Mrs. Zhang saw this and quickly tried to smooth things over: "Let's go in and take a look. I heard that the stalagmites inside are very beautiful."
The lady then said to her son, "Sanlang, why bother with a villager? Protect your sister and let's go in and take a look."
The boy snorted at the villager and led everyone inside.
Yingbao fell behind and said to the still angry villagers, "Uncle, don't worry. These flowers will fall soon even if you don't pick them. If you don't want the flowers to be picked, put up a wooden fence around the flowers to keep people away."
It is inevitable that traveling merchants will be popular, but as long as they are thick-skinned and have a strong ability to endure, these things will not be a problem.
The business in the village has just started, and Yingbao doesn't want such a good livelihood to be ruined because of a single sentence.
The young man just now is the son of Sima family. His father's position in the city is second only to that of Governor Zhang, and he is the one who has the final say in the city. If he wants to cause trouble for the villagers of Zaoshu Village, I'm afraid even Governor Zhang can't stop him.
If you take a step back, the world will be broader. Although Yingbao doesn't want to bow her head to others, sometimes she has to bow her head.
Otherwise, should I show my spirit once more to scare those young men and women
The villager nodded and said, "I'll listen to the young master and make a wooden fence right away!"
After saying that, he turned and left the cave.
Yingbao sent the villager away and then slowly walked into the cave.
Because many people in the crowd ahead had lit torches, she could barely see the road ahead.
Soon, the crowd in front let out bursts of exclamations.
Yingbao ran over to take a look and saw that there were jagged stalagmites hanging from the ceiling of the cave and there were also white stalagmites on the ground, the largest of which was taller than the house.
The interior of the cave is very large, but the road is difficult to walk on. Countless drops of water drip from the top of the cave, gradually forming a stream and flowing outside.
This is the source of the stone spring.
Yingbao marveled at it, but did not go in. Instead, she turned behind a huge stalagmite, took out the stone tablet she had made earlier from the cave, and quietly placed it down.
Yesterday she secretly left the government office and went to a stonemason's shop and asked him to carve a passage of words on a stone tablet. The general idea was that this place was the residence of the Queen Mother of the West, who bestowed blessings and benefits on all people, and the villagers living here were also protected by her.
The inscription says that the villagers should protect the sacred peony trees in the cave and prevent them from being damaged by humans and animals.
It is also said that if anyone casually damages the flowers, trees, springs, and bullies the villagers here, he will be plagued by bad luck and everything will go wrong for the rest of his life.
Yingbao gently placed the huge stone tablet behind the stalagmite, and relying on her young age and the dark clothes she was wearing, she quietly slipped away and came to the side of her second senior brother.
Zhang Min was just taking out a wooden box from a stone niche. He smiled and said to his mother, "Mom, this is something my son hid here before. I didn't expect it to still be here."
"What is hidden?" Xuehua asked.
Zhang Min opened the wooden box and saw several childhood toys inside.
Xuehua sighed and was no longer interested.
Zhang Min happily held the things in his arms, turned around to see the little apprentice sister, and said, "I'll give them to you later."
Yingbao was speechless.
The tangram puzzles in that box are all rotten, okay? Why give them away
Everyone stayed in the cave for a long time before someone saw a stone tablet behind a huge stalagmite.
This stone tablet is one person tall and is embedded in the cracks of the stone. One can only vaguely see a lot of words on it.
"Bring your torches closer! I see there are quite a few words on this stone tablet. Let's see what is engraved on it?" a young man shouted.
Everyone rushed over, Zhang Min and Mrs. Zhang also went to check, and after taking a look, they all fell silent.
The little girl who was picking flowers earlier was frightened by the inscription and started crying, asking her mother what to do.
The little girl's brother frowned and said, "This stele was deliberately made by those villagers. I don't believe that there is any Nine Heavens Mysterious Lady in the world. What the hell..."
This time, Madam Sima did not indulge her son anymore. She shouted at him, "Shut up! You are so young and yet you are already talking nonsense. Have you learned so much that you have no idea what you are talking about?"
The young man didn't dare to speak anymore and just lowered his head in silence.
In fact, he was also quite scared in his heart, but he didn't want to be looked down upon by others, so he forced himself to say that.
No one dared to stay in the cave and they all left.
Approaching the peony tree, Madam Sima clasped her hands together and bowed towards the peony, muttering something which Yingbao could not hear clearly.
Afterwards, Madam Sima insisted on paying two hundred taels of incense money to the Taoist temple, hoping that the people in the temple would recite more scriptures and incantations for her son.
Yingbao had no choice but to agree, and did not tell the lady that there was no one in their Taoist temple who practiced Taoism seriously.
The master is not, the eldest brother is not, and the second brother and I are certainly not.
They are just sorcerers from the Yin-Yang Department of Xinglin, far from being Taoist priests.
The next day, the group finally left.
But they bought a dozen buckets of spring water and took them back.
After that, people came from the city to buy water one after another. Even several teachers from the provincial school came once and went into the cave to see the stone tablet.
Afterwards they also bought a few buckets of water to take back.
Since then, more and more people have come to visit, and many people have come with incense and offerings to worship.
Of course, the incense money was for the Taoist temple, and Master Zhou Wuchang took it all without hesitation.
Not long after, half of the money for buying the land on the hill and building the yard was returned.
Yingbao also asked the villagers to bring stones to surround the entrance of the Stone Spring Cave. Anyone who wanted to enter the cave for sightseeing had to pay fifty cents each.
This not only reduces the number of people entering the cave, but also keeps the water source clean.
Who knows whether those people would wash their feet and hands in the cave? What if someone got a serious disease and went in to wash? Wouldn’t the water that came out be unclean
The villagers were enlightened by her reminder and immediately laid a circle of stone pillars in the cave.
With these stone pillars, people don't have to step directly on the ground after entering.
In the blink of an eye, it was the twelfth lunar month. The weather was extremely cold and even the water tank in the kitchen was frozen.
Zhang Min and his senior brother broke ice to get water in the kitchen, and then kneaded dough to cook.
Yingbao leaned on the windowsill, looking at the snow particles falling outside, and began to ponder.
Jingzhou is much colder than her hometown. According to Cuilan, the ice in the pond is three feet thick and you can skate on it.
When Yingbao was a child, she skated in narrow creeks, but she would fall into an ice hole if she wasn't careful, which was very boring.
However, it is bitterly cold here. When I go out for a walk, my eyebrows and eyelashes are covered with white frost.
She was so cold that she stayed in the house and didn't dare to go out, and she would put a handful of firewood into the kang from time to time.
In such cold weather, if you bring out a basin of pupil spring water, it will surely freeze into a lump of ice in an hour.
Before, Yingbao had long wanted to store some ice in the cave so that everyone would have popsicles to eat in the summer.
But the climate in my hometown is humid and the winter is not as cold as here, so the thin ice cannot be stored at all.
And now, this is a natural ice cellar. As long as we store enough ice, I believe it will last until next summer.
Just do it.
Yingbao put on her cotton-padded clothes, jumped off the kang, put on a tiger-head hat, and ran out.
Several thatched huts have been built next to the Shiquan Cave, and several villagers take turns guarding it.
"Xiao Douzi, go to the village and buy me some large rhubarb basins, and then send them to the Taoist temple."
"Okay!" Xiao Douzi agreed without asking the young master what he wanted the big rhubarb basin for.
Yingbao added, "I only want new ones, not the old ones."
In order to accumulate fertilizer, many villagers buried large yellow basins in the ground to make manure pits, and defecated and urinated in them, so the old yellow basins were absolutely not accepted.