Chapter 308: Welcoming the Next Eternal Night
Since no one helped to pick up the metal, Xia Xiaoman had to go by herself.
The sun was setting and the light was getting dim. It was a bit tiring to look for metal in such dim light.
Arriving at the ruins, Xia Xiaoman searched for a while and found a few thumb-sized pieces of iron. No wonder Li Yu'e returned the tricycle to her. Metal is so hard to find now, and it is not cost-effective to rent a tricycle with fifty kilograms of metal.
After searching for more than an hour, Xia Xiaoman finally found more than five kilograms of metal, which were all small screws, nails, or iron sheets and blocks. The large pieces of metal had long been picked up by others.
Xia Xiaoman felt a little regretful at this moment. If she had known earlier, she would have brought Maodan here. Maybe Maodan's nose could smell the metal.
"Be careful! There's a rock behind you!" A voice sounded, and Xia Xiaoman subconsciously moved aside. At the same time, a fist-sized piece of gravel flew past her. If she hadn't dodged in advance, such a big rock would have probably hit her head.
Xia Xiaoman looked angrily at the person who threw the stone. The other person was wearing pants with holes in them. The holes were covered with a piece of cloth, probably to block out ultraviolet radiation.
"Did you throw that stone just now?"
The other party said disdainfully: "I lost it. This piece of land is my territory. If you know what's best for you, put down the things on you. Otherwise, don't blame me for being rude to you!"
"You have such a bad breath, I'm afraid you haven't brushed your teeth in years! I can smell it from far away. You want to be my grandfather, but don't you think you are qualified?" After saying that, Xia Xiaoman pulled out a dagger and threw it out.
The other party looked at the flying dagger and stepped back subconsciously, but forgot that there was a ruin under his feet, and stepped on the loose stone and fell directly to the ground. However, it was this fall that allowed him to avoid the fatal blow.
After coming to his senses, the man shouted for help. Soon, more than a dozen people appeared from all directions.
Xia Xiaoman looked around and saw ruins everywhere, which was not suitable for close combat, so he took out a crossbow from his backpack, aimed at one of them, and pulled the trigger without saying a word.
When his companion was shot by an arrow, the other party became even more angry and shouted, "Brothers, come on, she only has a broken crossbow, she can't kill all of us!"
Before he finished speaking, more than a dozen people ran towards Xia Xiaoman, raised machetes and iron bars and wanted to hit her.
Xia Xiaoman did have only a broken crossbow, but she had many pistols. When these people rushed forward, she quickly put away the crossbow and switched to a pistol to shoot at the crowd.
The pistol that was taken out temporarily did not have a silencer installed. The loud gunshot scared the besiegers. Before they could come to their senses, they heard the second gunshot.
Seeing their companions fall down after being shot, everyone panicked. They dared to fight with bows and crossbows, but even if they had ten lives, it would not be enough to fight with firearms. After a while, all the besiegers ran away.
Xia Xiaoman did not kill all these people, not out of kindness, but because she was worried that if too many people died, the plague would recur. She would come here to dig for metal in the future, and she did not want to be infected with the plague.
After the group of people ran away, Xia Xiaoman put away the pistol and turned to look at Fu Baiwei not far away, "Thank you for your reminder just now."
If Fu Baiwei hadn't reminded her, she might have been in bloody disaster today.
Fu Baiwei didn't say anything. Seeing that she was not in any danger, she turned around and left to dig metal somewhere else.
Xia Xiaoman looked at Fu Baiwei's back and sighed in her heart. It is said that the human heart is the most complicated thing. As expected, she really couldn't see through Fu Baiwei now.
After picking up 50 kilograms of metal, Xia Xiaoman took it directly to the trading point to exchange it for points.
When exchanging points, she heard a piece of good news, that is, starting from next week, the upper level will no longer force everyone to hand in 50 kilograms of metal. However, they need to dig 50 kilograms of clay.
Xia Xiaoman was a little confused. What was the purpose of collecting so much clay? Was it to make pottery jars? Or was it to build some large building?
After a few days, she found out that the clay was collected to make tiles.
Now many people's roofs are covered with a thin layer of plastic, and some have no plastic at all. If the cold winter comes, such houses will not be able to keep out the cold. So the government has set up four special areas to burn tiles.
In addition, the authorities have posted methods for making kangs and fireplaces at trading points, offices, medical stations and other locations, allowing people to build their own kangs to keep warm.
Some people saw a business opportunity and found a few skilled masons to form a team of masons to build kang fireplaces for those who could not build a kang even after looking at the blueprints.
Xia Xiaoman was one of those people who couldn't understand the blueprints, so she used some food to hire a masonry team to build a kang and a fireplace. She didn't need to prepare the materials, as the masonry team would bring their own.
The kang and fireplace were built, and the only thing left was the roof. The demand for tiles was huge, and the tiles Xia Xiaoman ordered would take a month to arrive.
She looked at the sun in the sky and estimated that it would take about half a month for it to completely disappear. Normally, winter would only appear in the third month of the eternal night, but she was afraid of the unexpected, so she raised the price and asked them to deliver the tiles within half a month.
At the same time, Li Yu'e had led people to and from Yancheng many times, and brought back enough coal for them to cope with the cold winter.
"Xiaoman, look what good things I brought back!" Li Yu'e rushed to Xia Xiaoman's house as soon as she came back. She took out a cloth bag from her pocket and opened it carefully.
Xia Xiaoman looked at the oval brown particles inside and asked in confusion: "What is this? A seed?"
"You guessed it right!" Li Yu'e said with a smile: "This is the seed, the cotton seed."
"This was given to me by Sun Qing. It seems that she bought it from a caravan coming down from the north. I heard that this cotton seed is drought-resistant and cold-resistant. Like pine green, it is suitable for planting in both winter and summer. It just grows slower in winter."
"Now that agriculture is developing everywhere, food is not in short supply. What is in short supply is daily necessities. You know the role of cotton even if I don't need to tell you. If these cottons are grown, they can be exchanged for at least tens of thousands of points."
Xia Xiaoman said, "Then plant some. We have enough food to eat now."
Li Yu'e hesitated and said with a wry smile, "I want to plant some crops, but I'm still short of land. Xiaoman, can you rent your land to me?"
"Isn't all this land enough for Lingxu Gang?" Xia Xiaoman wondered.
It was not enough. In order to save more points, Li Yu'e bought two large bags of cotton seeds. Lingxu helped to plant all the land, but at most he could only plant one bag of seeds.
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