In the first nine-day period, don't expose your hands; in the second and third, walk on the ice; in the fourth and fifth, watch the willows by the river; in the seventh, the river opens; in the eighth, the swallows return; at the ninth, everything returns to unity, and the poor turn their fortunes around.
The "Nine Songs" are traditional folk rhymes of Huaxia, also known as "Counting the Nines."
In Liang Dynasty, Zong Lin's "Jing Chu Su Shi Ji" states: "Traditionally, the winter solstice marks the beginning of counting the nines up to eighty-one days, when the cold ends."
The period of counting the nines begins from the winter solstice, counting every nine days as a unit of "nine," and ending with the ninth "nine" at eighty-one days when peach flowers bloom, and the weather becomes warm.
Today marks the fourth nine, which is also the Laba Festival.
