Chapter 34 Dahe Village is without water

The water supply to Dahe Village has been cut off.

Before dawn, someone had already gone to Chengjia Village and returned carrying two buckets of water.

"The people of Chengjia Village are truly despicable! They only exchange a pound of millet or cornmeal for a bucket of water; they're trying to drive people to their deaths!"

"Chengjia Village is at least better than Guihua Village. Guihua Village has spread the word that three catties of millet can only be exchanged for a bucket of water."

"You can still move around if you don't eat for a day, but in this heat, you'll really die if you don't drink water for a day..."

"The village head is here, let's see what he has to say..."

The man walked over with a serious expression. He stood on the high ground, cleared his throat, and said, "Everyone, please be quiet."

Everyone looked at the village head with hopeful eyes. He was the pillar of their Dahe Village, and they believed that he would be able to come up with a plan.

"A pound of millet and a basket of wild vegetables is a family's daily ration. If we send it to Chengjia Village, it means the people of Chengjia Village will survive, while the people of Dahe Village will starve to death one after another, just like Granny Zhao," the village head said coldly. "Those who starve to death first can at least earn enough for a coffin; those who starve to death later will just be wrapped in straw mats and buried..."

The village head's words alarmed many people.

Everyone knows that famine can kill people, but yesterday's death of Granny Zhao made them realize for the first time that there were actually people around them who had starved to death because of a lack of food.

Now that the water is gone, in addition to the people who will starve to death, many more will die of thirst.

The village of Dahe, where generations of ancestors have lived, will soon be filled with the corpses of the starving...

An elderly person below began to cry: "The people of Dahe Village have never done anything wrong. Why is God punishing us like this? What a tragedy..."

"Quiet down!" the village head raised his voice. "Heaven isn't so cruel; it will always give us a way out."

Last night, the village headman figured it out: the trees, wild vegetables, and mushrooms on the mountain were surviving, and some pheasants and rabbits were also doing well, which meant there must be a water source on the mountain. What Aunt Dashan said was true. Now, Dahe Village can only hold onto this hope.

"You'll feel a little uncomfortable if you don't drink water for a day, but you won't die. Just go about your business as usual," the village head said slowly. "I will give everyone an explanation before sunset."

The claim that there is water on the mountain has not yet been confirmed, so we cannot reveal too much at this time.

Without waiting for anyone to ask any more questions, the village head walked away with his hands behind his back.

Having served as the village head for twenty or thirty years, he was very influential in the village. After hearing this, the villagers gradually recovered from their panic.

Cheng Wanwan, along with her four sons, met up with Li Zheng at the foot of the mountain.

The village head was followed by his two sons, Zhao Anjiang and Zhao Anhe, and also his eldest grandson, Zhao Tiezhu, who was the most promising man in the village.

Zhao Tiezhu was a little older than Zhao Sidan and a little younger than Zhao Sanniu. The three boys hung out together.

Zhao Sanniu scratched the back of his head and said, "Tiezhu, can you teach me how to write my name?"

"Zhao Sanniu is too simple." Tie Zhu squatted down and wrote three characters. Although the strokes were straight, they were not very neat.

Zhao Sidan looked at him with admiration: "Brother Tiezhu, you're so amazing! Can you write my name?"

"What's so difficult about that?"

Zhao Tiezhu squatted down and wrote the two characters "Zhao Si" on the ground, but Dan couldn't remember how to write it. There seemed to be a "虫" (insect) character in it, but he couldn't remember whether it was on top or bottom... He originally wanted to draw a circle to represent Dan, but when he saw the adoring look in Dan's eyes, he hesitated to do so, mainly because he was afraid of ruining his image...

He looked up at the sky and saw a few white clouds drifting lazily by. He immediately changed the subject, saying, "Grandpa, the clouds in the sky are so high. Is it going to rain?"

For a moment, everyone looked up.

There were indeed some scattered white clouds drifting across the sky, appearing very high and distant, but Cheng Wanwan didn't think this was a sign that rain was coming.

The village head said with a solemn expression, "Based on my many years of farming experience, today should be sunny again, and it definitely won't rain."

“But the book says that when the clouds get higher, it will rain.” Zhao Tiezhu said seriously, “The book can’t be wrong, so Grandpa must be wrong. But Grandpa doesn’t seem to be wrong either. What went wrong…”

Cheng Wanwan: "..."

Silly child, no one is wrong, you just misread the word.

The villagers of Dahe Village have been farmers for generations. Occasionally, a few successful villagers go to town to do business, but no one has ever become a scholar.

The reason why people in Chengjia Village were able to get an education was because there was an old scholar there who opened a thatched-roof school and took in many students, including a few promising ones.

There isn't even a school in Dahe Village, so even if there are promising talents, they won't be discovered.

If you want your child to learn to read and write, you have to send him to the school in town. It is said that the tuition fee is one or two taels of silver a month. No wonder the Cheng family is so eager to exploit the original owner of this body. Supporting a scholar in the family is indeed very expensive.

More than half an hour later, the group arrived at the valley between the two mountain peaks.

As soon as you walk over, a cool, refreshing breeze blows over you, making you feel invigorated.

Zhao Anjiang strode over, and when he saw water dripping from the stone wall, he was overwhelmed with excitement: "There really is water! There has always been water here, why has no one ever discovered it! My God, Dahe Village is saved!"

The village head trembled all over: "Because there was no shortage of water in the past, no one thought to come here to look for water. If it weren't for Aunt Dashan, at least half of the people in Dahe Village would probably have died this year..."

Zhao Anhe carried a shovel forward and started digging without saying a word. As soon as he dug a small hole, a clear spring gushed out from the ground, and the group drank to their hearts' content.

Zhao Anjiang was very ashamed: "Sister-in-law Zhao, I thought you were deliberately deceiving my father. I apologize to you here."

“We’re all family, there’s no need for formalities.” Cheng Wanwan didn’t care about being misunderstood. She got to the point and said, “If we can divert the water from here down the mountain, the rice will be saved.”

The village head counted on his fingers. According to the normal season, the rice should be in the grain-filling and ripening stage by now. However, due to the long drought, most of the rice in the village is still in the heading and flowering stage, which is exactly the time when it needs a lot of fertilizer and water. The matter of diverting water down the mountain should be done as soon as possible.

However, the water source is too far from the foot of the mountain, and it would take more than an hour to go there and back. Even if people were treated like livestock, it would be impossible to irrigate all the rice fields within ten days. This matter is a bit tricky.

The village head took a couple of puffs of his pipe and said slowly, "Grandma Dashan, do you have any ideas?"

He didn't know why, but he always felt that Aunt Dashan would have a good solution, though he didn't know where this feeling came from.

Cheng Wanwan smiled and looked at the second brother: "Ergou, let the village head give you some pointers on the method you came up with yesterday."

Zhao Ergou immediately perked up: "Our Dahe Village has thousands of acres of rice paddies. It's definitely impossible to carry them all by hand. I was thinking, could we dig a ditch down the mountain to bring the water to the fields..."

Before he could finish speaking, Zhao Anhe immediately shook his head: "Ergouzi, do you know how many miles it is from the foot of the mountain to here? It's more than ten or twenty miles, longer than the flood control dike..."