Chapter 69: The Wedding (Part 2)

  And no matter how the crowd gossiped and expressed themselves, on the other side, outside, children were already shouting: "Come on, come on, this time it's really here, quick look at the bride!" So the crowd swarmed out of the door, and saw that the wedding procession was already walking towards them from afar, with a crowd of onlookers gathered around, and every now and then someone from the Sun family would throw copper coins into the crowd, causing the children to scramble for them. This throwing of copper coins has a saying, called "lucky money", which is not allowed for adults to grab, but is specially thrown for the children (a long time ago, Grey Sparrow also grabbed some once, but at that time they were only throwing one-cent coins, and not many, just enough for Grey Sparrow to get several cents with the help of his older cousin, and buy a roasted bun to eat, hehe. However, this custom seems to be rarely seen nowadays).

  When the team arrived at the gate, Wang Ling dismounted under the command of the master of ceremonies. After the sedan chair landed steadily, he went to carry the bride who was wearing a big red dress and crossed over the brazier that had been placed outside the threshold early in advance. He then put her down on the seat in the hall and took a pair of new shoes handed over by the matchmaker for the bride to change into. Only then did the bride stand up.

  Next is the worship of heaven and earth by Wang Kuang, who has seen more things, then it's the procession to the bridal chamber. The master of ceremonies shouted "The banquet begins! Wishing the newlyweds a hundred years of harmony and love until their hair turns white." This is when the real feast began.

  After King Ling led the bride into the bridal chamber, he came out to thank everyone. The banquet was set up with 50 or 60 tables, all the way to the street. During this round of toasting, each table had two jugs of wine, and King Ling started to feel a bit dizzy. Fortunately, before the toasting began, Wang Kuang secretly gave King Ling a bowl of warm goat's milk to drink, and Chen Da and several others accompanied him, helping him drink quite a bit, otherwise King Ling would have definitely passed out.

  The banquet lasted from 3 pm to 5 pm, because today is the 30th of the lunar year, some small households received a notice from the Sun family and brought their whole family to drink the joyful wine, which also served as the reunion dinner. The children had never experienced such a lively New Year's Eve before, and they were all so excited that their mouths were stretched to their ears.

  Wang Kuang vaguely remembered that when he was a child, whenever he and his sister went to attend weddings, the host family would prepare some fried ribs (which were marinated and then coated with a thick layer of dough and deep-fried) for them to take back home. However, after asking the master of ceremonies, it turned out that this was not a usual custom. Nevertheless, since it was New Year's Eve, Wang Kuang wanted to let his guests bring something back home, especially those who had many children at home and couldn't bring all of them along, so he prepared a large oil-paper package of food for each guest to take away, containing fried ribs, braised dishes, and more. The guests were overjoyed and praised the young master for being thoughtful, but little did they know that from then on, whenever someone got married and held a wedding banquet, they would all follow suit and prepare some dry dishes for their guests to bring back home, thus Wang Kuang inadvertently started a new custom ahead of its time.

  After the guests dispersed, the neighbors all came to help clean up the mess. Some of the leftover dishes were gathered into a large basin and cooked together the next day, making a delicious dish called "zhī jǐn cài" (mixed vegetable dish), which also has auspicious implications.

  It wasn't until the end of the tenth hour that I finally finished all the chores. Of course, none of this had anything to do with Wang Kuang, as he had already taken Wang Rong and the two young sons from the Sun family to go listen in on the wall. When they ran to the new house, it turned out that not only them were listening in on the wall, but many other young boys had also been hiding there listening for a while, and some young girls were too shy, standing far away looking over here.

  Perhaps they had been warned, the two people in the house probably also knew that someone would be listening at the wall outside, so they didn't make a sound. Everyone crouched under the window for a long time without seeing any movement, and couldn't help but feel some anxiety. Those who couldn't bear it went back to sleep.

  Wang Kuang wasn't in a hurry: "I'll let you bear with it, heh heh, soon it's time to call out. Wang Kuang had already found out during the day that this custom didn't exist yet, so the newlyweds shouldn't be checking the bedding."

  As expected, after a while of tea-making, a scream was heard from inside the house, which was the bride's voice. Then Wang Ling anxiously asked: "What happened? What happened?" After another period of silence, the door opened and Wang Ling rushed out with his clothes in disarray: "Which scoundrel is causing trouble? Come out and stand still, I must kick him a few times." He thought it was Chen Da and his gang playing tricks. Looking around, he spotted the crowd eavesdropping by the wall, walked up to them, pulled one person out from behind: "Say, who did it?"

  Chen Da was also one of those who listened to the wall, and it was he whom Wang Ling pulled out. When he was pulled out, Zhang Er was confused: "What's going on? We didn't do anything, just listening to the wall, right?"

  "What's this?" Wang Ling opened his other hand, and because there was only a little lantern light from the outside house, it was too dark to see clearly. At this time, Sun Ming heard Wang Ling's call and brought his family with a lantern, so they could see clearly now. In Wang Ling's hand were some fruits, including peanuts and lotus seeds.

  "Big brother, what's wrong? It was me who put it." Wang Kuang stepped forward, pointing at the thing in Wang Ling's hand: "Look, red dates, peanuts, osmanthus flowers, lotus seeds, together they mean 'early birth of a noble son'. We're all hoping that you and your wife will have a little nephew soon. Oh no, I mean, there's already a nephew for us brothers to spoil." Realizing his slip of the tongue, Wang Kuang hastily corrected himself.

  "Second brother is right, kids are so much fun." Wang Rong chimed in without noticing the grammatical error. Wang Kuang had explained to him when he was putting these things away, so he gave Wang Kuang a thumbs up with both hands.

