After Bai Jiaxuan's third son was born, he named him Calf. Between his second son Muleju and his third son Calf, Xiancao gave birth to three boys and one girl according to the frequency of one every year or two every three years.
Misfortune became the ghost in Lu Sanniu's pen. The death process of the four children was exactly the same: they started crying on the fourth day after birth, and continued day and night until their throats became hoarse and could no longer cry. On the sixth day, the children rolled their eyes and
Yanren was hanged. Xiancao was horrified when she saw the hanging Baiyanren. Bai Zhao said coldly: "It's still a short-lived one." In fact, she had expected this outcome when the child just started crying sharply.
She took a handful of dried mugwort leaves and twisted them into a short column in the palm of her hand, placed it on the child's forehead, and lit it with fire. The smoke and the burning fire gradually approached the scalp, and you could hear the tender skin on the forehead being quilted.
There was a squeaking sound, and the burnt fur gave off a pungent smell of burning. Regardless of the twitching and twisting child, Mrs. Bai Zhao had a hard heart and planted the same mugwort leaves on both sides of the child's cheeks, burning both sides.
A black spot. These four children have been roasted by moxa leaves, but none of them can live to the seventh day. The grass jelly can't help crying every time, especially the daughter. Mrs. Bai Zhao doesn't cry or persuade her
, every time it’s just one sentence: “People who are destined not to be born in the Yang world.”
Most of the boys and girls that Bai Zhao had given birth to died in the four or six winds. The only thing that could be dealt with was the handful of mugwort leaves. Only about 10 to 20 lucky ones could escape death with that handful of mugwort leaves, and the marks on their foreheads were
There were round scars on the corners of his mouth. Mrs. Bai Zhao took the dead child from the kang and handed it to Lu San. Lu San dug a deep pit in the corner of the cattle pen and wrapped the dead child in a mat.
The child is buried in it. When the livestock manure is dug up in the future, the place is left there until more than half a year or even a year later, when the cow dung and cow urine corrode the young bones and flesh into dung, and then it is dug up again, dried and mashed.
, applied to wheat fields or cotton fields. In Bailu Village, premature children are buried in the cattle pens of every family, and manure oozing with flesh and blood is applied to every field.
The calf is destined to be a creature of the world. Bai Zhao's three-pillar mugwort saved his life, leaving three round scars on his forehead and corners of his mouth, which added a charm to his smile. Bai Zhao reprimanded him accordingly.
Xiancao, who lost confidence in Aiye, said: "Do you believe that the method passed down by the old generation can be wrong now?" Xiancao was not without regrets: "If the calf is a woman, it will be popular."
Bai Jiaxuan stood under the kang one night and said to his wife who was breastfeeding a calf: "You have done great service to the Bai family. The Bai family has been single for several lifetimes. I have three children, Lu Zilin... two. That woman, these two
If you don’t give birth to another child for a year, your waist and waist will probably dry up: as the saying goes, menstruation will stop.”
After a little more than a year, Xiancao went into confinement again. This was her eighth time. Now she has neither fear nor pain about giving birth to a baby and is even able to accurately predict the time of delivery.
.Her calmness and calm attitude are actually out of common practice. Just like peeing, there is no need to panic. When the pee falls, she wipes off her pants and urinates, but it is a little more troublesome than peeing.
That's all. With her big belly, she still stood in front of the chopping board and rolled out noodles, sat on the wooden pier to pull the bellows, went to the well platform and pulled the leather rope to turn the handle of the windlass to winch water. With her big belly, she spun and weaved, and made bluegrass.
The finished indigo was stirred into the dyeing vat to dye the cloth. According to her own experience, it was more efficient to do the work during childbirth.
That day, while she was weaving on a wooden loom, her abdomen suddenly dropped. She almost fell off the loom in pain. When the black fog around her eyes dissipated and she regained her sight, she already felt something hot moving in her crotch. She
On the contrary, she became calmer. She got off the loom with her hands on her crotch and walked slowly through the courtyard. When she entered the door of Xiawu, there was a clear bird chirping above her head. She calmly glanced back and saw a lark walking in the courtyard.
She screamed from the sycamore tree, her tail raised up and down. After crossing the threshold of the mansion, she untied her pants and sat on the ground. A ball of flesh and blood was squirming in her crotch. Her husband and the deer went to the ground three times, and grandma hugged her.
She went to visit the house with the calf. The scissors were placed on the loom. She lowered her head and bit the bloody umbilical cord several times until it broke. She took out the mucus from the child's mouth, and the child let out a cry.
Yelled. When she bit off the umbilical cord just now, she had already discovered that it was a woman. She wiped the blood on her daughter with her pants, wrapped it in her lapel, climbed onto the kang, and wrapped the child with a small sheet that had been prepared.
She tied it three times with cloth strips and stuffed it into the quilt. She wiped the blood on her abdomen, legs and hands, and slipped into the quilt calmly. Only then did she feel that she had no strength left in her body.
