"Jiabin, do we want to bury the house stone?"
On the morning before the Chinese New Year, the weather was unexpectedly cold. Fu Hong walked around the courtyard with his hands folded to ask.
Xi Chao, who was sitting in the house, was obviously a little confused. "Should I want it? But, we are not the owners of the house, are the house stones we buried useful?"
"Are we going to hang a statue of the god?" Fu Hong continued to ask outside.
"It should be hung up... otherwise the whole city would be hung up, so it wouldn't be appropriate for a house as big as ours not to hang up, right?" Xi Chao was still a little distracted.
"Then..." Fu Hong hesitated to speak, finally gave up, and simply sat on the porch, also dazed.
"Where is Acheng?" After a long while, Xi Chao gathered his energy and asked.
"I don't know. Just like a few days ago, he disappeared in the morning. He probably won't come back until the afternoon." Fu Hong also looked a little frustrated. "Anyway, he should be there before leaving in the afternoon."
Xi Chao fell back into the previous state, but finally took the initiative to speak, "How many times has brother spent the Chinese New Year with someone else?"
"The fourth time." Fu Hong said seriously. "But it's different every time. There's nothing measurable... The first time, although I was already on the road, my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew were still together, enough to rely on; the second time was on the road, thinking about how to meet Elder Brother at Huai River region, and didn't even notice that it was the Chinese New Year; the third time I had already arrived at Jiankang, that was the only time I felt lonely and indescribable, because although I found the same clan as Fu Clan, there was no trace of my brother and his family, and their future was unknown. It was like a dead leaf caught in the wind in the night, and there was a lot of fear... After these four times, I feel a little more relaxed. At least I know where the future is, but I am still at a loss. I don't know what to do, should I be happy or sad?"
Xi Chao nodded. "You have a similar experience to Acheng. You should be similar to him this time last year, but you also know what he is like. Even if he is at a loss, he will pretend to be okay on the surface, as if he can leave him alone."
"I'm envious if you can just show off your face." Fu Hong just nodded.
"Indeed." Xi Chao nodded in agreement, but then he couldn't help but sigh. "But compared to the two of you, my parents, brothers, and wife are all fine. I just left home. I'm so rude, but I seem to be pretentious."
"This is nothing, it's human nature." Fu Hong explained in turn. "I guess it will be the same next year unless I get married and start a business. On the contrary, it is rare to be as willing as Ayana. Even if it is superficial, it is really rare."
Xi Chao became even more sad after hearing this.
As they were talking, there was a sudden noise outside. The two of them knew that it was Liu Cheng who was coming back, and they were both a little surprised that the other party came back so early, but after all, they were in a low mood to a certain extent, so they just looked at each other and didn't want to get up at all.
However, in just a moment, the front yard was already noisy, with people laughing, shouting, and people coming and going. I even saw many Slave Retainerss running directly past them regardless of themselves.
At this time, the two finally couldn't sit still anymore and looked ahead.
Sure enough, the front yard was already extremely chaotic and lively at this time, and even the appearance of Xi Chao only caused the place to pause for a moment.
In particular, Liu Cheng immediately waved to people. "Jiabin, Huaizhi, why are you here now? Help me quickly...Jiabin is here to give out New Year gifts (annual gifts), Brother Huai Zhi is going to take people to bury the house stone and hang the statues. I also need to count the chickens and arrange the New Year's breakfast."
The two looked at each other again, but thinking that just now they were lamenting that Liu Cheng's situation was not better than the two of them, they also felt that it would be pretentious to sigh any more, especially since the other party had prepared everything, so they had no choice but to follow their words - Fu Hong took a few strong men to bury Shitou, and Xi Chao replaced Liu Acheng, sitting between two piles of hills. The pile on the left is a pile of copper coins strung and wrapped with inferior Talisman, and the pile on the right is a roll every ten feet, also covered with ordinary linen cloth of inferior quality Talisman.
As soon as he sat down, Xi Chao couldn't help but look at those Talisman, and just as he thought, the scrawled handwriting on them was simply Liu Cheng's own scribblings, and there were also some things Liu Cheng said he had taught him. It was counting the numbers in Sanskrit from Tianzhu, and I became more and more helpless. Then when I was about to distribute them, there was suddenly a loud crackling sound. I was shocked on the spot. After looking for a long time, I discovered that several Mounted Slaves had dragged a bunch of bamboos in at some time and were stuffing the bamboos into the brazier that was burning in the courtyard during the day.
Xi Chao finally couldn't help it, pointed to where and loudly asked Liu Cheng at the far end, "Why are you burning firecrackers at this time?"
"Aren't we going to Duke Huan's house in the afternoon? When we get there, where is the chance for us to light firecrackers? Let them set fire to it. I'll enjoy listening to it first." Liu Cheng said confidently.
