jdhmnovel Chapter 1286 A Bountiful Year
Chapter 1286 A Bountiful Year
Shen Shi.
The sun was high in the sky, its warm rays casting long, gentle rays across the streets and fields of Tongan County.
After the autumn harvest, people are busy with their own tasks, but the most urgent task is drying the rice.
In the drying yard, farmers wearing straw hats chatted idly while turning over the rice grains with bamboo rakes: "The sun is shining brightly today! The rice dried for one day is equivalent to what it was two or three days ago! I estimate that in less than two days, all this rice will be ready to be stored in the granary!"
"Of course!" A farmer took off his straw hat to fan himself, looked in the direction of the county government office, and laughed, "Our magistrate is back; Heaven will surely grant us favor..."
As he was speaking, he suddenly froze, and the straw hat in his hand fell to the ground with a "whoosh," kicking up a cloud of rice dust.
"What are you looking at?" The person next to him picked up his hat and followed his gaze to the sky.
"Whoosh—" The hat fell back to the ground.
"What...what is that?!" The two pointed at the sky and exclaimed in unison.
This shout instantly shattered the tranquility of the afternoon.
The farmers who had been dozing under the shade of the tree got up and looked up at the sky.
"Has the heavens intervened?" Everyone rubbed their eyes and looked at each other in disbelief. "How come there are two spheres in the sky, and a couplet is hanging below them?"
Correct.
It's just a ball and couplets.
The ball is beige.
The couplets are red with black characters on a red background.
When the wind blows, the ball spins in mid-air, and the couplets hanging below sway along with it.
"What does the couplet say?" someone asked cautiously. "Does it mean that Heaven knows we have a bumper harvest this year and wants us to offer tribute?"
Probably!
"How many do we need?"
In their haste, everyone rushed out of the drying ground.
The streets and alleys were already crowded with onlookers.
Someone said, "I saw it with my own eyes! Those two balls and the couplet floated up from the county government office! It's true!"
Some people didn't believe it: "How could such a big ball float up into the sky! It should have fallen from the sky!"
"It floated out from the county government office!"
"It must have fallen from the sky!"
Both sides stuck to their own versions of events, arguing heatedly until their faces were red with anger.
Suddenly, someone asked, "Can anyone make out what's written on the couplet?"
Everyone was stunned.
Yes.
Aren't there words on the couplets?
Maybe that's what God wanted to tell them!
Immediately, the crowd stopped arguing and even started dividing up the tasks: "Men look to the left, women look to the right!"
With the tasks assigned, everyone tilted their heads back and squinted at the couplets.
The sun was shining brightly, and a gust of wind made the red couplets with black characters sway, allowing them to actually see the characters clearly.
"Left! The first two characters on the left, I see them clearly!" a young man shouted first: "'Autumn Harvest'! It's definitely 'Autumn Harvest'!"
No sooner had the words been spoken than a little girl, not to be outdone, shouted, "'May you have no worries every year'! The first four characters on the right are 'May you have no worries every year'!"
At this point, the man had unraveled two characters, and the woman had unraveled four.
The woman is currently in the lead.
Immediately, the men's group became agitated: "Brothers, give it your all! Quick, see what the next few words are!"
Another silent battle ensued.
"Full granaries!" Suddenly, a man shouted, "Full granaries are the next step after 'autumn harvest'!"
The autumn harvest is plentiful!
It sounds the same as "worry-free every year" and has a good meaning.
"Good! Good! It's a tie!"
Just as the men breathed a sigh of relief, another female voice rang out from the crowd: "'Enjoy'! The fifth character from the right is the 'enjoy' of 'enjoy'!"
"Ouch!" a man exclaimed, stamping his foot in frustration. "They beat us to it again! Brothers, look! What's that character on the left after that?!"
The men strained their eyes, staring intently at the paper on the left, their eyes sore but they didn't dare blink.
Despite all this, they still lost—
"I see it clearly! The last two characters on the right are '太平' (Taiping)! The '太平' of '天下太平' (Tianxia Taiping)!" A woman said with absolute certainty, "The right side together means '岁岁无忧享太平' (Sui Sui Wu You Xiang Taiping)!"
Upon hearing this, the women cheered instantly: "We won! We won! May we enjoy peace and prosperity year after year!"
The men were completely deflated upon hearing this, their heads drooping, yet they couldn't resist asking curiously, "What about the left side? What are the words after the left side?"
Just then, a strong wind blew by, and the sun disappeared behind the clouds.
The crowd finally saw the last three characters on the left side of the scroll: "Gold...Grain?"
Put together, it means: "The autumn harvest fills the granaries with gold and rice, and year after year, we enjoy peace and tranquility without worry."
The entire room fell silent.
This isn't Heaven asking them for tribute rice; it's clearly blessing them.
The crowd erupted in cheers, completely forgetting the previous contest, and the streets were filled with shouts and applause.
Suddenly, someone noticed something: "Look, aren't there ropes tied to the bottom of those two balls?"
The rope was so thin that you wouldn't notice it at all unless you looked closely.
"Is it a kite?" someone guessed.
"Impossible!" someone immediately retorted. "Kite needs a string to hold it up and the wind to fly! But those two balls in the sky are clearly floating up on their own!"
"Then what's the rope for?" someone asked, scratching their head as they looked down at the rope. "The other end of the rope looks like the county government office!"
"I told you they floated out of the county government office!" someone immediately said. "You didn't believe me before! Now you believe me, right?"
No sooner had he finished speaking than another ball slowly floated out of the county government office.
Everyone stared wide-eyed: "There's more?!"
Just like before, a red paper was also hanging below this ball.
The four characters on the paper shone brightly in the sunlight—Tong'an Min'an.
"May Tong'an be peaceful and prosperous..."
Someone suddenly realized: "This is a banner!"
At this point, it was obvious whose blessing this couplet was given to them.
The third ball slowly rose into the air, standing side by side with the previous two balls.
Everyone looked up, their hearts filled with warmth.
The children were overjoyed, tugging at the adults' clothes and jumping up and down, shouting, "More! More! More!"
Before he finished speaking, two more balls floated out from the direction of the county government office.
--"rich".
--"Year".
These two characters are larger than the previous ones.
Cheers resounded through the streets, but the backyard of the county government office was in complete chaos.
"We've got it! We've got it!"
Fang Ziyan ran around the backyard with a thin rope in his hand: "Nan Shu, you and Jin Yin, hurry up and circle around the rope twice! Otherwise, your balls won't be able to be separated later!"
Xin Ji chased after Fang Ziyan, saying, "Fatty, you're Feng, and I'm Nian. We can't be separated. Don't run away!"
Mu Ruojue stood in the middle of them, watching them chase and play.
Upon closer inspection, it was discovered that he was also holding a rope in his hand.
......
Five large balls floated in the air above the county government office for the entire afternoon.
As dusk fell, the number of people on the street increased rather than decreased.
The evening breeze was getting cooler, but it couldn't dispel the warmth that filled the streets.
Only when the last rays of dawn faded and night slowly fell did the county government begin to reel in the wires.
As the giant ball descended, the people moved along with it.
A reluctant murmur echoed through the crowd: "Such a beautiful scene, if only we could stay a few more days..."