After the Winter Solstice, we enter the period known as 'Ninety-Nine' in the lunar calendar. It spans from around December 22nd in the Gregorian calendar to March 13th of the following year. Every nine days constitute one 'nine', totaling eighty-one days. It's the coldest period of the year. There's a saying: 'Endure three heatwaves in summer, three nines in winter.' This describes enduring extreme heat and cold with determined perseverance. It's because the three heatwaves are the hottest, and the three nines are the coldest. It's also the most important time for Chinese people to celebrate festivals. Within this period, there's the New Year, Spring Festival, and Lantern Festival. After a year of hard work, it's important to reward oneself. After 'Ninety-Nine', it's time for the busy spring farming season of the new year.
Every 'Ninety-Nine', I would think of Grandpa's 'Ninety-Nine Song'. About thirty years ago, when Grandpa was in his seventies, he came from his old home by Dongting Lake to celebrate New Year with us. He had worked in the fields his whole life, his robust physique and the weathered wrinkles on his face bore witness to the hardships he had endured.
Grandpa wasn't good with words, but he often spoke sayings that we city kids had never heard before. Like 'Sow during Grain Rain, be busy planting', and 'Eat from the garden during Minor Heat, Eat from the fields during Greater Heat'. He'd see us kids all excited before Spring Festival, eagerly anticipating all the meat we'd get to eat, and he'd mutter to himself, 'The adults look forward to planting crops, the kids look forward to the New Year.' But what left the deepest impression on me was his 'Nine-Nine Song'.
Whenever we finished dinner, Grandpa and I would sit by the hearth at home, cover ourselves with a small quilt, basking in the warmth of the charcoal fire. Grandpa would gently close his eyes, singing his 'Nine-Nine Song' with deep concentration, a song he had probably sung his whole life. Immediately, scenes of rural life unfolded before my eyes with his soft singing, like scenes from a movie:
One nine, two nine is nine, put arms in sleeve;
Three nine is twenty-seven, the eaves not dripping in front of the house;
Four nine is thirty-six, slaughter pigs and smoke the cured meat;
Five nine is forty-five, every family beats the New Year drums;
Six nine is fifty-four, the wind feels like prickles;
Seven nine is sixty-three, travelers take off clothes;
Eight nine is seventy-two, the young herdsman blows the grasshopper;
Nine nine eighty-One, straw raincoat and bamboo hat.
At that time, it was during the Cultural Revolution. For a child like me, who hardly saw any meat for ten days, that alluring 'cured meat' sparked endless imagination. I had only heard the drums of revolutionary model operas, and I truly yearned for the festive scenes of 'every family beating the New Year drums'. I often fell asleep on Grandpa's lap without realizing it, leaving long drool trails, dreaming sweet dreams: munching on delicious cured meat, laughing and running with my little friends amidst the dense drumming of the New Year...
Grandpa passed away a long time ago, but his song remains in my heart. No matter where I am, every time 'Ninety-Nine' comes around, that rich rural sentiment, that intoxicating family affection in the 'Ninety-Nine Song' always resonates in my heart: '... Thirty-Two, the eaves not dripping in front of the house. Thirty-Six, slaughter pigs and smoke the cured meat. Forty-Five, every family beats the New Year drums ...'
The hometown cured meat that never gets tiresome, the hometown New Year drums that one can never tire of hearing.
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