Chapter 138 Exclusively published on Jinjiang Literature City. We've waited so many years, just a little longer...
Three large ships slowly docked at the foot of a hillside where there was a stone forest, and the villagers hurriedly disembarked.
"Well, at least we've found a suitable place."
"Indeed, the feeling of being down-to-earth is the most reassuring."
Zhang Chengming's feet were on the muddy ground, and even though his shoes and trouser legs were quickly dirtied by rain and mud, his expression remained remarkably relaxed.
The reactions of the rest of the Zhang family and other villagers in the vicinity were similar.
The passenger boat... let's call it Ship Number Two for now, the Lu family's yacht is Ship Number One, and the cargo ship is Ship Number Three.
The experience on the second ship wasn't bad, but as inlanders, they still preferred the sense of security of being firmly on the ground.
Everyone stretched their legs in high spirits before they were able to observe their surroundings.
The region they are currently in, based on modern standards, is geographically and climatically similar to the area between Shandong and Henan.
It's more accurate to call it the central region than the southern region.
Continuing south is not an option, as the south has always been a densely populated area with a complex distribution of power. Neither Lu Xuan nor the villagers are willing to make contact with other surviving disaster victims again in the near future.
Furthermore, earthquakes are more frequent in the south than in the north. During a disaster period, one may need to change residences three or four times, which is too exhausting.
It's different here. The lowest temperature during the extreme cold season is at least ten degrees higher than in the north. The tectonic plates are stable, the frequency of earthquakes is low, and the magnitude of earthquakes is not high. They can stay in one place for at least half a year without moving.
The hills at our feet are covered with only a few low trees and weeds, and the altitude is not very high. There are also a few hills around us.
From a distance, the drone could vaguely make out a sizable bamboo forest, along with scattered fruit trees. There were quite a few trees, and presumably, quite a few mushrooms were sprouting. It would be a good place to gather resources or prepare farmland.
The able-bodied men set up a large enough shelter to accommodate everyone not far from the shore. Then Li Tie, Lu Xuan, Grandpa Zhang, Wu Cheng and the others gathered together to talk about serious matters.
Li Tie said, "It's been a month since the last harvest, so it's time to start planting again. This place isn't small, so maybe we can plant a few more acres?"
Wu Cheng frowned and said, "With such heavy rain, even if we plant the seeds, they'll be ruined by the water, won't they?"
Grandpa Zhang suggested, "We can try planting more rice. There are quite a few good quality rice seeds among the supplies we found in the county town."
Halfway through his sentence, his expression showed obvious worry: "However, the rice probably can't withstand being rained on every day, and the recent temperature is too low, which is not good for crop growth. If we want to have a harvest, we will probably have to rely on Ah Xuan."
Lu Xuan picked up his teacup and took a sip of hot fruit tea. He said casually, "I cultivated a mutant rice variety a couple of days ago, but the quantity is small. It can only guarantee that each family can plant about half an acre. If the original variety is planted on other land, the yield will probably be far less than the other mutant crops we planted before."
Li Tie and the others paused for a moment, their eyes clearly showing reluctance.
Lu Xuan: "To ensure yield, we must continue to plant other mutated crops, but as the old man said, even mutated crops cannot be exposed to heavy rain every day unless all the land is blocked with something."
Li Tie perked up and exclaimed excitedly, "A rain shelter! A rain shelter will solve the problem, why didn't I think of that!"
Wu Cheng glanced at him and reminded him, "Covering up all the land would probably be very costly."
Lu Xuan might not bother with a mere rain shelter, but covering dozens or even hundreds of acres of land...
Li Tie subconsciously looked at Lu Xuan, who didn't hide anything: "The cost is indeed not low."
The price of the awning is calculated per square meter. The cost per square meter is 100 points. One acre of land would cost 66,000 points. If you plant 100 acres of land, it would cost more than 6 million points.
Li Tie and the others didn't understand the value of points, so Lu Xuan explained to them how valuable they were in a way they could understand.
