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

"Wife, quickly get me a pair of scissors." Ji Manqing shouted as he tiptoed into the yard, followed by Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou.

"What happened to you? Did a scorpion sting your foot?" Ji Manchuan returned to the courtyard and stared at the foot that Ji Manqing was standing on.

Ji Manqing plopped down under the apple tree in the yard and said irritably, "Hey, Third Brother, can't you wish me well for once? I only got this done because of Ling'er." As he finished speaking, he lifted his bare leg, revealing that the straw sandal had already slipped from his foot to his calf.

Ji Manchuan looked at the straw sandals on Ji Manqing's calves and said, "What kind of monkey trick are you playing now, wearing straw sandals as pants? That's not how you wear them!"

Ji Manqing tried to pull the straw sandals off his legs, but they wouldn't budge. He angrily kicked his feet twice and said, "Don't even mention it. I went to the north ditch to look for Ling'er. I saw a cage halfway up the mountain that looked a lot like ours, so I thought it was Ling'er's and decided to take the cage to find her."

I'd only taken a few steps when a shrew jumped out, yelling that I'd stolen her cage and hay. Before I could explain, she started scratching my face. Of course, I couldn't let her scratch me; a man's pride is so important. So I backed away, and in a slip, the strap of my straw sandal broke, and the sandal pierced my calf.

Ji Manchuan looked at his younger brother speechlessly, while Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou tried to suppress their laughter.

Ji Manqing took off his other shoe, held it in his hand, and threw it at Ji Yongning, shouting, "Go find your mother and get me some scissors, and stop laughing!"

Ji Yongning dodged the flying shoe and ran away quickly, suppressing his laughter.

Ji Manchuan kicked the straw sandal that had fallen to his feet, looked at the torn patches on Ji Manqing's sleeves, and asked, "So, were you scratched or not?"

Ji Yongqing sneered disdainfully and said, "Don't you know who I am? I, Ji Laosi, am a martial arts expert. How could I let a woman get away with this? I'm a good man and I don't fight with women. I'm just letting her have her way. Does she really think she's some kind of fierce and powerful woman?"

Ji Manchuan curled his lip, looking like he couldn't bear to look: "So you came back barefoot like that?"

Ji Yongqing tugged at the straw sandals on his legs again, saying, "Who knew they'd be wrapped so tightly? I had to come back barefoot. Sigh, when you're down on your luck, you can even choke on water. On the way up the slope, I got cut a few times by the ice grass, and they were quite deep." After saying that, he lifted his toes to check.

"Heavenly God, what are you doing? You haven't found the person and you've ruined a pair of straw sandals. What do you do all day?" Hu Xirong walked over with scissors in hand and exclaimed in surprise at the straw sandals on Ji Manqing's legs.

Ji Manqing smacked his lips and said angrily, "You old hag, hurry up and cut it off, you've made my feet blistered."

"Come on, your soles are as thick as city walls, you can't even get a needle through them, how could the dirt on the road wear them down? It's hilarious." Hu Xirong said rudely as she took a pair of scissors and "snip" cut open the straw sandals.

Ji Manchuan shook his head speechlessly and turned to walk towards Jia Ronghua's cave dwelling.

Inside the room, Jia Ronghua had finished feeding Er Yatou and was listening to Chen Shi's sobbing with a worried expression.

It turns out that this sixth grandmother, like Jia Ronghua, almost had her daughter sent away by her family back then.

Back then, Chen gave birth to three daughters. In order to have a son and to reduce the burden on the family, her mother-in-law suggested sending her third daughter away. However, the sending was not done after Chen threatened her with a knife, but she was given to Ji Yongling's fourth grandmother as a daughter.

In this Northwest land, every family needs to have sons. After all, in the era when "agricultural economy reigned supreme," sons were the main source of labor, and having more sons made it easier to farm.

However, in the Ningping County area, families with sons still hope to have a daughter. This is because while sons can provide for you in your old age, it is the daughters who are expected to take care of you personally, especially in the post-mortem procedures such as washing your body and dressing you in your burial clothes.

Ji Yongling's fourth grandmother had nine sons but no daughters, so she gave Chen's third daughter to her. Although the fourth grandmother's family never mistreated this daughter, she married poorly; her husband's family lived far away, and her life was hard. Chen would cry whenever she talked about it.

Ji Yongling sat down on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), listening to Chen's cursing and sobbing. He looked up at his mother, then down at the baby who was asleep but sleeping restlessly, the baby's swaddle covered in patches. He sighed inwardly, wondering what kind of era this was, and what kind of impoverished life they were living.

Ji Manchuan sat on a small stool, listening to the commotion with a smile. He then recounted to Jia Ronghua and Chen Shi how he found Ji Yongling, adding at the end, "Father said that He Daxian by the Lotus Pond was right. He said back then that Ling'er was blessed."

Ji Yongling was speechless, wondering to himself, "Just who is this Immortal He by the lotus pond?"

After finishing her grievances, Chen prepared to leave. Before departing, she repeatedly reminded Jia Ronghua to rest well and not to cry anymore. She said that she had cried and been out in the wind all day, and if she didn't take good care of herself, she would suffer from postpartum illness. She also reminded Ji Manchuan to go to the county to buy some pig's trotters and cook them with soybeans to help Jia Ronghua produce milk.

After seeing Chen off, Ji Manchuan scratched his head with both hands, making his already messy hair look even more like a bird's nest. He looked away for a moment and then looked at Jia Ronghua awkwardly: "Mother, I'll go talk to her and see if I can get a few copper coins to buy pig's trotters."

