Annual Ceremony

Chapter 47 Autumnal Equinox (I)

After the handwriting was dry, Zhenyi sorted out the manuscript, put it in a box, and picked up Orange who was dozing off on a chair nearby.

Orange yawned, squinted his eyes, lay in Zhenyi's arms, and looked out the window lazily.

On the small table under the window, the book "Collected Explanations of the 72 Seasonal Changes in the Lunar Calendar" that Zhenyi had carried with her for many years was turned to the page of the Autumnal Equinox.

Zhenyi held the cat and looked at the autumn scenery outside the window in the afternoon. She saw that the sky was particularly open as the cloud cover had obviously decreased since the beginning of autumn. She couldn't help thinking that the word "high" in the saying "high and refreshing autumn" should come from the fact that the cloud cover decreases in autumn, so the sky is clear and high.

And less cloud means less thunder...Zhenyi thought about this, slightly tilted her head to look at the Yueling Jijie on the small table beside her, and whispered: "Autumnal Equinox, the first period, the thunder begins to subside...Thunder, in February, it sounds in the Yang, and in August, it subsides in the Yin."

Therefore, our ancestors have always believed that thunder is caused by the abundance of yang energy between heaven and earth. After the autumnal equinox, yin energy rises, so the thunder gradually disappears.

Zhenyi looked up at the vast sky with clear clouds and light breeze, pondering the theory of yin and yang of heaven and earth. She thought that yin and yang should be the general terms for the movement of the meteorology of heaven and earth. Perhaps after exploring and understanding more, she could give them clearer and more accurate names and distinctions.

The word "fen" in the autumnal equinox means the same as the spring equinox, which means that the day and night are equally divided on this day, and there will be no polar day or polar night anywhere on these two days. The only difference is that after the spring equinox, the day is longer and the night is shorter, until the autumnal equinox reaches a balance again, and then the day will gradually become shorter and the night longer, and this cycle will continue until the next spring equinox.

Seeing the bright scenery outside the window, Zhenyi thought of many idioms, proverbs and poems related to the Autumnal Equinox, such as "equally dividing the autumn colors" or "the autumn water and the sky are the same color"... What is described here are not just the scenery, but also the characteristics of the solar term.

Zhenyi stood quietly for a long time holding the cat, observing the changes in the scene. She felt that everything she saw was full of unrestrained romance that could not be described to others.

The orderly world has been filled with the golden afterglow of autumn for countless times. Zhenyi, who is trying to explore the source of this order, has been filled with this natural touch for countless times. This touch has always spawned more awe and yearning in her heart.

When the lights in the room were turned on, Zhenyi sat back down again and picked up her pen to write down her insights.

Until a servant came to pass on a message, Tao'er walked into the room and called out with a smile: "Second Miss, it's time to have dinner!"

This place is the residence of Zhao Tongzhi of Jiaying Prefecture, where Zhenyi and her family live.

In his early years, Zhao Tongzhi had been treated kindly and supported by Wang Zhefu. At the end of last year, he also wrote an obituary for Wang Zhefu. He was particularly considerate to the Wang family who had come from afar, and was especially respectful to Mrs. Dong.

There were five or six young ladies and gentlemen of the same age as Zhenyi living in Zhao Tongzhi's mansion. Some were Zhao Tongzhi's illegitimate children, as well as his sons, nephews and nieces. The young people studied and played together, and because they were told to do so by their elders, most of them were warm and friendly towards Zhenyi.

The autumnal equinox is very suitable for traveling, and Guangdong is finally no longer hot and humid. The younger generations in the Zhao family took Zhenyi to enjoy the scenery and taste various foods. They also went to Guangzhou twice by carriage. When they visited a foreign goods store for the first time, Zhenyi was attracted by a brass peephole in a shop. After hearing the price, she gently put it back.

The telescope, also known as the telescope, often appears in the palace as a tribute from the West, and is used by the emperor to reward relatives and ministers. Such items, which are only enjoyed by nobles, are naturally sold at a high price in the business.

At night, Zhenyi carefully sketched the outline of the Western peephole on her "handbook". After putting down her pen, she looked up at the wide open window, first cupped her right hand and placed it in front of her right eye, then cupped her left hand and connected them together, then squinted her left eye, slightly raised her head, and looked at the starry sky through the gap created by her palm.

