I also don't know what grandpa wants with grass ash, whip and jujube tea, and I don't know how he will deal with that ghost who hasn't met him yet.Hearing that the borrowing ghost was a man in white, I wondered what kind of personable appearance that man in white was. "Liangzi, come and step on the ground with me." Grandpa didn't let me idle, he pulled me up and walked around the old farmer's house step by step.Every time you take a step, you must put it down close to the toe of your back foot, so you walk around carefully and quickly.At the end, my grandfather said to me: "Fortunately, the borrowing ghost didn't go far."

I suddenly understood why grandpa wanted red date tea.I asked: "Grandpa, do you want to lure the ghost back with the smell of red date tea before it goes far away?" Grandpa nodded silently, and said: "I'm not sure if it will come or not. This is the first time I have encountered a ghost, so I only heard your grandpa mention how he dealt with ghosts, so I vaguely remember some of them. But I'm not very familiar with its habits." Not long after, the old farmer's son came with a dustpan of ashes in his dark hands. Since he didn't have a whip to spare, he hung the greasy whip around his neck. He looked like an old man from the late Qing Dynasty.Although he was yelling at his daughter just now, and seemed to have no affection at all, but now he is extremely attentive, and he will do whatever grandpa tells him to do, without any complaints.

Grandpa glanced at the grass ash and said, "This is too little, you have to get the same amount of grass ash again." The old farmer's son put the ashes and whip on the ground, and ran out again without saying a word. After a while, the old farmer's son brought another dustpan and straw ash.At the same time, the old farmer's jujube tea is almost done. Grandpa commanded the old farmer: "Put that red jujube tea on the threshold and yell loudly to the outside: jujube red, red jujube. The red thing is to have a baby early, and it is a red thing to have a baby early!"

The grandfather said to the old farmer's son again: "You help your wife to rest in another room first. Then you spread the ashes in the main room, covering every corner. Don't miss the small places. " Just as the old farmer's son was about to make a move, the grandfather warned again: "Don't step on the grass ash yourself. The grass ash is scattered forward, and the steps are backward, and finally rest on the threshold of the side room, you know?" The old farmer's son nodded and said, "Do you mean it's like brushing the floor with cow dung?"

At that time, many houses in the countryside did not have concrete floors, but were made of yellow or red soil.After the farmers harvest the rice from the paddy fields, they spread the rice on the ground every now and then to dry in order to avoid mold and deterioration.This is why almost every house in our area has a floor in front of it.But after the rice is dried, it is easy to collect the small stones and mud on the floor when it is taken into the house. In this way, the rice that is threshed has a lot of sand, and it is easy to knock teeth when eating.When I was a child, I often ate small stones when eating, which broke a small gap in the mouth of my front teeth.Sometimes when I see someone spit out a big mouthful while eating, it doesn't mean that he is a picky eater or that the food is not tasty, but because he bit into the dregs.

At that time, few people could build a concrete floor, so someone came up with a good way-smearing thin cow dung on the floor, just like painting steel plates.The advantage of cow dung is that it becomes compact and not easy to loosen after drying, forming a relatively strong film. Although cow dung is not something that people like, but after the floor is treated in this way, the effect of drying rice is very good.There is almost no sand in the rice. After husking, a device called "wind fork" is used to filter out the chaff, so there is no need to worry about dirty things sticking to the rice grains.

When applying cow dung to the floor, people will naturally avoid stepping on the cow dung that is still wet and soft, so they walk backwards while applying it. The old farmer's son imitated the posture of brushing the floor, and scattered the ashes in the dustpan all over the room.Then, rubbing his sore waist with both hands, he asked, "Is it all right now?" The old farmer yelled at the outside, while turning his head to look at the scene inside the house. Grandpa stood on the threshold of the side room, looked carefully at every corner of the main room, and replied, "The ashes are scattered well, but you still need to do one thing."

"What's the matter?" the old farmer's son asked, rubbing his hands. "Call me a midwife." Grandpa said. "Midwife?" The old farmer and his son asked in surprise.