"It's roughly the price of six large ships."
Li Tie's face turned green on the spot.
Bullet comments:
[Using a rain shelter to cover a planting greenhouse, wow, that's like they're rolling in money!]
[Is the streamer the one who owns the mine, or did we contribute to it? :)]
Even if the streamer can afford it, the villagers might not be able to afford to use it.
To be honest, spending millions to build a shed is incredibly inefficient. The village chief's initial thinking was flawed; there are clearly cheaper and better waterproof tarpaulins available!
Just as the audience pointed out the key point, Lu Xuan also told the village chief and the others about the existence of the rainproof cloth.
Rainproof cloth is much cheaper than awnings; a 10*10 meter tarpaulin costs only 100 points, and a hundred acres of land only costs a little over 600,000 points, which is ten times cheaper.
The only problem is that, with the cost of the tarpaulin, the 30% profit share can't offset his investment.
If another 20% is added, the villagers will only receive 30%, which will give Lu Xuan the illusion that he has become part of the exploiting class.
So before Li Tie could bring it up, he said first, "In exchange for providing the rainproof cloth, I will reduce the number of times I use my wood-type ability to help. The survival rate of the mutated seeds is high enough, and as long as we avoid heavy rain, the harvest will not be reduced much, at most the harvest time will be a little slower."
It's roughly the same as how 20 days are stretched to a month, reducing what could have been three harvests to only two.
From the village's perspective, missing one harvest means losing tens of thousands of kilograms of grain, so it's more cost-effective to pay the cost of the rainproof cloth upfront.
But Lu Xuan's initiative in bringing up this method was perhaps a reminder that he couldn't help the village have children forever.
It's time for the village to become self-reliant.
The other villagers sitting not far away, who were listening intently, looked somewhat hesitant, but seeing that the village chief hadn't said anything, they didn't interrupt to offer their opinions.
If it weren't for Lu Xuan, this season wouldn't be the time to harvest grain. Whether it's two or three rounds, they would still have made a profit. One should be content and not be too greedy.
...
Having resolved the basic conditions for planting, the next step is to determine the specific acreage for planting.
Short-distance activities are not suitable for large-scale deployment of ships, so Lu Xuan took out a batch of kayaks that he had prepared.
Li Jing, Zhang Chengming, Xiong Mao, and other newlywed young people's eyes lit up when they saw the kayak, which looked like a small house on the water, after the tent was set up.
Zhang Chengming put his arm around Lu Xuan's shoulder and whispered, "Can we exchange this kayak?"
Having already witnessed firsthand how hard a spirited young man could work for his nightlife, Lu Xuan nodded calmly: "Of course we can make the change when the supplies are available."
Zhang Chengming patted him on the shoulder happily and grinned, "Good, good! I knew you wouldn't forget about us!"
Xiong Mao came over and asked about the price of the kayak.
Lu Xuan said: "Small hand-operated boats carry 300 catties of supplies, medium and large ones carry 400 to 600 catties, and motorized boats carry 800 to 1,000 catties of supplies of different sizes."
Lu Xuan took out several motorboats of different sizes. Zhang Chengming and the others saw that the small boats were big enough for the two of them to enjoy their time together.
Only 300 pounds of supplies, great! Very cheap! This is the one!
The idea was good, but once they boarded the powerboat, started the engine, and experienced the exhilarating feeling of speeding through the floodwaters—a sensation completely different from the intelligent control of a large ship—they all unanimously changed their minds.
Why buy a manual boat? A real man should drive a motorboat!
Viewers in the live stream who witnessed the entire scene of these individuals being humiliated were speechless and left with nothing but complaints:
Do they even remember the main reason they switched to kayaks?
What kind of power source does a kayak prepared for marital relations need? Are you suggesting we're going to have sex while speeding along? Aren't you afraid we'll get so excited we'll fly off the boat halfway through?
[Pfft, what the hell?! He flew out halfway through! I can picture it.]
