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

Ji Manchuan sat down while laughing, saying, "Manqing, do you have the guts to open your eyes and look at me? Come on, look at me—"

Ji Manqing said speechlessly, "Brother, I was stung, stung... Don't you have any sympathy at all? You're really heartless—you're like a used tool that's been discarded!"

Ji Manchuan continued to laugh heartily, "Young man, you ate two pounds of peas and saved up a lot of farts..."

Ji Manqing wanted to clench his fist and punch someone, but his hand was swollen so badly he couldn't clench it, and it hurt too much to do so. He could only pout his swollen, red lips and say with difficulty to Ji Yongning and Ji Yongzhou beside him, "Your father was so foolish and naive before, thinking that the bond between brothers was the truest and best. Now I realize that I was completely mistaken. Brothers like your third uncle are just like cutting nettles to feed a donkey—all pretense. You two should learn from this!"

Ji Yongzhou and Ji Yongning knew their father was joking. They were used to the back-and-forth banter between their father and their third uncle, so they just smiled and remained silent.

Ji Yongling came out of the kitchen carrying a plate and saw Ji Manqing, whose face was swollen like a monkey's bottom that had been soaked in water, craning his neck to lecture his two sons. The scene was as ridiculous as could be. She laughed so hard that the plate in her hand shook and she almost knocked over the bowl inside.

Ji Manchuan hurriedly stood up and took the plate from Ji Yongling's hand, not forgetting to retort to Ji Manqing: "You're just like the old sheep's head, you never improve. You got kicked by a donkey when you were young, stung by a bee when you grew up, who knows what kind of spirit you'll become when you're old..."

Hu Xirong also came out of the kitchen, looking at Ji Manqing with a mocking expression, and exclaimed, "Oh my god, you're like a toad looking for a frog, ugly as you are! Did you think Yongning's eyebrows and eyes were pretty, so you got stung by a bee and got a pig's head like him?"

Ji Manqing raised his head, strained to open his eyes, wanting everyone to see the anger in them, and said, "Hey, let's not talk about it anymore! It was all going to be a success, but when I was running with the beehive, I stepped on some ice grass, slipped, and fell flat on my backside. That's when the swarm of bees caught up with me and stung me."

When Yang came over and saw Ji Manqing's appearance, she couldn't help but laugh. The wrinkles on her face deepened as she laughed and said, "You're like a toad jumping over a threshold today, hurting both your chin and your face!"

"Mother—" Ji Manqing called out in a wronged tone.

He endured the swelling and pain, slurped a mouthful of vegetable paste with his donut-shaped mouthpiece, and thought the vegetable paste tasted terrible today. He mumbled incoherently, "Back in the day, I was a handsome man as good as Pan An, the number one dashing young man in our Niujiazhuang. Now I've been stung by bees and my face is all messed up, all so that my family can have some honey to sweeten their mouths. Look at you all... sigh, I'm like a sheep that has wandered into a wolf's den, a sacrifice made in vain."

Ji Manchuan picked up a piece of vegetable, dipped it in the clear honey on the table, and stuffed it into his mouth. He smacked his lips twice and said, "This wild honey is so sweet! Manqing, you're quite skilled at hoeing the land with a two-pronged rake. Whether our family can eat honey in the future depends entirely on you."

Ji Manqing shook his head vigorously: "I'm not some monkey who deliberately stirs up hornet's nests and asks to get stung! I'm not going anymore."

The whole family was laughing heartily.

Grandpa Ji was the most composed. Although he had a smile on his face, it wasn't like the others who were swaying from side to side with their smiles. He looked at Ji Manqing and asked, "Did you send the honey to Tiedan's grandma?"

Ji Manqing slurped up a mouthful of vegetable paste through his slurred mouth, then stuck out his tongue to lick the paste leaking from the sausage's mouth, and said, "I delivered it. After crossing the ditch, I went to her house first and poured a small jar for Tiedan's grandma, about a pound."

Grandpa Ji nodded in satisfaction.

After dinner, Ji Yongling went to look through the extra mugwort leaves he had collected earlier, pondering how to make mugwort floss.

She had previously attended lectures and learned that in ancient times, the process of making mugwort floss involved first thoroughly drying the collected mugwort leaves, then placing them in a stone mortar and repeatedly pounding and crushing them until they were finely crushed like cotton wool. After kneading and sifting to remove dust, coarse stems, and impurities, the resulting floss was pale yellow, clean, and fluffy.

However, this method produces coarse moxa wool, and one pound of mugwort leaves can yield more than half a pound of moxa wool, which is suitable for general moxibustion.

She thought that if she continued to knead and sort the impurities, and then pounded and refined the mixture in a stone mortar and pestle, and sieved it, she could probably obtain the fine floss from rice grain moxibustion.

Moreover, this processing must be done on a sunny day, which is fortunate because the Loess Plateau is dry with low air humidity. Otherwise, the purer and finer the mugwort floss, the stronger its water absorption capacity, resulting in a weaker fragrance and even a musty smell.

This traditional production method is time-consuming and labor-intensive. If some steps can be improved, it should reduce a lot of time and labor costs.

Having figured out the procedure, Ji Yongling decided to start trying to make it tomorrow.

Perhaps because Ji Manqing and his son had brought so much joy during the day, Ji Yongling forgot all the exhaustion and fatigue from catching lice the night before and slept soundly until dawn.

In the morning, right after practicing with the stick, Ji Yongru was grabbed by Yang to have her hair combed.

Yang sat on the threshold of the cave dwelling, and Ji Yongru sat on Yang's shoes, sandwiched between Yang's legs.

Madam Yang grabbed the little girl's hair and used a fine-toothed comb to forcefully comb it downwards, strand by strand.

I don't know if it was because the fine hair comb was too fine, or because the little girl only washed her hair every few days and her hair was too dry. In any case, every time the comb went in, the little girl would clutch her scalp and struggle and scream in pain.

"I don't want to use a comb anymore, my scalp hurts too much!"

Unmoved, Yang grabbed Ji Yongru, who was trying to break free, and bent her legs to keep them tightly clamped together.

She frowned, spat twice on the comb, and said, "Bear with it, Grandma will get rid of the lice and nits for you in a little while, and then your head won't itch anymore."

Ji Yongru couldn't help but cry out, "It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!"

Yang calmly handed the comb covered in strings of white nits to Ji Yongru and said, "See this? So many nits, and who knows how many lice. The lice have drunk all the blood off your head. You'll be a nauseous woman from now on and won't be able to find a husband!"

Upon hearing this, Ji Yongru immediately bit her lip and stopped yelling, but she still shed tears from the pain.

Soon, several large, shiny black lice were combed off the comb. Yang shook the comb, and the lice jumped onto the patch on Yang's whitened thigh.

These live black lice scattered and fled, but Yang caught them with quick eyes and hands, and one by one they were executed with a "crunch crunch" on Yang's two thumbnail nails.

Finally, the combing was finished. Yang ran her hands through Ji Yongru's scalp, as if she had completed her masterpiece, nodded in satisfaction, released her legs, and set Ji Yongru free.

As Ji Yongling watched Yang Shi happily battling lice with a comb, she sensed a strong sense of accomplishment emanating from Yang Shi after she had combed the lice, and Ji Yongling couldn't help but shiver.

"Come here, Ling'er, it's your turn!" Madam Yang patted the patch on her thigh and waved to Ji Yongling with a smile.