Chapter 4 Her Taoist practice is gentle and refined, please save them.
In the flickering candlelight, Granny Wang carefully scooped a small handful of the precious clear water from Wen Yu's jar and poured it over the hideous wounds inflicted by the wolf's claws.
"Hiss..." A sharp pain shot through the wound, causing Wen Yu's body to tremble.
After coming into this world, she knew the value of water and was even prepared to be scolded by Aunt Wang for "wasting" it. Unexpectedly, Aunt Wang took the initiative to offer to clean her wounds with clean water.
"Bear with it, Wen girl." Aunt Wang sighed softly, "Wolf claws are dirty. If you don't clean the wound properly, it will fester and even a god couldn't save it."
She used the cleanest cloth, dampened with water, to carefully clean the dirt from the edges of Wen Yu's wound.
The water flowed over the wound, washing away the filth, but Wen Yu's heart clenched even tighter.
This handful of water is enough to keep a dying villager alive for another day.
They can't go to the back mountain anymore; they've provoked the wolves. If they encounter them again, the wolf pack certainly won't let them off easily.
She needs a new, stable water source.
Grandma Wang remained silent throughout the entire process, without asking where the jar of water came from.
She looked at this orphan girl whom she had practically watched grow up.
What was Wen Yatou like in my memory? Timid, timid, and afraid of people like a rabbit.
But now, she dares to venture alone into the man-eating back mountain to find water, snatch a life from the clutches of the King of Hell, and escape death from a pack of ferocious wolves.
Despite her disheveled appearance and numerous injuries, her eyes shone with a tenacity I had never seen before.
Things have changed.
Wen Yatou has a secret, as unbelievable as this jar of water that appeared out of nowhere.
But Aunt Wang didn't intend to meddle in other people's business.
In these years of uncertainty, the words "survive" carry immense weight, capable of suppressing all inappropriate curiosity.
Press for Wen Yatou's secret? Having lived this long, she has already come to understand a certain truth.
Those who survived this cannibalistic famine all possessed extraordinary abilities.
Wen Yatou has this level of skill now, and that's enough.
If she doesn't speak, why should I ask? It would only create distance and perhaps extinguish the only spark in this darkness.
Aunt Wang's gaze fell on Wen Yu's young face, and the almost extinguished flame in her heart suddenly flickered again.
If this girl can survive, she might actually be able to pull these old bones, half-buried in the ground, out of this dead land and find a way to live.
Even if that hope is as faint as a spider's thread.
After treating her wounds, Wen Yu took out a clean outer garment from the cabinet, changed into it, and went to the outer room with Aunt Wang.
The villagers hadn't left; the small thatched hut was packed with people, and the dim candlelight illuminated their haggard faces.
A-Yue sat on a pile of hay in the corner, his face still pale, looking like he was still shaken.
A kind-looking woman, seeing his pitiful state, took out half a grain pancake and stuffed it into his hand: "Eat some, look how thin you are."
"Thank you, Auntie..." A-Yue's voice was barely audible as she carefully picked up the pancake and took small bites.
Uncle Li also quietly walked over and placed a set of patched but still relatively clean coarse cloth clothes next to A Yue.
"Put these on." His gaze swept over A Yue's tattered clothes, which barely covered his body, as if he were reminiscing about someone through him. "These were left by my son. He went south with some people the year before last, and these clothes... he can't wear them anymore."
His words contained little sadness, only a numbness worn down by years of famine.
Apart from Wen Yu, an orphan girl from the village, the villagers haven't seen any young people for far too long.
The appearance of A-Yue stirred up the dull pain of separation from their loved ones that had been buried deep in their hearts for a long time.
Almost all the able-bodied young men in the village who had the strength to flee famine, like Uncle Li's son, have passed away in recent years. What remains are mostly elderly people like him who are unwilling to die in a foreign land.
By staying on this ancestral land and guarding this dilapidated home, at least in death one can die under familiar eaves, rather than being left to rot in the wilderness.
