The next day at breakfast, under Lu Qiqi's watchful gaze, Cuilan reluctantly returned one of her steamed buns to Rumei.

Ru Mei maintained the same attitude as yesterday, keeping her head down and refusing to accept the invitation.

Cuilan quickly withdrew her outstretched hand, scoffing, "You're the one who didn't want it, so don't say I bullied you in the future!"

After saying that, he took a big bite of the steamed bun to vent his anger.

Lu Qiqi glanced at Ru Mei's timid appearance, said nothing, picked up a bowl of white porridge and took a sip.

In her view, a person's ability to stand up for themselves depends entirely on their own determination; any help from others is futile.

With the steamed bun matter settled, Lu Qiqi didn't help with cooking today. Instead, she went to the hillside to check on the villagers' progress in planting trees.

After Lu Qiqi left, Aunt Zhao arranged for Rumei and Sister-in-law Li to chop vegetables together.

The kitchen was poorly lit, and Sister Li's eyesight was poor. Afraid of cutting her hands in the dim kitchen, she moved the cutting board to the yard to cut food, which also made it easier for several people to gather together and chat.

Ru Mei is a quiet person, while Sister Li is the complete opposite; she loves to chat and always seems to have endless things to say.

Sister-in-law Li glanced up at Rumei, wanting to see how much she had cut. Rumei always spoke slowly, and Sister-in-law Li was afraid that if she was quick, Rumei would take advantage of her and she would suffer a great loss.

Without glancing closely, she noticed something white wrapped in Ru Mei's hand.

She asked curiously, "Rumei, what's that in your hand? I've never seen it before!"

Aunt Li has always had a loud voice, and she was so curious that she started shouting without a care in the world.

This attracted the attention of several women kneading the dough, who all turned to look at her, and then to look at Ru Mei's hands.

Startled by Aunt Li's sudden shout, Ru Mei trembled and lowered her head like a little quail.

The glove on her left hand was also covered by her right hand, as if she subconsciously wanted to hide it.

Aunt Li was a little angry when she saw her stingy appearance. She said, "I'm not taking your things. I'm just asking. Why are you hiding from me?"

“No,” Rumei shook her head and hurriedly denied it, then stretched out her left hand to show everyone, “This is called a glove. My palm was injured, and the village head lent it to me.”

Several women watched from afar as a white object completely enveloped Ru Mei's entire palm, clearly indicating that it was no ordinary object.

Since it was something Lu Qiqi lent her, she didn't say anything more and continued with her work.

Only Cuilan lowered her head and muttered softly, "Troublemaker, always causing trouble."

Cuilan spoke very softly, but Aunt Zhao, who was standing next to her, still heard her.

Aunt Zhao reminded her, "Be careful what you say, or you'll get punished again."

Cuilan was indignant at Aunt Zhao's words but didn't dare to speak up. If she argued with Aunt Zhao, she would only make a fool of herself in the end.

News of her being punished by the village chief yesterday spread overnight, and this morning people in the village were pointing and whispering about her.

She had never suffered such treatment since marrying into Tianxin Village. It was all Rumei's fault, that troublesome girl, who had to sneak around even to eat a steamed bun, making her think she was stealing something.

...

Lu Qiqi was unaware of what was happening in the courtyard; she was currently on the hillside watching the villagers plant trees.

The fruit trees planted yesterday were planted with strict spacing between them to ensure even sunlight exposure and good fruit production.

Today is no exception.

She had only gone halfway around when Zhu Zi came up from the hillside looking for her.

"What is it?" she asked.

Zhu Zi pointed to the group of people standing at the bottom of the hillside and said, "Those people said they want to buy this place and asked the manager to negotiate the price with them."

If these people want to buy, does that mean they have to sell?

Lu Qiqi said, "Tell them to find out who owns this land first."

Zhu Zi said, "I told them, they said they'll let you name a price, no matter how much."

It's like his brain is missing a hole and hasn't fully grown in!

All the villagers of Tianshui Village are gone. Now this is Lu Qiqi's fiefdom. Not only does the land belong to her, but the people who cultivate this land are also under her control.

This guy immediately wants to buy land; even when you're trying to curry favor, you should choose the right person!

Before Lu Qiqi could speak, someone called her from the other side.

So she said to Zhu Zi, "Send them away. This land is not for sale. Tell them not to come back."

After saying that, she waved her hand and went in the direction of the person who called her.

After receiving the message, Zhu Zi went down the hillside to relay it to the person.

It was Miao Dajiang who called out to Lu Qiqi. They had found a spring on the other side of the hillside.

Logically speaking, springs should only be found on rocky mountains, but this is clearly an earthen mountain, so how could there be something like this?

It's really strange, so I called Lu Qiqi over to see if we should plant fruit trees on this mountain.

Lu Qiqi looked at the earthen mound, where a small hole two fingers wide had been dug out, with gurgling water flowing out of the hole, and said, "The previous One Line Sky was just a gap between two stone mountains, so there must be another stone mountain at the foot of this one."

With this mountain spring water, the people on the hillside no longer have to rely entirely on the heavens for their livelihood and pray for rain during droughts.

It can greatly change the frequency of irrigating fruit trees and also increase the moisture content of the fruit.

This is undoubtedly good news for Lu Qiqi.

She laughed and said, "We won't plant trees here. We'll level the land in front and build a pond specifically for storing water. In the future, we won't have to go down the hillside and use an oxcart to bring water up."

After saying that, she added, "Make the pond bigger, but don't block the road for the oxcart. We'll still need to use oxcarts to bring the fruit down the mountain when we harvest it."

Miao Dajiang kept Lu Qiqi's words in mind. It was the first time he had ever seen someone build a road on a hillside and use an oxcart to transport things up the hillside.

The road on the hillside was very smooth, so it was not difficult to pull the fruit tree seedlings up the mountain by oxcart, and going down the mountain was just as easy as walking on flat ground, without any worry about slipping.

Miao Dajiang greatly admired Lu Qiqi for carving out a path through the narrow passage overnight.

Now, hauling saplings on this wide road has saved the villagers of Tianmiao Village a lot of effort, and they admire Lu Qiqi immensely.

He wished he could stay by Lu Qiqi's side as long as possible and learn as many skills as he could.

If this technology is applied to Tianmiao Village in the future, it will be difficult for Tianmiao Village not to flourish and prosper.

Building a pool requires bricklayers and buying bricks to build walls. This was easy, so Lu Qiqi entrusted the entire task to Miao Dajiang.

But she wanted to connect a pipe in the middle of the spring water inlet pool. In this era, such pipes were usually made of bamboo.

Bamboo doesn't last long; you'll need to replace it countless times a year, and it might not even be suitable. If you keep enlarging the opening, that won't be good either.

And what she wanted was something that could be turned on and off at any time.

This way, rainwater can be collected during the rainy season.

Since spring water won't flow out continuously, ceramic seems to be the better choice.