Before the Dragon Boat Festival, the young couple visited their relatives and friends, and took two newly recruited apprentices to visit their parents, and by the way, they were also familiar with the environment in the village.

On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, the little couple went to the town with Chu Ping and Yuan Shuang to buy some items and drinks needed for the festival.

The little couple went out for most of the day, and when they came back in the middle of the afternoon, they found that Uncle Chu was playing cards with a few children in the West Chamber, and everyone in the room had a punishment note on their faces, among which Xue Changlin and Uncle Chu were pasted the most, one was just learning to play cards and was not proficient, and the other was to coax the children to be happy.

Seeing that Chu Yi and the two returned home, everyone stopped the cards in their hands, got up and went to the yard to help move things, in addition to melon and fruit preserves, dried fruit cakes and a few large jars of wine, the most occupied place was actually the new clothes that Shen Luzhu bought for everyone.

Third Uncle Chu was still a little puzzled, why he bought new clothes for the whole family at this time, turned his head and saw Xue Changshan and Xue Changlin who were carefully fiddling with new clothes, so he understood the intention of the little couple, and did not speak with a smile.

Chu Yi saw the two apprentices, just cautiously looked at the clothes in his hands, and there was no side movement, so he urged: "This is what your master specially picked for the two of you, look at what you are doing, why don't you try it?"

"Thank you, Master, Master!"

After speaking, the Xue family brothers bowed deeply again, and then happily entered the room that was specially cleaned up for the two of them and changed their clothes.

The brothers have been coming home for more than a month, and most of the clothes they are wearing are the old clothes of the Chu Yi brothers changed by Shen Luzhu, and when they were shopping today, they happened to see the ready-to-wear shop, and Shen Luzhu bought them two, and then they were afraid that the two children would have a burden, so they simply bought one for the whole family, which was regarded as a celebration.

In addition to clothes, Shen Luzhu and Yuanshuang also bought a lot of good-looking fabrics and colored ropes back, and before dinner, they sat under the persimmon tree in the yard, taking Chu Xiuxiu to make purses and weave colorful rope bracelets.

Early in the morning of the Dragon Boat Festival, after washing his face with mugwort water, Shen Luzhu took out the sachet and colorful rope made the day before yesterday and brought them to everyone one by one.

After eating the white porridge cooked with glutinous rice and sweet dates, as well as Shen Luzhu's braised eggs the night in advance, Chu Yi and Chu Ping, they took Chu Li and Xue Changshan to get busy, first built a simple barbecue stove with yellow mud in the yard, and then went to the foot of the nearby mountain, found a few sturdy branches, picked up a lot of dry firewood, and brought back fresh willow branches.

When the men were doing this, the women were not idle, first they pickled the whole sheep that Chu Ping had slaughtered and processed with people a few days ago, marinated it with various spices, and then washed and cut all the pork belly, mushrooms, and green vegetables, and finally strung them on the washed willow branches.

After finishing these, it was still early before the time for lunch, and the two families gathered under the persimmon tree, chatting with tea, and playing cards to be funny.

When the sheep was almost pickled, Chu Yi and Chu Ping used the sturdy branches to build a shelf, and then set up the sheep and set up a small fire with dry wood underneath to roast it slowly.

Roasting the whole sheep takes a long time to cook thoroughly, and the skewers made of pork and mushrooms and vegetables on the stove on the other side are cooked very quickly, sprinkled with Shen Luzhu's own barbecue materials, and they will soon be able to eat, with the good wine that Chu Yi bought, as well as the sour plum soup that Shen Luzhu specially cooked for the children, it is even more unique.

Since the division of the family, the Chu family's old house for the New Year's holiday, is always very lively, like today's such an event, it will be organized once every three or five hours, the Chu family is already a little accustomed to it, but the Xue brothers have been away from home for many years, and they don't remember what it is like for the family to get together, and the lively festival is like, Xue Changshan may still remember some, but they never seem to have such a warm and lively time in their home.

Eating oily skewers in his mouth, drinking sweet and sour plum soup, the plate in front of him was full of Chu family members to bring it

eating, the little brothers couldn't help but have red eyes.

After the Dragon Boat Festival, Chu Li's holiday has been halfway, in the past few days before returning to the county, Chu Yi will take his apprentices to the mountains every day, get to know all kinds of wood, learn and judge the quality of trees, whether they can become timber.

By the way, Chu Yi also marked more than a dozen trees on the mountain that have become mature, including pine and cypress trees that are the most common and most affordable to make coffins, and there are also two good nanmu, and they found an experienced master in the village to help cut down and deal with them, and then dragged them back to the Chu family's yard for temporary storage.

It takes a while to cut down the trees, and the timber dragged back to the Chu family's yard still needs to be handled and dried in the shade, so Chu Yi entrusted the work of transporting the timber to the county seat, and asked him to help send it to the shop in the county town together with the tools that Chu Yi ordered at the blacksmith's house after a while.

The day before the end of the Chu Li holiday, the Chu family packed up their things, said goodbye to their grandfather's family, and returned to the county seat in a carriage.

