In the morning, Zhao cooked sweet potato porridge for her family, along with the eggs and pancakes that Zhou Lin had brought back the day before. After the family finished eating, they all got busy with their own things.

Zhou Tao, along with Zhu Zhu and Zhou Lei, took shovels and leveled the ground in the area that Li Mai had marked out for them on the mountaintop that morning.

In the morning, Li Mai told them that their family would first build two simple houses on this hilltop to live in, and then move to the new village after it was built.

Today, on their way to town, they will buy some things to help the family build a temporary house.

Zhao and Xiao Tao and Xiao Lei first leveled the ground here, and then they stomped on it as much as possible to make it as firm as possible.

As the clan chief's carriage, followed by seven oxcarts, descended the hillside and headed out of the village, many people stood on the mountaintop and silently watched them leave.

To be honest, the whole procession was quite impressive. The clan chief's carriage was at the very front, driven by Shi Fan, who was accompanied by his father and four clan elders.

Behind them were Old Man Zhou and Uncle Wangcai driving their oxcart, which was better than others', as it also had a carriage.

Li Mai, Zhou Quan, and Zhou Lin were sitting in the car.

Behind them was Uncle Wuping's oxcart, with several villagers sitting on it.

Behind them were several other oxcarts from the village, each carrying villagers. They were also going to town carrying the hopes of the entire village.

If their trip goes smoothly, they may receive relief funds from the government. If not, they may have to pool their own money to build a new village, and the villagers living on this mountaintop may have to wait until winter and suffer from the cold.

Once the convoy heading to town was out of sight, people began to disperse and get busy with their own things, some gathering firewood in the woods, others picking wild vegetables, all striving to fill their stomachs.

Yesterday, someone made dumpling soup with the ground ivy they had picked, and it was indeed quite delicious. No one got sick from eating it. The villagers all believed that ground ivy was edible, and today many families took baskets and flocked to the woods behind the village to pick ground ivy.

Also, because a young girl in Limai was able to hunt pheasants yesterday, it gave many men confidence, and today some of them went into the woods to hunt pheasants and rabbits.

In this situation, the more they can fight, the more their wives and children can eat.

Zhou Shu also went to town today. Zhou Shu's wife, Xiao Zhao, entrusted the one-year-old girl to one of her aunts to look after, and she also went to the woods with a basket.

Li Mai could catch pheasants by luck, and she felt she could too. She also wanted to gather a lot of wild vegetables so that she could give some to her parents when she went back to her hometown.

She also has relatives nearby, and she has decided to go and stay with them tomorrow.

She took Dou Dou with her when she went into the woods. The child tends to run around, and having him with her allows her to keep a close eye on him.

Those who had decided last night to stay with relatives in a nearby village packed their things today, said goodbye to everyone, and went to stay with their relatives for a while.

Gradually, fewer and fewer people remained on the hilltop. Zhao Shi accompanied Zhou Tao and the others to level the plots of land that Li Mai had marked out on the other side.

They had asked the clan chief about this, and the clan chief said that if any family on the mountain wanted to build a temporary house, they could make their own decision without asking him.

When she learned that his family was going to build a temporary house here, Aunt Lin, who had no relatives in the nearby villages, also decided to build her own simple house next to theirs.

After discussing it, the two families decided to become neighbors and help each other build their houses.

Wangcai's aunt's family home is not far away. Today, Wangcai's uncle went to town with her, and they decided to move to her family home tomorrow.

Some villagers went down into the village to continue rummaging through their houses for items that hadn't been washed away by the flood.

They moved the items out, washed them, wiped them down, and dried them in the sun. Those that were still usable continued to be used, which made life a little less difficult for everyone.

The journey for Li Mai and his companions was not easy. Many sections of the road had been washed away by mountain streams, leaving large potholes. Fortunately, they had the foresight to bring several shovels and hoes with them when they left the village, so they could only fill the potholes as they walked.

By the time they arrived in town, it was already late afternoon.

This journey took more than an hour longer than usual.

Everyone was still hungry; apart from what they ate in the morning, they hadn't eaten anything else.

The clan chief came out and discussed with everyone whether they should go to the government office first, or go get something to eat first.

Zhou Quan thought for a moment and said that they should go to the government office first. After the matter was resolved, it might be too late to go back. Everyone would have to stay in town for one night and then find a place to stay and have a meal.

Upon hearing this, everyone agreed and headed straight for the government office.

Town Magistrate Fu only heard this morning that a village under his jurisdiction had been completely destroyed by the flood, and that the villagers had climbed up the mountain to get through the rain these past few days.

Zhoujia Village is not considered a small village among the surrounding villages. It has nearly forty households and a population of over one hundred to two hundred.

He was also discussing with the officials that he planned to send someone to Zhoujia Village tomorrow to take a look.

Unexpectedly, in the afternoon, the people who had narrowly escaped death from Zhoujia Village came to find him.

Lord Fu quickly received these people. There were more than twenty of them, especially the older ones. It was said that they were clan elders. Seeing that they were all covered in dust and had a gloomy look on their faces, the town magistrate had someone arrange seats for the clan elders and clan leaders.

As for Zhou Quan, he was already in a wheelchair when Zhou Lin pushed him in, so there was no need to arrange a separate seat for him.

Lord Fu also noticed Li Mai standing next to Zhou Quan, nodded to her, and took a few extra glances at Zhou Quan's wheelchair.

Seeing him sitting next to the clan leader, Lord Fu guessed that this young man might be quite valued by the Zhou clan leader.

When he heard it was Zhoujia Village, he immediately thought of Li Mai's family. They had a sick person in their family, and he guessed they were in a pretty bad situation. He was surprised to see that they seemed to be doing well now, and that her paralyzed husband's chair was even more luxurious than the one he had last time—it even had wheels.

After the clan chief sat down, he recounted the situation of the past few days. After listening, Lord Fu nodded and said, "You have done a good job. Fortunately, you were prepared in advance. This continuous rain was indeed quite heavy, and many houses in the town have collapsed."

"How many people died in total?" Lord Fu asked.

"A total of fourteen people, young and old, went missing. We found a child who was caught in a tree branch and saved him. The other thirteen are still missing. They were probably swept away by the flood. The villagers searched the riverbank after the rain stopped these past two days, but they only found a few shoes in the cracks between the rocks. They didn't find the people," the clan chief sighed.

The villagers listened with heavy hearts, heads bowed. They had helped search, but to no avail; even the body was gone.

Those four families have been crying terribly these past two days, and they've been in a daze all day, relying entirely on the clan chief's family for food.

Lord Fu was taken aback and frowned. "We made preparations in advance, and yet so many people still died?"