  "Ah!" It was Wang Kuang who did it, and Wang Ling couldn't help but laugh and cry at the same time. Although Wang Kuang's intention was good, he felt a little happy in his heart, but now he can't get down from his anger earlier.

  "Wow, great job, Second Brother! This is a wonderful idea. You're really something for coming up with this plan. I've got to hand it to you!" Sun Mingqian, who had been listening in on the side, chuckled and stepped forward to mediate. He thought to himself: "Heh heh, this is quite an interesting development. Next time if there's a wedding in our family or friends' families, I'll have to play a trick like this on them too."

  "Go back to sleep, if someone is found eavesdropping again, I'll kick his butt." Wang Ling heard Sun Ming's explanation and took the opportunity to yell at a group of young people. King Tiger was indeed King Tiger, and with one roar, the young people dispersed obediently, causing a burst of laughter from the onlookers in the distance.

  The wall can't be heard anymore, so Wang Kuang had to go back to his own room in Sun's mansion with Wang Yan. They both have their own rooms in Sun's mansion now and only stay there during holidays.

  And let's not mention the spring scenery in Wang Ling's house (for harmony, omitting three thousand words). Wang Kuang returned to his room and felt that he couldn't just sleep so simply on New Year's Eve. He had to wait until midnight before going to bed, so he ran to the kitchen of Sun Fu. The kitchen was still bustling with people at this hour, as washing five or six hundred tables' worth of bowls and chopsticks wasn't something that could be done easily, and there were also many leftover ingredients that needed to be sorted and stored away. Seeing the crowd of people, Wang Kuang was delighted and asked: "Is everyone hungry? Let's have a midnight snack?"

  Everyone knows that this little Dongjia has a set of eating skills, and they all nodded in agreement. A few who were helping with the cooking were even more eager to try, thinking it was great. Fortunately, no one had gone to rest early, looking at Little Dongjia's appearance, I'm afraid he wants to teach us a thing or two.

  Wang Juan wanted to make dumplings, but in previous years, it wasn't that Wang Juan didn't think of making dumplings for the New Year, it's just that eating dumplings was always a custom of northerners. Before Wang Juan came, his family would eat chicken soup noodles on New Year's Eve. Now Wang Juan wants to change flavors, and he knows that dumplings already exist, called "jiao er", but they are not widely spread, probably still circulating in the north. Northerners usually eat flour food, only eating rice during holidays, while southerners do the opposite, usually eating rice and only making flour food during holidays. This is related to the production area of grains, ordinary rice in the south is precious in the north, and ordinary flour in the north is precious in the south. Wang Juan experienced the later harmonious era when supplies were rationed, at that time, each person could only get half a kilogram or one kilogram of flour during holidays, and usually could only eat rice.

  Since someone was willing to take action, Wang Kuang was happy to roll up his sleeves and sit by the stove, moving his mouth and directing.

  First, let someone mix a few kilograms of flour with an egg in the ratio of one kilogram to one egg. Then, let another person chop half-fat and half-lean mutton, pork, and beef into minced meat. As for scallions, leeks, and dried mushrooms, they were all readily available, prepared according to the ratio of one kilogram of meat to half a kilogram of vegetables. Some ginger and chives were also chopped in, salt, sesame oil, and soy sauce were sprinkled on, and bone broth was poured in and mixed well before being taken out into the courtyard to freeze.

  I demonstrated how to roll out the dumpling wrappers and wrap them, then let the kitchen helpers take over. With many people helping, we had a lot of dumplings to make, so when it came time to wrap them, everyone naturally divided up the tasks: the kitchen helpers were in charge of rolling out the dough, while others wrapped the dumplings. With many hands making light work, we finished wrapping around 500-600 dumplings in just half an hour. As we wrapped, we also cooked them quickly - by the time we had wrapped about half, a pot was already done (actually, you don't need to add cold water when boiling dumplings; adding cold water is just to prevent the broth inside from overflowing, so if you do add water, it's best to keep the water in the pot at a constant temperature. If you add too much water, the dumplings will be steamed instead of boiled, which doesn't taste as good. Therefore, it's best not to add water if possible).

  Sun Ming had already fallen asleep, but hearing the noise outside, he got up to take a look. He saw that those family members who hadn't slept yet and those helpers who hadn't left were all holding a plate of some unknown food, savoring it with gusto. It was said that Wang Kuang had come up with this. Hurriedly, Sun Ming called out to Sun Han Shi and the two little ones to get up and join in on the eating frenzy. While they ate, they only then realized that this dish was called "Jiao Er". As they ate, they thought to themselves, "Hmm, not bad, this could be a dish served at an inn in the future." Just as they were thinking this, their mouths suddenly made a "ka-ching" sound. They quickly spat out what was in their mouth and took a look - it was a copper coin! Thinking back to the earlier incident of "Early Born Noble Son", they suspected that Wang Kuang had come up with another clever trick. Sun Ming looked at Wang Kuang with an inquiring gaze.

  "Ah, congratulations to Uncle Wang, may you make a fortune next year." The copper coins were of course provided by Wang Kuang and had been thoroughly cleaned, with the rust carefully removed and even boiled in hot water. Everyone heard Wang Kuang say that eating copper coins was auspicious, so they all took out the copper coins from their pockets or sleeves and wrapped them in dumplings, hoping to get a lucky start for the new year.

  Division

  This wedding was written with great effort, recalling the weddings I saw when I was a child while searching for materials. Of course, I'm not an expert in weddings, so there must be some inaccuracies in my writing. It's just a platform to remind everyone of our old customs. Don't nitpick, okay?

  Still asking for recommendations and collections, your support is the motivation of Grey Sparrow. (By the way, Wang Kuang is going to Chang'an)