When Bai Jiaxuan came home to pick up some tools, he was shocked to see blood and a fishy smell on the ground at the foot of the building. He shook her awake and asked what was going on, but she didn't open her eyes or raise her hands and just said: "Hurry up and burn the kang." He said.
He put wheat straw into the hole of the kang and lit it on fire. The green smoke filled the air and he choked on the grass jelly and made him cough. He asked her, "How are you doing?" She said, "I'm thirsty." He went into the kitchen and boiled a bowl of boiling water for her.
She brought it. She drank it all in one gulp without leaving the rim of the bowl, and was moved to tears. This was the first time a man had boiled water and brought it to her since she entered this gatehouse. After she regained her breath, she couldn't help but tell him:
"It's a woman." Jiaxuan said, "This time you like it, and I like it too." Xiancao couldn't help but said something about the lark screaming when the child fell into the grass. Jiaxuan copied it.
He walked with his hands on the ground and murmured: "Bailing... Bailing... Bailing... Bailing... she is Lingling's baby."
Bai Ling passed the four-sixth calamity period smoothly, and was out of confinement smoothly. Only then did the tense nerves of Xiancao relax. The smooth escape from the four-sixth calamity period made her feel uneasy. That night,
She brought up something that had been on her mind over and over again for the past month: "Give Lingling a job." After hearing this, Jiaxuan said "hmm" and then agreed, expressing his approval. His current preference for this daughter is actually
No less than the grass jelly, if you are just afraid that Lingling will suffer from illness or disaster, if you recognize it, it will protect you. He said, "Who should I recognize?" The grass jelly said, "It's up to you." Jia said.
Xuan first brought up Mr. Leng. Xiancao said: "Go and ask our mother. She will recognize whoever she says she recognizes."
After dinner, Bai Jiaxuan sat leisurely on the nanmu Taishi chair, rolled the soft yellow fire paper into paper twists, struck the fire sickle, lit the paper twists, picked up the white copper hookah, and pinched a handful of bright yellow smoke.
Put the Lanzhou tobacco into the chimney, puffed the fire paper, and inhaled in one breath. The water in the hookah made a gurgling sound, and slowly spewed out blue smoke. He pulled out the chimney and blew in with a chirping sound.
The burned cigarette ashes bounced to the ground and shattered.
Mrs. Bai Zhao had already taken off her trousers, hugging her lower body with the quilt, gently patting her grandson and calf nestled in her arms with one hand, humming a lullaby for cats and dogs, rocking her body gently, and looking
She was watching her son Jiaxuan addicted to smoking before going to bed. From time to time, she regarded her son as her late husband, with his straight back and upright sitting posture, his left hand holding the cigarette pot and his right finger holding a tinderbox.
The movements and sounds of smoking and blowing off the ashes, and the habitual snorting sound coming from the nasal cavity, are exactly the same as his father's voice, appearance and demeanor. He is sitting on the chair where his father used to sit and uses the smoking utensils left by his father.
Smoking was entirely to fulfill his filial piety: he was busy non-stop during the day, and he would only sit with her for a while before going to bed with an oil lamp to relieve her of the loneliness of living alone. This was done every night. He usually came into the house to say hello first.
Then they sat down to smoke hookah and talk about some family matters. She believed that her son surpassed his father in many aspects in the clan and at home. She strictly abided by the ancient motto of following her parents when she was young, following her husband when she got married, and following her son when she was old. She very wisely followed
The son handled the housework and clan affairs without interfering. Jiaxuan had already had enough of smoking, so he talked about the important matter of recognizing his daughter. Bai Zhao did not confirm the good relationship between the two generations, Mr. Leng, and said: "Just accept it."
"Three good deers"
Jiaxuan packed up his tobacco pot, pinched out the fire paper and went to the horse barn. Lu San was feeding night grass to the livestock in the horse barn. The horse barn was spacious and neat, with a trough divided into two sections, with a red horse and a horse tied to one side.
The green mule that was born by the red horse was tied to the yellow ox and the purple-red bullock that was born from the yellow ox. A small cellar was made with square bricks under the trough head, and Lu San poured crushed grain, grass and
Spread pea flour ground into fine grits on the grass, pour well water on it, stir evenly with a wooden shovel, and add the wet grass with pea grits stuck to it into the trough. Cattle and bullocks lick it
The copper bell hanging around his neck jingled as he was making forage. Lu San was doing all this with his back to the door, put down his wooden shovel, turned around, and saw Jiaxuan standing behind him watching his work. He did not speak, and even more
There was no need to panic, he was still busy at the trough head according to his original idea. Bai Jiaxuan also stood in front of the trough head, clasping his hands behind his back and watching the mules and horses swallowing the fodder with their long moving lips, making a clicking sound with their teeth. He again
He moved to the cow trough and stood there, watching the oxen and bullock calves wrapping the grass with their long tongues. Lu San turned around and walked to the edge of the kang to sit down and smoke a dry cigarette. The owner did not speak, and he did not take the initiative to say anything. Jiaxuan
Almost every night after sitting with my wife, I have to go to the horse stable. When I come, I stand with my hands behind my back and watch the cattle and horses eating grass and chewing food. I don’t even say a word, and I watch the livestock eat up a whole trough of grass before going back.
