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墨書 Inktalez
Write down this title, the first thing that comes to mind is a story my grandmother used to tell when I was a child:
Once upon a time, there was a particularly stingy person who accumulated some wealth by living frugally. Because he couldn't afford the fertile land in the big ridge, he bought some "heavenly water fields" on the hillside. Although he had the fields and became a prominent figure in the village, he refused to hire permanent workers, only hiring a few casual workers to help during the busy farming seasons.
This time, when it was time to plant in the spring, the nearby farmers knew he was a tightwad and no one was willing to come and work for him. He had to go far to hire people and boasted about the treatment, saying things like "plenty of meat to eat" and "only need to work half a day."
Several casual workers were hired and they had a quick breakfast before starting work. They worked until the sun was about to set before taking a break to go home for lunch, saying they had only worked half a day. They ate a large bowl of winter melon, which is jokingly referred to as "a big piece of fat" in our area. The workers left angrily, and on the way, someone deliberately asked:
"Is the field easy to plant?"
"Add wedges to the stone slab."
"Will you come back to do this casual worker job in the future?"
"He doesn't even pee in this direction."
With a fear of "adding a wedge to the stone slab," I welcomed my first "holiday" with trepidation.
This time in the fields felt completely different from last year's late rice harvest. We have a habit of "winter soaking." Every year after harvesting the late rice, we fill every paddy field with water, allowing the soil to soak in deep water for an entire winter. When spring arrives, all it takes is one round of plowing and harrowing, and the soil becomes both loose and level, ensuring it does not leak water. This method saves us a lot of effort compared to the laborious task of "adding wedges on stone slabs."
However, when planting early rice, I had to wade barefoot into fields with two to three inches of water, which was a bit uncomfortable for me as it was my first time in such deep water. What frightened me even more were the leeches floating in the paddy. They were particularly interested in the tender skin of children and could latch on if one wasn't careful. Although it wasn't extremely painful, they do suck blood, and once you pull them off, the wound would bleed for quite a while, which was quite unsettling.
Since it was my first time planting, my movements were very clumsy. At that time, hybrid rice had not yet become widespread, and the early rice seedlings were only three to four inches tall when they needed to be planted quickly. With two to three inches of water already in the field, if I pressed too hard while planting deeply, the seedlings would be completely submerged and unable to grow. If I pressed too lightly and planted them too shallowly, the seedlings wouldn't be able to take root firmly in the rich mud; a gust of wind would easily uproot them and send them "scattering everywhere."
How to insert the seedlings with the right force, at the right depth, without any technique, relying solely on my own hands, one bunch at a time, experiencing it again and again. Fortunately, after a winter of soaking in the rice paddies, the soil is fertile and loose. After a morning of hard work, I finally grasped the basic strength needed for planting.
I can insert the seedlings into the mud without them falling over or being too high or too low; this is just the first step of the basics. Next, I need to manage the spacing and alignment of the seedlings. Skilled farmers, especially young women and sisters-in-law, plant quickly, arranging them in neat rows and columns that look beautiful from afar and up close. But when it comes to me, not only is my speed slow as if crawling, but after looking left and right several times before taking action, the spacing of the seedlings always ends up uneven. When I look up again, it's alarming; each row is crooked, with some rows spaced so far apart that you could almost sail a boat between them, while in other places they are too close together, nearly shoulder to shoulder.
To help with this, several cousins who came to assist during that holiday—Yin Yilian, the second daughter of Aunt Ma, and Long Meiyun, the daughter of Second Aunt Ma—were almost all my teachers. They had to constantly remind me when it was "too wide" or "too narrow." Sometimes, they didn't have time to speak and would use their hands or feet to push the muddy water towards me. Hearing the splashing sound or feeling mud splatter on my thin clothes would make me immediately straighten up and carefully examine the rows of seedlings I had just planted. Then I would hurriedly move and adjust them until they were awkwardly lined up in a row before I could finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Over the past two days, we've planted about a third of our family's over five acres of paddy fields. The seedlings I planted barely met the appropriate depth and spacing, but I've developed a lazy habit that farmers detest - propping up my knees. Whenever I feel tired or strained in my waist while holding the seedlings, my left hand involuntarily props up on my left knee, resulting in redness at the left elbow and left knee after planting a field.
My mom and cousins who planted with me noticed this habit early on, but considering that I was just starting to "learn the trade," they focused on correcting my basic movements for the first two days and didn't say anything. It wasn't until the third day that they began to address this bad habit.
At the time, I couldn't understand why propping up my knees was considered a bad habit. I thought it was a good way to balance work and rest, and it didn't affect the depth and spacing of the planting, just the posture. It wasn't until a few years later, when I was the fastest at planting in the yard among the boys, that I truly understood that a skilled farmer absolutely cannot prop up their knees while planting. It's for this reason that when we tease those "half-hearted farmers," we always say they are just "propping up their knees" farmers.
In the autumn, when we were planting the late rice, I truly experienced the hard work of "wedge on a stone slab." Our family had a small plot of land in a valley called Tianshuitian, covering only about 0.27 acres, located above a canal. That year, the reservoir had plenty of water, and my dad borrowed a water cart from someone else during his summer break to irrigate the nearly cracked dry fields with three inches of water. He roughly plowed the land with a plow harrow, and before it got dark, my mom and I went to the field to begin what would be my only experience of "wedge on a stone slab" labor in my life.
Since the soil had dried out beforehand, the plow harrow had been used roughly, and the water was deep, the clods of earth were large and hard. Each time I planted a seedling, it required a lot of effort. My mom told me, "Don't worry about planting them too deep; in a couple of days, the water will seep away enough. As long as the seedlings can take root, there will be some harvest."
Even so, until it got dark, when my dad arrived at the edge of the paddy field carrying a load of seedlings, my mom and I had only managed to plant a few sparse rows. My fingers felt stiff and numb as I looked at the slow green stretch before me, resembling ants crawling along. A sense of exhaustion mixed with unfulfilled achievement gradually welled up in my heart.
My father tossed bundles of seedlings into the field and joined the team planting them. Although I felt reluctant, I dared not show it and continued to plant silently and diligently. My stomach growled at the most inopportune moment, as fatigue and hunger alternately bombarded my tender spirit. If it weren't for the strict discipline instilled in me by my mother over the years, I would have wanted nothing more than to retreat immediately.
After what felt like an eternity, I had managed to plant about half of the seedlings when my father noticed the look of grievance and exhaustion on my face. He exchanged a glance with my mother and said, "Biaosong, if you can't handle it, you can go home."
Hearing those words, I nearly collapsed onto the paddy field. Gazing at the dark ridge that offered no glimmer of light, I realized that our only lantern at home would need to guide my parents as they finished planting this section of land. There was no way I could leave now. Struggling to straighten my back, I picked up another handful of seedlings and prepared to continue this arduous task.
At this point, it was my mother who spoke up: " Biaosong, you don't need to help anymore. Why don't you go rest in the vegetable field over there?"
Next to the rice paddies, there was a dry patch of land where the cotton plants had already been harvested. The stalks stood straight up, and I grabbed a few bundles of straw that had just been tied together after the harvest. I tossed them into an empty space, not bothering to spread them out neatly, and immediately lay down on top of them. I was truly exhausted, both physically and mentally.
At first, I tried hard to keep my eyes open, watching my parents' slow but steady movements as they planted in the fields, waving their hands to shoo away the buzzing mosquitoes that circled around me. But before long, I fell into a deep sleep.
Until my parents finished planting the entire field and woke me up, I was still half asleep. By the time I got back home and had a full meal, it was already two or three o'clock in the early morning of the next day.
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