Daily life of farming and supporting a family on the ancient Loess Plateau

Hu Xirong chased after Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou all over the place with a broom, hitting them repeatedly, but she missed most of the time and didn't manage to hit them many times, but she ended up panting heavily.

While standing up the wheat bundles, Ji Manqing shouted to Hu Xirong, "With all your strength, you and your son could easily thresh the wheat for us, saving us the mule."

Upon hearing this, Hu Xirong stopped chasing Ji Yongning and Ji Manqing. She turned around and waved a broom at Ji Manqing, saying, "The wheat harvest is finished today. Now we should have a good talk about those three coins."

Ji Manqing took two steps back and shouted, "You woman, I almost 'died' today, and instead of offering my condolences, you want to resort to violence? Are you planning a rebellion?"

Hu Xirong tapped her palm with a broom, looking at Ji Manqing with ill intent.

Ji Manqing puffed out his chest and said, "I don't argue with women, but don't push your luck! If word gets out that I, Ji Manqing, let my wife wield a broom and act arrogantly in front of me, people will say I'm a weak husband, and I'll lose face!"

Hu Xirong continued to tap her palm with the broom, saying, "Then try shaking it."

Ji Manqing looked around and saw that everyone in the field was busy arranging wheat and no one was paying attention to him, so he coughed twice and said, "I still have to stay with Third Brother in the field today. You hurry up and finish your work to go see the child. Yongru has been playing all day and is sleepy."

Hu Xirong turned her head and saw Ji Yongru leaning against a pile of wheat, her head nodding as she dozed off. She gritted her teeth, glared at Ji Manqing, and left.

Ji Manqing snorted and muttered smugly to himself, "A woman like you, trying to climb all over me!"

That night, Ji Manqing insisted on sleeping at the venue, and no matter how his family tried to persuade him, they couldn't.

He said, "I didn't listen to my third brother last night, but I'll definitely sleep on the straw tonight, there won't be any problem. I don't believe it can happen again tonight!"

Everyone had no choice but to let him be.

However, this night caused Ji Manchuan a great deal of trouble.

He woke up several times in the middle of the night, sometimes touching Ji Manqing's head to see if it was hot; sometimes putting his finger under Ji Manqing's nose to see if he was still breathing; sometimes poking Ji Manqing's legs and arms with wheat straw to see if there was any reaction.

That night, Ji Manchuan felt even more exhausted than when he was harvesting wheat during the day; he was mentally exhausted.

The next day, Grandpa Ji checked the wind direction and said that the next few days would be sunny, so it would be a good time to thresh the grain.

Everyone carried their tools to the threshing ground early in the morning to prepare for threshing.

Ji Manchuan, wearing a straw hat and a cloth draped over his shoulder, led his beloved mule out of the mule shed, put a harness around the mule's neck (to protect its neck from chafing), put a rope and a clamp on its body, and hung a stone roller on it.

Ji Manchuan led the mule with one hand and raised the whip in the other, shouting as he began to thresh the wheat spread out in the field.

The millstone creaked and groaned as it pressed down on the wheat, causing the grains to fall from the ears of wheat.

Grandpa Ji and the others used wooden pitchforks to continuously turn over the wheat, spreading it evenly, turning over the wheat that had been pressed down to the bottom, and then turning over the wheat that was underneath.

Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou skipped and hopped behind the mule, responsible for picking up mule dung. Ji Yongning would occasionally mischievously tug at the mule's tail, which made the mule bray and shout, drawing scolding from the adults.

Besides the Ji family, other families in Niujiazhuang were also threshing wheat, and some were hauling the harvested wheat back to the threshing ground. In short, the threshing grounds on the roofs of every household's cave dwellings were bustling with activity.

After a while, Ji Yongling used a fork to push the threshed wheat straw. A thin layer of peeled wheat grains and chaff was already exposed on the ground. Grandpa Ji called out to her to use a wooden fork to pick up the threshed wheat straw into a pile, preparing to stack it up.

After finishing one round of grinding, Ji Manchuan let the exhausted mule rest for a while before starting the second round...

One harvest after another... until all the wheat was threshed...

As evening fell, the threshing ground fell silent, bidding farewell to the daytime hustle and bustle. Several adults collapsed from exhaustion in the pile of wheat covered with chaff and bran.

Ji Manchuan held a handful of wheat in his hand, letting the grains slip through his fingers, and exclaimed with joy, "We finally finished harvesting the wheat smoothly. Although this year's harvest wasn't a bumper one, it was still a relatively good year with favorable weather."

Ji Manqing looked up at the sky and said, "Harvesting wheat is really exhausting! Two months ago, I didn't even dare to think that there would be livestock to help with threshing this year. Every year in recent years, threshing wheat has worn my back to shreds."

"Third Brother, wouldn't it be wonderful if some deity could descend to earth, wave their sleeve, and the wheat would be bagged and poured into the granary? We wouldn't have to stand on the yellow earth with our backs to the sky, harvesting, threshing, winnowing, and drying the wheat!"

In previous years, the family didn't have any livestock, so the heavy stone roller, weighing over 200 pounds, had to be pulled by Grandpa Ji and his sons on their shoulders. It was not only slow, but also very exhausting. Threshing a batch of wheat would take several days, so by the end of the harvest, the shoulders and backs of the men in the family were covered in cuts and bruises.

Upon hearing Ji Manqing's words, Ji Manchuan exclaimed, "My goodness! The wheat harvest is almost over, and you're already dreaming of a god descending to earth and hauling the wheat home for you? You don't even want the county magistrate to bend over and harvest the wheat for you!"

Ji Manqing shuddered instantly and said, "Don't say that! It's good enough that the county magistrate doesn't punish me in the ditch. I dare to imagine him cutting down the ditch to harvest wheat! I'd be asking for trouble!"

Grandpa Ji looked at his two sons, who were exhausted, and said, "You two should thank Ling'erwa. Without Ling'erwa, where would you get your mules and sampans? This wheat harvest would have taken at least a month."

Ji Manqing sat up abruptly and said, "That's right, Ling'er is really smart! Do you think it's because the earth dragon turned over and the celestial dog ate the sun that Ling'er's intelligence was brought out? I've heard people say that some children become clever when they are frightened, while others become as thin as a melon seed when they are frightened."

Ji Manchuan said speechlessly, "That morning you scared yourself so much that you thought you were going to die, but didn't that scare you into thinking things through? People's brains are like that. If your parents are good, even if you're not smart, you'll still be clever; if they're not good, you'll be just like you, really dull."

Ji Manqing, neck stiff with resentment, retorted, "What, are you implying my parents didn't give birth to me well?"

Ji Manchuan rolled his eyes and said, "No, you are the smartest and most capable child born to your parents! I'm waiting for you to achieve great things in the future and replace our chicken feeder with a gold one and the pig feeder with a silver one. If that's not possible, copper ones will do."

Grandpa Ji was still a little worried about Ji Mancang's summer harvest, so he put his hands behind his back, bent over, and went for a stroll in Ji Mancang's field despite his fatigue.

No sooner had Grandpa Ji left than Zhang Sheng from Zhangjiapan rushed over to Grandpa Ji's house. He knew everyone was busy harvesting wheat, so he went straight to the field.