box of hearts

Chapter 163
Two rice pounding racks are placed under a straw shed in the backyard. Each rack has a lever. One end of the lever is a pedal, and the other end is a pestle ground by a tree stump; A large mortar smashed into the ground.In a group of two, one person steps on the board and the other divides the meter in front of the mortar.Those who step on the pedals have to hold on to the high handrails and use their feet to keep stepping down the pestle. The pestle is so heavy that it will break the waist after stepping on it for a long time.Compared with this, the decimeter is a much easier beauty.There were also several young nuns who came with them. The two most shrewd ones grabbed the wind bucket in their hands first, and stood in the shade where the sun could not reach them, and turned the rice. He sat down in front of the mortar, while the other climbed up the pedal wailing bitterly.

Qingtian was also about to climb up the steps, but was grabbed by Jingguo, who pointed her finger at her nose.Last night, Qingtian made up Haiqing[2] for all the nuns by himself. He worked so hard until the cock crowed. He only drank two mouthfuls of porridge in the morning before being dispatched to collect firewood. He really didn't have much energy, so he nodded gratefully to Jingguo and sat down. the other side.The other nuns glanced at them indifferently, and then laughed wildly out of nothing.

The scorching sun was shining in the sky, and the clear water in several large vats was about to boil.When the film was released, everyone was sweating profusely.The first half of Qingtian's life was also regarded as a lack of physical activity and disregard of five grains. After being worn out for several months, he has done rough work in a decent way, and he is not even haggard than he was at the beginning. He is still very thin, but he is full of vitality The healthy brilliance born of hard work, the fine sweat densely spread on the face slowly condensed from all directions, one drop after another, gently falling along the straight and beautiful bridge of the nose or thick eyelashes, she occasionally raised her hand to wipe With one stroke, the two dimples under the sweat were wiped out, the crispy powder was rubbed, and the red rosy glow was steamed.

The few people next to him all looked disgusted, even if they were out of breath from exhaustion, they wanted to chatter.Qingtian was originally born in Suzhou, and she is extremely smart. In two or three months, she has been able to understand four or five parts of the southern dialect that is ringing in her ears every day. He uttered nonsense in person.These days, she has been degraded by those derogatory terms that are inherently foxy, and finally she seems to have scolded her as a "fairy".Qingtian raised his head to look at the sky, if it was a goblin, he would have been forced to show his true form in such a hot weather.

As always, she pretended not to understand anything, just leaned over the edge of the big mortar and moved her hands mechanically, putting the broken coarse rice back into the mouth of the mortar again and again.The mortar was hewn from a single piece of white stone, dazzlingly white in the sun, with screw threads engraved on it, and a few black shadows sifted by the straw shed above the head. After looking at it for a long time, the eyes became dizzy and the neck bent. It's going to hurt.Still, it was a rare moment of leisure in her convict-like day.

Oh, her definition of "leisure" is completely different now than in the past.In the past leisurely, she was sitting on a jade mat dressed in cicada silk, the ice-pattern coffee table in her hand was filled with jade bowls filled with various fresh fruits, and the maids played feather fans for her, and the breeze blowing the pages themselves Keeping turning over, from outside the window, came the strong fragrance of hanju and the Qing song of the actress... She was half asleep and half awake when she was sung, her eyelids drooped suddenly, and there was an out-of-sync "" in the singing. "Bang, bang", I knew in a trance that it was a dream, and I was still under the poisonous sun in May, waiting for the pestle to fall into the stone mortar.When the pestle head was raised, she put the rice into the mortar with both hands, and when the pestle head fell, she separated her hands to the sides, closed again, separated again, closed again, separated again, closed again, separated again...

Sleepy, sleepy like this, my stomach is throbbing with burning pain, the sun is so hot, it is so hot that I can die, the loquat that has been peeled off is held between my teeth, and it feels cool for a while, and the song "The Story of the Hairpin" is sung on the Yingyin Pavilion [3] ], is singing Qian Yulian throwing a stone into the river, singing endless sadness and helplessness.There is always no room for her in this world, and every means is used to persecute her and harm her. If she and the person she loves will never meet again in this life, then she will jump off and fall hard into the rolling river——

"what!!"

Qingtian was sober, and he had never been so sober in his life.It was probably because Jingguo's foot on the opposite side slipped, and the pestle fell a little earlier.Even though she took both hands out of the socket in time, the pestle with iron teeth hit her right hand, and the front half of her palm looked like a person who fell from a height of hundreds of feet, almost turning into meat paste.Ever since entering the temple, Qingtian has never shed tears in front of others, but now, the tears have automatically poured down, accompanied by screams of pain.

