"Uncle Meng?" Chen Shao's voice came from around the corner. "Uncle Meng, you're back?"
Meng Tianze roared, "You brat, why don't you pull me up right now!"
At this moment, Wang Bo and the others who were following behind Meng Tianze also caught up. Wang Bo took a few big steps forward and pulled Meng Tianze up.
"Misunderstanding, misunderstanding, Uncle Meng, don't be angry. While you were away these past few days, something big happened in the village..." Chen Shao quickly stepped forward with a chuckle and vividly recounted the events of the officials searching the village.
Meng Tianze was shocked and puzzled. "They actually came to our village to search it? Didn't we always deliver our tax grain to the county government ourselves?"
"How would we know why? Anyway, they did come, and quite a lot of them!" Chen Shao said excitedly now, but at the time he was also scared.
"Were all the things we kept in the ancestral hall taken away?" This was what Wang Bo was most concerned about.
Without those supplies, the villagers would be in dire straits. He joined the village's collective life not to suffer with them.
Chen Shao laughed heartily, "They didn't find anything! We're blessed by our ancestors!"
"What happened?" Meng Tianze was stunned and quickly asked.
The cellar in the ancestral hall was built by everyone, and it wasn't built in a very hidden way, so how could it not have been found?
"Uncle Meng, you don't know this, do you? Our ancestors really worked their magic this time. Those officials searched the ancestral hall for so long, but they couldn't find anything. When they left and we went into the cellar, everything was still there, perfectly intact!" Chen Shao smiled proudly.
Wang Bo's eyes widened in surprise. "There's such a thing?"
Is it possible that ghosts and gods truly exist in this world?
"How could it be fake?" Chen Shao glanced at him. For some reason, he just didn't like this older brother from the Wang family. He had never liked him since he was a child.
Meng Tianze believed it, and it was a good thing that nothing serious had happened. He was so relieved that he immediately pounded his leg and said, "I'll go talk to the village chief first."
"What's wrong, Uncle Meng? Can I listen?" Chen Shao immediately followed.
Now that he feels like an adult, he has to care about things in the village, and he certainly won't back down if he can help.
Meng Tianze said, "I can hear everything. Oh right, go and call A-Zheng's wife. In the end, we'll need her help with this."
"Alright! I'm off!" Chen Shao disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, the other villagers gradually learned that Meng Tianze and his group had returned. Grandpa Jiang and a few others who were more concerned about the crops in the fields rushed out of their homes, eager to find out how their search for the underground river was going.
Before long, the villagers gathered at Village Chief Li's house again.
Jiang Qinyu was in front, listening to Meng Tianze and Village Chief Li explain in detail their experiences underground over the past two days.
"...There's really nothing down there. We can easily deal with snakes, insects, and rodents. We'll keep walking in this direction of the village until we can't see any water anymore."
Jiang Qinyu asked, "Brother Meng, do you know how far the nearest point of the underground river is from the village?"
"That's exactly what I wanted to tell you!" Meng Tianze said excitedly. "You'll never guess where that river leads towards our village!"
Chen Shao blurted out, "It's not the dam area, is it?"
"You little brat! You..." Meng Tianze pointed at Chen Shao, his face a mixture of amusement and exasperation, "You guessed it damn accurately!"
"Huh? It really is a dam?" Chen Shao was dumbfounded; he had just said it casually.
There is a pond on the outskirts of Dingshui Village. It was dug by the villagers many years ago to store water. However, the soil on the nearby mountains is not good, and collapses or mudslides often occur. In recent years, Dingshui Village has abandoned the pond.
Moreover, with the drought in recent years, the weirs and dams have failed to retain water, so no one goes there anymore.
“But that doesn’t make sense, Xiao Meng. If the underground river leads to the dam, how could there be no water there?” Grandpa Jiang asked curiously.
Meng Tianze looked at him and said, "No, Grandpa Jiang, I was talking about the direction. The underground river hasn't flowed there yet, and when we discovered it, it had already stopped flowing in some places. There's still a distance to go."
"Oh, is that so?" Grandpa Jiang was a little confused.
Jiang Qinyu understood. "Brother Meng means that we need to find a way to connect the dam to the underground river and divert the water from the underground river, right?"
“Yes, yes, sister-in-law understands best, that’s exactly what I meant!” Meng Tianze quickly replied.
Jiang Qinyu said thoughtfully, "Since the underground river is not far from us, we must find a way to bring the water out... but we can't bring it towards the dam, it's too dangerous."
She still remembers how Jiang's eldest brother took a shortcut back to town via the dammed river, only to be killed by a mudslide.
She couldn't improve the soil quality there in the short term, but she could find another way to let everyone use the water from the underground river.
"Sister-in-law, do you have any ideas?" Meng Tianze looked at her hopefully.
Jiang Qinyu smiled slightly, "We're mainly diverting water from the underground river to irrigate our fields, so let's build an irrigation canal from that direction into our land!"
Once the water can be drawn out, whether it will be used for irrigation or as an emergency measure in the face of natural disasters is another matter.
"My dear niece's idea is excellent!" Village Chief Li exclaimed. "Building irrigation ditches is a win-win situation, and with our large numbers, we can build them quickly, just in time to irrigate the autumn crops!"
A simple irrigation canal is basically just digging a large ditch. All the finishing work can wait; ensuring the crops in the fields have enough water is the most important thing.
Wang Bo interjected, "I also think Sister-in-law Lu's method is good, but..." He looked at Jiang Qinyu with a troubled expression, "After we came out from underground, we estimated the distance from the mountain to the outside, which is about a hundred meters. If we rely on all of us to dig it out..."
He wasn't trying to discourage these people, but rather that clearing a section of mountainside over a hundred meters long was no small project and would definitely take a considerable amount of time.
Upon hearing this, Jiang Qinyu smiled but remained silent.
Meng Tianze chuckled from the side, "That's why I said this matter should be handled by your sister-in-law. Xiao Bo, you don't know this, do you? Your sister-in-law Lu can make something, that thing is really powerful, it can blast a crater if you throw it on the ground!"
He mentioned that Jiang Qinyu had used explosives during their last hunt.
Village Chief Li and the others also remembered what happened that time, and the heavy burden on their hearts was immediately lifted.
"Yes, yes, yes, what Ah Zheng's wife makes is much faster than us digging tunnels!"
"Sister-in-law, how did you make that thing back then? I remember it needed charcoal, saltpeter, and... what was it again?"
"..."
As the discussion grew more heated, Wang Bo looked at Jiang Qinyu with shock in his eyes.
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