Chapter 100: Where did the audacity to make such exorbitant demands come from?
There's no need to dig; you can just pick them up!
Miao Jinfeng excitedly patted Lu Xuan on the shoulder and praised him loudly, "Well done! You saved us a lot of effort! You're so quick-witted, no wonder the immortals valued you!"
Then, he eagerly called out to the harvesting team, "Quick, everyone get moving, let's pick sweet potatoes!"
"Let's pick sweet potatoes!!" The women immediately rushed into the valley.
Lu Xuan released the blood-sucking vines to block the entrance to the valley as a deterrent, and the hunting team, without needing to be on guard, helped pick up the sweet potatoes.
This picking took a full hour.
Hundreds of bamboo baskets filled with sweet potatoes were placed on a specially cleared open space. Next to them were several large plastic boxes provided by Lu Xuan after the bamboo baskets were used up, which were also filled with sweet potatoes.
After a while, the group roughly tallied the total output and found that it was much more than they had previously estimated!
The area where sweet potatoes are grown is nearly 15 mu (approximately 1 hectare), and the average yield is over 600 jin (approximately 300 kg)!
In other words, they obtained nearly 10,000 jin of wild sweet potatoes in just one hour!
"This is too much! Could there be a mistake in the calculation?" The villagers who followed were trembling with excitement.
Before setting off, Lu Xuan said that he didn't want any extra sweet potatoes, but could distribute them equally among every household in the village. That would mean that each of the more than forty households could receive more than two hundred jin (100 kg)!
"Where is the excess? Lu Xuan already said that the yield of sweet potatoes can reach a thousand catties! This is only six hundred catties per mu, which is already considered low!"
"Hey, I never dared to believe that there could be such a high-yield crop before, but now I'm completely convinced."
"If Lu Xuan had helped us accelerate the growth from the moment the seeds were planted, and if we had worked hard to water and fertilize them more, the yield could have increased by at least 50%!"
"I never expected to harvest so many sweet potatoes before the crops in the field were even harvested. It's like a dream."
"Sweet potatoes are truly a miracle food! With this, even in years of famine, there's no need to worry about starving to death!"
Not only were the villagers excited, but the atmosphere in the live broadcast room was also very lively.
Although I didn't get any sweet potatoes, I'm still so excited to see their bumper harvest!!!
Wood-based superpowers are truly amazing!
[On another note, wouldn't it be better if the streamer kept all these sweet potatoes for himself? Why share them with the village? It seems like a loss.]
[Isn't that a narrow perspective? The streamer has so many good items, and the villagers want to exchange for a lot of supplies, but in the end, won't all these supplies end up in the streamer's hands?]
[Besides, the original sweet potatoes probably don't taste very good. The streamer has already cultivated mutant sweet potatoes with a better taste, so why would he bother with these original varieties?]
Instead of greedily trying to monopolize everything, it would be better to increase the villagers' food rations; at least they won't complain about the taste.
After harvesting the sweet potatoes, it was completely dark. Lu Xuan took out the single safe house and several family tents to use as their accommodation for the night.
The single-person safe house was a bit small, so we left it for the women. We bought a few more large beds from the mall and put them in the living room so they could squeeze in. The men of the hunting team could make do in the tents.
Because the journey and digging sweet potatoes had taken a lot of energy, dinner was simple, mostly consisting of food prepared in advance the day before.
Besides, everyone was curious about the taste of sweet potatoes, so they took some and roasted them to eat.
result……
After being stimulated by Lu Xuan, the bitterness and astringency were gone, but similarly, there was not much sweetness. It tasted bland and tasteless, with a thick skin and obvious fibrous texture, and the taste was also dry.
In short, it didn't taste good.
[Pfft, who said the villagers wouldn't find sweet potatoes unpalatable? Look at their subtle expressions, they clearly do.]
It's obvious the villagers have been living too comfortably under Lu Xuan's influence; they've become spoiled.
[I'm a picky eater, and this sweet potato is really awful!]
[After trying other delicious foods, this tastes like cardboard. Ugh, I'm not eating it! I can endure anything else while watching the ancient livestream, but I absolutely cannot let my taste buds suffer!]
The villagers weren't as picky as the audience; even though the sweet potatoes weren't tasty, they ate them all.
However, the initial joy of the harvest eventually faded.
Thinking to myself, unless the family runs out of food completely, I should keep these sweet potatoes for emergencies.
Lu Xuan had anticipated their reaction and said proactively, "Don't worry about the taste. When we get back, we'll make these sweet potatoes into noodles. They'll taste much better and last longer."
Everyone regained their spirits.
Lu Qing asked, "Sweet potato noodles? What are those? How do you make them? What dishes can you make with them?"
The others also perked up their ears.
Lu Xuan gave them a brief explanation of how to make sweet potato vermicelli and how to eat it.
After Lu Xuan described several mouthwatering dishes, the villagers' enthusiasm, which had been dampened, was reignited. They couldn't wait to go back and make the vermicelli to try it out.
·
The next day, the sweet potato harvesting team set off before dawn to head back, excitedly thinking about getting the vermicelli ready as soon as they got back.