Orange, who was squatting on the table, watched the scene, flicked his tail and meowed.

Zhenyi looked over when she heard the sound, still maintaining the posture of her hands as a tube, and glanced at the orange with a smile.

Through the gap, Juzi tilted his head and suddenly stretched out a snow-white claw to hit Zhenyi's "hand-made peephole".

Zhenyi let out an "ah" and laughed, then moved away and picked up a washed brush to tease Juzi.

Outside the window a yellow moon is about to become full, and its bright moonlight casts shadows of the trees all over the yard.

Recently, Wang Xichen followed Zhao Tongzhi to visit his father's old friends, and also took his mother and daughter to the government office where his father lived. Wherever the Wang family went, they were treated with great courtesy by the people around them.

Wang Zhefu was dismissed from office in Jiaying Prefecture and was once hostile to the local people. However, ten years later, when people mentioned the "strange Yin" who destroyed the temple to build the academy, most people only sighed and admired him, especially the local scholars and the literati who were educated by the academy built by Wang Zhefu. Ten years passed in a flash, and there were also people who entered the officialdom from the academy.

Wang Zhefu was impartial and loved the people. Apart from his radical actions in the beginning to dispel superstitions, which caused the people to reject him, most of the other administrative decrees he implemented were very popular and won the support and gratitude of the poor people.

People are always more tolerant towards the deceased. On the shore of the South China Sea, far away from the disputes of the capital, the traces left by Wang Zhefu have been washed away by the passage of time and finally become the recognized and remembered reputation on the stone tablet in front of the bamboo forest of the academy.

Upon hearing that the Wang family was coming, many scholars and nearby families rushed to the academy to express their gratitude. Some farmers also brought seasonal vegetables or fish, shrimp, snails and crabs and stuffed them into the Wang family's car.

These gratitudes, along with the fresh smell of fish and shrimp and the sweetness of melons and vegetables, floated in the golden autumn breeze, stirring up the dust of time, floating in the air, and gleaming like stars in the autumn sun. Juzi squatted at the hem of Zhenyi's lotus-colored skirt, as if he saw the dust slowly forming the back of Old Wang in front of the bamboo forest in the afternoon.

Thinking of the way Old Wang swung his stick and knocked over the talisman paper brazier when he was seriously ill, Juzi thought that Old Wang, who was an official here, must be sharp and stubborn.

But when Old Wang sees Zhenyi and the cat, he will put away his sharpness and smile like a chrysanthemum as usual.

As Orange was fantasizing about this, he saw the old man in the phantom of the dust and light really turned around and walked towards him with a smile. Subconsciously, Orange skillfully lowered his head and ears, squinted his eyes, and waited for the old man's touch.

The breeze blew across the cat's furry head, and the cat thought to himself, how nice it would be if I could see Old Wang again.

When looking up at the moon, Zhenyi was thinking the same thing in her heart.

In August of that year, Juzi and Zhenyi spent a refreshing Mid-Autumn Festival in Jiaying Prefecture.

In addition to reunion cakes and crabs, Jiaying Prefecture's Mid-Autumn Festival foods also include taro and fried snails. The taro just dug from the ground is peeled, cut into small square pieces and cooked with taro syrup, or steamed directly and dipped in sugar, or used to make a pot of pork ribs. There are many ways to eat it.

In addition to stir-frying, fresh snails can also be blanched and simmered over low heat overnight with bay leaves, ginger slices and pork bones. They are soaked in the sauce and when you pick them up with a bamboo skewer, you can smell the fresh aroma of the plump snail meat without any smell of mud or sand.

During the day, Zhenyi followed the women of the Zhao family and learned how to make tree lanterns, and then lit them up and hung them outside the mansion gate at night.

It is even more lively at night, with long strings of tree lights hanging high, seeming to blend with the moonlight.

The young ladies of the Zhao family took Zhenyi to watch the burning of the tile tower. The so-called burning of the tile tower refers to building an empty tower with bricks, leaving a fire door at the bottom, placing firewood and other fuels inside, and lighting it on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

The flames burned the tower, which was nearly two people tall, red. Smoke rose as people gathered around the tower and sang harvest songs or Moon Sister's songs.

