I used rebirth to bury his captivating gaze.

Chapter 13 Premarital Medical Examination 1

The Li and Song families moved away from Daxing'an Village one after another, and the rumors about Yang Yuqiu in the village and school were nearing their end.

The practice of putting burlap sacks on people first spread from Yu Qiu to Wu Sanbao, and then was gradually worn away by time and faded away.

Just as one wave subsides, another rises!

The winter solstice has arrived, and the marriage arrangements between the Zou and Yang families are about to begin!

The marriage between the two families should have been finalized long ago, but it was delayed by a bunch of messy and unpleasant things.

That morning, the marriage between the Zou and Yang families was restarted by matchmaker Zou Laqian. She walked into the courtyard and headed towards the east wing.

East Wing

She came to discuss the couple's wedding with the two elderly people. She carried a message from Zoujiakou saying that the two young people needed to have a medical check-up at the county hospital before the wedding!

Zou Laxian sat on the edge of the kang (heated brick bed) in the east room, swinging one leg up and down. She recounted what Yu Yanli had told her before she came: that the two newlyweds should have a premarital checkup. As soon as she finished relaying the message, she was immediately berated by the old man, Yang Hong.

After the old man finished cursing, he saw that Zou Laxian's face was rosy and she had no other expression, so he stopped being angry.

He picked up the small black radio and placed it on the kang (a heated brick bed), then tuned it, and the radio emitted a crackling sound.

He turned the clock a few times, then looked up at the old wall clock on the east earthen wall. There was still half an hour before the "Legend of Yue Fei" storytelling program started.

He felt he was being too impatient while listening to the storytelling, which was a sign of his agitation caused by his hook-nosed daughter!

I've never been so eager to listen to storytelling before, but I believed this woman who introduced Yuqiu to a potential partner. Judging from her outward appearance, she seemed like a woman who would deceive people. Fortunately, the Zou family lived in the same village and knew each other well.

He put down the radio and said coldly, "From ancient times to the present, an old farmer only knows that farming will keep him full and not hungry. He faces the loess soil and turns his back to the sky. When an old farmer's children get married, it is to fulfill the wishes of the old man. There is no physical examination. How would an old farmer know what a premarital physical examination is?"

"Pfft!" Zou Laqian chuckled. "Uncle, a physical exam is when two young people go to the hospital before getting married to check every part of their body to see if there are any problems. Families with the means don't get married, but they still go to the hospital for a regular check-up every year."

The old woman sat on the kang (a heated brick bed), her wrinkled hands fiddling with two newly made pairs of thick, black, velvety cotton shoes with pressed edges. Then, she spoke indifferently to Zou Laqian, who sat on the edge of the kang.

"You introduced Yuqiu to your boyfriend. Zou Jun is a good person, and we know him well. His father is also an honest and simple man. It's just that his mother has a bad temper and is very stingy. How could she be willing to spend that useless money to take the two children to the hospital for a check-up?"

The old man continued with a cold face, "It's her business if she's stingy, but I'm firmly against it. If word gets out about this checkup, people will laugh their heads off. Who does a checkup for their children's wedding? When adults and children have minor illnesses like headaches or fevers, they don't go to the hospital. They just endure it at home. At most, they'll find the village barefoot doctor, Dr. Hu, to give them a small injection and the fever will go down."

The old woman chimed in, "Old man, you're right. I've never been to a hospital in my entire life. Let alone a hospital, I'm even afraid of getting a small injection because I'm afraid of the pain. I just take a red-skinned antipyretic and pain-relieving tablet, then cover my chilled body tightly with two thick cotton quilts and bury my head in them. After a while, I'm covered in sweat, and the fever immediately goes down. Then I take another one to get rid of the remaining fever and I'm all better."

"Yes, you two are right. My parents are the same way. Even when they are sick, they don't go to the hospital. They say it's a waste of money. They would rather save the money for food and drink."

"You're quite the smooth talker, kid."

"Auntie, my eldest sister Yulu sent you and Uncle new shoes again." Zou Laxian said, picking up a new cotton shoe to admire it!

“Yes, my eldest granddaughter sends two pairs of new winter and summer shoes to each of us every year around this time.”

"Yu Lu's hands are so skillful, the shoes she makes are so beautiful. Unlike my clumsy hands, how could I not know how to sew when I was a girl? Even after I got married and went to my husband's family, I still didn't know how to sew. My mother made all the cotton clothes for the adults and children for me, and I came here to pick them up."

