Towards noon, the sky was as dark as night, accompanied by lightning and thunder, and heavy rain poured down. After a while, the sky began to light up a little, but it was as if something had cut it off, half dark blue, half light gray.

Shuning stood in the embroidery room on the second floor and looked out the window. The woods in the distance could not be seen clearly, and they only felt as if the heavens and the earth were covered with a thick white veil. A gust of wind blew, bringing in a splash of rain, Shuning hurriedly ducked back for a while, before reaching out to close the window, and the room suddenly darkened.

Shuning looked at the pen and paper on the small case, and regretted that she couldn't continue to practice calligraphy. She is not interested in running around with a pair of short-sighted eyes in ancient times, of course she must take good care of her eyes.

At the beginning of the rainy season, the whole family saw the weather in Lingnan for the first time, and was a little embarrassed by the heavy rain that had been falling for eight or nine days. Fortunately, she was a little mentally prepared, reminding the Tong family to purchase enough food and vegetables in advance, and asked people to put everything in the food room to a high place, and clear the drainage ditch, so that she did not suffer too much loss. I heard that an official from the north in the neighbor's house was even soaked with food bags at home, and he woke up in the middle of the night only to find that the whole family was soaked in water, and now he can only live on the second floor.

There was a rush of footsteps outside the door——, and Chunxing's voice rang out: "Girl, Sister Ayin, they are making zongzi downstairs, and they asked me to invite you to go." Shuning answered, cleaned up the pen and paper on the desk a little, washed her hands, and walked downstairs.

Ah Yin, Ah Di, Qiao Yun and Chun Xing sat in the stairwell, set up a small table and a few stools, and wrapped the rice dumplings in the light from the backyard and Qingyun Lane. Shuning added in, wrapped a few long strips of alkaline water dumplings, and made a basket of leaves into an inverted cone, put glutinous rice, mung beans, peanuts, salted egg yolks and pork into it, and pressed it tightly and took the water and weeds to bundle it.

Ah Yin looked at it and smiled: "Miss, your wrapping method is a bit like wrapping steamed dumplings, I want to wrap a few too." Shuning smiled and responded: "Okay, pack more delicious food, let's pick some bamboo leaves again, cook them, and wrap some small rice dumplings, I think about wrapping them with bamboo leaves, and there will be the fragrance of bamboo leaves when you eat them, and Eniang may like it." Chunxing immediately jumped up and said, "I'll go pick it!" But he was pulled by Qiaoyun: "Now it's raining so hard outside, what are you going to do?!" Chunxing sat down embarrassedly.

At this time, Ah Hua came over: "Are you making dumplings?" I'm here again? (Are you making rice dumplings?) I'll pack it too, right? Then he took a chair and sat down. Ah Yin said to her: "I wrap steamed dumplings in the ground, you know all the bags, right?" (We're wrapping steamed rice dumplings, and you're going to wrap them too, right?) ）

Ah Hua frowned: "Wrapping and steaming is not a zongzi, you will wrap the zongzi, and the package will be steamed, so don't bury it!" (Wrapping and steaming is not zongzi, you wrap zongzi and wrap zongzi, wrap and steam, wrap and steam, don't mix and say.) ）

Ah Yin raised the leaf in his hand and said, "It's all glutinous rice, do you have the same thing?" (It's all glutinous rice, what's the difference?) ）

Ah Hua's eyes widened: "The stalk is not the same, the rice dumplings are used to tie the leaves, and the steaming is used to tie the winter leaves, which is not the same at all!" If you don't know how many wild animals you have, you don't need to pretend to know! (Of course it's different, dumplings are made with basket leaves, and winter leaves are used for steaming, which are not the same at all, don't pretend to know if you don't know.) ）

Ah Yin raised his eyes and smiled: "It's really ugly!" Ah Hua got up abruptly and was about to have a seizure, but several people next to her hurriedly grabbed her. Ah Di glared at Ah Yin and said, "Are you refusing to do it?" You know that if you refuse to be in a hurry, you will speak a bit of country language. (Why are you flirting with her?) You know she's going to go back to the countryside in a hurry. ）

Ah Yin pursed his lips and continued to make dumplings, making Ah Di so angry that he stomped his feet. Seeing that the situation was not good, Shuning hurriedly asked the others to pull them away, so that they could be persuaded to calm down.

Shuning said to Ah Hua: "We don't have winter leaves, so we can only wrap them in leaves." This is not steaming, just learning how to wrap the rice dumplings. Then he said to Ah Yin: "Although steaming is very similar to zongzi, the materials used are different and the shapes are different, just distinguish them clearly." In fact, just like the glutinous rice chicken I wrapped a few days ago, it is also glutinous rice, but the outside is wrapped with lotus leaves, does Sister Ah Yin also want to say that it is a zongzi? ”

Ah Yin tilted his head to think about it and smiled: "This is also true." She glanced at Ah Hua and remained silent.

Ah Hua snorted quietly, picked up the edge of the hoop leaf and said: "I'll do it better than you, wrap it in a brocade bag, and I'll make a fine fruit array and my aunt will personally teach me to stand it." (I'll show you how to wrap the steam, my aunt taught me when I was a child.) Shuning, Chunxing, and Qiaoyun hurriedly followed Xuebao, and a quarrel was settled.

After wrapping several baskets of zongzi, Chunxing asked: "I heard that there will be a dragon boat race on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, and people from ten miles and eight towns nearby will come to see it." Isn't it going to be lively? ”

Ah Yin smiled: "Of course I've seen it, it's very lively, the dragon boat is several zhang long, there are many people on it, and when the game is playing, the dragon boat is as fast as flying." You and Miss must go and check it out. Adi also nodded in agreement, and described to her the wonderful pictures she had seen in previous years.