“Don’t go. I’m broke too. The silkworms didn’t sell for much this spring. Ru’er was sick recently, and we spent a lot on the doctor. I’m sure I don’t have much left. We’ll need money for the wheat harvest next. Sigh, if all else fails, I’ll just give Er’ya some rice porridge.” Jia Ronghua said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Ji Yongling frowned and said, "Let's buy a dairy goat for the family. I'll go herd the goat and milk my sister for her to drink."

Ji Manchuan sighed, "The harvests these past few years have been so-so. It's good enough if we can just make ends meet. There's no money left at home, and lambs aren't cheap these days."

"What a miserable era this is! Life is so hard for the people at the bottom of society," Ji Yongling sighed inwardly. "If only we had milk powder."

She looked down at her hands and suddenly noticed a cut on her left hand that was bleeding slightly. She reached for it with her right hand, trying to stop the bleeding. Instantly, the ring on her right index finger emitted a faint, almost imperceptible, blue light. When Ji Yongling came to her senses, she was already in the storage compartment, the control room where she had been when the incident occurred, but everything was hazy and indistinct.

Ji Yongling gently tapped the control server host with her index finger, and suddenly the screen lit up. She looked around in disbelief; it was lifeless and still cold.

She tentatively entered the access password from the day of the incident, and information from the management interface popped up one after another.

All around was deathly silent. Ji Yongling's eyes fell on the date on the controller: May X, 202X, 2:28 PM. It turned out that everything had stopped on the day of the earthquake, at that moment.

She stared at the screen, feeling a pang of sadness, a tightness in her chest, and a stinging sensation in her nose. She could only tilt her head back slightly to hold back the tears that were welling up in her eyes.

She thought, if her soul could come here, then perhaps others could go somewhere else too.

After a moment, Ji Yongling composed herself and looked around the control room again. Everything was real, empty, and all the items were exactly as they were on the day of the incident, only time had stopped.

Perhaps it was all preordained. During her undergraduate studies, while working part-time in the cafeteria, she saw a notice on the bulletin board saying that the school's management majors could pursue a double degree, so she immediately signed up. Later, she learned that this was the only time the school had offered a double degree to clinical medicine students.

She initially approached it with a playful attitude, but later abandoned her medical career to work at a reserve warehouse control center. Then, an earthquake transported her to an era she couldn't pinpoint.

But now she can enter and leave this storage warehouse again. Is it a sign of God's mercy or punishment?

Ji Yongling thought for a moment, tapped the screen, and sent a command. Immediately, the intelligent transfer vehicle in the warehouse where the milk powder was located started up, and soon the transfer vehicle delivered a box of milk powder.

Ji Yongling looked at the milk powder with a mixture of surprise and dilemma. She was happy that the storage warehouse was still there, and the contents were still there, meaning she could still control it. But she was troubled by how to explain the origin of the milk powder and how to take it out of the warehouse.

"Ling'er, Ling'er!" Jia Ronghua called out anxiously.

"Oh, Mother, what's wrong?" Ji Yongling asked, snapping out of her daze.

"Is this girl frightened? Why is she spacing out for no reason?" Jia Ronghua said, gesturing for Ji Manchuan to come and take a look.

In fact, Ji Yongling did not stay in the storage warehouse for long, but to others, her body from ancient times seemed to be spacing out and daydreaming.

Ji Yongling looked at her mother, smiled slightly, and said, "Mom, it's alright. How long was I just spacing out?"

"Just for a little while. What's wrong? Do you want to stay here forever? Be careful you don't turn into a fool!" Jia Ronghua said reproachfully.

Ji Yongling had a plan in mind. He got up from the kang (a heated brick bed) and said, "I just remembered that I left the pig feed basket in the ravine. I'll go get it."

"Don't go, let your dad go!"

"No, Father doesn't know where it is, and I hid something in that cage. I can't let anyone find out." Ji Yongling ran out before her parents could respond.

Actually, she just wanted to try out the reserve warehouse.

She ran all the way to the ravine where the grass was being cut and found the cage that had held the grass from yesterday. She rubbed her left hand against the ring on her right finger, and instantly appeared in the storage bin. She picked up the milk powder and remained beside the grass cage.

She picked up the cage and stroked the ring again. She was still in the ravine and had not entered the storage compartment. She stroked it again, but still did not go in.

She put down the cage, stroked the ring, and immediately appeared in the storage compartment.

She understood that she could bring things in and out of the storage warehouse, but things belonging to this era could not enter the storage warehouse.

In this era of famine and hardship, the reserves were enough for her, her family, and even thousands of other families to eat their fill and stay warm, to survive. However, these things could not be taken out casually, or she might face certain death.

Caution is the rule for survival.

Back home, Ji Yongling composed herself and tentatively asked, "Father, Mother, do you believe our ancestors will protect us?"

“This girl. Didn’t you say before that the ancestors were too busy and there were too many descendants to protect everyone, and that you still have to rely on yourself in everything? After what happened yesterday, you seem a bit strange today.” Ji Manchuan patted Ji Yongling on the shoulder and said.

“I don’t believe in ghosts or gods, but I do believe in my ancestors!” Ji Yongling smiled slyly.

"Alright, Father, Mother, I have something to tell you. This is very serious, and you must keep it a secret. If anyone finds out, not only me, but our whole family will be doomed." Ji Yongling put on an unquestionable expression and solemnly said to Ji Manchuan and Jia Rong.

Jia Ronghua immediately shivered, groped her arm, and said, "This girl, stop scaring your mother. Hurry up and tell us, and your parents promise not to tell anyone."