"You're lucky if you don't know how. What's the point of knowing so much? The more you know, the more tired you'll be! Even if you know something, just say you don't, so you can have an easy life. You do so much work, you're tired, and nobody will praise you."

After the old lady finished speaking, she glanced at the old man, who was leaning against the wall of the heated brick bed, holding a small radio in his hands and listening to Liu Lanfang's storytelling of "The Generals of the Yang Family".

The old lady then muttered to herself, "It's better for women to be a little clumsy with their hands."

"Auntie, I don't understand what you're saying. Why is it that being clumsy with my hands is a good thing?"

"You're still young, kid. If you don't understand, go home and think about it yourself."

“Auntie, is Yulu’s skillful hands inherited from her mother? Why don’t my hands inherit my mother’s skillful hands? If I had my mother’s skillful hands, why would I have to rely on her to make cotton-padded clothes for my family when she is old and her eyesight is failing?”

"Yu Lu's skillful hands are just like mine back then. Now that I'm old, I can still manage needlework with my reading glasses, but my hands don't obey me anymore. Yu Lu's mother, Liu Shulan, isn't very skillful." The old lady raised her lips in dissatisfaction.

After listening to the storyteller, the old man put down the radio and picked up his long pipe.

"Second daughter-in-law, you're not very good with your hands. Who made your cotton-padded clothes and trousers? Why don't you ask your third daughter-in-law to make them for you?"

"Oh ho! You old fool, you sure know how to cut corners. So what if I wear the cotton-padded clothes made by my second wife? You wear them too, don't you? I just won't wear the ones made by my third wife. The things she makes are either coming undone or too ugly."

"You wear ready-made clothes and still make a fuss. You've never done needlework your whole life. When my mother was alive, you relied on her to do it. I think you're really clumsy. If you were pretending to be clumsy, you couldn't pretend forever. Being skillful is a good thing, but you shouldn't let people know. Only a fool would praise you for being skillful."

The old lady was so angry that her face puffed up and she couldn't speak.

The old man tapped his long pipe bowl twice on the edge of the wooden kang (a heated brick bed), where there was still ash inside. He then filled the pipe bowl with the yellow tobacco dust from a paper basin that the old woman had made by gluing together old book paper and white flour paste. With a "sizzle," he lit the pipe bowl with a matchbox, and white smoke instantly shot out and rose straight into the sky.

“I’m clumsy, so don’t use my homemade cigarette paper bowl to hold tobacco dust. I’ll crush it and you still won’t use it.”

The old lady picked up the cigarette holder and threw it on the floor. Yellow tobacco fragments flew everywhere, and the pungent smell of smoke filled the room.

"You old hag, you're really crazy. Cough cough!" The old man wasn't choked by his own pipe, but by the acrid smell of the smoke in the air.

"Cough cough!" All three coughed at the same time!

"Ahem, Uncle, Aunt, I'm going to the south wing."

The two elders were too angry to deal with this uninvited guest.

Zou Laxian pushed open the door and walked into the courtyard. The courtyard was a bit slippery after the light snow, so she walked carefully.

As Yang Hong watched her walk away, he smiled at the old woman and said, "You old hag, you can't be serious even when you're acting. What a waste of my cigarette holder."

The old lady bent down to pick up the paper basin she had stepped on and flattened, and then she laughed! Then she threw the discarded paper basin into the trash can.

The old lady stopped smiling, turned around and walked to the yellow box under the wall clock, opened the lid, and took out a new one that was exactly the same shape and size as the one that had been stepped on!

She handed it to the old man and said very seriously, "Here, use this to store your old yellow tobacco scraps. Smoke them, or one day your lungs will turn black. Hurry up and clean up the tobacco scraps that have fallen on the floor and put them in the new paper basin."

But the old lady was met with the old man's very unusual behavior!

The old man quickly reached out and took the new paper basin, walked quickly to the door, opened it, threw the long pipe outside, and then he laughed!

"Ah! You old geezer, are you rebelling against me?"

“I’ll soon have a new pipe for smoking, so why not throw away the old one? You just stepped on an old tobacco paper bowl and immediately got a new one.”

Where is your new pipe?

"Old woman, don't disbelieve me. In a couple of days, someone from the compound will bring a new short tobacco pipe. The long pipe is too heavy, and it's tiring for my old arms and legs to carry it."