Xi Chao had no choice but to ignore it and started to sit there and start giving New Year's greetings to the Xie Clan Slave Retainers or his own Slave Retainers one by one, and that I don't know who I learned these Slave Retainers from. After receiving a New Year's gift, I saluted and thanked him and said something like the saying "The husband will be promoted and make a fortune", but he actually returned the gift to him. Do you want to stand up and thank him yourself and say, "I also wish you many children and good luck"?
I can only throw it behind me.
However, these gifts were of various kinds, including bags of needlework, horse chews Bamboo Flute, cakes, beans and wheat, and even daggers and soft bows.
After collecting more than a dozen, Xi Chao became angry again and couldn't help but loudly asked Liu Cheng: "Liu Yulong, what's going on?"
"Just keep it." Liu Cheng just waved his hand. "It will be useful later, but I still have to worry about it."
Xi Chao had no choice but to continue to sit there as a receptionist, and then listened to Liu Cheng's calculations, and was even more confused - if it is understandable to talk about annual gifts, why should he care about whether the chicken should be cooked or not? And should he swallow it whole or bite it?
Can the chicken be eaten raw? Wang Lantian knows how to pick it up after it's cooked!
"I asked Master Lu, and he replied specifically." Liu Cheng said it with certainty, and finally moved out of authority, suppressing several young Xie Clan who were born in the local area in front of him. Slave Retainers."Master Lu You should also have heard from the person over at Kuaiji. He said that chickens should be cooked and eaten. It is possible to swallow them whole, but it refers to the yolk, not the whole egg. You are wrong."
Several elders Slave Retainers chatted and finally did not dare to argue anymore.
"Jing-Chu Are you going to swallow chickens alive here?" Xi Chao finally woke up after hearing this. "What kind of custom is this?!"
"The local Daoist business is not good enough, not even as good as Master Du Ming." Liu Cheng explained helplessly and turned around to scold him again. "Do you understand? You can't even see Jiabin all know that your custom is wrong! You have to cook it before swallowing it, and only the yolk in the chicken is swallowed whole, and you have to use the water where Talisman has been boiled to soak it. As for the egg white, just peel it off and eat it normally!"
At this time, the local Slave Retainers didn't even dare to chat, and finally nodded one after another.
"That's it for eating chicken, then Tusu wine, maltose, five-spice plate, Peachwood soup, what else is there?" Liu Cheng continued to ask. "Is there anything missing?"
"So the New Year's breakfast is all ready." A steward with a South of the Yangtze accent hurriedly answered, and then asked again. "The New Year's dinner for tomorrow night is also ready, but the three husbands are not here. Who should I salute after the breakfast?"
"What's so embarrassing about this?" Liu Cheng was extremely speechless. "You can just move the three couches over there and place them under the corridor. Just salute to the couches, just like you do to the ancestral tablets... If you salute to the ancestral tablets, the ancestors can feel it, so we can also feel your loyalty."
The steward asked again and again, "Then should we set up an extra couch and salute Xie Family Master of the Household together?"
"You can do it yourself if you have a sense of loyalty and filial piety, but you can't force people here Xi Family to salute." Liu Cheng quickly responded. "After you salute us, move the chairs back. Depending on your age, you can salute again."
But finally another matter was arranged.
In this way, everyone was busy, and before noon, everything was ready, including burying the townhouse stone, hanging the door statue, the host giving out gifts including new clothes and cloth representing the New Year, the New Year's Eve dinner, the New Year's breakfast the next morning, and the ceremony of saluting and celebrating the New Year, and even the etiquette of eating raw chicken here Jing-Chu has also been arranged.
Logically speaking, it is appropriate enough.
But Liu Acheng always had tricks up his sleeve, and he commanded the Slave Retainers maids in the courtyard to pull the hemp rope for drying clothes seven or eight times along the eaves, corridors, pillars, and lampstands in the courtyard, and then hung up the gadgets that Slave Retainers had previously asked to prepare for the new year's gift.
Then they clapped their hands in the corridor. "Look at your gifts now. There are numbers on the Talisman wrapped in copper coins... It doesn't matter if you don't recognize them. Show them to me one by one, and I will point them out to you. You go and take off the corresponding gifts for your colleagues in the same house. It will be counted as another gift between you. After taking them off, you must ask who gave it to each other and thank them one by one."
Even though Xi Chao and Fu Hong knew that Liu Acheng was "different from the ordinary", or that they were panicking during this new year's holiday, or that they were simply "ignoring", they couldn't help but be stunned at this time.
You are really free! If you can let these people prepare these in advance, they must have arranged them when they come back in the afternoon on the first day of the annual holiday, okay?
Not to mention Xi and Fu, even the different Slave Retainers below were all stunned for a while, not knowing what etiquette this was, and there must be some people who didn't understand it.