The specific model of kayak to be replaced cannot be decided lightly with just a few words. Right now, the most important thing is to go to the nearby hills to check the terrain and determine the acreage to be planted.
After more than an hour of on-site investigation and consulting with other villagers, the final determined acreage was 200 mu.
It doubled compared to expectations.
Previously, each household cultivated 123 mu (approximately 8.5 hectares) based on the number of people, but now the amount has increased to 345 mu (approximately 26.7 hectares) per household. The extra portion is reserved for vegetable gardens and Lu Xuan's orchards.
Viewers in the live stream astutely commented: This is because the villagers, knowing they would have one less harvest, decided to make up for it by increasing the acreage.
Lu Xuan didn't care about this.
Since the start of the rainy season, the data from the live stream has been steadily increasing.
A few days ago, when the flood peak arrived, there was an expected small surge, with a significant increase in online users and fans, and the points also went from the 3s to the 4s.
A million points is a lot, but with a large number of acres, he gets a larger share, so he still has to spend it.
Furthermore, there was something Lu Xuan didn't say.
During the rainy season, it's not necessary to use a rain shelter as a greenhouse, but during the extremely cold season, without a greenhouse, unless he uses his supernatural abilities to nurture crops around the clock, no crop can grow well in an environment where the temperature is tens of degrees below zero.
But as the audience said, he can afford to spend the points, but the villagers can't.
To save costs, the scale of planting during the extremely cold season will inevitably be greatly reduced. In that case, it is a good thing to plant more crops during the rainy season.
·
After determining the acreage, Lu Xuan purchased a sufficient amount of rainproof cloth from the online store and, together with the others, covered the flat, hilly area with few obstructions.
To ensure the tarpaulin is not blown away by the wind, it needs to be positioned using additional fixing poles at intervals.
When you reach a certain livestream duration milestone, the store will unlock items including herbicides.
The plant protection machine sprays herbicide onto the designated field, and within half an hour, the lush green weeds quickly turn yellow, then rot and die.
Then came the usual earth-based ability to turn the ground over.
The original villagers of Yunlu Village had seen this many times and were used to it, but the newlyweds were all dumbfounded.
They had seen many other superhumans in the village demonstrate their abilities in the past few days, but how could their performance of condensing a small water ball/fireball or carrying a water tank with one hand compare to the power of Lu Xuan's massive earth-turning?
The sheer visual impact is completely different from what we're talking about!
Lin Qingfu sincerely felt that his act of volunteering himself was perhaps the most correct decision he had ever made in his life!
Unlike deep mountains where there is thick humus, hilly areas have lost much of their original nutrients due to the recent rains.
To avoid a reduced harvest, Lu Xuan purchased another unlockable item after the herbicide: plant nutrient solution.
Plant nutrient solution, simply put, is interstellar fertilizer. It is made from the residue of mutated plants and animals left after extracting edible nutrient components. It can provide the soil with a variety of trace elements and deliver the nutrients needed by crops.
The field was fertilized with plant nutrient solution as a base fertilizer before sowing was carried out using a plant protection machine.
Lu Xuan infused the seed with his wood-type ability to promote germination, ensuring that the mutated seed would maintain its characteristics and not degenerate.
How well the seeds grow afterwards depends on the seeds themselves.
The villagers were busy working in the brightly lit room until nearly 9 PM before returning to their boats to rest.
For the next two days, we focused on the mountain terrain.
The steps were the same as in the Yunlu Mountains: first, remove the vines, thorns, and some trees; then, cover the area with a tarpaulin and use both a weeding machine and herbicides to get rid of the weeds.
Since most of the work could be done by the able-bodied men in the village, Lu Xuan, now free of work, took out the ordinary and mutated fruit trees that had been re-emerged over the past two weeks and planted them, planning the orchard accordingly.
Lu Qing, Miao Jinfeng, and other women also planted mutated vegetable varieties in the vegetable garden.
