After saying all this, General Yuwen stopped wasting words, turned, and left.
Jiang Cheng and the others planned to continue searching the city for clues. On the way, everyone's attention was inevitably drawn to the so-called embroidered ball. The Fatty couldn't help asking, "Is an embroidered ball like they show in period movies? A woman stands on a high platform, turns her back to the crowd, and throws the ball as hard as she can. A bunch of men below fight over it, and whoever catches it gets to marry the woman on the platform?"
Jiang Cheng shook his head and corrected him. "That's just a modern embellishment. You can't take it as fact. In ancient times, people cared a great deal about family status, and marriages had to be between families of equal standing. If an embroidered ball thrown by a young lady from a prominent family were caught by a beggar from the street, would she really have to marry him? Even if the woman were willing, her family wouldn't agree."
The Fatty nodded repeatedly after being enlightened. "So that's how it was."
But before he could finish speaking, Tang Qisheng shook his head. "Brother Jiang is right, but not entirely. The custom of throwing embroidered balls wasn't completely made up; it did have historical precedents."
"The Song dynasty scholar Zhou Qufei mentioned it in his book Lingnan Daida: 'When a man and woman take a liking to each other, the woman loves the tuo, and the man's marriage is settled.' Roughly speaking, some ethnic minorities in Lingnan had a custom of throwing embroidered balls to make friends. If a man and woman liked each other, the woman would toss a flying tuo to the man. If he caught it, the two had reached an understanding and would