Some children also built small towers with broken bricks and tiles and burned them. When they were halfway burned, they saw a fire dragon dancing team passing by, and the children all stood up to watch the fire dragon.

Dancing the fire dragon is also one of the local Mid-Autumn Festival customs. The fire dragon is made of rattan as its tendons, banyan tree branches and leaves as its body and scales, banyan tree roots as its whiskers, and bamboo lanterns as its eyes. The dragon is several feet long and is carried above the head by seven or eight men, who walk and dance to the sound of gongs and drums. Wherever it passes, most people hold incense and worship, making the journey very lively.

For example, burning tile pagodas and dancing fire dragons, the origins of these folk activities are mostly related to driving away enemies or locust plagues during wartime. They have been passed down from generation to generation because the people yearn for peace and a good harvest.

Zhenyi was not opposed to this kind of folk activities that were not aimed at fooling the masses for profit. Instead, she respected them. She carefully wrote down all her experiences in her manuscripts.

During the following days in Jiaying Prefecture, the content of Zhenyi's "diary" became richer and richer. In addition to folk customs and food, there were also many experiences of traveling with friends.

Zhenyi made many friends and unexpectedly met a lady named Xu Yanzhen. This lady was originally from Hefei, Anhui, and came to Jiaying Prefecture to visit relatives with her husband's family.

Zhenyi had heard of the talent of Madam Xu Yanzhen before. She was proficient in poetry and had written a poem to express her dissatisfaction with Madam Yuan Ji's fate. Xu Yanzhen and Zhenyi were much older than each other, but they hit it off right away. They often traveled together and exchanged poems. Even before Xu Yanzhen left Jiaying Prefecture, she never forgot to agree with Zhenyi to keep in touch with her through letters.

Speaking of letters, in November, Zhenyi received a letter from Qian Yuling. This letter was about "collecting a debt" - Zhenyi kept her promise to repay the debt and conscientiously wrote a preface for the collection of poems that Sister Jiuying was about to publish.

Not long after this reply letter was sent, Zhenyi fell into a state of chaos.

The orange is gone.

Zhenyi and Tao'er searched again and again for seven or eight days, but they couldn't find Juzi, and they couldn't wait for Juzi to come back.

In Zhenyi's opinion, Juzi is smart and intelligent, and always has his own ideas. Moreover, Juzi often goes out these days, and is often followed by several local wild cats. He is already familiar with the surrounding environment, so it is impossible for him to get lost... Thinking of many bad possibilities, Zhenyi was worried and panicked.

Wang Xichen thought about it again and again, and comforted his daughter: "When cats and dogs are about to die of old age, they will often leave their owners and go to a deserted place to avoid being eaten by people... It is rare for Orange to live to such an age. After all, there will be a farewell."

It would have been better if he didn't comfort her. After he said that, Zhenyi was stunned for a moment, her eyes turned red, her mouth pursed, and she suddenly turned and ran away, went back to her room and cried alone, refusing to eat.

After waiting for another ten days, Juzi still did not come back. Zhenyi would wake up in the middle of the night every time she came to her senses, her eyes would immediately be filled with tears.

Zhenyi, who was gradually losing hope, even began to believe what her father said.

Another night, Zhenyi woke up from her dream and subconsciously reached out to touch her side, but it was still empty and cold.

Zhenyi sat up, hugged the quilt in a daze, and suddenly heard the sound of rain hitting the window.

Zhenyi raised her head and couldn't help thinking, if Juzi was really like what her father said, she must be lying alone in the grass somewhere getting wet in the rain, and Juzi hated having her fur wet the most...

Zhenyi blinked and tears flowed again. She buried her head in the quilt on her knees. Her shoulders trembled and twitched, and she cried along with the night outside the window.

I don’t know how long it had been, but suddenly there was a creaking sound of the window frame shaking and opening. Zhenyi thought it was the wind blowing the window open and kept her head down.

Until the sound of something falling lightly reached her ears - the sound was very small, but particularly familiar. Zhenyi looked up suddenly, and with the help of the dim light hanging in the corridor outside the window, she saw a ball of orange-white coming towards the bed.

The orange-white ball shook its fur, and the water droplets that came out seemed to sparkle with starlight.

Zhenyi immediately got off the bed, squatted down and felt for the wet cat, then hurriedly went to light the lamp barefoot.

