There are almost no typhoons in the northern region; if one does occur, it is always a major disaster.
The rain outside was pattering down on the ground.
Jiang Hexi stood under the eaves, gazing at the torrential rain, her furrowed brows furrowed with worry that could trap a mosquito.
They have already lost sixty beehives; they cannot afford to lose another thousand acres of wheat fields.
"You still can't bear to part with the beehives left in the woods?"
Yan Jie handed her a cup of hot ginger tea, saying, "It was brewed by Zhou Gong. Drink it and don't catch a cold."
Jiang Hexi took the cup of ginger tea to warm her hands and said softly:
"Three hundred acres of rapeseed flowers only produce so little honey, and a heavy rain has caused us to lose a third of our honey. How can you expect me to accept this?"
"There was no loss."
Yan Jie watched as her eyes gradually brightened, and continued, "We harvested all the honey from those sixty beehives this morning."
"real?"
"real."
Jiang Hexi shook off her previous gloom and her face brightened again. "I knew God wouldn't be so blind as to let our efforts go to waste. This heavy rain will stop tomorrow, right?"
She gazed at the rain falling across the courtyard and muttered to herself, "It will definitely stop."
Yan Jie told a lie, which not only appeased her but also brought back the emotions that had been surging to the ground.
Seeing him enter with an empty cup, Shen Yingyu asked him:
"You lied to Ximei, saying that honey had been extracted from all the beehives, but then Director Chen announced that more than 50,000 yuan was missing from the accounts. How are you going to explain that to her?"
"Let's say that the money was used on the bluestone path along the Sanxi Lake."
Yan Jie looked at him and said, "Remember to tell her when the time comes."
"What about the wheat in the field?"
Shen Yingyu said pessimistically, "If this torrential rain continues, the worst outcome will be that everything will be soaked and destroyed."
The image of those anxious, tearful eyes in the woods reappeared before Yan Jie's eyes.
He could lose his beehives, he could lose his wheat fields, but Jiang Hexi could not; she had an extraordinary dedication and seriousness towards farming.
"Today in the woods, watching the water rise far faster than we could move the beehives, I felt despair."
Shen Yingyu felt this deeply; he too was overwhelmed by a sense of powerlessness, unable to do anything.
Yan Jie glanced at the still-falling rain outside and said with a serene gaze:
"Like now, in the face of this torrential rain, I can only leave it to fate."
But he didn't want to see those wet, tearful eyes again:
"But I'm not willing to accept my fate. I have to do something, just in case these thousand acres of wheat are saved."
The next morning, the village chief braved the rain to come to the wooden house and told them bad news:
"The free-range chicken farm you contracted has been flooded."
"How could that be? Isn't that a mountain?"
Chu Yang pressed the village chief, asking, "How did the mountain get flooded? How far was the floodwaters? How deep were they?"
"The floodwaters reached halfway up the mountain."
The village chief had never seen such heavy rain; it had been pouring down all night, and had even submerged half of the mountainside.
“The hilltop you contracted is low-lying, like a small mound in a depression. All the water from the surrounding high mountains flows into this place. How could it not be flooded?”
Jiang Hexi couldn't take the blow and collapsed onto the sofa. "It's over. How are my thousand free-range chickens going to survive?"
Chu Yang couldn't help but complain, "Village chief, look at the good mountain land you contracted to us, you've ruined all our chickens!"
The village chief shouldn't take the blame for this:
"It's not just your free-range chicken farm that got flooded; other chicken farms got flooded too. Besides, none of your chickens died; they were all hiding on the mountaintop to avoid the rain. Why are you two crying and wailing in front of me?"
Jiang Hexi came back to life. "Village chief, how can we get the chickens out?"
"Using a boat to transport them? Are you suggesting we drive a tricycle up there and haul away the chicken coops?"
The village chief said irritably, "There's an empty warehouse next to the cultural square that you can lend to temporarily raise chickens. After the water recedes, you'd better clean that place up properly, and there can't be a single odor."
Chu Yang nodded repeatedly and said, "I will definitely clean it up and make sure you are satisfied."
The rain outside was still pouring down.
Jiang Hexi put on her rain boots and raincoat. This time, without Yan Jie having to lift a finger, she secured the straw hat firmly to her head. She also remembered to bring a net with her when she went out.
Chu Yang asked, puzzled, "Sis, why did you bring a net?"
"I still have a psychological trauma from the last time free-range chickens flew overhead in a swarm, and I'm afraid of being bitten by them."
Jiang Hexi demonstrated with the net: "With the net, it's different. I can scoop them up and dump them without having to pounce on them. I can catch them all and put them in the chicken coop."
Chu Yang thought to himself that this method was good.
When he turned back to get the nets, he found that the only two remaining nets in the warehouse had been taken by Chai Fei and Yu Xiangwan.
In the end, he had to find a thick bamboo pole, wrap a snakeskin bag around it with wire, and make a makeshift net to catch chickens on the mountain.
The six people boarded a small boat and went to the free-range chicken farm, climbing up the hill covered in mud.
The free-range chickens huddled together, sheltering from the rain in the large shed on the mountaintop.
Jiang Hexi opened the chicken coop and tiptoed toward the flock of chickens. When she got closer, she stretched out the net, spotted a chicken, and covered it with the net.
It wasn't as easy as I'd imagined, just "scooping and dumping".
Inside the shed, the chickens were clucking and squawking. Several fierce free-range chickens flapped their wings and leaped up, suddenly flying towards her.
Jiang Hexi was so frightened that she dropped the net and retreated backwards, covering her head. Only when she realized that she hadn't been bitten by the free-range chickens did she timidly stand up from the rain.
He looked incredibly pathetic.
Chu Yang, Chai Fei, and Yu Xiangwan, who were standing in a row to the side, all dropped their nets when they saw her like this. They were at a loss for how to catch chickens.
With Jiang Hexi as a cautionary tale, catching chickens with a net is definitely not an option, and pouncing on them is absolutely out of the question.
Just when the four of them were at their wits' end, Yan Jie carried a square chicken coop to the front of the greenhouse.
He took a handful of corn kernels from the plastic bag and scattered them evenly on the ground of the chicken coop. Then, holding onto the long string at one end of the coop lid, he silently retreated to stand at the back.
As soon as he left, the free-range chickens in the shed swarmed into the coop.
He let go again, and the lid of the chicken coop fell down, easily getting his hands on a coop of chickens.
When Jiang Hexi saw this, she felt as if her intelligence had been trampled underfoot.
Yan Jie glanced at her and urged her, "What are you doing standing there?"
Jiang Hexi frankly said, "The blow was too great; I need to take a break."
Yan Jie: "You know, I'm a germaphobe."
Jiang Hexi looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Yan Jie said righteously and sternly, "It doesn't matter if you don't know how to catch chickens, I'll catch them for you. You just need to carry this cage of chickens to the mountainside."
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