To prevent children from accidentally falling into the lake, the village chief organized some people to clear away some old bricks from the ancestral hall and spent two days building a simple fence around the lake to prevent young children from going near the water. He also repeatedly warned parents with children to emphasize to their children that they must stay away from the water.

The village's teenagers were also assigned to keep watch over the opposite bank of the lake from inside the village wall. If they saw anyone walking this way, they were to inform the village immediately.

After so many days of use, the village's spare batteries were gradually exhausted, and everyone returned to their lives of working at sunrise and resting at sunset.

At night, we might light a candle at home. These are consumables; once they're used up, they're gone, so we have to use them sparingly.

Although Yunqi's family had a generator and solar panels, the solar panels were basically useless now that there was no sun. The generator required gasoline and couldn't be used indefinitely, and with so many tools just brought out, it wasn't appropriate to be ostentatious anymore.

Following the village's established practices, the family worked diligently every day to build their house.

The houses here aren't even fully built yet, but the crops in the fields are already ready to be harvested.

Pinghe Village has a relatively flat terrain. Although it is surrounded by mountains, the large tracts of land are very suitable for mechanized farming, so most of the land was previously leased out.

Since the village forcibly reclaimed the land last year and distributed it to individual households, most villagers have been growing rice.

The land here is generally cultivated for two seasons, and now the second season of rice is about to be harvested.

The village does have harvesters, but no oil. The young people, who are already struggling to build houses, are now unwilling to harvest so many rice paddies by hand.

Although there was gasoline in the Cloud Rising Space, it wasn't convenient to take it out at this time.

In order to expedite the harvest, and given the lack of sunshine and the need for manual drying, the village decided to organize everyone to go out and search for gasoline. Of course, they wouldn't leave empty-handed; the village would provide their food rations for the next few days, and if they brought back gasoline, they would have priority access to the combine harvesters.

Upon hearing the news, the young people in the village were eager to get out and enjoy themselves. After working in the village for so long, they were finally able to go out and relax. The number of people signing up was unprecedented.

Seeing even children as young as ten signing up, the village chief rolled his eyes in a rare, childish way.

"This isn't a trip. Can you walk or carry heavy loads? Hurry up and go back to your mother's house to move bricks." The village chief looked at the few little kids in front of him and shooed them away without any politeness, which made the people around him burst into laughter.

“We might run away, and even adults might not be able to catch us,” the children retorted.

"Aren't you leaving yet? I'll call your parents!" Hearing this, the little ones knew there was no way to leave, so they pretended to walk away while looking back every few steps, which drew another burst of laughter from everyone.

Since the route had already been scouted last time, ten people were still assigned to go this time. Si Cheng was strong and would be able to carry the wooden bridge, while Monkey and Big Bear had served in the military, and Yun Zhiqi was good at negotiating and familiar with the surrounding area. In addition to these four, a new group of physically fit young men were selected to go with them.

In order to rush the harvest, they agreed to set off the next day.

For safety reasons, in addition to the necessary rations, everyone brought some spare weapons on this trip.

Since the purpose of this trip was gasoline, everyone brought spare gas cans from their cars or empty gas cans they had left over from home.

As for whether to buy gasoline with money or goods, everyone prepared some, and each family prepared five catties of cured meat, to see how much they could get in return.

Everyone was carrying heavy loads on this trip, walking on uneven terrain. Even though they were familiar with the road conditions, it took them two whole days to reach Majia Village.

"Someone's coming." Before even getting close to Majia Village, they saw several children at the village entrance running back to report the news.

As soon as everyone entered the village, a group of villagers carrying knives surrounded them.

Seeing the scene before them, everyone became a little nervous. Si Cheng, Monkey, and the other two stood in front, holding machetes and protecting the large group.

"Second Uncle, it's me." Yun Jianying, who came with him, saw his uncle in the crowd and quickly called out.

Upon seeing that it was his eldest nephew, Yun Jianying's uncle quickly called out, "This is our eldest nephew from Pinghe Village."

Seeing that there were acquaintances around, and that the other party had large and small bags, they slowly put down the weapons in their hands.

At this moment, Village Chief Ma also arrived. Upon seeing several familiar faces, he quickly said, "It's a misunderstanding. These are people from Pinghe Village, not those hooligans. Everyone, please disperse."

Several of them recognized acquaintances, and the young people who came along all had relatives here, so they were quite enthusiastic about signing up this time.

"Village Chief Ma, what's wrong? We weren't this nervous last time we came here," Yun Zhiqi asked, offering Village Chief Ma a cigarette.

"Hey, he's just a local thug. I don't know how he got a beat-up little boat, but he comes here to loot whenever he has free time. At first, everyone sold him some things, but now everyone knows that money is useless, so we just let it go. But these past two days, he's gone a bit too far. The night before last, he came to the entrance of our village and looted the grain from the two houses in front of us. Now everyone's panicking."

"Can't you handle them with so many of you?" someone asked curiously.

"The main problem is that they had machetes, and they came at night. After robbing, they ran away, and no one could catch them after they crossed the river."

"So what do you do now? What if they come again tonight?" Big Bear reminded them.

"So we've left two people at the old bridgehead. If I see them coming from the riverbank again, I'll warn them immediately," said Village Chief Ma, sounding helpless.

As they entered the village, they discovered that several houses had already been completely built, and the others, which were taking longer, were nearing completion.

"Great! Your houses are almost finished, while we're still figuring things out over there." Seeing this, Yun Zhiqi knew that their village really didn't lack building materials.

"Everything will be fine," Village Chief Ma chuckled, avoiding the topic and making sure they weren't going to ask them about the building materials.

"What brings you here this time?" Yun Jianying's uncle, Ma Su, asked his eldest nephew curiously.

"The crops in the fields are about to be harvested, and I wanted to come and see if there was any gasoline here," Yun Jianying explained, patting the oil drum on his body.

"Gasoline? Probably not. Our village went to check the gas station near the bridge before. During the earthquake, there was an explosion and then nothing was left there," Village Chief Ma continued.

"However, on the other side, there's a private gas station in Xihe Village. It only has one filler port, and I don't know if they still have any gas left."

We don't know what's going on over there, and nobody knows whether we should go.