But it doesn't matter, Liu Acheng personally gave instructions. These people came up one by one with their copper coins as annual gifts, looked at the numbers on them, and then personally counted out the corresponding gifts, and then asked the other party to take them down.
The first few went smoothly, but soon, a little slave girl Xie Clan, who was an eleven or twelve-year-old cook, got the horse bit. She cried on the spot, which made Xi Family Mounted Slaves who took out the horse bit embarrassed. She quickly offered to exchange it with money. But she was Liu Cheng denied it in front of everyone, and just said the annual gift, a little thought was enough to ensure a year's peace. There was no need to worry about whether it was useful, so he asked the little slave girl to salute seriously, which made Mounted Slaves, who was usually arrogant outside, feel extremely embarrassed in front of everyone hiding her face and laughing, so that she blushed.
Immediately afterwards, the old man in charge got the soft bow, the cook got the cake made by herself, but there were also Mounted Slaves who got the bag, and the woman got the needlework of an acquaintance, all of them performed the ceremony honestly under the eyes of Xi Chao and Fu Hong under the arrangement of Liu Cheng.
Moreover, there were nearly two hundred men and women Slave Retainers in the house, who were usually either cunning or serious, arrogant or aggressive. Outside, they were half-masters. Now that they were subjected to these useless things, they were still gradually at a loss. Later, they could not control their laughter and tears.
At first, there was laughter and laughter, because those objects didn't feel funny when they were taken out at home, but when they were pointed out in public, they felt more funny. But for some reason, the more people went on, the more people cried. Many people wiped away tears for no apparent reason.
After the distribution of the items was completed, Liu Cheng came to these laughing and crying people again in the slightly complicated eyes of Xi Chao and Fu Hong: "Everyone, you are men and women, old and young, some of you are from South of the Yangtze, some are from local, some are from the Xie Clan was born, some were born in the Xi family, and Duke Huan was just sent here to serve Jiabin... But let me say, since we are all in the same house, spending a year together, and will spend time together again in the future, we must be somewhat conscious, knowing that we are in the same boat and supporting each other, and we should get along well in the future.
"That's it for today. I would like to thank you all for your hard work over the past year on behalf of Jiabin. I also hope that everyone will have good luck in the new year and be free from all diseases... The three of us will leave soon. Let's rest for half a day. Tomorrow is the New Year's Day and the day after tomorrow is the New Year. We must listen to the instructions of the stewards and make sure to have a good New Year... I will come back tomorrow morning and take a look. If there is anything wrong, let me know."
With that said, he walked down directly regardless of the mood of the people below.
Xi Chao and Fu Hong followed them into the backyard. Before they said anything, Huan Grand General's Office's car came to pick them up.
The three of them had no choice but to go there together.
The person who came to pick them up was Huan Xin. The chariot prepared was very wide, but Liu Cheng took the lead. The three of them insisted on riding horses, so Huan Xin had no choice but to ride on horses. On the way, the Three Excellencies son of the Huan family wanted to say something, but he saw that Xi, Fu, and Liu were all speechless, as if they were worried about something. They were confused for a moment and didn't know what to say.
Just like that, seeing that they were almost in front of Huan Wen's mansion, Fu Hong finally couldn't bear it anymore. "Acheng, is it really worth all the effort for these Slave Retainerss?"
Before Liu Cheng could answer, Xi Chao sighed, "It's just a comparison of feelings. It's hard to tell other people's feelings. Mounted Slaves who came with us is in the same mood as us, isn't it? Why care about it! On the other hand, we have to rely on others, and we are all alone outside, so how can we not care about people's hearts?"
How could Fu Hong not know this truth? He was just a little ashamed. When he heard this, he could only sigh, "Actually, I don't understand anything. Isn't this just like Duke Huan treating us preferentially? But Achen, at least you should tell us first. It's funny that I was at a loss. I almost lost my temper and cried in public before."
"I just think these New Year rituals are interesting, so I did it like this." Liu Cheng, who was wondering if Huan Wen would also perform a chicken-swallowing performance on New Year's Day, reacted and was speechless. "Are you two so profound?"
Huan Xin next to him couldn't understand the words of the three people at all, but when he heard the four words "Duke Huan preferential treatment", he had to grunt as a perfunctory way to save the three people from knowing that he didn't understand anything.
--------I am the dividing line between hearts----------
Emperor Taizu lives in the same house as Xi Chao and Fu Hong under the curtain of Duke Huan, and they advance and retreat together. The story number of Hua Xin, Bing Yuan and Guan Ning is 'One Dragon', with Chao as the dragon's head, Emperor Taizu as the dragon's belly and Hong as the dragon's tail.
-- "New Account of Tales of the World".Praise and Appreciation, Chapter Eight