Chunxing's eyes lit up when she heard this, and she said to Shuning, "Girl, let's go?" I haven't seen what a dragon boat looks like. ”

Shuning thought about it and felt that it was good to take a look, so she said: "Okay, I want to see it too, I'll go and ask Eniang." ”

She immediately got up and washed her hands, walked through the verandah to the main house in the backyard, and found that there were some residual branches and leaves piled up at the drainage outlet in the corner of the yard, so she secretly reminded herself that she must call someone to remove them when she turned around, otherwise the branches and leaves will accumulate more and more, plug the drain, and the rain will flood the corridor, and their family will also follow the nest next door to the second floor.

As soon as she entered the house, Shuning shouted, "E-niang, I have something to tell you." But I saw that Tong was teasing Xianning. I saw her smile and turn back to her daughter and say, "Shu'er, come and see, Brother Xian'er can sit up." ”

Shuning said in surprise: "Really? Immediately ran over to look, and sure enough, the little brother Xianning was sitting on the big bed, raising his pink and tender little face, giggling, and his arm the size of a lotus root waved a few times, and giggled a few times.

It's so cute!!

Shuning couldn't help but pounce on it, hugged her brother and kissed her twice. Xianning seemed to like being so intimate with his sister, screaming happily and waving his little hand a few times. Tong smiled: "Brother Xian likes my sister very much." ”

Of course, where can I find such a good sister?

Shuning sat on the chuang and hugged Xianning to tease him. Xianning widened a pair of round eyes, looked at Tong, turned to look at Shuning, and then grabbed one of Shuning's hands, played with her fingers, and stuffed it into her mouth.

"Yikes!" Shuning exclaimed in surprise and hurriedly retracted her hand, "This is not for eating." Hyuneong didn't understand, and reached out to grab her fingers and stuffed them into her mouth. Shuning couldn't cry or laugh, so she had to ask her mother for help. Tong just smiled and looked at it motionlessly: "If you are teething, you will eat like this, and he can't bite you, let him eat." ”

Hearing this, Shuning hurriedly held his brother's head, looked carefully into his mouth, and sure enough, he saw two small white bumps in the gums, and said happily: "My brother has teeth, so he will be able to chew things in the future, right?" ”

Tong Shi glanced at her: "It's still early, now in addition to breastfeeding, you just eat some rice cereal, you forget, you yourself are weaned when you are one year old." ”

Sweat! Shuning said in her heart: "That's not me!" ”

The mother and daughter teased Xiao Xianning for a while, and then Tong remembered and asked, "When you just entered the door, you said that you had something to listen to me, what is the matter?" ”

Shuning then remembered, so she said: "Sister Ah Yin, they said that they have to race dragon boats locally during the Dragon Boat Festival every year, and my daughter wants to come and ask Eniang, can you go and have a look?" ”

Tong frowned and said, "I've also heard that a large group of men rowing shirtless, how can you be a girl to see it?" ”

Shuning hurriedly said: "There are many people who go to see it, men, women and children, Sister Ah Yin, they all say that it is so lively, my daughter just wants to see something fresh, E-Niang will let me go, right?" ”

Tong couldn't twist his daughter, so he had to say: "I asked you Ama in the evening, and if he agrees, he will let you go." ”

Shuning was very happy, her mother said this, basically there is no problem, as long as she is coquettish, her father will definitely agree.

She asked, "When will Amma come back?" ”

Tong replied: "It's about to be Youshi, and recently because of the heavy rain for days, your Ama is about to turn it over." ”

Shuning asked, "Is it serious?" I heard that this year's rain is not heavy, but it is much better than in previous years. Tong said: "Probably, I heard that only dozens of grass houses were destroyed, and four or five people were injured, but no one was killed, and the danger of a few river embankments is not important." It's just that the rainy season has just begun, and it won't end until July. ”

Shuning was a little worried and said, "I hope the flood will not be too serious this year." ”

Tong touched his daughter's head and said: "God has the virtue of a good life, there have been droughts and waterlogs in the past few years, I think there will be a good year this year." When Shuning heard this, she was in a much better mood.

Tong caught a glimpse of the remaining blue on her fingernails and asked, "What did you just do?" What is this on the nails? ”

Shuning looked down and said, "I made zongzi with Sister Ah Yin and Chun Xing, which were left by scraping the leaves." ”

Tong nodded: "That's good, although we don't need our daughter to cook by ourselves, it's good to learn more." What kind of zongzi are wrapped, but are you ready to give them away? ”

Shuning smiled: "Naturally, there is." We have wrapped more than 200 zongzi in the past few days, put mung beans, peanuts, bacon and salted egg yolks, that is, to prepare for gifts, although the materials are not expensive, but they are full of weight, and it will not be rude to give them to anyone. In addition, dozens of them were packed, and in addition to the ingredients mentioned earlier, we also added good dried shrimp, mushrooms and ham, which were kept for us to eat. ”

Tong smiled: "You little slippery head, you only keep good things for your own food." Don't forget to make a few more good ones, and send them to your two Aunt Liu's house in two days. ”

Shuning smiled and said, "I have already prepared it, and I have asked people to add more good ingredients." ”

Tong poked her head, turned around and hugged her son, and suddenly remembered something: "Yes, you go and ask them to pack a few more, you Ama is out all day, and I don't know if you can eat well, cook the zongzi and let him take a few, there is rice, meat and eggs, it is much better than eating dry food." Shuning answered.

In the evening, it was already half dark, and the rain that had just stopped for a short time began to fall clearly. Zhang Bao hurriedly took a few people into the house, took off his coat and hat, and said with a smile to his daughter who greeted him out of the hall: "This rain is really endless, fortunately there is a raincoat made by my daughter, otherwise, Ama will become a soup chicken again today." ”