Sleeping. Bai Jiaxuan turned around from the trough and walked to Lu San: "Third brother, do you feel sorry for my little daughter Lingling?" Lu San said: "I feel sorry for you." Bai Jiaxuan said: "I will give you a goddaughter."
"Shut it up or not?" Lu San's dark eyes widened in surprise, then he lowered his head slightly and smoked the pot. His mind suddenly started nervously, synthesizing, comparing, affirming, denying, and couldn't make up his mind for a moment.
Bai Jiaxuan said sincerely: "The three of us have discussed it and want to get married to you. Of course... this is a consensual thing. It's better if you like it; it's okay if you don't like it. How about we go over there?
It will be the same in the future. You are thinking in the dark today, and you will give me an answer tomorrow." After that, he walked out of the horse ring.
Lu San was still smoking with his short-tube tobacco pipe, and the smoke drifted across his face, like a clay statue shrouded in incense smoke. This was a self-respecting and confident long-term worker who had won the trust of two generations of the Bai family owners with his honest labor and had a down-to-earth heart.
He received the agreed salary from the Bai family twice a year, once after the wheat harvest, and once after autumn, when he received grain and cotton. However, the Bai family had never been short-changed. In his opinion, we gave others
We work just to earn other people’s food and cotton. People give us food and cotton just to work for others. This is a matter of course and a simple matter. If we earn what others eat and eat what others cook, we will not give it properly.
If you are working for others, why should they hire you? On the other hand, some wealthy people want long-term workers to work and want to deprive long-term workers of their food and salary. Then why would the long-term workers have the motivation to work for you? In this way, the wealthy people want to hire a person who is obedient.
It is also not easy for long-term workers and long-term workers to choose a benevolent and righteous owner. The Bai family is benevolent and righteous. When the first crop of wheat was harvested, the old man Bai Bingde said: "Lu San takes the bag and fills it for you first. You have something tight at home.
Waiting to eat. One stone of wheat is measured according to eleven buckets, and one bucket of water is plowed." When the first crop of cotton was rolled out after autumn, Bai Bingde still said the same thing: "I will weigh it for you first and carry it back, and let the woman see how to use it.
It’s cold.” When the year was good, Bai Bingde said generously at the end of the year: “This year’s harvest is good, add two buckets of wheat, Lu San, you go back and have a good year with your children.” Lu San only has two acres of dry land.
One season of wheat is planted every year. When it is time to sow wheat, Bai Bingde said: "Lu San, you put on the plow and plant your two acres of land first." He used the Bai family's livestock and plows to plant the land in less than an hour.
It’s over. In the spring, Mrs. Zhang, a woman, went to weed with a small hoe. Before the wheat turned yellow, the woman cut it into pieces today and tomorrow. Then she carried them home in bundles and used them in her small yard.
The hammers were smashed one by one. Lu San was dedicated to harvesting, grinding, drying, drying and sowing the autumn fields for the Bai family during the entire summer harvest. When the wheat matured and entered the flood season, Bai Bingde temporarily hired a few wheat merchants from Bailu Town to harvest in time. Lu San
Naturally, he became the leader of the wheat customers, leading them to identify the Bai family's land, and supervising them not to be lazy and cut the wheat and leave too high stubble. Sometimes Lu San couldn't help but get angry: "Look at the wheat stubble you have cut.
Unlike thieves who are cut by humans, they can't leave such a high stubble when they go out to work for others. With this ability, the shopkeeper is blind and calls you a second-rate idiot." Lu San's crop skills are top-notch in Bailu Village.
, he couldn't help but get angry when he saw those jobs that were not done right. After Bai Bingde died, the relationship between Lu San and his generation Bai Jiaxuan became more harmonious. Bai Jiaxuan sincerely called him third brother, and he did not call him master or shopkeeper.
Instead, he calls him by his first name, which is naturally his official name Bai Jiaxuan. Lu San generally does not participate in the internal affairs of the Bai family. Unlike some shallow and snobbish people, he cannot weigh the importance of being treated well by his master.
He was so angry that he wished he could grow a tail to wag his tail. He only abide by one rule, do what he should do and never do what he shouldn't do. Is it inappropriate to treat the Bai family's precious daughter as a big deal?
After Lu San weighed the pros and cons of becoming a doctor or not, he still couldn't make up his mind. In the end, he just thought about one sentence over and over again: Jiaxuan has already spoken, and this face can't be hurt.