"It's time to clean this up properly. Our village searched the area before and found hundreds of snakes. Your village should also do a search in the area and clean it up regularly, otherwise it will become an infestation."
Upon hearing his brother-in-law's advice, Bai Liangkuan readily agreed and inquired in detail about the dosage of the antidote tablets and the usage of the powder.
While they were still talking, Liu Fengya also brought out his father's usual medicine bag from home. Liu Zhijian took out an appropriate amount of medicinal herbs from the bag, labeled them, and then, after thinking for a moment, prepared an extra batch.
They pulled on the rope and lowered the medicine down the wall.
“Brother, we won’t invite you in this time. We’ll visit you again after we’ve confirmed that the plague is over. There are two portions of medicine here. Keep one for your own use, but it would be best if you could clean up the village first.”
After receiving the pills, Bai Liangkuan didn't linger and hurriedly said goodbye and went back.
"Snakes are so rampant these days, biting people in broad daylight. Luckily, we cleared this area, otherwise I really wouldn't feel comfortable letting my little one out." The villagers who knew the purpose of the visit were also discussing this.
"It seems we still need to clean it regularly, otherwise it might come back from somewhere else. Snakes are really hard to guard against." Speaking of this mollusc, many people couldn't help but touch the goosebumps on their arms.
"Fortunately, our village has a good view, which is why we were able to recover so quickly."
“That’s right. The houses in my mother’s village are still not finished. They all live in shacks. I don’t know how they got through that winter. Last time I went back, I saw that my parents’ hands and feet were covered with chilblains. I cried because I felt so sorry for them.”
"That's right. My family is still living in a cave. They plan to come here after the spring planting season to transport some limestone back to build a house."
"Transporting it back from such a far place is a huge undertaking. I heard Si Cheng and the others say that you can cook glutinous rice and add it in, right?"
“Using glutinous rice is unthinkable. Back then, Gaojia Village was a major producer of glutinous rice, which is why they could afford such waste. We rarely grow it there, and now we can’t find any at all. If we want the house to be sturdy, we can only bring back limestone from here.” At this point, the old woman began to feel sorry for her brothers from her maternal family.
"This is all because of the world. I tell my husband and son to go up the mountain to collect limestone when they have nothing to do, so that my brothers can do less work." What this old lady didn't say was that she also goes up the mountain to carry limestone when she has nothing to do, because she really feels sorry for her husband and son.
"Then my family will go and bring some back whenever we have time, so they won't have to go up the mountain anymore." Everyone was very interested when they heard this idea. Because the limestone nearby belongs to their own village, other villages would have to transport it back from their village if they wanted to use it.
Days passed by, and without chemical fertilizer, the villagers had no choice but to use the old method of composting manure while adding their excrement to the fields. For a time, the entire village was enveloped in a strange stench.
Yun Qi Sicheng basically didn't let Yun Qi and his mother get involved in outside affairs. In his words, he could do the work of five people, so there was no need for the two women at home to go out and suffer. Hearing this, Yun's mother exclaimed, "This son-in-law is really well-chosen!"
However, Yunqi didn't dare to be idle at home. In the following days, she began to store water in her space. She filled buckets with water under the fruit trees in her space because the drought was coming in the next few years.
Besides storing water, she also started storing food, moving items suitable for long-term storage to the cellar or the house. She began having her mother prepare meals for her every day.
"Xiao Qi, we've been steaming buns and mantou for a week now, why are you still going to continue? Are you planning to eat buns and mantou every day from now on?"
I didn't know how to tell my mother that there would be several years of drought ahead, so I could only make up an excuse, saying that the weather was so hot and humid and there hadn't been any rain, so I was afraid that the coming days would be difficult and I was making some preparations in advance, just in case.
Hearing her say that, Yun's parents also remembered that since the earthquake, it seemed that God had forgotten to add wind, rain, thunder and lightning to the world. In addition to the thick gray fog, there was no sunlight in the sky.
Moreover, the weather is so hot and humid every day, with moisture constantly evaporating from the air, and there hasn't been a drop of rain. All of this seems so abnormal.
Thinking of all this, Yun's father couldn't sit still any longer. He hurriedly picked some sweet buns from the steamer, left a message saying, "Don't worry about me, you guys eat first," and quickly walked out.
Yunqi and Sicheng exchanged a glance, their eyes sparkling with laughter. It hadn't been for nothing that they had spent all this time tinkering around at home; their father had finally come to his senses.
After a period of breeding, the family has added two goats, a male and a female, born to the previous ewe, and they have grown quite large. After the ewe bred with another ram in the village, both ewes are pregnant. Now the family takes meticulous care of them every day, and no matter how many lambs are born this time, they will send one back to the family that provided the ram for breeding.
As for the chickens and ducks, that small shed was no longer big enough. Si Cheng expanded the backyard several times over to raise chickens and ducks. Now, apart from keeping some for their own consumption, most of the eggs collected each day are pickled by Yun Qi and Yun's mother and stored in their space.
Every household in the village is very enthusiastic about raising livestock, since meat is scarce these days and everyone is raising a lot. Because they're worried about the animals getting sick, everyone pays close attention to hygiene and regularly brings in lime to disinfect the ground.
As for raising pigs, Yun Qi directly refused, because she already had enough meat in her space. She had contracted two farms back then, and even if her family ate all the meat in the space, it would take them more than ten years.
Yun's father didn't return until after they had finished eating. When he came back, he sat there sighing.
"What's wrong? Have you eaten?" Yun's mother poured him a glass of water.
“I’ve eaten. I thought that when I mentioned it, everyone would take it seriously. I didn’t expect that they would laugh at me. They even said that if it were before, they would have been worried, but now that there is such a big lake at the entrance of the village, the drought will not reach us. In the end, even I was convinced by them.”
"What did Second Grandfather and the others say?" Yunqi hadn't expected things to turn out this way. She didn't know how to explain it to her father. The drought was going to last for several years, and even a lake this big would dry up.
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