Chapter 3: The Map of Mountains and Rivers
She first nagged for a while, as if she had endless things to say, and finally mentioned Chu Jiaqiang's girlfriend. They all knew that Chu Jiaqiang had a girlfriend in the city and asked when he would get married. This is how rural elders are, as long as their younger generation doesn't study or work outside, they will start worrying about these things.
"Haha! Just had a disagreement, feeling inappropriate, broke up." Chu Jiaqiang's smile was quite forced.
"Second Uncle glared at his wife and comforted her, 'It's okay, if it doesn't work out, it's better to split up. It gives the other person a chance and also gives yourself an exit. However, you need to hurry up and find someone suitable, you're not young anymore. Ah Xiong is three years younger than you, isn't he planning to get married yet?'"
Chu Jiaqiang was slightly surprised. The second uncle's first sentence was quite philosophical! After thinking about it, the matter of breaking up became even more diluted: "Hmmm... I understand."
"It's not easy, another day Second Aunt will find someone to match you up, Ah Qiang's conditions are so good, many girls are scrambling to line up." Second Aunt was enthusiastic again.
"What are you making a fuss about? Ah Qiang will be living in the city from now on, of course he has to find a city girl. What do housewives know? Go cook! Remember to add peanuts when stir-frying tofu." Second Uncle glared at Second Aunt again. Second Aunt sulkily left. In rural areas, feudal ideas are still quite serious, men's status is higher than women's.
Second Uncle was smoking while discussing work matters with Chu Jiaqiang. His niece, Chu Jiawan, was listening to her MP3 player, looking completely absorbed.
Many rural women are skilled housewives, doing household chores with great ease. Second Aunt put the soaked soybeans into a soymilk machine to make soymilk, then filtered out the bean dregs and coagulated it into tofu. She also asked her daughter to pick some green vegetables from the vegetable field by the house, two large cucumbers, and pulled up half of an onion. Then, she killed a chicken.
Chu Jiaqiang had a very appetizing dinner. The tofu was pure and unadulterated, without any additives, stir-fried with scallions and peanuts, the flavor was endless. The chicken was raised by themselves, naturally the taste couldn't be compared to the feed chickens in the city.
After dinner, I chatted with my aunt and uncle for two hours, until around 9 o'clock. They both went to sleep, and also sent their daughter into her room. People in the countryside don't stay up late, usually they go to bed around 9 o'clock, at the latest by 11 o'clock.
The next morning, Chu Jiaqiang greeted the second uncle and said he wanted to go back to the old house to take a look. The old house is not far away, and it takes about 10 minutes to walk there. The old house is much larger than the second uncle's house, with a circular structure made of earth, typical of Hakka architecture.
The surroundings are all rooms, with a courtyard of about 30-40 square meters in the middle. The courtyard is not an ordinary yard, but rather a ancient rainwater harvesting system, where the top is open to the sky and the bottom is about 30 centimeters lower than the ground level. It's usually square-shaped, sometimes round, and surrounded by smooth stone walls. When it rains heavily, this place becomes a small pond. Nowadays, nobody uses the water from the courtyard anymore, instead they either fetch water from a spring or drill a well to get groundwater.
Because Chu Jiaqiang's father was the eldest son, when they divided the house at first, they gave the old house to Chu Jiaqiang's father, which is considered to be the inheritance of the family business. Now, this naturally became Chu Jiaqiang's property, including the five or six acres of land behind the old house, as well as a small valley behind it, all belonged to Chu Jiaqiang.
Open the door and walk into the old house alone, it's very quiet inside. The stone seams in the courtyard are overgrown with weeds, a few sparrows perch on them, occasionally making a few clear calls, giving this desolate house some vitality.
Going around the sky well, Chu Jiaqiang arrived at the back hall. Opening the back door, in sight were several mu of land, on which fruit trees were planted, including pear trees, yellow skin, pomegranate, pomelo, tangerine, peach trees and two large jujube trees. Due to lack of management, not only was there a profusion of weeds, but the fruit trees also did not grow well. Because it was now the fruit season, more or less every tree had fruit hanging from them.
This was planted by Chu Jiaqiang five years ago. At that time, he saw several acres of land abandoned and felt a pity, but his uncle's own land couldn't be cultivated, so he had to mobilize his uncle to plant fruit trees. It took a lot of trouble to find the fruit seedlings at that time.
Back in the house, walking into his old room, the walls were covered with awards issued by the school, and many had been bitten by insects beyond recognition. Coming to the old desk, opening the drawer, taking out a box from inside.
"Is this really a family heirloom? It's just a piece of cloth, the quality is okay, but did our ancestors get it wrong?" Chu Jiaqiang opened the box and took out a 20cm long and 10cm wide piece of cloth, which felt relatively soft to the touch. When he was young, his father had solemnly handed him the box, saying it was the family heirloom of the Chu family. At that time, he had believed it to be true and treasured it with his life. But as he grew older, he increasingly felt that his ancestors were boring and taking advantage of their descendants.
He felt a bit ridiculous, would he have to pass this thing down in the future? How could he bring it up with his son?
Just sitting for a while, Chu Jiaqiang's neck was bitten by a mosquito. He slapped his right hand forcefully and fortunately found it early, otherwise he would have bled profusely. Looking at the bloodstains on his hand, Chu Jiaqiang simply took out the heirloom cloth to wipe it off, then wiped his neck again, and casually threw it into the box.
Chu Jiaqiang's gaze inadvertently swept over the piece of cloth, and he suddenly froze, his eyes slowly widening.
That piece of cloth slowly floated up, its color constantly changing, finally turning into a realistic landscape painting, with high mountains and plains, small streams and large rivers, even the sea.
At the moment when Chu Jiaqiang was stunned, the landscape painting emitted a strong light, and Chu Jiaqiang couldn't bear such a strong light, subconsciously closing his eyes. The landscape painting suddenly turned into a five-colored light, shooting into Chu Jiaqiang's brain.
With a loud "boom", Chu Jiaqiang felt his head was about to explode, painfully clutching his hair, and finally fainted. After an unknown period of time, Chu Jiaqiang woke up, and finally knew the origin of that piece of family heirloom brocade.
It turned out that this was the Mountain and River Map of myth and legend, which had its own space inside. Unintentionally, Chu Jiaqiang's blood stained it, recognizing him as its master. According to the information transmitted by the Mountain and River Map (hereinafter referred to as the Mountain and River Map), the mountains and rivers inside were even larger than the Earth, but now, due to Chu Jiaqiang's limited abilities, he could only open up a mountain valley space. Moreover, one hour outside was equivalent to one day inside.
Chu's family was strong for a long time, and he couldn't snap out of it. As someone who had received higher education, he was resolutely skeptical of spiritual theories. But today's events had transcended reality, making it difficult for him to accept that they actually existed.
After a long time, he suddenly moved in his heart and disappeared instantly. The next moment, Chu Jiaqiang was standing in a beautiful valley.
This valley has a small stream, the water is clear and transparent, with fish, shrimp and crabs swimming inside. The downstream of the stream is a small lake, but it's not connected, the small lake seems to be an isolated lake, with a spring in the center of the lake. Along the lakeside is an orchard, only peach trees, with big peaches hanging on the branches, very tempting. Other places are grasslands, lush wild grasses, dotted with colorful wildflowers, butterflies fluttering and bees working hard, what a beautiful scenery like a paradise.
If it's okay with you, everyone might as well save it!