By this time, the sweet potatoes in the fire were also roasted, and Lin Shuo, with his thick skin and tough flesh, was not afraid of getting burned.
"Anan, the sweet potatoes are ready."
Lin Yinan asked him to divide the sweet potatoes into small sections, giving each person a share, including Huang Guichang who was following behind.
"Tear the skin open and eat it."
Everyone carefully put it in their mouths to taste. The sweet potato had a delicate and soft texture, a light sweetness, and a lingering sweetness.
Everyone was pleasantly surprised; these potatoes were indeed edible, and quite delicious at that.
"Ouch! My hands are so itchy."
Lin Yinan looked over at the sound and saw that a small piece of the sweet potato that Yun Wu had dug up had broken off. He accidentally touched the sticky sap on his hands, and in the blink of an eye, his hands were red from gripping it.
"Quickly, bring your hands to the fire to warm them."
The villagers were stunned, horrified, and quickly looked at Lin Yinan, "Is this thing poisonous?"
Yun Wu hurriedly spread his hands out and brought them to the fire to warm them.
Lin Yinan shook her head. "It's not poisonous. It's just that the sap from the sweet potato can cause itching and pain on some people's skin, while others won't. Soaking your hands in hot water or warming them over a fire will solve the problem. So, everyone should be careful when handling it."
To verify her words, everyone stared at Yun Wu's hand, which was being roasted over the fire.
After a while, Yunwu found that his hands were no longer itchy, and everyone was relieved.
He picked up a hoe, rolled up his sleeves haphazardly, and was about to start digging.
Lin Yinan quickly stopped them, taught them to carefully identify the vines, and demonstrated how to dig without breaking them.
To avoid disputes, the village chief told the villagers in advance that each family could keep the sweet potatoes they dug up.
After the village chief finished speaking, the villagers went back to call their families to come and dig together.
Almost everyone in the team, except for the elderly, women, and children, participated.
Yun Mo brought all the guards of the Yun family, and even Yun Ye, who rarely showed his face, came. They chose a higher spot, a certain distance away from the people of Linjia Village.
"Second brother, do you think if all the people knew that sweet potatoes were edible, there wouldn't be so many people starving to death?"
Yun Mo sighed to Yun Ye.
Yunye, holding a sharpened wooden stick, dug the soil with all his might. "You're overthinking it. Sweet potatoes don't grow just anywhere. I've never seen one in all my years in Yanmen Pass."
Yun Mo held a sweet potato in his hand. "Perhaps, when we go to the South, we can plant more of these sweet potatoes."
Yunye thought her younger brother's idea was very good.
"I just don't know if sweet potatoes can grow in the south."
Lu Xueying, who was picking sweet potatoes and beans from the vines with a torch, rolled her eyes when she heard this. They were really two blockheads.
"Why don't you just ask Miss Lin?"
Yun Mo was taken aback. Yes, he should find time to ask her.
Then she thought about it again and realized that it didn't make sense. She was born in Pingcheng and had never been to the South. How would she know how long the South was?
Yunye glanced at his younger brother. "Why don't you find a chance to ask him?"
Yun Mo nodded, silently noting the matter down in his mind.
The Su family, led by Su Kunliang with his three sons and four servants, were digging, while Zhu Jinhui stayed at the camp to look after the children.
Su Kunliang, who had never done heavy work before, said to Su Yunzhi in a low voice, panting, "Yunzhi, if we report this matter to the Emperor, it will be a great achievement."
Su Yunzhi couldn't bear to dampen his spirits, but Su Yunyan was quick to speak his mind.
“Father, we are now refugees, we can’t even enter the city, and the emperor doesn’t care whether we live or die. You still want to be loyal to the emperor.”
Su Kunliang felt even more choked up by his words, "You, keep your voice down, it won't be good for your reputation if someone hears you."
Su Yunyan didn't take it to heart; the facts were right in front of him, only his father was unable to see the truth.
Everyone was enthusiastically digging for sweet potatoes on the hillside. Those who didn't have hoes or shovels used sharpened wooden sticks to dig.
Grandma Zhao thought Lin Yinan was not good at working, so she sent her back to the camp to look after the children. She then took Zhang and her daughter, Qianxia and Qianwu and dug up the sweet potatoes themselves.
They didn't even leave the sweet potatoes and beans on the vines unpicked, carefully instructing their family members to pick them and put them in bags.
Huang Guichang, who had never worked in the fields before, was now digging with great effort, along with his sons and servants.
Just now, his wife had secretly discussed it with him. Potatoes are everywhere in the mountains around here. When they get to Qingdao County, he can use them to test the waters and see if his brother-in-law can get him a government position.
As for who discovered the sweet potato, by then the people of Linjia Village had already moved south, so who would bother to investigate?
Huang Guichang thought it was feasible more and more, and his subordinates worked even harder.
Unbeknownst to the villagers of Linjia Village, the villagers of Chengjia Village, who were digging for medicinal herbs on the mountain, witnessed this scene. They secretly picked up the broken and discarded sweet potatoes from the ground and hurriedly ran back to tell Village Chief Cheng.
"Village chief, there's a group of refugees digging this all over the hillside on that flat land twenty miles away."
The villagers handed over the half-cut sweet potato they had picked up to the village chief.
What is this?
Village Chief Cheng held the small, root-like object and examined it from all angles.
"I don't know, but I vaguely heard them say that this tastes even better than wild vegetable porridge."
What does it look like?
"It was too dark and far away, so I didn't dare to get close and couldn't see clearly. I only know that these things grow in the mud and some are thicker than my thigh."
The more Village Chief Cheng listened, the more his brows furrowed, and finally, he stopped reading altogether.
“You guys take the torches, let’s go find Village Chief Lin and get some answers.”
The villagers hesitated, "Village chief, it's so late, why don't we wait until tomorrow?"
Village Chief Cheng was so anxious he was jumping up and down, "They're leaving tomorrow, where are we supposed to ask?"
The group, carrying torches, sped towards their camp in Linjia Village.
It was too late, and even with torches, we couldn't see clearly on the mountain.
Some villagers wanted to continue digging, but the village chief forcibly ordered them to stop and go home, telling those who hadn't finished to come back and dig earlier the next day.
The villagers reluctantly left, carrying the dug potatoes down the mountain.
As the group carried bundles of potatoes down the mountain, the villagers who had stayed behind at the camp rushed over anxiously.
"Village chief, something bad has happened! The village chief of Chengjia Village has come to our door with his men."
Village Chief Lin's heart tightened. Oh no, could it be that the mountain they were digging up belonged to Chengjia Village?
Did they say anything?
The villager said, "He said he wanted to ask you some things in person."
Village Chief Lin went to see Village Chief Cheng with trepidation.
When the two met, Village Chief Cheng didn't stand on ceremony and directly handed him a small piece of sweet potato, asking what it looked like and how to eat it.
Village Chief Lin pulled out two potatoes from a sweet potato he had dug up from his own yard, along with a few vines. He then told Village Chief Cheng how to dig them up and how to eat them, along with the sweet potatoes themselves.
In the firelight, Village Chief Cheng's eyes shone brightly, and finally, he tightly grasped Village Chief Lin's hand.
"Brother, thank you so much! You saved the lives of our whole village!"
As he was about to kneel down and kowtow to him, Village Chief Lin stopped him.
"No, no! We discovered this by accident, and it's thanks to our ancestors that we can help everyone."
"It's late, you should take your men home quickly."
Finally, Village Chief Cheng bowed deeply to the villagers of Linjia Village, and then led them back in a hurry.
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