Wen Qian cleaned inside and outside of the room she was going to sleep in, took all the curtains off the windows and brought them outside, closed the windows tightly and put in the latch, then tore down the window gauze that was nailed outside before.
Because it had been too long, the previous window gauze was all rotten by the sun, as soon as she touched it, it was dusty and flaky, Wen Qian felt that she must wash her hair after doing this.
She swept away all the cobwebs and clutter on the outside of the windows with a broom, then stood on the windowsill to wipe the windows.
Wen Qian took out the mosquito net she had hoarded in her storage space, and fixed it to the window frame with thumbtacks.
The windows in the house were still the old-fashioned wooden ones, the windows opened inward, and there were vertical steel bars outside for burglary prevention. If someone lived in the outermost place, they would also subscribe a layer of plastic window gauze to prevent mosquitoes and insects.
After Wen Qian finished the window gauze, she went inside, opened the windows, took out air freshener and sprayed it everywhere, then spread out the beddings she used to sleep in Anshi from her storage space onto the bed.
Because there was no air conditioner in the house, she also laid out a straw mat, which was picked up at school, washed clean and put in the storage space.
The room had been tidied up to the point that she could go to sleep at night. Wen Qian took out a box of mosquito coils, opened it and lit it.
This was a must-have item in rural hometowns in the summer, without it you shouldn't think about sleeping, and your skin shouldn't expect to be at peace either.
After doing these, Wen Qian wondered what she would eat for dinner, when suddenly she heard someone calling her name.
She went out and saw it was Auntie Chen.
Auntie Chen had told Wen Qian at noon to come over for dinner tonight too, but she was worried the girl would refuse out of politeness, so she came over specially to call her before cooking, telling her she must come down for dinner.
Auntie Chen's place was Xiaochenwa, while the gulch where Wen Qian was was called Yuanao. She had to walk over for a few minutes and climb over a small hill to get to Wen Qian.
Yuanao originally had two households, one of which moved to Dachenwa, so now it was just Wen Qian's family alone, and she was the only one living there now.
When Auntie Chen saw Wen Qian come out, she said to her: "Little Wen, aren't you afraid living here alone? There's not even someone to talk to."
Wen Qian smiled and said, "It's fine, I'm used to being alone."
This was where she grew up, even back then when there were still kids in Xiaochenwa, she wouldn't go looking for them to play.
Auntie Chen felt she was just putting on a brave face, so she asked again, "Used to being alone? Don't you have friends in the city?"
Wen Qian shook her head.
Auntie Chen didn't say anything more. She knew young people these days didn't like being rushed into relationships.
Back then it was the same with her son. She was anxious in her heart but didn't say it with her mouth. In the end he still brought his girlfriend home.
So she felt everything needed to rely on fate and go with the flow. Saying too much would be counterproductive.
After looking at the cleaning Wen Qian did at home, she lamented her hard work, then told Wen Qian she was going to start cooking and to come down for dinner in a bit.
Seeing Wen Qian look a little embarrassed, she reassured her: "It's not like you come to my house to eat every day. Today the whole house is dusty. Even if you tidy up, the pots and pans still need to be washed tomorrow. Hurry up and come, don't feel bad about it, you hear?"
After saying this, Auntie Chen left.
So Wen Qian had no choice but to agree.
Wen Qian took out the bucket she had bought for boiling water, washed it clean, filled it with water, put it outside in the yard, and started a fire underneath with kindling to boil the water.
When the kindling finished burning and the water finished boiling, this way she could come back and wash right after eating.
Then Wen Qian closed all the doors, and took her phone to walk to Xiaochenwa.
The sides of the road were full of lush vegetation, with the chirping of cicadas and birdsong in the distance. Rural summers were very lively.
They were also very dangerous. Wen Qian held a bamboo pole in one hand, had her phone flashlight on, and was also playing music, in order to prevent encountering snakes.
If you asked what Wen Qian feared most in the countryside, it would probably be snakes.
During the day they were always basking in the sun everywhere, and as soon as Wen Qian heard a little rustling of leaves, she knew there were snakes crawling around, and 9 times out of 10 she could see the tail.
So later whenever Wen Qian went out in the summer, she would deliberately make a lot of noise to let snakes sense her arrival and leave ahead of time, avoiding running into them.
But there was also a kind of snake called the deaf viper in the local dialect, which couldn't hear sounds, so Wen Qian would tap the ground with the bamboo pole, which was also a way of giving notice.
From afar Wen Qian could see the light on in front of Auntie Chen's house. When she went in, Auntie Chen was bringing out dishes and said with a laugh that her timing was just right.
On the table there was a dish of stir-fried cured pork with green peppers, a plate of greens, a plate of cold marinated tomatoes, and a bowl of red-cooked yellow croaker fish.
During the meal, Auntie Chen invited her to go to the market together the day after tomorrow morning.
There was someone in Dachenwa who drove a three-wheeled vehicle. For just 2-3 yuan they could take people to town. The elderly in the area who wanted to go into town would arrange to go together and agree on a time with the driver.
The elderly here used to walk by themselves when they were able to, now they were older and couldn't walk anymore, so they had to spend money to take the vehicle.
The street market had hot and cold market days based on whether it was an odd or even day by the lunar calendar.
Today was a hot market day, but it had already dispersed by the time Wen Qian came back. The next hot market day was the day after tomorrow.
Wen Qian hadn't gone to market in a long time, so she agreed to meet up and go with them. The time was set at 7am the next day, which meant Wen Qian had to be at Auntie Chen's by 7.
That said, back when there were more people, many would get up at 4-something in the morning to go to market. Back then Wen Qian didn't understand - were they not sleeping when they got old? It wasn't even light out yet and they were going to market, wasn't that too rushed? But taking out the time spent on the road, spending more time wandering the market, they'd get back around 8:30. Going to market didn't interfere with going home to farm the land and let the cows out.
Later when she thought about it, it was pretty funny. The elderly were always saying they didn't get enough sleep, but actually they went to bed at 8pm and got up at 4am, still getting a full eight hours of sleep. This was something she only realized when she called her grandma while at school.
After dinner, Auntie Chen had Uncle Chen walk Wen Qian back.
Wen Qian had Uncle Chen turn back when they got to the hill, but Uncle Chen stood at the top of the slope until Wen Qian got home and he saw the light in the house come on before turning around to leave.
It was a little more lively here with a young person.
After Wen Qian got home, she lit the mosquito coil in the room, went out and turned on the washing machine to wash clothes, pumped a few buckets of water from the well and left them next to the washing machine.
When it needed water, she would pour it right in. It worked fine without a water pipe connected.
After the washing machine finished washing, tomorrow it would wash many more things.
The water boiling outside in the yard had finished heating up. Wen Qian added water and poured it into a basin to start boiling washing water for her bath.
She took out the basin she used often from her storage space, and found a big red one from the house. She added some cold water, then started washing her hair.
After the big clean today, she was covered in dust and couldn't get into bed without washing from head to toe.
Although the rural nights in summer were lively, there were no other sounds.
The cattle pen had no cattle, the pig pen had no pigs.
There were also no chickens in the chicken coop behind the kitchen, not a single cat or dog either.
