Riding the wind of rebirth

"Isn't it supposed to be bitter orange peel? Why is there dried tangerine peel now?" Yan Xiao asked. "Now that you mention it, I seem to remember sometimes you can find a little orange peel in cold-cooked rabbit. Is this what it means?"

"Yes, that's it. We produce oranges in Sichuan, so we also call the dried orange peel that has been stored for many years 'Chenpi'. However, it is a little different from the medicinal Chenpi from Xinhui, Guangdong."

"Come on, have some vegetables." Feng Xueshan brought over a bowl of cold dishes: "We dug up some wild greens from the muddy ground by the stream. They're so tender, you don't have to just eat the roots."

"Let me try it." Azi took a bite with her chopsticks: "It seems we don't eat the tender leaves of the wild rhizome much... Hmm, it actually tastes pretty good! Sister Xueshan, your side dishes are delicious!"

“That’s because the pork knuckle seasonings were all included.” Feng Xueshan smiled. “This deer ear chives are also good. They can definitely be grown as a vegetable. I think they taste much better than chives, especially the tender shoots.”

The leaves of the deer ear chives are a bit old now, but it's the season for chive scapes to sprout. Although it's a wild vegetable, these chive scapes are more tender than cultivated ones. They have a richer flavor and are twice as thick as cultivated ones. They can be used like garlic scapes, stir-fried with shredded meat, stir-fried with dried tofu, or even pickled as a side dish. They are all very delicious.

Zhouzhi used it to make teppanyaki with dried tofu and pork belly tonight, and everyone thought it was very good.

Feng Xueshan's cold dish uses tender roots and leaves of houttuynia cordata, along with wild scallions, deer ear leeks, and a little bit of bamboo shoot slices to balance and reduce the bitterness of the wild vegetables. The resulting taste is quite good.

Although no alcohol was consumed, everyone enjoyed the barbecue and meat porridge and felt very happy.

However, after riding horses for a long time and eating her fill, Liang Hong felt a little sleepy. She yawned and said, "How about we sing a song?"

"If you're sleepy, just go to sleep," Zhou Zhi said with a smile. "You've all had a lot of fun these past few days, but you must be quite tired, right?"

"I'm not tired at all," Yan Xiao laughed. "Besides, our candlelight party hasn't even started yet, so we can't back down now!"

“That’s right, I heard from Zhouzi that Azi and Shama sing really well,” He Shiqing said. “How can we not appreciate them?”

“Let’s go then.” Zhou Zhi went to his and Xiao Miao’s tent and pulled out the guitar: “You can find the rest of the instruments yourselves.”

This is an old project. In these situations, Zhou Zhi is usually in charge of setting the chords, and everyone else works together to find something to make a sound.

Mai Xiaomiao does have one instrument she always plays with: a maracas.

Azi gave the horse bell to Feng Xueshan, and then took out her mouth harp.

The mouth harp is actually a very ancient musical instrument, with a history that can be traced back to the late Neolithic period, during the matriarchal clan era.

In ancient times, this instrument was called "huang," and it was considered on par with instruments such as yu, sheng, and chi.

The story of playing a five-piece mouth harp is recorded in the "Biographies of Immortals" by Ge Hong of the Jin Dynasty: Once, Wang Yao led his disciple to climb a small mountain and enter a stone chamber in the mountain. There were two people in the stone chamber. So Wang Yao asked his disciple to take out three "five-tongue bamboo reeds" from the box he was carrying and give them to the two people in the stone chamber. He took one for himself, and the three of them sat down together and played a mouth harp tune.

The story carries a mystical Taoist flavor, revealing that playing the Five-Tongue Bamboo Reed was a secret skill that few people could perform at the time, and only immortal immortals from ancient times still possessed it. Another piece of information is that the mouth harp had already developed a relatively complex system at that time, and the Five-Tongue Bamboo Reed indicates that the bamboo reed made by Wang Yao and his disciples contained five different chords and harmonics, making it a relatively complex instrument.

There's a Chinese idiom, "eloquent as a reed," which refers to this instrument. However, after the Yuan Dynasty, the reed gradually disappeared from the Central Plains. The name "reed" was also gradually forgotten. Since the Ming Dynasty, the mouth harp has appeared in historical records under the name "mouth harp."

However, this instrument has been well preserved in ethnic minority areas of China and has become a popular instrument among ethnic minority women. The Ming Dynasty book "Unofficial History of Nanzhao" records that "men play the lusheng and women play the harmonica."

The Yi people's mouth harp is the most complex of all mouth harps, and it is said to have as many as ninety-three modes.

However, like all cultures, regardless of the instrument, there are masters who can play a full melody, and most who can only play "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

There aren't many people in the Daliang Mountains who can play this instrument well. Many can only play the simple "Wild Horse Crossing the River" and that's it. People like Azi can play chords and make the narrow range of one and a half octaves very interesting.

Shamaricong also brought his own musical instrument, which He Shiqing immediately recognized: "Huh? Is that a moon lute?"

"Shiqing, you can also play the moon lute?" Shama asked. "This is a little different from the Han Chinese moon lute. Our lute is octagonal, while yours is round. Also, our moon lute used to only have two strings, so it could only play two octaves. Later, we learned from the Han Chinese and changed it to have three strings, so it can play three octaves."

“I don’t know how to do that,” He Shiqing said with a smile. “We have a friend who does know how, and it would be great if she were here too. You could play a duet with the two types of moon lutes.”

"Who is it?" Mai Xiaomiao felt that she was quite familiar with these friends from Zhouzhi, so she asked.

“You’ve met her before. Xinyi learned this from her maternal grandfather. But according to her grandfather, this instrument should be called ‘Zhongruan’. It is also a very ancient instrument that existed in the Qin Dynasty.”

"According to historical records, in the second year of Emperor Wu of Han's Yuanding era, Zhang Qian was sent as an envoy to the Wusun Kingdom, and the Wusun King Kunmi married into the Han Dynasty. Before the Wusun princess was married, Emperor Wu of Han ordered a musical instrument maker to make a 'Qin Pipa' that could be played on horseback and was easy to carry, in order to ease the Wusun princess's longing during her long journey."

"What comes to mind when you hear this?" Zhou Zhi asked everyone with a smile.

"Tell me quickly, I hate it when you keep me in suspense like this!" Yan Xiao found two sticks, ready to strike the tree trunk he had brought as a "clapper," he was already impatient.

"Therefore, the pipa that Wang Zhaojun played when she left the border in history could very well have been this kind of moon lute, rather than the pipa that people imagine today." Zhou Zhi laughed and said, "The Qin pipa was later improved by Ruan Xian, one of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, and he was very good at playing it. Therefore, later generations simply changed its name to 'Ruan Xian' or 'Ruan Xian pipa'."

"Later on, the Ruanxian was further divided into several varieties with different ranges and body sizes, which became the small Ruan, the medium Ruan, and the large Ruan respectively."

After the story was finished, everyone had found all the musical instruments. Yang Honghui found the tripod used to prop up the pot, hung it up, and tapped it with stainless steel chopsticks, and it turned out to be a decent pitching angle iron.

Yang He and Feng Xueshan then found some small musical instruments to attract and train Xiao Shunzi's hearing: a plastic rattle and a tambourine.

To make the clappers louder, Yan Xiao even hollowed out the bottom of the tree trunk to create a "sound chamber".

"What should I sing?" Zhou Zhi strummed his guitar, and a series of melodious tinkling sounds rang out. (End of Chapter)