Corn doesn't taste much better than potatoes, so the old village chief didn't gain anything by trading corn for potatoes.

But most of the villagers eat dark flour, and corn is considered a coarse grain for them, which is the most valuable food they can offer for trade—their previous rice was exchanged for dark flour and coarse salt and stored away.

Moreover, since the cornmeal is dry, those who are willing to exchange it won't lose out; in fact, they might even make a profit.

Those who grow potatoes also understand this principle.

The old village chief gestured for everyone to be quiet. "I'll keep enough potatoes from my own land for planting, and I'll bring out the rest to exchange. But there are many families and a lot of land in the village, so it's not enough for just my family."

"Don't panic, everyone. Other families in the village have also planted potatoes. I'll take a count when we get back to the village and we'll exchange them all together."

Previously, the villagers had helped Fan Jin's family with their work and exchanged potatoes for seeds. Planting a few acres would be enough, and the rest would be used to plant corn, red beans, black beans, soybeans, peas, broad beans, and other legumes and grains.

Things are different now. This year, the paddy fields yielded no harvest, and no one knows what the future holds for the next few years. Everyone is just thinking about planting as much as they can, with ensuring their family's food supply being the most important thing.

Shanshui Village has little fertile land but a lot of open land. If all that land were used to grow potatoes, it would be far from enough for one family to grow as seed potatoes.

Besides Fan Jin's family, there were six other families in the village who were among the first to grow potatoes.

These six households combined barely had the same harvest as Fan Jin's family. However, if each household were willing to exchange their potatoes, the other households in the village could each cultivate about ten acres of land.

A dozen or so acres of land may not seem like much to most families in the village, but the potato yield is substantial. With the harvest from these acres, even a large family of over twenty people won't starve for the time being.

Old Man Xu, Grandpa Wang, and Grandpa Fan, who were present, were among the first families to grow potatoes, and they were the ones who could make the final decisions in their families.

They agreed on the spot to keep enough seedlings from their family and exchange the rest for the rest!

Besides Fan Jin, the largest remaining families are Aunt Zhang's and Aunt Li's.

Aunt Li's husband's family and the old village chief are brothers. They would consult the old village chief on all matters, big and small, and he could make decisions to some extent, so no one was worried.

Now only Aunt Zhang is left; I need to ask her for her opinion.

The crowd followed the old village chief in a grand procession toward Aunt Zhang's house.

Aunt Zhang's new house was moved to a new location, built on an open space by the roadside leading to Fan Jinshuiqing's house.

Before we even got close, we could hear a lot of noise.

"You're my own sister-in-law! My older brother is gone, and this is how you treat his only younger brother?"

"Your potato harvest is good, so what if you can't finish them all and leave some for us? You're calculating too much. Aren't you afraid my older brother will come after you in your dreams tonight?"

"Just because my older brother is dead doesn't mean you'll stop considering yourself a member of the Zhang family! Are you still thinking about remarrying?"

There were only so many people in the village, and everyone saw each other almost every day, so they immediately recognized Zhang the Bald's voice!

"You! Why didn't you say anything when your older brother sold off his land?"

"Why didn't you say anything when I was struggling to feed my children and had to borrow food everywhere?"

"When Mu Niu and Xiao Cao were sick with high fevers, you wouldn't even lend them some cornmeal to make porridge. Why didn't you mention that before?"

"Now that my family has finally managed to get by a little, you come here. What, you think you can come and ask for my grain just because your fields have been damaged by a disaster? Don't you even realize that I don't own any fields!"

The villagers who followed the old village chief in a large procession understood immediately upon hearing this.

This bald guy used to borrow things, but now he's asking for them outright.

However, it's possible that he was more restrained when he borrowed from other families in the past, but now that his sister-in-law's family is doing well, he comes directly to ask for the money back.

"Second Uncle, you never thought of us when you had food, but now that you have nothing to eat, you think of our family first and ask for food right away. Don't you feel ashamed?!"

"How dare you insult your own uncle! Hey, if you make a scene by insulting your elders, who will dare to find you a wife!"