A stifling silence enveloped the room.
Wen Yu's gaze swept across the faces of these villagers, and she suddenly felt a heaviness in her heart, almost making it hard to breathe.
"I want to ask everyone..." She cleared her throat, her voice not loud, but it drew everyone's attention, "Where do you usually get your water?"
The question seemed like a rhetorical one, as "Wen Yu" was a native of this village and should logically know the answer. But the villagers had suffered for too long, and they didn't mind finding an opportunity to vent.
"Water?" Aunt Wang sighed softly. "It's all gone."
"Where is the water?" Uncle Zhang lamented, raising one hand and pointing straight to the sky. "Heaven is blind! This drought has lasted for three whole years!"
"Isn't there a river outside?" Wen Yu asked cautiously.
Uncle Zhang said indignantly, "Wen girl, you've never left the village, so you probably don't know. But if you went out and saw the world, you'd know that the river dried up eight hundred years ago!"
Wen Yu choked up.
The famine here was far more severe than she had imagined.
Looking at the flickering candlelight, Uncle Li sighed slowly, "If there's no water, then we'll just wait for the rain. When it rains, we'll put all the pots and pans out and collect as much as we can..."
He paused, his voice lowering even further.
"But when was the last rain? All the seedlings we planted back then have died by now..."
When the last brief rain came, everyone thought that God had finally ended His punishment on them, and they cheered and sowed a batch of seeds in the ground.
For the next few months, not a single drop of rain fell in the area, and all the crops in the fields withered and died.
It's not that they can't be saved, it's just that people aren't foolish enough to use the water that sustains their lives to irrigate seedlings that may not even survive.
Everyone knew that the old well at the entrance of the village was their last resort for surviving.
Four of the village's five wells have dried up. Their bottoms are interconnected, with the water source in the first well. However, after the famine struck, the only water source was almost completely blocked by silt, and only a small amount of muddy water could flow out each day, which was extremely filthy.
They had no other choice.
The chat remained silent for a long time before people slowly started to speak.
This famine is so devastating, it's making me want to cry.
My hometown is in Northwest China. We used to suffer from drought, and it's heartbreaking to see. So many people died trying to dig a well...
If there were more young people in the village, there might be hope. Relying on these older people to save themselves is simply too difficult.
I'm so sorry, I forgot to turn off the tap yesterday, I'm so guilty...
Wen Yu, please save them.
The candlelight flickered, casting varying shades of shadow on Granny Wang's tired face.
She suddenly raised her head, her eyes pleading, and looked straight at Wen Yu.
"Wen girl..." Her voice trembled slightly, "Do...do you have a way?"
That look in his eyes was like a drowning person grasping at the last straw, knowing it was fragile, yet unable to let go.
Since Wen Yu was able to bring out the clean water that had disappeared from the village and bring A Yue out of the mountains surrounded by wolves, she must have some "abilities" that they cannot understand.
Although reason tells her that this is wishful thinking, a pipe dream, and a hope that God will open his eyes.
But the flame in his heart, which even disaster couldn't extinguish, was rekindled faintly because of this girl's presence.
Wen Yu was deeply stung by that gaze.
She could feel the weight of all the gazes around her pressing down on her.
But what can be done?
What could she do? She could barely protect herself!
Her throat tightened for a moment, and she wanted to shake her head, to avoid that burning gaze.
But watching Ah Yue numbly munching on his pancake, seeing the despair on everyone's faces, and the faint, unextinguished flame in Aunt Wang's eyes...
The words of refusal stuck in my throat.
Even she herself couldn't help but mutter to herself, "Wen Yu, please save them."
She lowered her eyes: "Auntie... I'll try my best to think of a way."
The villagers didn't pressure her to give an explanation; they were just seeking some psychological comfort.
Everyone knows that Wen Yu is just an orphan, not a messenger sent by heaven, so how could she possibly save them?
