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

Old Mrs. Ji's hands trembled, spitting as she spoke: "You wolfish old hag, I knew you weren't a good coward the moment you stepped into the Niu family's door. I never uttered a word against your parents back then, but you've come here and started bullying this old woman! I advise you to stop idly grinding grain in this ditch and making a fool of yourself. Hurry up and give me back all this wheat!"

Niu Lao Er had already scuffled with Ji Lao Si once, but Niu Lao Da pulled him back. Now, hearing this, he couldn't hold back anymore and cursed, "What makes you think this whole row of wheat is yours? Does this wheat grow like you, all with its legs splayed out? Or does it grow like you, with its nostrils pointing to the sky? You bring back my two bundles of wheat first!"

Upon hearing Niu Lao Er curse his mother, Ji Lao Si disregarded Niu Lizheng's attempts to stop him, shoved Niu Lizheng aside, and said in a chilling voice, "Try cursing my mother again! This boundary marker is right here, and this land is mine. If you spout any more nonsense, I'll break your teeth!"

Niu Lao Er's face turned red with anger: "What? You're still so arrogant! I'll curse you, come over here and try to lay a finger on me! Don't think that just because you have a lot of kids you can bully people. My Niu family has quite a few kids too."

"That's right—we Niu family kids aren't afraid of you, come at me if you dare!" Several young men surnamed Niu behind Niu Lao Er shouted in support.

Ji Laosi's brother, Ji Bawa, also shouted loudly, "Don't just talk the talk! If you want to fight, then fight! If you want to punch, then punch! Whoever backs down is a coward!"

Village head Niu Gensheng scolded, "What are you yelling about? Don't you all think things are going to get even worse? If someone gets killed, let's see how you all handle it! You're all just farmers, you don't know any sense of propriety! Don't you even know what's going on with this land?"

When Grandpa Ji and Ji Laoliu arrived with their sons, they saw two groups of people shouting in the golden wheat field, the air filled with spittle, and the wheat field was even hotter than the sun.

Old Lady Ji showed no mercy to Niu Gensheng and continued to spit and curse: "If you, Niu Lao Er, don't return this whole bunch of wheat, I'll die at your hands!"

Niu Lao Er craned his neck and cursed, "What? You're trying to extort me? You scared me to death! If you're so capable, jump off your cliff, headfirst, or you'll trip and die! If that doesn't work, crash into the millstone, or if all else fails, find a tree and hang yourself!"

Grandma Ji was furious and was about to pounce on Niu Lao Er when Ji Ba Wa excitedly shouted, "Grandma, I'll help you! Let's teach that bastard a lesson! I don't believe we can't get rid of him today!"

Just as Old Master Ji arrived at the scene, he overheard this. His face turned ashen, and he shouted at Ji Bawa, "Bawa, what's your surname? Have you forgotten how our ancestors ended up in Niujiazhuang? Are you really a greenhorn?!"

Ji Bawa was startled by Grandpa Ji's sudden shout. He stopped in his tracks, his face full of resentment. He pursed his lips and held back his words.

When Grandma Ji saw Grandpa Ji coming over, she glared at him and said, "What are you doing here? Did you come to see the joke? The Ji family ancestors being taken in is a thing of the past, eight generations ago. If you want to continue being a sycophant, then continue, but don't drag others into it!"

Old Master Ji's face was ashen. He said to Ji Lao Si, "Lao Si, call all the kids back! If the weather is good, we farmers can harvest two crops for every one we plant. But if the weather is bad, no matter how much you plant, you won't get a single grain! All this arguing and fighting, how much can you really get on the field?"

Old Mrs. Ji said sternly, "Child, go back! I'm not going back! I'll stay here and watch! You harmed my fifth son, and now you're trying to trick my fourth son. You're no good either!"

Ji Manqing was so angry he wanted to curse, but Ji Manchuan stopped him with a look.

When Niu Lao Er's wife heard this, she also wanted to stay, but the village head scolded her back: "Women and children, go back! All you can do is make a racket here. What good will all this noise do?"

Just as Old Lady Ji was about to say something more, perhaps due to her advanced age and prolonged exposure to the sun, she suddenly slumped to one side. Ji Lao Si and his sons immediately rushed forward to catch her, and in the process, they squeezed their way to the Niu family's side.

“Who pushed me?”

"I didn't push you!"

"You're the one who pushed me!"

"So what if I pushed you? Go ahead and hit me if you want!"

"I'll hit you if I want, since you told me to!"

"They're hitting people! They're hitting people! Brothers, get them! They're attacking people over there!"

It's unclear who pushed whom first, but Ji Laosi's sons and the young men from the Niu family started hitting each other on the head.

The sounds of fists pounding against flesh echoed all around, making everyone who heard them feel pain in their bodies.

"Ouch, who hit me on the head!"

"Who's pulling my arm!"

Who stepped on my foot?!

My shoes!

Chaos erupted immediately. Seeing the situation spiraling out of control, Niu Gensheng shouted at the top of his lungs, "Stop! Everyone stop!"

Grandpa Ji was furious when he saw the group of young people fighting. He shouted for them to stop.

But the young men, blinded by rage, seemed to have their ears plugged with donkey hair, their only excitement like they'd been injected with chicken blood. They kept waving their fists, as if they couldn't hear or see anything else.

Ji Manchuan and Ji Manqing quickly stepped forward to break up the fight. The two grabbed the two people who were entangled and fighting, and threw them forcefully into the stubble field. Two cries of "Ouch, my ditch is all torn!" were heard.

Just as Old Master Ji was trembling with anger, thinking that someone was about to die, Ji Yongling came running down the ditch, panting, carrying a torch: "Grandpa... here... here you go!"

Ji Yongling originally worked in the field stacking wheat straw, which involved stacking the crushed wheat straw into piles for use as fuel for cooking and filling the kang (a heated brick bed). Of course, the wheat husks also had to be swept up and piled into stacks.

Yang once said that when they were young, one of the things they always looked at when choosing a husband's family was the haystack. A large haystack meant that the family had a lot of land and firewood, so they wouldn't starve or freeze to death.

After all, firewood was a valuable commodity in ancient times.

She saw that Grandpa Ji and the others hurriedly went to the fields. After inquiring, she learned that the Ji family and the Niu family were arguing again. These two families would quarrel several times a year over the land, so the other villagers were used to it.

However, Ji Yongling felt uneasy and wanted to come and check, but Jia Ronghua reassured her, "It's a man's job to use a hammer, we women shouldn't get involved. Nothing will happen, don't worry!"

But she was still worried; a group of grown men really do lose their minds when they fight.

She had seen plenty of fights that resulted in people being killed in the emergency room. In her own hometown village, a neighbor had killed someone over a dispute over a house site, and the person killed was a village official who came to break up the fight.