By the time the able-bodied men had planted various crop seeds on the two hundred acres of land, the first batch of leeks, which grew the fastest, was already ready to eat.
·
As soon as the work in the fields was finished, Qian Erniang couldn't wait to start arranging the marriage between Wei Dayong and Ke Wei.
Unlike before, weddings during times of disaster are kept simple.
After both parties agreed on the amount of betrothal gifts and dowry, they learned from Lu Xuan that the wedding could be held on a day with relatively good weather and no taboos.
On the wedding day, the young women who helped prepare the wedding banquet sat under the awning, picking vegetables and chatting.
At first, they were just chatting casually about the newcomers, but somehow the conversation turned to Li Yue.
Ye Ping recalled the little incident from a couple of days ago and jokingly asked Li Yue, "Tell me honestly, what do you think of Wu Yang?"
Li Yue, who was picking bean sprouts, paused, her gaze sweeping over her fully recovered ankle. She said nonchalantly, "What do you mean, what were you thinking?"
"Still pretending." Su Ying, sitting opposite Li Yue, snorted lightly. "Don't tell me you can't see what Wu Yang's feelings are for you. You two grew up together in the village, everyone knows each other."
Even if you're a bit slow to notice, just think about how anxious and nervous Wu Yang was when he rescued Li Yue in Yangshan County, and how Li Yue accidentally tripped and twisted her ankle while collecting materials a couple of days ago, and how Wu Yang carried her back to the camp without saying a word after he found out.
It's all so obvious, even a fool would know what Wu Yang means.
Lu Qing and Liu Yu exchanged a glance and remained silent in tacit agreement.
When Li Yue was just over fifteen, she got engaged to Zhou Chenghai, and the following year she married into the town. At that time, Wu Yang was just a young boy, and could do nothing but watch his sweetheart get married.
The situation is different now.
When Li Tie beat Zhou Chenghai half to death, he personally wrote a divorce agreement and had Zhou Chenghai put his fingerprint on it. Li Yue is now a free man, and Wu Yang's opportunity has come.
Lu Qing said casually, "Speaking of which, when we were in the county town, every family in the village who needed help was busy looking for someone, but Wu Yang was the only one who didn't seem to want to find anyone."
As Li Yue's sister-in-law and Wu Yang's older sister, Wu Yinyin also took the opportunity to say, "I've known about A-Yang's feelings for you for a long time. I know his personality better than anyone. Once he sets his mind on someone, he can't change his mind."
The reason why Wu Yang did not express his feelings to Li Yue earlier was partly because he was too young and somewhat ignorant about matters of the heart, and partly because she was already married to Li Jing at the time, making their families related by marriage.
She and Li Jing had a good relationship over the years, and she lived a comfortable life in her husband's family. However, she saw her younger brother all alone. Even when Li Yue occasionally returned to her parents' home, she would only glance at him from afar and not disturb him much. It would be a lie to say that she didn't feel sorry for him.
When Li Yue and Zhou Chenghai's relationship was harmonious, she couldn't do anything to break up their marriage. But since Zhou Chenghai had been dumped, she naturally had no more scruples and seized the opportunity to help her younger brother.
Li Yue looked somewhat awkward. "Sister-in-law, you're joking."
Wu Yinyin said with a serious expression, "Who's joking? I'm serious. Yue, do you hate Yang?"
Li Yue shook her head, "Of course not."
Wu Yang is good-looking, skilled at hunting, and has awakened superpowers. Who would dislike such an outstanding man?
Wu Yinyin said, "Since you don't dislike him, why not consider him?"
Li Yue said calmly, "It is precisely because he is so good that he deserves a better woman. I am not good enough for him."
Given Wu Yang's circumstances, he could easily find a younger, more beautiful wife who had never been married, instead of a withered woman like her who had borne children for other men.
Wu Yinyin disagreed, saying, "How are you not good enough? As long as he thinks you are good enough, then you are!"