They stayed at her house for a while longer, left a few words of advice for Wen Yu and A Yue, and then went home with their torches.
Darkness once again enveloped the small hut, leaving only a faint ember in the hearth.
A-Yue stood up somewhat awkwardly, his eyes filled with unease: "My benefactor, I can sleep on the ground too."
His eyes seemed to say, "Don't send me away."
Wen Yu took a deep breath, suppressing her emotions: "Wait a minute."
Following the original owner's memories, she moved a few bundles of hay from the woodshed and laid out a simple bed for A-Yue in the corner of the outer room: "You can make do with sleeping here for now."
After changing into clean clothes, A-Yue fell asleep almost immediately upon touching the straw mat, clearly exhausted.
Wen Yu walked back to the inner room alone and sat down by the earthen bed. The wound on her back ached faintly, but what weighed heavier was the despair pressing on her heart.
Through the slightly ajar door, she looked at A-Yue's thin figure huddled on the haystack outside and sighed in the darkness.
Without water, everything is in vain.
Everyone will die, in this endless famine.
She had to find a way.
With her thoughts sinking into her mind, Wen Yu, clinging to her last glimmer of hope, asked the system: "System! Can those wells in the village... still be saved?"
The system remained silent for a moment before coldly saying, "Host, are you asking me to issue a task?"
Wen Yu's temper flared up instantly.
She rattled off a string of questions: "You think I'm making demands of you? You've seen it yourself, the soil behind my house is as hard as rock. Even if I dig a hole and plant seeds, how will they survive without water?"
[Will we rely on God's mercy and send us rain someday? Will we rely on the pitiful seepage from the bottom of the well? Or will we rely on me dragging this body down to that dirty pool in the mountains, using that broken purification device to collect and carry back little by little?]
The pent-up emotions of the past few days finally erupted, which instead diluted the weakness in her heart that made her want to cry, leaving only the impulse of anger.
Plants need water to grow, lots of water. If I had to go back and forth into the mountains to fetch water, I'd be torn to shreds by the wolves before the seedlings even grew!
The village's water source must be restored. This isn't just a task; it's the only way to survive! Tell me, is there any hope for those wells?
The system seemed to be taken aback by Wen Yu's unusually intense emotions, and fell into an even longer silence.
Wen Yu's words were so logical and clear that even the system couldn't immediately refute them.
It seems... the conditions it set for her were a bit too harsh.
Wen Yu held her breath and waited for the system to give her a conclusion.
She finally understood that since this system was so ruthless, she had to humble herself and fight back.
Female celebrities who used to be aloof are now haggling like ordinary people just to make a living.
When she first transmigrated, she wanted to cry, but now she felt that crying was a waste of tears. She might as well try to get something more, so that she could live a couple more days.
Come to think of it, she'd read quite a few novels before, but she'd never seen such a stingy system. The rewards it gave each time were always so tiny. She'd have to wait forever to complete those tasks!
Other people's systems are all things like "spending money and getting a rebate system", "creating a god system", "abusing scum system". Just by looking at the names, you can tell that they are extremely enjoyable novels. The protagonist walks with a swagger from beginning to end and never suffers a single day of frustration.
And look at her live-streaming farming system? If you didn't know better, you'd think she was a cow or a horse.
Shouldn't she have led mechanized agriculture directly into the world and turned it upside down?
Finally, the system's voice sounded again, with a hint of concession: "[...Given the extremely low survival rate of the host's current environment and the existence of a collective survival crisis, system rules allow for a certain degree of pre-triggered task activation. However, the core logic cannot be violated.]"
[Prerequisite: The first plant planted by the host has successfully sprouted.]
Once the conditions are met, the system will issue a task related to "repairing and restoring the village's basic water source," and provide necessary technical guidance and initial resources.
Please wait patiently and ensure the target plant survives until it sprouts.
Wen Yu: "...Oh."
Let's not talk about mechanized agriculture for now, let's just wait for the seeds to sprout.
A note from the author:
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