The village chief said bluntly, "Chen Dong, give us a few sips of water."
Everyone in the team was thirsty; their throats were practically parched.
Old Man Chen pointed to the rows of bamboo tubes and said, "Drink it yourself."
The three village chiefs and three young men didn't stand on ceremony; they picked up the bamboo tubes and started drinking. There wasn't much water, so they had to put a piece of ice in their mouths.
The six men held onto the bamboo tubes, reluctant to put them down. They hadn't drunk water in a long, long time, and their bodies were instinctively urging them to keep drinking.
Seeing that they were clinging to the bamboo tubes and wouldn't let go, Old Man Chen frowned and said, "If you want water, pour it into your own bamboo tubes. We still need these bamboo tubes."
The six men were embarrassed. They hadn't had water in a long time, so they didn't need bamboo tubes. They had made a few and kept them at home, but the others had borrowed them all. In fact, their bamboo tubes were still in this room.
The Zhou family was troubled as they held the thin red plastic bag. They couldn't put anything too heavy in it, or it would break through the bottom.
Zhou took a red plastic bag and shook it twice, causing it to bulge as air entered.
She put several large blocks of ice inside, and when she realized she couldn't add any more weight, she carried it to the corner, placed it on the ground, tied both sides of the bag to the straw shed to prevent it from falling to the ground, then took a packing box, filled it with ice, and poured it into the bag. In this way, the red plastic bag was used to its fullest potential.
The team started smashing things too, and the three village chiefs watched with a pained expression, wondering how they were going to fix it.
Uncle Zhou and his group, who had gone out to find food, returned.
The second brother laughed and said, "Uncle, second uncle, third uncle, come on, have some water. My mother said that everyone can drink as much as they want today."
When everyone heard that they could drink as much water as they wanted, they drank as much as they could, because they were dying of thirst!
The fifth brother took several big gulps of water and said, "It's so refreshing and cool!"
The second son's wife brought out another bucket of ice and filled it with the concave stones that the fifth son and his family had just brought back.
The seventh brother simply grabbed a bottle of mineral water and gulped it down in a few gulps.
The seventh brother handed the empty bottle to Sanya and said, "We still need to find some more to fill it up; it's not enough."
Zhou was in a good mood today, and in order not to waste water, she let all the children who came to help drink several large gulps of water.
Old Chen also brought out two 5L buckets of water and lent them to the team. One bucket was given to the seriously injured, and the other was used to try and see if it could revive the unconscious person.
After you finish drinking the water, return the bottles to their house as soon as possible; they'll need them. You should return both buckets of water after they've broken up the ice and packed it away.
Chen Kai went inside to get his small bamboo tube to drink water. As soon as he entered the thatched hut, he saw Er Ya exclaim in panic, "Oh no! The plastic bag is leaking! There's so much water on the outside of the bag!"
Zhou ran over to take a look, touched her hand, and found her hand was wet. "How could this be? I've never seen it leak before."
Chen Kai laughed and said, "Mom, the bag isn't leaking. It's just that there's ice inside the plastic bag, which is cold, and the outside temperature is high, so water condenses on the surface of the plastic bag. This is a natural phenomenon, not water leaking out. Don't worry."
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they realized that the water wasn't leaking from inside the plastic bag.
Team members have also found concave rocks that can hold water and brought them back, but other containers are temporarily unavailable.
The village chief of Lotus Village sent someone to check with the teams outside to see if they could get wooden buckets in return. If not, other water containers would also do.
The ice that the team smashed down melted into water and was first given to the seriously injured members of the team to drink.
Although the Chen family also contributed a small bucket, it was still not enough, and many people did not receive any.
After the seriously injured had drunk their fill of water, they shared it with the guards. There weren't enough containers to hold it all, so they ate it themselves, since everyone was dying of thirst anyway.
After the doctors in the team had enough water, they did their best to treat the unconscious people.
In the past few days, all the people who got separated from the team have been found, and all the people from Lijia Village have also been found. Now, there are more than a hundred people in Lijia Village, and like them, there are old people, young people, sick people, and injured people, and they all look like they are about to die.
Seeing that Lijia Village was in such a state, the village chief sent two people out to accompany them to guard the water. Today, when he heard that they needed to find containers to hold the water, he sent people to help them find them.
Their team didn't share any supplies with the people of Lijia Village because they didn't even have enough for themselves.
This time, the three village chiefs finally relented.
The village chief of Dashan Village said, "Call the people from Lijia Village to carry all the unconscious people to the team for treatment, as well as the Zhao family."
The children in the team were all gathered together and given water to drink. Each 500ml bottle was shared between two children.
There weren't enough bottles, so the team only brought out one mineral water bottle, which everyone lined up to drink from in turn.
After finishing one bottle of water, I poured water from the 5L mineral water bottle into the bottle and shared it with them.
The kids drank half a bottle of water with gusto. If they were given more water, they could drink even more. Giving these "little water buckets" emptied a few more mineral water buckets, and the team had more containers to store the water.
The team went to exchange containers with outsiders and came back with 4 wooden barrels and 60 bamboo tubes, but they didn't have any earthenware jars, and everyone was short of them.
The four wooden barrels were pieced together from various households; there weren't many of these.
They could exchange half a bamboo tube of water for a wooden bucket, and 30 bamboo tubes for half a bamboo tube of water. News of their team exchanging water for containers quickly spread.
A large number of people quickly gathered outside their resting place. Their resting place had already been discovered by the refugees, but because there were so many of them and they were guarded and patrolled day and night, no one dared to break in.
Many refugees knew that their group had obtained a water source and assumed that their water came from there.
Seeing so many people gathered outside, the village chief simply ordered someone to set up a stall, buying everything from pottery jars, buckets, bamboo tubes, hemp cloth, shoes, farm tools...
The fifth brother and his group found some concave stones and even traded them for a bucket. Seeing that the team members were trading with people outside the rest area, they decided not to go out and look for stones themselves, but simply set up a stall to buy them as well.
They hadn't been setting up their stall for long when they brought up a huge pile of bamboo tubes. They didn't mind; as long as they could hold water, it was fine.
People who come to exchange their water are afraid they won't be able to protect it, so they all bring their families. Once they get the water, they each drink it all in one gulp.
Even with the containers brought back from outside, those two blocks of ice still weren't enough to hold everything, not to mention the huge amount the team had, the Chen family still had so much.
Seeing that things were getting out of hand, Old Man Chen and the village chief exchanged a glance, then each brought out their ancestors and called everyone else out, leaving only Zhou Shi, Lao Wu, Bai Yu, Bai Chuan, and the village chief's wife.
Seeing that everyone had left, the village chief asked Shirakawa to clear some space out of the egg before putting the ice back in.
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