Su Ying guessed Li Yue's thoughts at a glance and scoffed, "Since Wu Yang isn't avoiding you, it means he doesn't mind your past. What are you being coy about? Do you really need Wu Yang to tell you personally that he doesn't mind you and make all sorts of promises and sweet words before you'll agree?"
Or are you afraid of gossip from the villagers, who think that you're not happy about being with Wu Yang so soon after separating from Zhou Chenghai?
The gossipy aunties in the village may indeed talk nonsense, but you are the one who lives your life. Can a few harmless words from others be more valuable than living a good life yourself?
Are you living for yourself or for others? Would you go and die if someone told you to?
How many times had she been gossiped about in the village before? Yet she and her husband Xiong Mao still managed to make a good living together.
She can see that others dislike her but can't do anything about it, and she can even eat an extra bowl of rice.
Lu Qing nudged Su Ying with her elbow in the shadows, signaling her with her eyes to tone it down and not go too far, since not everyone has the same good attitude as her.
Li Yue's face stiffened, and she looked somewhat embarrassed, as if a sore spot had been hit. At the same time, she was deeply moved.
Seeing that everyone else had made a good impression, Liu Yu thought for a moment and then said something heartfelt.
"To be honest, if I had the chance, I would like to remarry. A woman always needs someone to rely on; she can't always depend on her parents' family to support her. Even if my parents and older brother don't mind, I would still feel guilty."
"Besides, if I don't remarry, other people might think I can't let go of my ex, and just thinking about it makes me feel uncomfortable."
Li Yue paused for a moment, then, realizing that someone might misunderstand her as not being able to let go of Zhou Chenghai… her expression immediately turned as disgusted as if she had swallowed a fly.
She silently finished picking the remaining vegetables in her hands and didn't speak for a long time.
Only when everyone else felt they had given up trying to persuade him did he finally relent, saying, "Right now, getting through the rainy season is the most important thing. As for other things... what's meant to be will be, so let nature take its course."
The others exchanged glances, and a hint of a smile finally appeared in their eyes.
With Wu Yinyin tipping him off, Wu Yang quickly learned that Li Yue was softening her stance.
While feeling excited, Wu Yang said to Wu Yinyin, "Don't pressure her. She's waited all these years, so waiting a little longer won't hurt. I'm not in a hurry."
He didn't want Li Yue to agree to his request half-heartedly because she was instigated or misled by other people.
He hoped that if one day Li Yue were to reciprocate his feelings, it would be simply because she liked him.
If not, he would prefer to maintain the status quo.
·
After the Wei family's happy event, the villagers did not rest. They continued to go up the mountain every day, rain or shine, to collect supplies.
Besides the essential mushroom picking, they also went to the bamboo forest they had previously discovered to dig for autumn bamboo shoots and pick wild fruits such as pears, dates, peaches, and kiwis scattered throughout the mountains.
If there's anything to complain about, it's probably that hunting is more difficult during the rainy season than during the hottest season, resulting in a much smaller catch.
Every day when the harvest is tallied, the village chief and the others can't help but sigh.
Although the harvesting team could pick several hundred kilograms of mushrooms every day, each family would only get three to five kilograms, which wasn't even enough for two meals for a large family.
Meat is even scarcer; the harvest is not even enough to cover the consumption, and many families are starting to consider reducing their meat intake.
After noticing this, Lu Xuan thought for a moment and cleared out a separate area on the edge of the hilly fields.
You ask what this place is going to be used for? Naturally, to grow mushrooms.
If the meat harvest is not satisfactory, then make up for the shortfall with other resources. It just so happens that the rainy season is the peak season for mushrooms. If three or five pounds are not enough to eat, then grow thirty or fifty pounds, or even three or five hundred pounds!
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The author notes: The exact size of one mu (a Chinese unit of area) varied in different dynasties in ancient times. This article directly refers to the modern calculation method, which gives 666 square meters.
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Special thanks to today's contributors: "小琳儿cy" and "长虞山" [sprinkling flowers]
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