"Yes, judging from the sky, it shouldn't rain," Master Yuan stammered in agreement, his feelings quite complicated.

In the past few days, Qingshui County has made some really big moves, and with the five major families of Tangshan Prefecture following suit, he was also getting restless. But working under the prefect, neither he nor anyone else in the prefectural government dared to go against the prefect.

So he left his few acres of poor land there, waiting for the autumn harvest.

However, the small estate that had been secretly purchased was moved into the granary by the servants overnight.

The small estate has over a hundred acres of land. Since Tangshan Prefecture harvested rice early and there were no tax exemptions, each acre of land lost at least twenty catties of grain. The entire estate lost over two thousand catties. New rice cost five coins per catty, so the loss was more than a hundred taels, which was equivalent to several years' salary for him!

"A county princess born in the countryside is just too ignorant and makes a fuss over nothing!" Prefect Liu sneered repeatedly. "Master Yuan, do you think the Princess of Le'an is hiding at home crying right now?"

After saying that, the laughter became even more rampant, "After this incident, the Lady of Le'an County has completely lost face and dignity! I want to see how she explains herself to the common people and the five major families of Tangshan Prefecture, hahahahahaha..."

Yuan, the clerk, wore a smile on his face, but inwardly he was cursing.

However, before the laughter had completely subsided, a deafening explosion erupted!

A thunderclap suddenly crashed down from the sky.

The sound was so loud, it was like a colossal beast that had been silent for hundreds of years bursting through the air.

Startled, Prefect Liu and Clerk Yuan covered their ears and crawled under the desk. When they looked up again, they saw that the sky, which had just cleared of dark clouds, was now ablaze with blood red, and purple lightning bolts were striking down across the sky.

Lightning flashed and thunder roared, like drumbeats, each one striking the heart.

Before the lightning had subsided, a fierce wind suddenly arose, rushing in from all directions, sweeping through streets and alleys, and entering doorways. Tiles, eaves, doors, and windows shattered and flew away, and the plaque that once hung high above was blown to the ground with a bang, breaking in two.

Prefect Liu stared wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded.

Amidst the thunder and gale, a series of clanging sounds began to echo from the rubble—

As people frantically searched for shelter from the rain, they suddenly felt a dull ache on their heads. When they reached up to touch it, they found only tiny ice beads the size of soybeans. They were all shocked, their eyes widening, and it took them a while to recover.

"My goodness! It's not just raining, it's hail mixed in with the rain!!!"

"Why is it hailing? Didn't the Prefect tell us to focus on waiting for the autumn harvest and not to start harvesting rice early?"

"It's all over, all over! My rice, my five acres of rice!"

"After a year of hard work, our family of more than ten people was just waiting for the autumn harvest in a few days. And then this hailstorm wiped everything out. How are we going to survive this year? Oh God..."

As they talked, tears streamed down their faces. They no longer cared about avoiding the rain and ran out of the city.

Prefect Liu suddenly stood up, completely forgetting that he had been hiding under the desk. His forehead hit the bottom of the desk with a thud, forming a bloody bump. "Hail! How is this possible! It's still summer, how could there be hail! Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

The man staggered outside, where a barrage of hail mixed with rain quickly soaked him, leaving bloody cuts on his face and neck.

"Ah!!! It really is hail, it really is hail! Is God determined to make things difficult for me, Liu Wenchu!"

Master Yuan's heart leaped into his throat. "Sir, what should we do now?"

But Prefect Liu sat on the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, his eyes vacant, letting the hail and rain pelt him. "It's over, it's over, it's all over..."

Master Yuan frowned deeply. He simply assigned two yamen runners to help look after Prefect Liu, and then wrote a leave request to go back and harvest the few remaining acres of barren land at home. With such hail, the rice was probably all knocked down into the ground, so going early might allow him to salvage some of it.

At this moment, he was especially grateful that the more than one hundred acres of land in the small village had been put into the granary.

Meanwhile, in the eighteen towns of Qingshui County, the people all closed their doors and windows, staring at the hail that seemed to be falling from the sky as if it were free, and at the mountains of rice piled up in their homes. Their eyes reddened with tears. Fortunately, fortunately, their Qingshui County had the County Lord of Le'an.

The hail lasted for three days and three nights.

But the hail stopped, and the rain continued unabated. The torrential rain poured down day and night, as if it were trying to bring down all the rain that had stopped for the past month. The mountains and forests were soaked, and the river water rose rapidly. One morning, a body suddenly emerged from the small river in Shanghe Village.

The body was already swollen from being soaked in water. If it weren't for that familiar white dress and green jacket, the villagers probably wouldn't have recognized that this person was Meng Yun'er.

The old village chief, along with several brave men, braved the rain to retrieve the body and deliver it to Old Feng's house at the east end of the village.

But when Granny Feng heard it was Meng Yun'er, she wouldn't even let her in. "So what if this little bitch is dead? What does it have to do with our Feng family? Village chief, quickly drag this body away. Our Feng family has already had a rough time lately. If we get involved with some bad luck, won't we be even more unlucky?"

"What are you saying, Scholar's wife?" The old village chief's face darkened slightly. "Meng Yun'er is a daughter-in-law of your Feng family. If she doesn't go to your Feng family's grave after she dies, whose grave should she go to?!"

Old Mrs. Feng glared and said, "Who said Meng Yun'er is my Feng family's daughter-in-law? This little bitch's father and elder brother caused my son to become addicted to gambling and be expelled from Qingshan Academy. She also caused my son to have his tendons cut off, so he can't even hold a pen and can never take the imperial examination again. I wish I could cut her into a thousand pieces, skin her and eat her flesh."

She's lucky to be dead now!

But don't even think about being buried in my Feng family's graveyard, unless I'm dead!

The villagers, seeing the once gentle woman acting like a shrew, were at a loss for words.

The old village chief sighed deeply, then raised his voice and roared towards the east room, "Feng Xiucai! Come out here! This Meng Yun'er is your wife. Tell me yourself, do you acknowledge her or not? Do you care or not?"

But after shouting for a long time, there was no response from the east room.

“My son doesn’t like to interact with people these days, so please don’t force him, village chief.” Old Mrs. Feng forced a smile, turned around and went into the house to take out a household registration sticker. “Perfect, since the village chief is here, please cross out Meng Yun’er’s household registration sticker for me, otherwise it’s really disgusting to look at.”

On the household registration sticker, the names of the Feng family mother and son had long since faded, except for the last name, which still retained a trace of ink fragrance.

Less than two months after it was written, the person was gone.

Su Hua was about to go out when she heard the news and was shocked. "Meng Yun'er is dead. How could she have died so suddenly?"

"We don't know." Qingdai shook her head. "The villagers found it in the river when they were patrolling the village just now. Meng Yun'er's body was swollen from being submerged in water. We could only see what looked like injuries on her face. She probably fell off the cliff and died. The flood washed her into the river."

Su Hua frowned slightly. Meng Yun'er usually doesn't even go down to the ground, so how could she go to the deep mountains?

She didn't have time to think about it now. She had just received news that after a month of heavy rain, the dike in Tangshan Prefecture had breached, and Magistrate Qin and Xiao Jinhan had led people to evacuate the surrounding residents overnight.