Chapter 106: An accidental matchmaking session (1)

On the first day of the lunar new year, however busy the people who had toiled painstakingly for the earlier year were, Xu Tingsheng’s hometown had a rule that nothing was to be done other than the women cooking the meals. The nut shells and the melon seeds that were scattered all over the floor could only be swept clean the next day; the dirty clothes that had been worn the previous day could not be washed as well. Otherwise, it would mean difficult, busy times for the upcoming entire year.

As compared to the warm fire pits and wine over in the wintry north, people actually seldom had the chance to be as leisurely as this over in villages of the south.

The older folk would surround the brazier, cracking melon seeds and conversing casually as they watched the parts of the annual New Year Gala programme that they had missed the previous night. 2004 being the year of the Monkey, six young children performed <Golden Monkey...