"You think you can carry a long pipe on your legs? You're dreaming, someone's going to deliver a pipe to you in a few days?"

You wouldn't even dare to dream of it.

"You old fool, we smashed paper basins and tobacco pipes just to get that hook-nosed woman out of here as quickly as possible. Did we lose money?"

"You old hag, don't talk nonsense. We threw away the old one and then the new one came in. How can you say we lost money? This is a case of 'a loss may turn out to be a blessing in disguise'!"

"What the hell, doing something so useless?"

"You may not have eaten pork, but you've at least seen a pig walk?"

"Haha!" Then, the two old folks burst into laughter from the Yang family compound!

South wing room

With the Lunar New Year approaching and the school on winter break, Yang Yuhan stayed in the east room of her house with Liu Shulan and Yuqiu, helping them with housework, washing bedding, and mending clothes.

She was standing on the ground in the east room, stretching out the quilt with Liu Shulan, when suddenly, through the gap in the glass window covered with snowflakes, she saw a middle-aged woman wearing a very eye-catching long red cotton coat slowly walking towards her from the east wing.

"Third Sister, look at that woman outside the window, isn't she your matchmaker? Why is she alone?"

Yang Yuqiu hurriedly looked up and tried to see the blurry view outside the window, but there was a red shadow. She was so careful that she almost got pricked by the steel needle in her hand. She continued to sew the quilt.

In the courtyard of the side room

As Zou Laxian walked into the courtyard, a woman suddenly called out to her, causing her to slip and almost fall.

"Emma, ​​be careful when pulling the boat, the yard is slippery, don't fall. If you get hurt, it will delay my Yuqiu's wedding."

Zou Laxian swayed twice, then was supported by Diao Yan who stepped forward.

"It's you? Your sudden shout was really creepy, it almost made me fall over. Is something wrong?"

"Something's up. Come closer, I have something to tell you," Diao Yan whispered.

"What shameful thing could you possibly be doing that makes you so cautious?" Zou Laxian whispered, then leaned closer to whisper in her ear.

Diao Yan peeked at the window of the south wing, then whispered into the ear that the woman had leaned over, "Tell the Zou family to give less betrothal gifts, and not to give any money. If they give too much, Yuqiu might not be able to take her back to her husband's family. In the end, all three of them will spend it."

"How do you know this?"

"How could I not know? I'm a woman of this courtyard, and I know exactly what's going on with everyone in the south wing."

“Yang Zhannan earns a good amount of money as a carpenter, how could the three of them not have money to spend?”

“He earns a lot of money, but he gives it all to the old lady to keep safe. If you don’t believe me, your second uncle’s family will complain about you later.”

"What you're saying, Diao Yan, does actually happen in other families. The elders of the bride's family swallow up all the dowry money that comes from the bride's husband's family, and some fathers even use it for eating, drinking, gambling, and smoking."

Diao Yan moved her mouth away from one of her ears and nodded.

"I'm going back inside. Believe it or not, it's up to you. Just don't let the Zou family complain about you later."

"I believe you, but I have to consider my relatives." Zou Laqian said softly, turning and walking towards the south wing, which was only a few steps away.

"Laqian, what did you say?" Diao Yan asked, not having heard clearly who Zou Laqian was asking for consideration.

“I said your Yumei is really beautiful as she grows up. She’s getting prettier and prettier as she gets older. She’s so pretty. It would be a shame if she stayed in the countryside to do hard labor.”

Zou Laqian suddenly saw Yu Mei standing at her doorway, cracking sunflower seeds, and then she quickly changed the subject.

Yang Yumei smiled at her and continued eating sunflower seeds.

"You're right, my Yu Mei is much prettier than Yu Han in that house." Diao Yan glanced back at the proud Yu Mei, then turned to Zou Laxian to boast.

South Wing

"Third Sister, when the matchmaker comes in, don't pay any attention to her. Those two old women are talking about us behind our backs. Third Aunt was just whispering something in the matchmaker's ear."

"Ouch! It hurts, I got pricked by a needle." Yu Qiu's left index finger was pricked by a fine needle, and a little bright red blood appeared on the white floral flag cloth.

Yang Zhannan was not in the house. Yu Qiu was sitting on a shiny, dark red sorghum stalk mat, busy sewing a patterned cotton quilt.

Liu Shulan and Yu Han stood in the middle of the earthen house in the east wing, each holding a piece of white floral flag cloth that had been starched, dried and washed with white flour paste. The two of them pulled hard to remove the wrinkles from the cloth.

