webnovelvip Chapter 135 135
Chapter 135 135
The sunlight streamed over the courtyard wall and onto the vegetable patch. She stepped onto the first furrow, raised the hoe, and brought it down.
The morning mist had not yet dissipated. The empty rows in the vegetable garden were neatly arranged, and the distant mountains were only faint shadows in the mist. The ridgelines were blurred by the mist, like a light stroke of ink on rice paper.
The roosters crowed from the village, one after another, sounding muffled through the mist, as if they were drifting from a very, very far place.
Several birds took flight from the persimmon tree, fluttering through the mist, the sound of their wings beating exceptionally clear in the quiet morning.
The wooden gate to the courtyard creaked open. Su Peixue came out carrying a bamboo basket, the one she had woven herself. The bottom of the basket still had mud on it from when she picked vegetables last time. The color of the bamboo strips was a bit darker than when it was first woven, and it shone from being touched.
The basket contained several small cloth bags, which Zhao Yining had sewn from scraps of cloth. The stitches were crooked, but each bag had words written on it with a brush: "tomato," "cucumber," "chili," "eggplant," and "leafy vegetable." The ink had dried completely, and the handwriting was neat.
She walked along the path towards the vegetable garden, her skirt brushing against the roadside grass, knocking off dewdrops that shattered into tiny, shimmering droplets on the ground. Her canvas shoes rustled softly on the dirt path.
She stood in front of the first ridge and placed the bamboo basket at the edge of the field. She squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil from the ridge, squeezed it, and then released it. The soil, which had been dried, raked, and sifted, fell softly and finely from between her fingers, like holding a handful of coarse flour.
The soil was alive, containing fine grass root fibers, tiny pebbles, and a unique, dry, fresh scent that came from being exposed to the sun. She took a small shovel from the bamboo basket, positioned the blade in the center of the ridge, and gently pressed it down.
The shovel made a soft, even rustling sound as it cut through the loose soil. She dug a shallow furrow along the ridge, its walls straight and its depth just above her fingertips. As the blade pushed through the soil, it occasionally struck a small pebble, producing a very soft scraping sound.
She picked the pebbles out of the ditch and threw them aside, then continued digging the ditch.
After finishing one furrow, she stood up to stretch her legs, which had gone numb from squatting, and moved on to the next furrow. The soil in the second furrow was slightly wetter than the first, making the shovel blade slide more smoothly and producing a duller sound.
A few grass roots were mixed in with the soil of the third furrow. She used a small shovel to pick them out and throw them outside the ditch. When she was digging the ditch for the fourth furrow, the blade of the shovel hit the sheep manure particles that had been scattered earlier. The manure particles were cut open and scattered into the soil. The fifth furrow was dug the fastest. Her technique was already skilled, and the blade of the shovel pushed from one end of the furrow to the other in one smooth motion. Shallow furrows were dug for all five furrows, extending from one end of the field to the other, with neat lines, as if drawn with a ruler.
She sat down at the edge of the field and pulled the bamboo basket over to place it beside her knees. From the basket, she took out the first cloth bag—the rope was made of twisted cotton thread and tied with two slipknots. She untied the rope of the "tomato" bag, held the opening to her palm, and gently shook it a few times.
A few seeds slipped out of the bag and landed in her palm. The tomato seeds were small and pale yellow, covered with a layer of extremely fine hairs, looking like a pinch of gold dust in her palm. She looked down at them for a few seconds, then used her fingers to separate two seeds that were stuck together.
She pinched a small handful between her thumb and forefinger, moved her fingers above the shallow groove, and gently rubbed them with her fingertips. The seeds fell one by one from between her fingers and were evenly scattered at the bottom of the groove.