Zhenyi squatted down again holding the lamp and confirmed that it was indeed Juzi. She cried with joy, but then she saw that Juzi was holding something in his mouth.

Juzi put the thing down gently, Zhenyi picked it up, and found that it was a ginseng with some dirt on it.

Zhenyi didn't have time to look closely, she quickly wiped the orange dry, then wrapped the orange with a cotton towel, fed it water and food, and did this all the time. When the rain stopped, it was daybreak.

Hearing the noise of the grandmother getting up in the room next door, Zhenyi happily ran to see the grandmother holding the orange.

After daybreak, Zhenyi saw that Juzi had lost a lot of weight, with many muddy scars on his body, and looked in a very miserable state.

"It's great that you can come back." Mother Zhuo, who was combing the old lady's bun, comforted the second young lady: "It's okay to be thinner. As the saying goes, it's more expensive than being thin in old age."

Zhenyi, who was still feeling sorry for Orange, was caught off guard and amused.

The old lady sitting in front of the mirror looked through the mirror and said jokingly: "Thanks to God, I finally have a smile!"

Tao'er asked curiously, "But then again, where has Orange been in all these days?"

Zhenyi then thought of the ginseng.

After Wang Xichen looked at it, he found that it was actually a rare old ginseng. However, he felt sorry for it because its roots were incomplete and there were some cat teeth marks.

Finally, the old lady decided that the old ginseng was sold to the medicine store, but the money was given to Zhenyi. The old lady said with a smile: "The ginseng brought back by her cat slave should belong to her, the owner..."

After getting along for many years, everyone knows that Orange is more intelligent than ordinary cats. Because of this, it seems that Orange is becoming more and more human-like as he grows older.

At the beginning of spring in the twelfth lunar month, Zhenyi celebrated her seventeenth birthday. This year, Zhenyi received the first peephole in her life - strictly speaking, it was a birthday gift from Juzi.

That night, Zhenyi sat on the stone steps and looked up at the starry sky with the peephole.

Orange lay lazily aside, wagging his furry tail contentedly - although this thing was crude compared with modern technology, let alone a telescope, the most important thing was that Zhenyi liked it.

Orange had been discussing this matter with the nearby wild cats several months ago.

At first, Orange thought about asking these wild cats to pick up some gold and silver things for it, but it turned out that yellow and white things were not easy to pick up - damn, there are so many rich people, and they have endless money. Wouldn't it be nice to just accidentally throw some money to the cats in need?

When the wild cats heard that Orange wanted to exchange the yellow and white thing for a peeping tube, although they didn't know what it was, it didn't stop them from expressing their doubts - why not just go hunting?

——Stealing? How can it be stealing? As we all know, cats’ actions of obtaining things by their own ability are generally called hunting.

After all, Orange is more familiar with legal knowledge, and it would be very embarrassing if it was caught. At its age, face is very important to it.

Orange racked his brains to try to come up with something yellow and white, and even began to consider the feasibility of training a group of tomb-robbing cats.

Until a talkative cat told it that there was a small hill behind Pingyuan County, fifty miles away, where ginseng was often found. Once a cat accidentally took a bite of it and did not sleep for three days and three nights.

The well-informed Orange's eyes lit up, and he set out to dig ginseng that day. God helps those who work hard, and after digging ginseng for more than half a month, he finally got what he wanted.

After getting the stargazing tube she had been longing for, Zhenyi would sit on the stone steps with Orange to watch the stars almost every night.

In the blink of an eye, the Spring Festival has passed, and the Wang family has stayed in Jiaying Prefecture for nearly half a year. They have visited all the people they should visit, walked all the routes they should walk, and received many promises of support or introductions. Although some of them were just empty words, there were also people who really wanted to help. However, no one is a omnipotent person, so they can only try their best.

For Mrs. Dong, she had done everything she could on this trip, and the rest was up to fate and waiting for news.

In February, Zhenyi, along with her grandmother and father, bid farewell to Zhao Tongzhi's family and set off for Sichuan.

　A big chapter update late at night~
By the way, I want to share a good news with you all. "Sui Shi Lai Yi" won an award. Although it is a small award, I am very happy to be recognized. I will go to receive the award next week. Thank you for your support, thank you, thank you.

　
(End of this chapter)