The nuns all watched closely, first showing surprise and shock, then changed to gloating, and finally burst into laughter.This one said "big goose" - which means "big idiot", the other said "little oil" and "live" - ​​it is because Qingtian himself is not serious about doing things, he deserves to be ashamed... Only Jingguo was busy. Jumping up and down, he ran over and put his arms around Qingtian's waist with one hand and grabbed her wrist with the other, yelling "Fake it" - "what should I do", and dragged her to the well ahead with his arms and arms .

Qingtian was so painful that she wanted to roll on the ground, vaguely felt that Jingguo grabbed a bucket of well water and grabbed her hand to soak it in.It was as if a large sheet of coldness had slammed over the burning pain, and white smoke almost came out of the collision of water and fire.Qingtian groaned trembling all over, lowered his head, and fell into the golden stars in his eyes.

10.
It rained again, day and night.Qingtian soon started to have a fever, and the high fever persisted.Two days later, when I was free, I came to take a look. I saw that the illness was indeed critical and life-threatening. After all, I was also a person who worshiped the Buddha. After saying a few words of "Amitabha Buddha", I sent someone to the doctor to stew medicine.Jingguo invited her to move into Qingtian's room, and made a bunk under her bed to take care of her.

Qingtian has already fallen into a deep coma, the only two feelings are pain and heat.It is the whip scraping on the skin, the weight hammered into the bone, the midday sun when kneeling on the stone floor for punishment, and the balls of live fire rolling in the flesh.A trace of coolness seeped into her mouth, she struggled to open her eyes, and saw Jinguo holding her head, feeding in a spoonful of mung bean soup.Qingtian parted his lips slightly, and closed his eyes again.

It was four days after she woke up completely, when she changed the dressing, she saw her right hand clearly for the first time: it was swollen like a steamed bun soaked in water, it was black and purple, a small part of the thumb tip was cut off, and the index finger was cut off. There were bone-deep wounds on his chest and middle finger.

With a broken hand, she couldn't do the work anymore, so she rested for several days as a matter of course.For the past few days, I just lay in bed and listened to the rain.Jingguo was extremely busy, day and night for her cold compresses, hot compresses, scrubs, feeding her medicine, and always apologized again and again.Qingtian was embarrassed, and timidly tried to say the first sentence of Yangzhou dialect: "Don't say Xiang." If she was not mistaken, it meant "no big deal".

Sure enough, Jingguo was startled, and the lines of laughter spread across the swollen face.She carefully smashed the soy sauce bibimbap in her hand, dug a spoonful and handed it out, while waving Qingtian's outstretched left hand, she opened her mouth: "Ah—" as if feeding a child.Qingtian also opened his mouth obediently like a child; in illness, people are always weak.

Jingguo fed several mouthfuls one after another, and scraped the spoon on the rough porcelain bowl with several small gaps, "Last night, you called the current Prince Regent by his old name several times." The pronunciation of Mandarin is still vague , but understandable.

Qingtian's severe burning pain in his right hand was relieved by these words, because there is no pain that can match the heartache that hits now.She remembered the dream from last night, although there were only fragments left: Qi She's bulging upper arm, strong chest, and scars on his chest, she leaned on it and scratched him like a cat, her person seemed to be just like a cat. The size of a cat, he held her with both hands, and kept whispering in her ear, the familiar, warm, safe, solid and charming accent of home.

Qingtian, thousands of miles away from home—no, Jinghui, who has long been a monk, turned her face away and gritted her teeth desperately in front of another monk, fearing that if she loosened a bit, she would burst into tears save.Finally, she crushed the salty rice grains between her teeth and swallowed the salty eyes.

Jing Guo sighed, scanned over with pity, and bit out one word after another out of tune: "Let me tell you the truth, when I sent you here, the people in the palace had something to say, as long as they don't exhaust you to death, how can you bother?" Why did you come here? For this, I added 50 taels of incense money to the nunnery every month. The person who gave the money this month left, and there was a news that the princess in the mansion was pregnant. The prince was very happy , I spent three days and three nights in the Dalongfu Temple to pray for blessings, and the running water alone cost tens of thousands. Do you understand? It’s the same money, here is asking people to torture you, and there is asking Buddha to bless you Folks, this is eighteen levels of hell and nine levels of heaven. Seeing that you learned our work and our words just now, you are the second smartest person in the world. Now that you have fallen to the ground, why bother to think about the sky? Isn’t it? What is stupidity? The sooner you let it go, the sooner you will be freed. I advise you, live your life in a down-to-earth way. Ah—” She said so much with difficulty, and then handed the spoon to Qingtian’s mouth in front of.

I don't know from which word Jingguo said, Qingtian's bitterness still poured out, dripping from her eyes.She raised her hand to wipe it, and accidentally touched the yellowed gauze wrapped around her hand, which made her hand burn and hurt.Without waiting to wipe away all the tears, she stretched out her mouth to grab the mouthful of rice.The brown rice is mixed with grains of sand, and the inferior soy sauce is fishy and salty.This is the taste of the world.

(End of this chapter)