Finally, it got dark. The whole village had only managed to harvest 100 mu of wheat that day. Liu Maocai personally led a group of people to keep watch at night, not because he was afraid of losing anything, but because the weather was dry and he was worried about a fire.

Zhang Hongmei handed the flashlight to Liu Maocai. Being a village chief is really not easy. You have to work in the fields during the day and keep watch at night. It's exhausting.

After soaking in the spiritual spring water in the space, I felt completely revitalized. To treat myself, I cooked a delicious meal: braised prawns, steamed sea bass, braised beef, and meatballs. Basically, all meat.

She forced herself to finish her meal, then collapsed onto the bed and fell asleep immediately. She was so exhausted that Zhang Hongmei even started snoring softly.

I cleaned the kitchen after I woke up and put the remaining vegetables into the food storage compartment in the storeroom. Good things shouldn't be wasted.

The peanuts in the field should be harvested by now. Take your time, there's no rush.

I only pulled out a third of it before stopping, then took a nap to recharge for tomorrow.

I woke up again and decided to steam some buns. They'll be my lunch tomorrow—convenient and delicious.

After five days of harvesting, the wheat was finally ready. The first few days yielded nearly 20,000 jin of wheat, and the last day's harvest was a bit more than usual. I estimate that we'll be lucky to harvest 25,000 jin in the end.

The grain quota was 20,000 jin, and of the remaining 5,000 jin, 600 jin were kept for seed, and the team still had to keep some grain for reserve. Each person could only get a maximum of 20 jin. That was a year's worth of food.

The whole village was dejected and listless. Wang Hongxi's meetings to mobilize the villagers had little effect. Most of them started heading into the mountains.

This won't do, the wheat stubble fields haven't been planted yet! We quickly called another meeting, and everyone who hadn't dried their wheat was sent to the fields to make sweet potato ridges.

"Captain, there hasn't been a single drop of rain, so there's no harvest from the crops. We might as well go into the mountains and prepare some food."

Liu Maocai's mouth was full of blisters, but now the villagers' morale was low, and even those who reluctantly went to work were lazy and unmotivated.

The water level in the river has dropped by one and a half meters. The old well in the village is still usable, but the village held a meeting to warn everyone to conserve water. The whole village is living in fear.

The last meeting, held three days after the wheat harvest, was chaired by the old lady herself. Her reasoning was simple: going into the mountains is good, but many of our ancestors were injured, maimed, or died. Now, with the drought, the situation in the mountains isn't much better, and the animals need to survive, so they're very likely to come down. Besides, although there's a drought, the sweet potatoes in the fields will still yield a harvest. There's no need to take the risk.

After hearing this, everyone felt a chill of fear. Yes, every year people get injured and die; it was all due to impulsiveness.

After that, Wang Hongxi's work went smoothly, with tasks being organized and assigned. The women went to the sweet potato field to pick vines, while the men continued to build ridges and carry water, and the children watered the plants.

However, due to the drought, the sweet potato vines were not lush, and not many could be harvested.

Zhang Hongmei approached Liu Maocai and said, "Uncle, I never intended for the sweet potato fields in the mountains to be mine. Why don't you talk to the villagers at the meeting? We can go there and pick the seedlings; they're much more lush than the ones in our fields."

Liu Maocai looked at Zhang Hongmei with complicated eyes, "Alright, then everyone should know about your situation, don't worry. Here's the plan: Er Ya, you two go over there and fight, I'll have Er Lengzi carry it back."

Zhang Hongmei didn't know what Liu Maocai said to everyone at the meeting, but she could clearly feel the goodwill the villagers were showing her.

The three arrived at the sweet potato field, and to their astonishment, there was a large wild boar in the trap. Why was there a wild boar? Because sweet potatoes are very attractive to wild boars.

Er Lengzi ran over and said, "This wild boar hasn't been dead for long, it's not rotten yet. Hongmei, I'll go back and call someone. We'll have meat to eat tonight."

After Er Lengzi left, Zhang Hongmei and her friend didn't sit idle either; they quickly bent down and started pinching sweet potato vines.

Being able to eat wild boar was exciting news, and everyone was relieved that they hadn't gone up the mountain. If they had actually encountered this big guy, they might not have survived.

This wild boar weighs over 500 jin (250 kg), enough to feed the whole village. With that motivation, they worked much harder.

Liu Maocai even held a meeting, saying that once the sweet potatoes were planted and the grain tax was paid, he would lead everyone into the mountains. "We've been guarding these mountains for generations; we can't let them starve to death."

It took ten days to plant the 700 mu of sweet potatoes. The land was too dry, and even strong laborers had a hard time digging. It was also difficult to fetch water from the river. A bucket of water could not irrigate more than a few sweet potato seedlings. But everyone had hope, so there were not many complaints.

After that, they went to collect grain without stopping. This time, all the able-bodied men in the village were mobilized, each contributing their own cart, forming a grand procession.

Zhang Hongmei didn't go. There's so much work to do at home right now. All sorts of melon vines are climbing up and down, and the cucumbers are blooming. But she doesn't dare to fetch water to irrigate them like before, because the water level is dropping too fast.

Finally, he came up with a half-baked solution: he put the four wild boars from the ring into the storage room in his spatial dimension, and put all the large water tanks in his house, whether for storing grain or water, into the spatial dimension. Then he went into the mountains alone.

When I arrived at the pond from last time, I found that the water level had also dropped. The mark I made was still there, but the drop was not much, only about half a meter.

That's good. If things really get to the worst, then this water source will be everyone's lifeline.

They took out the water vats and poured the contents into them bucket by bucket until all five large vats were full. They then put the contents into their rings and headed back.

Liu Maocai will definitely tell him when he gets back, but he won't come here unless absolutely necessary, as the animals' water sources are definitely much more dangerous than other places.

After returning home, Zhang Hongmei watered the entire vegetable garden, but looked at the unfurled vegetable leaves with a worried expression.

But then the village bell, which had been making a lot of noise, was rung. Zhang Hongmei saw that all the wheat that had been pushed to be handed over to the public grain was being pushed back. What did this mean?

Liu Erya leaned closer and said, "The township grain station thinks our wheat isn't good enough and returned it."

"That's great, we should thank them later."

Liu Maocai, Wang Hongxi, and the old lady discussed that since things were like this, they should divide the money among themselves to avoid problems later.

The accountant, carrying the ledger, went from house to house, asking people to tally the accounts and distribute the grain.

Zhang Hongmei knew how much risk Liu Maocai had taken to distribute the grain, just so everyone would have something to eat. He managed to distribute all the grain by nightfall.

Now everyone felt more at ease, and with food in hand, they were no longer worried.

Zhang Hongmei hadn't finished her dinner when she heard loud knocking on the door. "Hongmei, open the door! People from the village are here to take my dad away!"

"Okay, I'll go right away. Go and inform the others immediately."

After hearing this, Zhang Hongmei put down her bowl and ran towards the brigade. This could be a serious crime.

The entire village gathered in the brigade headquarters, with people from the township crowding inside.