But when they arrived in the evening, they found the disaster victims and villagers standing on opposite sides of the field in a clear standoff.
The disaster victims either looked arrogant or had shifty eyes, while the villagers either carried entrenching tools or pointed their crossbows at the victims, and the atmosphere looked like it was about to explode.
The joyful smiles on everyone's faces vanished instantly.
What happened?
They've only been gone a day, why do the people on both sides look like they're about to fight?
Someone with sharp eyes noticed something and exclaimed, "Why is the water pipe in the field broken?!"
Upon closer inspection, the others indeed discovered that the bamboo water pipes, which had been in good condition before the trip, had been dismantled into pieces.
The waterfall, which was originally flowing swiftly, has stopped flowing. Judging from the marks on the water pipes, it doesn't look like they fell off naturally due to excessive water flow or quality issues. It's clearly been vandalized!
Looking at where the disaster victims were standing and the anger on the villagers' faces, what else could they not understand? Immediately, their expressions darkened, and their gazes towards the disaster victims were filled with hostility.
"Lu Xuan and the others are back!"
The villagers' tense expressions eased upon seeing Lu Xuan and his group, and before they could ask any questions, they angrily recounted what had happened.
Realizing there was something interesting to watch, viewers in the live stream quickly started inviting their friends, and the number of online viewers increased significantly again.
The disaster victims' expressions changed when they saw Lu Xuan and his group, but thinking about the benefits they would receive after achieving their goal, they did not back down.
Uncle Xu spoke up again, saying, "As long as you agree to our demands, we will let you use the water. Otherwise, even if you fix the water pipes, we will take them down again!"
Supported by Zhou, Fang Dahe said in a deep voice, "You went into the mountains right after the earthquake, so you may not know how many people outside died from sunburn and thirst. You used water that people couldn't even drink to water crops that might not even grow. Did you ever think about how many lives that water could have saved for the disaster victims outside?"
Fang Dahe's gaze couldn't help but sweep over the lush crops in the field, a hint of discontent flashing in his eyes.
They clearly wanted to live peacefully with the people of Yunlu Village and be self-sufficient through farming, but the people of Yunlu Village didn't care about their lives and treated them ruthlessly. So they shouldn't blame them for retaliating in kind.
Aunt Liu cursed loudly, "What do we care about the disaster victims outside! Even if there is no disaster, people die all over the world every moment. Does it mean it's our fault that we are still alive while they are dead? You have a broken leg and you still can't behave yourself. Do you think you are a good person?"
Aunt Liu waved her entrenching tool excitedly, her expression mocking, "Do you think we don't know how you broke your leg and how Fang Hu died?"
The disaster victims who were helping out would occasionally become curious about their lives while they were working, and in turn, the disaster victims would ask them about what happened on their way into the mountains, including the cause of Fang Hu's death.
Why did Fang Dahe, a middle-aged man, survive, while Fang Hu, a strong and healthy young man, died?
It was because when Fang Dahe encountered a ferocious beast attack, he pushed his son away to save his own life. Fang Hu was bitten by the beast and died on the spot.
Fang Dahe also broke his leg while fleeing.
The villagers sarcastically remarked, "You killed your own son and didn't even try to atone with your own life, but now you have the nerve to criticize us? Don't be disgusting!"
"They don't even care about their own son. No wonder they bullied Liu Yu back then. This family is rotten to the core."
"You—!" Fang Dahe and Zhou Shi's faces turned ashen, so angry they couldn't speak. In Fang Dahe's eyes, there was also a hint of embarrassment and guilt, as if his vital point had been hit.
"And you too!" Aunt Liu then glared fiercely at the disaster-stricken laborers who dared not meet her gaze, she was furious.
"You heartless bastards. You've taken advantage of us these past few days, accepting food and gifts, and I didn't expect you to be grateful at all. Yet you're helping these people retaliate against us. Have you lost your conscience?"
"Exactly! It's better to raise a dog than to help a bunch of ungrateful wretches."
The helpers blushed with shame after being criticized, and couldn't lift their heads at all.
Uncle Xu said irritably, "Stop talking nonsense, just tell me if you agree or not!"
"Agree my ass!" Xiong Mao, hot-tempered, said fiercely, "Who do you think you are to threaten us! Believe me or not, I'll kill you all!"
The other able-bodied men in the village also adopted a tough stance, their eyes filled with anger and disgust as they looked at the disaster victims.
After watching the show for a while, Lu Xuan asked the village chief, whose face was dark, "So, after all this talk, what outrageous demands did they make?"
The viewers in the live stream were also very curious about this.
The villagers have said they damaged the water pipes and occupied the waterfall to extort money, but they haven't said how much they extorted.
Li Tie gritted his teeth and said, "They have five hundred catties of grain, fifty catties of meat, and a spatial ring."
The audience was just about to say that the price wasn't too high when they heard Li Tie say angrily, "Everyone!"
Audience: Huh? ???
Lu Xuan: "..."
Lu Qing and Lei Yan's eyes were filled with disbelief.
Each person needs 500 catties of grain, 50 catties of meat, and a spatial ring?
How dare they!
Li Tie also wanted to ask where they got the audacity to make such outrageous demands.
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