The Shen brothers originally planned to go to the county town in the second half of the year to inspect the market, but after chatting with Chu Yixiao and the couple this time, their hearts were even hotter, and they couldn't wait to advance the schedule, and directly traveled with their sister and brother-in-law's family, and continued to discuss the details of the partnership on the way.

After returning to the county seat, the days were no different from before, the shop was still open every day to welcome customers, and Chu Yi still took his apprentices to talk about the knowledge of making coffins or carpenters.

The most surprising thing is the righteous child, Shen Luzhu thought that after returning to the mountain village, after an interval of ten years, this fat son should not remember to listen to his father's lectures, maybe he will lose interest directly, but I didn't expect this doll to be like someone who had cursed it, and I don't know if I can understand it, in short, I can't follow the class every day, even my own father and mother feel surprised, not to mention the Xue brothers, thinking that it is not good to be compared to the two or three-year-old milk dolls of the master's family, So I worked harder.

In late May, Jiang Quan came to the county seat again with Lin Ji's convoy, bringing not only the prepared copper coin burning paper and paper ingots, but also the dozen or so processed wood, as well as two sets of tools made with the help of the blacksmith at the head of the village.

In the days that followed, Chu Yi suddenly became more busy, and every day after breakfast, he began to take the Xue family brothers in the west courtyard, circling around the wood.

What Chu Yi has to do is to take his apprentices, starting from removing the bark, analyzing the shape of the logs, removing the rotten or defective positions, thinking about where to break the logs, marking the saw, and finally breaking the cylindrical wood into pieces of half-finger thick boards, which is the first step of making a coffin, cutting materials.

Open the material of the board, but also need to be dried twice, this step seems simple, but it is also quite exquisite, can not be exposed to the sun or rain, the moisture can not be too big but can not be too dry, taking advantage of this effort, Chu Yi found some waste wood, with the apprentices familiar with the various tools in their hands.

In this way, he taught and did it until the beginning of June, and finally made the first coffin after moving to the county seat, thinking that it was prepared for the opening of the coffin shop, Chu Yi did it extremely carefully, and after throwing the light with his apprentices, he also carefully applied a layer of wood paint.

Here Chu Yi is busy making coffins, and over there Shen Luzhu has already begun to decorate the shop in the west courtyard, Chu Yi is busy taking apprentices and making coffins, and he hardly has much time during the day.

It is how to arrange the coffin shop, and what are the sayings or taboos, Shen Luzhu came to discuss with Uncle Chu, and asked someone to make the most basic counters, tables and chairs, Shen Luzhu looked around at his own empty shop, thinking that even if there were a few coffins in the house at that time, it seemed that it would still be monotonous and cold, and suddenly remembered the grain basin paper bundles placed in the paper money shop next door, and thought about whether it would be more appropriate to put them here in the future.

Shen Luzhu won the consent of the third uncle of Chu, and asked Chu Yi's thoughts again in the evening: "Over at the coffin shop, I always feel that the walls on all sides and the room are a little monotonous and cold

We can sell some other funeral supplies, but we already have a paper money shop, so I thought if we could tie these with grain basin paper and move them to the coffin shop next door, Chu Yi, what do you think?"

"Ah Zhu's idea is very good, these grain basins are used more at the funeral, and it is more reasonable to sell them together with the coffin, maybe the two can increase sales by putting them together."

Shen Luzhu actually thought the same way, the people who came to buy the coffin saw the grain basin paper tie these, most of them would buy it together, if they turned around to the side, they could directly buy the paper money by the way, they made money, and it was convenient for others, wouldn't it be the best of both worlds.

"Then I'll go and ask the master to come tomorrow, and then help us build some display racks on the wall, and then you can put these like grain basins on it, not to mention conspicuously, and it doesn't take up too much space for the coffin."

Chu Yi smiled and took his wife, who was talking with great interest, into his arms: "Okay, it's hard work for our Azhu."

Shen Luzhu raised his head and kissed Chu Yi's chin gently: "You work much harder than me, by the way, the third uncle also asked us today, what are the plans for the name of the plaque and the coffin shop, saying that you are too busy, and you should settle down and ask someone to do it."

Chu Yi heard this: "Actually, I want to do this today, our paper money shop is already called Chu Ji Funeral, what should the coffin shop be called, Chu Ji coffin shop?"

Shen Luzhu shook his head slowly: "It always feels weird, it's better to remember the funeral."

Chu Yi thought for a while, smiled and discussed with his wife, "Then it's better to call Chu Ji a funeral."

"Two shops with one name?"

Chu Yi nodded and said, "Well, why not? The left and right are our own shops, so let's just use a plaque, but now this piece is a little short, go back and find a home dedicated to making plaques, make a larger one for us, hang it in the middle, what do you think?"

"This method is good, paper money and coffins are funeral goods, they are all our shop, and they are all our Chu Ji funeral! Then I'll take the time to find someone to order it tomorrow, and it's best to make two more small signs, one for paper money and one for coffins, and stand on the steps in front of the shop, which is a sign, and it also saves someone from entering the wrong shop and tossing it out."

"Okay, listen to Azhu."