Fengcheng, Zhangjia Village.

When the second snow melts cleanly, and the pickled meat and fish hanging in front of the house are a little cured, the New Year is coming.

When Layue gathers and Zhangjia Village meets, the streets are full of people, and people who usually look serious and mourn also stretch their brows.

The eldest girl quietly wiped the rouge gouache, the child also changed into a red jacket, and the neighbors who usually don't have a good relationship would nod their heads and say hello when they met.

The smell of the New Year is in the air throughout the village.

When Zhang Mian was a child, she asked her grandmother what the New Year was and why she wanted to celebrate the New Year.

His grandmother, who couldn't read a basket of big characters, told Zhang Mian that "Nian" was a lion with a horn on his head that was sharper than a cow's horn, and that he was a monster that ate children's hearts. Whoever is disobedient will take it by the adult and use the horn to cut the child's belly without paying attention, and then eat the heart in one bite, the scene is bloody and can't be thought of.

The New Year is to scare the "Nian" away, although the "Nian" is fierce, but afraid of the sound. In the past, people used to bang pots and pans to make a sound, although the "year" was scared away, and the pots and pans were knocked out a lot.

Looking at the rotten pots and pans, the women who were diligent and thrifty housekeepers were sad to pat their legs and cry bitterly, and some of them were directly angry, what a sad day it was for the New Year at that time.

Later, there were firecrackers, people used firecrackers instead of knocking pots and pans, not only the effect is good, the time is short, and it is not effortless, let go of firecrackers for a year, the children will be safe and sound, and the New Year has become a day worth celebrating.

Zhang Mian listened to this story, and for a long time, he went to the village commissary to buy firecrackers during the day, and then untied the strings of firecrackers, and put the firecrackers one by one with fine incense.

It was painful, numb and swollen, and it was more delicious than a dime and a bag of weird beans.

During the day, firecrackers were set off, but at night, Zhang Mian would still be on the walls and eaves of his home, and found a shadow with long sharp horns shaking, which made Zhang Mian huddle and shiver in the quilt.

Not only is the young Zhang Mian afraid of the "New Year", but now the middle-aged Zhang Mian is as afraid of the New Year as his childhood.

……

At this time of year, Zhang Mian's grandmother would buy peanuts and melon seeds from the wholesale market and set up a small stall on the street, using her eight-tael scale to make a small transaction.

Eight taels of scales, that is, eight taels of things show that it is one catty.

This scale was made by the hunchbacked old man in the Zhangjiacun market, his left eye was not very good, and he had been making the scale aiming line for a long time to break his eye.

A few years ago, when Zhang Mian and his grandmother went to buy scales, he smiled as kindly as possible.

"Old lady, look at the scales, these are all yes, with and without a disc." The hunchbacked old man introduced with a smile, and the two eyes, one big and one small, became more and more obvious.

"How many taels of scales are there with reels?"

"Look at this six-tael scale, the plate is big, ten yuan, and it will be used for a year." The hunchbacked old man said and took out an aluminum plate to weigh.

"Take an eight-tael." Grandma Zhang Mian hesitated for a moment, glanced at the hunchbacked old man with disdain, took the scale from the hunchbacked old man's hand and paid the hunchbacked old man nine yuan.

"Old lady, one piece is missing, and you can't earn a dollar on a scale."

"I've bought yakiniku for my grandson." After grandma finished speaking, she held the newly bought scale in one hand and Zhang Mian in the other, and left without looking back.

Zhang Mian thinks that the widowed grandmother may not be to earn a few dollars, but more likely to relieve loneliness, feel the excitement in the bustling crowd, and also dry the gloomy mood accumulated in the past year under the winter sun.

When the Chinese New Year was approaching, Cao Xiaoshan was also helping his parents look after the store, and he would definitely take five yuan when his parents were not paying attention.

A few years ago, he told Zhang Mian the principle of stealing money in the game machine room: don't take more, and don't take new money.

"Yue Xiaowei, it's that deflated mouth, his dad sold more than 100 a day in business, and he stole 50 in the afternoon, but everyone knows that his dad hung him on the beam of the house that night and whipped him with a belt, and the beating was worse than the ghost screaming."

"Once, when I visited the store in the morning, I took a brand new 10 quick money from someone else from the money box, but my mother found out in the afternoon, my mouth was swollen like a steamed bun by my father, and both teeth were moved. Since then, every time I visit the store, I only take five dollars of old money, and I haven't been found yet."

As he spoke, Xiaoshan stared intently at Street Fighter.

Zhang Mian will not steal his grandmother's money, because his grandmother's business is not ordinarily bad, a fair or a few businesses in the Layue market, when she is fine, she counts the money, and it is estimated that every penny less will know. At that time, if Zhang Mian hadn't had a book to read, he would probably have fallen asleep in a daze.

"Fairness is in people's hearts", grandma holds eight taels of scales when weighing others, as long as others ask her if she has enough weight, grandma will say this sentence firmly, and then will grab a little more, which is extremely generous.

At that time, Grandma Zhang was already in her seventies, and even if the sun was good, the cold was still everywhere.

"3949 center wax, the old female duck froze to death in the river".

The winters were much colder then than they are now.

So Grandma Zhang Mian would bring his charcoal pot to warm up when doing business.

The charcoal brazier is an ordinary ceramic basin the size of a washbasin.

Charcoal fire is not the real meaning of charcoal, but the sawdust of furniture sawwood, after igniting some sawdust, it will cover a thick layer of sawdust on top of the burning sawdust, and the sawdust below will burn slowly, then put your feet on the sawdust that is not burning on it, it is extremely warm, when it feels hot, sprinkle some sawdust, and so on.

The disadvantages of the charcoal brazier are also obvious, smoking.

Thanks to the fact that the people who do business are all neighbors, they will not wait for the chengguan to drop the brazier now, and those who do business next to the downwind will not give up.

To the west of Grandma Zhang's stall is an oil seller, in his fifties, with a shiny face and a special look like Maitreya Buddha.

In the days of the Layue Market, he was looking forward to snow, so that Grandma Zhang Mian would not be out of business, and the downwind could finally open her eyes.

It is said that this long-looking Maitreya Buddha later suffered from tracheitis, and when people met them, they said that they were smoked by the old woman of the Zhang family.

However, he didn't dare to say in front of Grandma Zhang Mian that a widow who could raise five children in a difficult era without starving to death was estimated to be a character he couldn't provoke.

In fact, this is very likely to be the right thing he has done in his life.

Zhang Lu clearly remembered that when he was a child, his grandmother once scolded at the door for three days for losing a rooster, from the sun rising to the starry sky

The most admirable thing is that the content of Grandma Zhang's scolding is basically not repeated, and she scolds what she thinks is a chicken thief with her super memory and body movements that are a hundred times more complex than the current square dance.

The only thing Zhang Mian could do was to hand her water and move the bench.

When Grandma Zhang Mian put her little feet on the charcoal brazier, her face would have a relaxed expression, and a charcoal brazier allowed him to easily overcome the cold of winter.

Zhang Mian also used a charcoal brazier to roast his feet to keep warm.

It's a warmth with the smell of wood, followed by earthiness, which makes it easy to feel happy.