The days slipped by quietly in the warm, humid shed and the tranquil riverside.
Inside the greenhouse, the green ocean that symbolized hope was gradually tinged with an intoxicating golden hue.
"Abundant Harvest" wheat lives up to its name! The stalks are thick and strong, and the heavy ears of wheat are full and drooping. Each ear is exceptionally large, and the grains are swollen and densely packed together, bending the tough stalks!
Looking out, the entire wheat field seemed to be covered in gold, shimmering alluringly in the light filtering through the roof! A gentle breeze blew, and the golden waves rolled, creating a soft, whispering symphony of harvest!
In the rice paddies, the rice ears also droop, the grains are full and the growth is gratifying. Although they are not as golden and eye-catching as wheat, they are green with a hint of yellow, and they are full of hope.
"Wheat! The wheat is ripe!"
"The rice will be ready soon!"
"Good heavens! These ears of wheat...are thicker than my arm!"
"May the fairy godmother bless us! A bountiful harvest! A truly bountiful harvest!"
When the wheat ears completely shed their green and turned into a deep, full golden yellow, the riverside camp was once again overwhelmed with immense joy!
Old Sun, along with several other elderly farmers, almost trembled as they stroked the heavy ears of wheat, tears streaming down their faces! They had farmed all their lives and had never seen such a bountiful harvest!
This isn't crops; it's clearly golden rice from a celestial field!
Even Chen Yan, gazing at the endless golden sea, was filled with awe and joy. This scene of abundance gave him a greater sense of security and hope than any divine miracle!
"Harvest!"
At Jiang Chan's command, a hint of barely perceptible excitement lingered in her voice. The crowd surged into the wheat field like a floodgate opening!
They held the dagger given to them by Jiang Chan and a specially sharpened stone knife.
Snap! Snap! The sound of sharp blades cutting through wheat stalks rang out in rapid succession.
The men wielded daggers or stone knives, working hard to harvest the crops.
The women and children followed behind, bundling the harvested wheat into bundles.
However, the joy was quickly overshadowed by the immense physical exertion and low efficiency.
The "abundant" type of wheat stalks are exceptionally tough! They are very difficult to cut with daggers and stone knives! It takes repeated cutting to break a single stalk! Moreover, the ears of wheat are too large and heavy, and the grains can easily be torn apart if you're not careful!
More importantly—
"Ouch! These wheat awns are prickly!"
"I can't take it anymore... my hands are raw and blistered..."
"Too slow... So much wheat... it'll take forever to harvest..."
Complaints and cries of pain began to mingle with the joy of a bountiful harvest.
The awns of the wheat were sharp, and even through coarse cloth gloves, they pricked and hurt. The large ears of wheat needed to be harvested with extra care to avoid losing any grains.
I thought I would soon be able to amass a mountain of gold, but looking at the endless golden ocean in front of me, and feeling the soreness in my arms and the stinging in my palms, a sense of powerlessness quietly spread.
Jiang Chan also went down to the field and tried it herself. Harvesting wheat with a dagger was incredibly inefficient! The stone knife was even more cumbersome.
She looked at the carefully bundled sheaves of wheat piled up along the edge of the field, then at the endless expanse of golden wheat still visible in the field, and her brows furrowed. This efficiency… is too slow!
The first day of intensive harvesting has ended. The small hills of wheat sheaves piled up along the edges of the fields appear insignificant against the backdrop of the vast wheat fields.
Many people were so tired they couldn't straighten their backs, and their hands were covered in blisters.
The atmosphere was somewhat somber at dinner. The joy of the harvest was somewhat overshadowed by physical exhaustion and the sheer scale of the project.
Seeing everyone's exhausted expressions, Jiang Chan felt even more irritated. The harvest was only the first step! The real trouble was yet to come!
Jiang Chan put down her bowl and looked at the old farmer, "After the wheat is harvested, how do we thresh it?"
Old Sun, rubbing his aching back, paused for a moment upon hearing this, then gave a wry smile: "Threshing? Fairy... this... this is a huge undertaking! Back in the village, we had stone mills, and we'd harness oxen or donkeys to pull them back and forth... or... use flails to beat the grain..."
He gestured, "It's like spreading the wheat on the threshing floor and using a flail made of wood and bamboo to thresh it, one strike at a time... to get the grains out..."
A stone mill? A flail? Jiang Chan's heart sank. A stone mill? Where could she find one in this desolate wilderness? And she'd never even heard of a flail before.
She does have a few fire axes and entrenching tools collected during the apocalypse in her space, but they have nothing to do with rice threshing.
"Then... how do you grind it into powder?" Jiang Chan asked, her voice a little hoarse.
"Grinding flour?" Old Sun was even more worried. "That would require a stone mill! A big stone mill! Two people would have to push it, or it would have to be pulled by animals... The millstone would have to be thick... Carving it would take a lot of effort..."
He shook his head. "This place... has nothing..." No threshing tools! No milling tools! This meant that even if they managed to harvest the wheat with tremendous effort, all they would get was a pile of wheat ears that couldn't be eaten directly!
They still have to use the most primitive, time-consuming, and laborious methods to thresh and grind the grains! The efficiency... is simply despair-inducing!
A tremendous sense of frustration and powerlessness instantly gripped Jiang Chan! Having grown accustomed to the efficiency and convenience brought by the system, the contrast of facing this primitive and inefficient production method again was like an abyss!
She abruptly stood up and, amidst the puzzled gazes of the crowd, walked to the riverbank. The cool night breeze couldn't dispel the gloom in her heart.
"No! Absolutely not!" she muttered to herself, her voice filled with suppressed anxiety. "To cut wheat with a stone knife? To thresh wheat with a flail? To grind flour with a hand mill? Are you kidding me!"
"How long will this take? We'll work ourselves to death and still not finish!"
"System...System! Can you see this? I need machines! Harvesting machines! Threshing machines! Milling machines!"
Her voice rose, filled with an almost obsessive longing: "Combiner! Threshing machine! Flour processing plant!"
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