This mother and daughter seem to be playing a game of "pulling the saw and tearing it apart, putting on a big show at the door of their hometown."

Yang Yuhan, a time traveler from the future, found the novel things she had never seen in her previous life quite interesting.

In her previous life, she had never had such a personal experience, but she often heard her mother talk about many things from the 1970s and 1980s.

In later generations, these troublesome labors in daily life disappeared.

The traditional method involves scalding the harvested Chinese cabbage in a large iron pot with boiling water, then letting it cool before placing it in a large gray porcelain jar, weighing it down with a large stone, adding some water, and waiting for the sauerkraut water to ferment until a thick white layer forms on top before eating.

The female protagonist, having met her mother from her previous life, went to her relatives' house in the countryside. The women in her relatives' house used the fermented water from the sauerkraut jar to first remove the white part on top, then boiled the yellowish clear water at the bottom in a large iron pot, and then used it to wash their hair in a washbasin.

The female protagonist, after being encouraged by her relatives and family, also tried washing her hair. It turned out really well; her hair was smooth. She planned to boil water from the well, let it cool, and then wash her hair again, and that would be it.

Washing your hair with this pickled cabbage water is much more nourishing than any of the shampoos from later generations!

There are many other methods, such as washing the white floral fabric used for making cotton quilts with clean water, letting it air dry until it is half-dry, laying it on a wooden board, and then applying a thin layer of paste made of flour and water to complete a preliminary task.

Then, after applying the sticky white floral fabric, hang it on the clothesline outside to dry. When you hold it, it will make a rustling sound and the fabric will feel stiff. Then wash and dry it again.

This is such a damn mess! The female protagonist is reborn and actually ends up living in the era of her biological parents from her previous life.

Yang Yuhan had no choice but to go with the flow. She and the original owner's mother, Liu Shulan, kept their distance and each grabbed one end of the white floral flag cloth and sawed it back and forth. The two of them pulled it quickly, making the starched white floral flag cloth make a "crackling" sound.

As Yang Yuhan was working, she heard the crunching sound of a woman's footsteps on the snow outside the door. Suddenly, the door to the east room was pushed open, and a woman dressed in a red dress with scales walked in!

Before Yu Han could react, her hands suddenly lost control, and she loosened her grip on the white floral flag cloth. Liu Shulan on the other end immediately fell backward unconditionally.

Fortunately, it was an earthen house, so Liu Shulan wasn't seriously injured. She was still tightly gripping the white floral flag cloth with both hands.

Yu Han quickly recovered and rushed over to help her up, picking up the white floral flag cloth that had fallen to the ground.

"You two be careful, why are you using so much force? Did Mom get hurt?" Yuqiu was sitting on the kang sewing a quilt when she saw Liu Shulan fall. She quickly put down her sewing and got off the kang to help clean up the mess.

"Yuhan is a clumsy girl when she's working. She's not going to break anything from falling on the dirt floor, but the lining cloth gets dirty, so we have to wash it again." Liu Shulan said as she and Yuqiu put the dirty cloth into the wooden wash basin.

"Ugh! Do I have to wash it again and then stretch out the wrinkles again? This is exhausting."

"What nonsense are you talking about? Working yourself to death? Where is anyone dead? Didn't you see a living person standing at the door? Would a living person stand motionless on the threshold?"

Yu Qiu looked up sharply, startled. There really was a living person standing on the threshold, lost in thought. Then she said, "Aunt Zou, please come in and sit down. It must be cold outside."

Yang Yuhan felt annoyed by the hooked nose on her face, and then said sarcastically, "Her red coat is so thick and long, with many shiny red scales shaped like chicken feathers to keep out the cold wind, no wonder she's cold!"

"It's not cold. I'm watching you three work together so harmoniously, it's really nice!"

"Aunt Zou, the red scales on your red coat are so beautiful, so smooth," Yu Qiu said, touching them with her hand and looking at them with great envy.

"It's all your fault! My mom fell because of you. You were standing on the doorstep and didn't move, which scared me. Now the blanket is dirty and I have to wash it again. What a hassle! What should I do?"

"So be it! I'll take responsibility for my mistakes."

A moment later, Zou Laqian took off her red coat and began washing and sewing!

Yang Yuhan smiled inwardly, "Even such a rare, inhuman species has moments of obedience?"