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

Just as Ji Manchuan was about to enter his cave dwelling, Ji Yongling called him over.

"Dad, hold up the torch for me, I'm going to graft the two trees by the door."

Ji Manchuan left the yard with a black line on his forehead. He didn't know why his daughter had to rush to get those two trees in the middle of the night.

"Girl, do you really have to do this in the middle of the night? Can't we wait until dawn? Hey, look, you're holding a knife in your hand. Be careful not to cut yourself." Ji Manchuan said, holding a torch and looking at his daughter who was carefully pruning trees in the firelight.

Ji Yongling, with branches of persimmon and jujube trees seven or eight centimeters above the ground in her hands, said without turning her head, "The sooner you graft them, the better they'll survive."

Ji Manchuan had no choice but to shut up, holding the torch and looking somewhat bewildered as Ji Yongling cut and sliced ​​on the two trees at the entrance of the courtyard.

Ji Yongling had no time to pay attention to Ji Manchuan. First, on the north side of the persimmon and jujube trees, about two or three centimeters from the ground, she peeled off the bark and put the bud from the scion she brought back from Ji Shuicao's house into it. Then she wrapped the bud with bark and took out a transparent plastic film from the storage room to tie it up. Then she wrapped the tattered clothes she borrowed from Yang's house on the film to disguise it.

Ji Yongling clapped his hands, breathed a long sigh of relief, and said, "Finally finished! Now we'll see the results in a few days."

Ji Manchuan stammered, "That's...that's it? Is that all?"

Ji Yongling turned to look at his father, smiled happily, and said, "Yeah, it's not difficult, is it?"

Ji Manchuan stared in disbelief. He had seen Old Master Ji graft trees before. The grafting involved cutting off the crown, splitting the tree in the middle, inserting a selected branch, and then leaving the tree to live or die.

Watching Ji Yongling operate, everything seemed so natural and reliable, even though it didn't look difficult. Ji Manchuan thought to himself, "No wonder everyone says that the South has talented scholars and the North has generals. Southerners are really smart. Look at the grafting method taught by this southerner. It's so different from how the people in our village do it. It's so meticulous and ingenious."

Ji Yongling had no idea that Ji Manchuan had imagined so much. She carefully inspected the two trees, confirmed that there was no problem, casually put the fruit knife in her pocket, clapped her hands, and prepared to go into the yard.

Ji Manchuan grabbed Ji Yongling and whispered, "Hey, girl, where did you get this knife? I've been looking at it for a while, and it looks very sharp and useful. You'd better hide it well."

Ji Yongling asked, puzzled, "What's wrong, Dad?"

Ji Manchuan pulled Ji Yongling away from the gate and said, "Keep your voice down, don't let your fourth uncle hear, otherwise he'll snatch it away and take it."

Ji Yongling: "..."

The next morning, as dawn broke, Grandpa Ji looked curiously at the persimmon and jujube trees by the door. He wanted to touch the graft union wrapped in cloth strips, but ultimately withdrew his hand.

He shook his head and asked Ji Yongling, "Kid, so you were doing this in the middle of the night last night. Grafting a persimmon tree onto a persimmon tree is definitely no problem, but can you graft a persimmon tree onto a jujube tree? Will it grow into a persimmon or a jujube?"

Ji Yongling smiled and said, "Sir, would you believe me if I said that both of these trees will eventually bear persimmons?"

Grandpa Ji hesitated for a moment, muttering, "Isn't this like a donkey giving birth to a mule, resulting in a mutation?"

Ji Yongling organized his thoughts and said, "Grandpa, grafting a tree doesn't count as a mutation because it doesn't change the species (genes). It's like when we humans cut off a finger and replant it. Donkeys and horses giving birth to mules is a hybridization of different species, and it's not a mutation (genetically modified) in the strict sense."

Grandpa Ji was a little confused, but he grasped the key point and asked, "What did you say? A broken finger can be reattached? How? By stitching it back up?"

Ji Yongling suddenly froze, wondering how she was supposed to answer that.

Grandpa Ji shook his head: "If only a broken finger could be reattached. Someone in the village once chopped off their hand while using a chaff cutter, and, disgusted with being crippled, jumped off a cliff. Sigh—"

Ji Yongling quickly changed the subject, saying, "Grandpa, I've been practicing flying needles lately, let me demonstrate for you."

Grandpa Ji straightened up and said, "You brat, all you do is waste money and things. You just earned a few measly coins and you brought back a bunch of needles to flick around with your fingers. Look how angry you are, you haven't been eating much these past two days."

Ji Yongling smiled sheepishly. Although she had practiced stick fighting, after the incident of catching fake deer antlers at the market, she felt it would be better to learn a small and convenient self-defense technique. So she thought of a character she used to like from movies and TV shows, Dongfang Bubai.

So they bought a bunch of needles to disguise it, but actually they were using the steel needles from the reserve warehouse, because needles in this era were really not durable.

Recently, whenever she had free time, she would "fly around" on the wooden board with a needle threaded on it, which made Yang's heart jump. She kept calling out from the side: "Oh dear, you spendthrift child! With so many needles, you could make enough clothes for several generations of people. You're just pricking around on the board, and you can't even make a single flower."

Ji Yongling would always comfort Yang: "Grandma, if any bandits or other people bully me in the future, I'll just throw a needle at them and make sure they can stab me wherever they want, and make sure they die a good death."

Madam Yang glared and said, "This girl has such a strong bandit spirit, she'll never find a husband!"

Now Ji Yongling is demonstrating her needle-throwing technique on her own front door, saying, "Grandpa, watch me stick a needle into the door knocker."

Just as Grandpa Ji was about to stop him, he saw a needle with a red thread steadily embedded in the door knocker three meters away. If it weren't for the red thread, he wouldn't have seen anything fly past or pierce the door.

Grandpa Ji said helplessly, "Kid, you're really strong, but this door has no grudge against you. Look, you've poked a hole in it. Luckily, our door is thick, otherwise you would have pierced it through. Then you could see who's outside without even opening the door."

Ji Yongling grinned sheepishly and pulled the needle back along the red thread.

Grandpa Ji shook his head and said, "Don't prick someone with needles again next time. It could cause a huge disaster if you accidentally prick someone." With that, he turned and went into the courtyard.

"I know, sir." Ji Yongling followed him inside.

The medicinal herbs in the surrounding villages have been mostly harvested recently, and Ji Manchuan and his brothers are loading their trucks to take the herbs to the county.

When Ji Manqing saw Ji Yongling come in, he called out, "Ling'er, here's the note from yesterday. Master Xu said that since you're not going these two days, he'll write down the goods and money on a note first, and then settle the payment with you after all the goods are delivered."

Ji Yongling took the note, carefully checked the amount, and seeing that there was no problem, stuffed it into the pocket of his clothes.

At the west end of the village, Yao, the wife of Ji Laosi, had been somewhat anxious these past few days. She tiptoed to the window of Ji Laotai's cave dwelling, bent over and peeked inside through the window lattice. Seeing that Ji Laotai was sleeping on the kang mat without moving, she quietly left and went to the door of Ji Jiuwa's cave dwelling.

She lifted the straw curtain and said to Jiuwa's wife on the kang (a heated brick bed), "The weeds in the field have grown quite a bit lately. Go and help your father and Jiuwa pull some weeds."

"I know, Mother." Jiuwa's wife put down her needlework, hurriedly got off the kang (a heated brick bed), put on her straw sandals, and went outside.

Seeing Jiuwa's wife walk out of the courtyard, Yao tiptoed and glanced at Old Lady Ji's cave dwelling again before quickly walking towards an unused cave dwelling to the right of the gate.