On the fourth day, the Chen family notified the villagers and their employees that anyone going to join the army could come to the Chen family and receive some durable items for free.
These are things that can be stored for a long time, and every household prepares them, but the Chen family gives them away, and no one thinks they have too many.
The Chen family made it clear that those who received the gifts didn't expect any gratitude from the Chen family. They just wanted to lend a hand if they ran into their seventh son outside.
The two elders of the Chen family had been domineering their whole lives, but now, for the sake of their son, they had swallowed their pride.
The two elders of the Chen family prepared a huge amount of things for their seventh son, so much so that it could only be transported by donkey cart.
Old Man Chen said, "Why don't we take a donkey cart? We have too much stuff."
Chen Lao Er couldn't help but say, "Dad, the donkey cart will be confiscated, we can't take it."
Chen Laoqi also said, "Godfather, it's alright, you don't need to bring so much."
Every household in the village prepared a lot of food for their family members who were going to join the army. Some people were worried that the leader would confiscate the food, so they mentioned it to the village chief. Then the village chief organized everyone to contribute some food from each household, and together they made a cartload to send to the higher-ups. This way, the people in their village would suffer less discrimination.
On the fifth day, before dawn, everyone gathered at the village entrance. Those who were going to join the army each carried a large bag of things, mostly grain.
Everyone ate hot food at the village entrance while waiting, reminding those going to join the army to be careful and to come back alive.
There was a large cart full of food in front: fermented bean curd, fermented black beans, salted duck eggs, braised duck, dried bean curd sticks, and fern root rice noodles—all good stuff, collected by the villagers as a tribute to those above.
Chen Kai was being held by his father, and he felt extremely sad, but there was nothing he could do. He looked at Xiao Tian with a bit of anger.
It seems that Xiao Tian's creation of the treasure failed; he ran out of spiritual energy, and as a result, nothing happened.
If only we had saved our spiritual power back then, we could have at least given Seventh Brother a life-saving talisman. But now, we have nothing left, and Seventh Brother is about to go to the battlefield.
Xiao Tian was also helpless. His treasure had been successfully made, but he didn't know why it hadn't reacted yet.
He created the treasure based on the memories in Chen Kai's sea of consciousness. The things from his previous life were not suitable for this place and could not be used.
His memories from his past life were more applicable to this place, so he created a treasure based on their memories and a secret technique.
However, the treasure remained silent, but it was connected to him. He was quite certain that he had not failed, and according to the level of treasures from his previous life, it belonged to the category of spiritual artifacts.
He wasn't lacking in magical artifacts in his previous life, but he was still curious about what exactly they had created by combining their memories.
Over here, Zhou kept holding the seventh son's hand and crying, "Seventh son, our family has wronged you. You must come back alive, you must come back alive."
All around, there were the cries of children from various families.
Time flies, and two months later...
The Chen family's fern root powder factory has ceased production due to water supply issues.
So far this year, not a single drop of rain has fallen. The water level in the river has dropped, and even the well water in the village has decreased.
There are many crops and livestock farms in the village. Washing fern roots is very water-intensive. Livestock farming is more profitable than fern root powder factories because it doesn't require as much water or manpower.
It's already November, and the weather is starting to get colder. If we continue to operate the factory in winter, we'll have to boil water to clean the fern roots, which isn't cost-effective.
So after thinking it over, Old Man Chen decided to shut down the fern root powder factory.
Good news doesn't travel far, but bad news travels fast. Within a day, the whole county knew that Chen's fern root powder factory had stopped production.
"Hey, hey, have you heard? The fern root powder factory in Anping Village has gone out of business."
"What? Such a big factory, it just went bankrupt like that?"
"Of course it's not a holiday. I have relatives working there, but they've all gone home. There's no work for them."
"Such a big factory went bankrupt just like that. A lot of people lost their jobs. What a pity."
Regardless of what others said, Chen Jiacai continued to run his own tourism business and aquaculture.
Due to the drought, aquaculture in Anping Village has been severely impacted, with many shallow fishponds drying up and the industry line beginning to decline.
The good news is that the flow of people in Anping Village has not decreased, and business is still good every day.
A few days later, several small fern root powder factories in Anping Village stopped production, again due to water source issues.
The water level has dropped again. If the water mill needs to draw water, it will have to be re-drained. Moreover, cleaning it is very water-intensive. In addition, even the Chen family has stopped operating, so they followed suit and switched to aquaculture.
People from this village, as well as employees of the Chen family, can buy chicks and ducklings from the Zhou family at an internal price, which is much cheaper than outside, and many people are willing to buy them.
Nowadays, Anping Village has a good output of chicken and duck eggs. Not only do households eat eggs with every meal, but they also give them to their children when they want some.
The closure of the fern root powder factory in Anping Village was like a signal. Not long after, many factories in other villages began to close down. In less than a month, a large number of fern root powder factories, both big and small, had gone out of business.
The reasons for the bankruptcies were either due to production volume and quality issues or water source problems.
Following this, some factories owned by local merchants also went bankrupt one after another. Several wealthy households, seeing that things were not going well, simply stopped production, sold their factories, packed up their belongings, and went to places without drought to reinvest and start new factories.
In less than a year, the county's fern root powder industry began to decline.
The county magistrate was deeply troubled by this sight; with so many factories closed, how many people would lose their jobs?
The Chen family's discontinued water mills have been converted into greenhouses, with half used to hatch chickens, ducks, and geese, and the other half used to grow vegetables.
Watermills are all enclosed by wooden houses, with the trough inside and the waterwheel outside.
Production has ceased, and the watermills are no longer in operation, but the remaining wooden houses can still be utilized.
The profits from hatching chickens, ducks, and geese are quite good. The most difficult thing to control during hatching is the ambient temperature. However, even without thermometers, the Chen family has learned through experience and obtained a general temperature range.
Without thermometers or other such magical devices, people rely solely on their hands to sense the temperature.
The incubation environment must be kept at a constant temperature and cannot be allowed to cool down. Therefore, the incubator is staffed in three shifts. The staff are all skilled workers who can tell whether the temperature is within the normal range just by touching the kang (heated brick bed). They are technically proficient in controlling the temperature of the kang.
Because the incubation temperatures for chickens, ducks, and geese are different, the incubators raise them separately.
The incubation period for eggs is approximately 19 to 21 days, and the temperature only needs to be controlled between 36.5°C and 38.5°C.
The incubation period for duck eggs is about 28 days, and the incubation temperature should generally be controlled at around 37.5-38.5°C.
Goose eggs take 29-32 days to incubate, and the temperature should be maintained at around 37.5 degrees Celsius.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com