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

The village was exceptionally quiet at night. Apart from the rustling of leaves in the wind, the chirping of insects by the roadside, and the occasional scurrying of mice, the only sound on the road was the footsteps of Grandpa Ji and the others as their straw sandals fell to the ground.

When the group arrived home, the courtyard was quiet, and the doors to the cave dwellings where people lived were slightly ajar.

Ji Yongling was exhausted after a long day. After quickly washing up, she collapsed onto the kang (a heated brick bed) and fell asleep immediately.

In the courtyard, Ji Manchuan saw that his father had finished washing up but was still sitting under the apple tree smoking his pipe instead of going to bed, so he came over and sat down as well.

"Dad, seeing Uncle Gensheng's cow makes you think about the past again?"

"Puff, puff," Old Master Ji took two deep puffs of his pipe and sighed, "Ah, although so many years have passed, the older one gets, the clearer one remembers what happened in the past. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I feel like some things just happened yesterday, and I can't forget them even if I want to."

"Dad, so many years have passed, everything has turned to ashes, so let's not think about it anymore." Ji Manchuan glanced at Old Master Ji and looked up at the stars in the night sky.

The courtyard was extremely quiet, with a cool breeze blowing and the leaves rustling overhead.

Grandpa Ji took a deep drag on his pipe and said nothing more. The swirling smoke made his face look even more weathered.

An indescribable emotion welled up within him; he felt regret, nostalgia, and self-reproach for everything that had happened in the past.

Grandpa Ji recalled the days when his eldest brother led them and their brothers in practicing with sticks. Back then, although they were often hungry and cold, and were disciplined by his eldest brother every day and beaten from time to time, they were young and arrogant and were not afraid of being beaten at all. Every day, they were full of enthusiasm and roamed the mountains and valleys.

Although they are six brothers, they are all cousins ​​and not born to the same parents. Ji Lao Liu and Ji Lao Wu are biological brothers.

Although they are cousins, they slept on the same kang (heated brick bed) and peed in the same ditch when they were children, so their relationship is comparable to that of blood brothers.

They often spent their days traversing the ditches and gullies, feeding cattle, cutting grass, climbing trees to catch birds, collecting manure, carrying water, and tilling the land with hoes, working up a sweat. They also dug cave dwellings, one hoe at a time, accompanied by the howling of wolves and ghostly cries from the gullies. Back then, their clothes were tattered and they endured hunger, longing to grow up every day, but looking back now, it was such a happy time.

But the gears of fate always turn forward; if only people could stay in their childhood forever.

Back then, Ji Laoda left his wife, children, and elderly parents behind because his younger brothers were too young. He enlisted in the army and later died on the battlefield. His only child, Ji Manjin, was killed along with his family while fighting bandits after getting married.

Because Ji Laosan had many children and often went hungry in his early years, and the neighboring county had a lot of mountainous land where taxes were waived for the first few years of land reclamation, he moved there so that he could grow more potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Ji Laosi was Ji Laotai's eldest son. When he was young, he didn't seem to notice, but as he got older, his temper became more and more volatile. With many sons, he would often get into conflicts with the villagers. In recent years, due to the death of Ji Laowu and Ji Laotai's situation, the two families have stopped having contact.

Speaking of Ji Laowu, Old Master Ji felt endless grief and guilt.

Years ago, due to a conflict between Old Master Ji and the county magistrate's brother-in-law, Ji Laowu died young, a lifelong regret and pain for Old Master Ji. Whenever the night was quiet, he would dream of Ji Laowu's figure, of his joyful smile on his wedding day; but upon waking, he was filled with endless guilt and self-reproach.

He looked up at the twinkling stars in the sky, and the events of that year resurfaced in his mind.

After selling his goods at the market, he went to the cloth shop to buy some fabric scraps to make a winter coat for his child. Just then, he saw the county magistrate's brother-in-law, who was actually the concubine's brother, harassing Ji Laowu's newlywed wife on the street.

Seeing this, a surge of anger welled up within him. How could a man from the Northwest, who had practiced martial arts and staff fighting for many years, tolerate a strange man touching his sister-in-law inappropriately? So, filled with rage, he strode forward, grabbed the shameless man's wrist, and with a slight pull, the man's arm snapped as if it had broken.

The young man, in pain from his wrist, begged for mercy and ran away.

He didn't know the other person's identity at the time and thought it was a trivial matter, so he didn't take it to heart. It wasn't until one day later, when this person brought a group of officials to Niujiazhuang, that he realized he had offended the county magistrate's brother-in-law.

At that time, the county magistrate's brother-in-law led a group of people to break into his house, ransacking and smashing things, demanding that Master Ji compensate him for the fifty taels of medical fees he had paid for examining his wrist.

Old Master Ji's family was poor, so the county magistrate's brother-in-law had his only two valuable possessions, a cow and a donkey, taken away. These cows and donkeys had been left behind by Ji's eldest son. Old Master Ji was furious and tried to reason with them, but he was no match for their numbers. He was severely beaten, tied up, and told he would be imprisoned.

Seeing this, Ji Laowu rushed forward in anger and said, "Second brother, you got into this mess because you stood up for my wife. I can't let you suffer any more. If anyone should go to jail, it should be me!"

The county magistrate's brother-in-law didn't care about anything else. He abandoned Old Master Ji, grabbed the fifth son, and kidnapped him.

At the time, everyone thought that the other party had already taken away the valuables from Old Master Ji's house, and that taking Ji Laowu to the county government was just a show of force, and that he would probably only be locked up for a few days and then be fine.

But who would have thought that the county magistrate's brother-in-law was no pushover? He harbored a grudge against Old Master Ji and secretly instructed the jailers to "take good care" of Ji Laowu. Within a few days, Ji Laowu was beaten black and blue, on the verge of death. He was carried back without uttering a word and died at the village entrance.

Ji Laowu's mother, now known as Old Lady Ji, saw Ji Laowu's body that day and went to his house with a kitchen knife, intending to kill him. Niu Gensheng, who wasn't the village head at the time, saw that Old Lady Ji was serious about killing him, so he and other men from the village tried to stop her and take the knife away. As a result, he was slashed on the back of his hand, and the scar is still there to this day.

Although with Grandpa Ji's skills, Grandma Ji couldn't possibly touch him, Grandpa Ji still had to call Grandma Ji "Auntie," and he also had Ji Laowu's life at stake. If no one stopped him, Grandpa Ji would only be able to kneel and be chopped down.

Therefore, Old Master Ji would never forget the kindness of Niu Gensheng in stopping him from being stabbed.

Ji Laowu's new wife was also a pitiful person. After Ji Laowu died, Ji Laotai believed that this daughter-in-law was a jinx, and that all the bad luck in the family was brought by her. So she went crazy and tortured Ji Laowu's wife in various ways every day at home. Sometimes she would not let her sleep at night and make her grind grain, sometimes she would make her sleep in a pigsty, and it was common for her to be forced to kneel at the door and be beaten with the sole of a shoe.

Grandpa Ji couldn't stand it. He felt that since Ji Laowu had lost his life for him, he should protect Laowu's wife. So he went to persuade Grandma Ji, but she falsely accused him of having an affair with Ji Laowu's wife.