Free Web NovelChapter 9: Chapter 9: Drought
For his eldest son, he had to set aside at least six hundred taels of silver per year.
His own monthly dose of Secret Medicine was another two hundred and forty taels per year.
Add to that the daily expenses for his family, wages for farmhands, and social obligations... the pressure was mounting.
It wasn’t that Chen Li hadn’t considered the get-rich-quick schemes from the transmigration novels he’d read.
Refining salt, forging glass, blending perfumes, making soap... but he snuffed out these thoughts as soon as they arose.
In a world of the Martial Dao, a common man is guiltless, but possessing a treasure makes him a criminal.
Without sufficient strength to protect them, these sources of immense profit would only become his death warrant.
The moment he was targeted by some Martial Dao expert or major power, his entire family would face annihilation.
In this world where the strong preyed on the weak, the Government Office couldn’t be counted on.
Instead of pursuing those ventures, it was more realistic to scheme about reclaiming the two hundred acres of fertile land his family had sold to Chen Yongquan.
After all, there were several small landlords like him in Lingxi Village, and even more in Jingshan County.
As long as he kept a low profile, his current strength was enough to keep him out of danger.
For the next few months, Chen Li continued to take one dose of Secret Medicine each month.
He gave the medicinal broth brewed on the fourth day to his mother and his wife, Song Ying.
His mother was old and frail, while his wife was still weak from childbirth. For the past two years, both had been listless and prone to catching colds.
The effects after they drank the broth were quite remarkable.
His mother’s sallow complexion gained a healthy, rosy tint, and her coughing subsided. His wife, Song Ying, felt that her hands and feet were no longer so cold, and her energy had returned.
This brought Chen Li a small measure of comfort.
...
During the autumn harvest, watching the golden waves of rice, the villagers’ faces broke into long-absent smiles.
The hardships of the lean months were washed away by the joy of a bountiful harvest.
「The Twelfth Month」
Chen Li was planning to take his family’s surplus of over two thousand stone of old grain to the county seat to sell for silver to cover the coming year’s expenses.
Mrs. Chen suddenly stopped him. She gazed out the window at the gloomy, snowless sky and said worriedly, "It’s already the twelfth month, and there hasn’t been a single snowflake. The way the heavens are acting... I fear something is wrong. Next year... there might be a great disaster."
A chill ran down Chen Li’s spine, and he instantly abandoned the idea of selling the grain.
He had been in this world for nearly sixteen years, and from what he could remember, aside from a flood in his eighth year, the Lingxi region had always enjoyed favorable weather.
During that flood, the losses had been manageable thanks to a timely emergency harvest.
But a drought... was a different beast entirely.
That was death by a thousand cuts. Months would pass without a single drop of rain, and all you could do was watch helplessly as the seedlings withered and died, leaving you with nothing to harvest.
...
「The Fourth Month of the Following Year」
Above Jingshan County, the blazing sun hung high in the sky, relentlessly baking the earth. The air was thick with the smell of dry dust.
Not a single drop of the spring rains had fallen this year.
Chen Li stood on a ridge between his fields. Beneath his feet lay the bare, grayish-yellow earth, exposed after the recent rapeseed harvest.
A gust of hot wind swept by, kicking up dry soil that pelted his face with an irritating, scorching heat.
He crouched and scooped up a handful of dirt.
It was hard and coarse to the touch, having completely lost its usual soft, moist texture.
With the slightest pressure, the clod crumbled between his fingers, turning into a dry powder that sifted through the cracks and was scattered by the wind.
’The drought... It’s worse than I imagined.’
Chen Li’s expression was grim, his heart heavy.
At the same time, he couldn’t help but reflect, ’An elder in the family is a treasure to be cherished! My mother’s premonition was clearly not baseless.’
By now, the price of grain in the county seat had already begun to quietly creep upward.
This subtle change was like a pebble dropped into a still pond.
The scorching sun beat down, baking every inch of Lingxi Village.
The villagers stared up at the vast, cloudless sky, the initial hope in their eyes slowly giving way to anxiety.
"Oh, merciful Heavens, please, just let it rain..."
Under the old locust tree at the village entrance, several elders leaned on their canes, muttering prayers to the sky, their voices hoarse and desperate.
"That’s right, if this goes on, how will the crops survive? This year... how are we going to make it through..."
People gathered in worried clumps, their faces etched with concern, their low discussions filled with unease.
Despite their growing panic, most still clung to a sliver of wishful thinking.
They hoped that the rains would arrive on schedule with the coming rainy season.
But their prayers went unanswered.
When the fifth month arrived, the drought, far from abating, only intensified.
As time passed, the shadow of the drought loomed ever larger.
The blazing sun in the sky seemed to have become a burning fireball, mercilessly evaporating the last vestiges of moisture from the earth, day after day.
In the fields, deep fissures split the earth, like the gaping maw of a thirsty beast.
Chen Li returned to the edge of his fields.
The land before him, once lush and vibrant, was now a scene of utter devastation.
The field ridges, so verdant last year, were now nothing but withered grass roots and cracked, hard-packed earth.
’If this keeps up, we won’t be able to plant anything this year,’ Chen Li thought, his feelings mixed.
After all, losing a year’s worth of grain meant losing several hundred taels of silver in income.
The Court might waive this year’s Land Tax, but the various other levies would remain.
The villagers of Lingxi gradually lost their initial optimism, finally abandoning the last shred of hope.
Panic spread like a plague.
Every evening, as the sweltering heat subsided, the villagers would gather in small groups.
Discussions, sighs, and curses mingled in the air, creating a palpable atmosphere of despair.
"It’s just unnatural! I’ve never seen weather this cursed! The Dragon Boat Festival was days ago, and there’s not so much as a wisp of a cloud in the sky. The sun’s vicious enough to cook the fat right out of you!"
"The Lingxi still has water. Should we try to divert it for irrigation?"
"The Lingxi is already about to run dry! The flow from its source gets weaker by the day. Who knows when it’ll dry up completely? When that happens, forget irrigation—we’ll be at each other’s throats for drinking water!"
"Then... what do we do? Just watch the land go barren? If we don’t plant, our whole families will starve this winter!"
"Plant? Plant with what? Under this vicious sun, even if you sowed seeds, they’d be baked to ash before they could sprout! It’d be a complete waste!"
"Have you heard? The price of grain in the county... it’s gone up again! One stone of millet is now one and eight-tenths of a tael of silver. And even at that price, the lines at the grain shops are enormous. You might not get any even if you have the money."
"One and eight-tenths of a tael?!"
The crowd erupted in a clamor of shocked gasps and furious curses.
That price was a full seventy to eighty percent higher than in previous years.
The anxiety in the village continued to fester.
Every gathering at the village entrance was thick with panic and despair.
After several secret discussions with the Wang Family Patriarch, the Chen family patriarch, Chen Xingjia, finally made a decision.
The two major families took the lead, organizing a procession of clan elders and able-bodied men. Carrying carefully prepared incense, candles, and the three sacrificial offerings, they marched in a great column to the bustling Water God Temple near the county seat to pray for the Dragon King to show mercy and grant them rain.
But this drought, it was said, had affected several prefectures. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
They weren’t the only ones praying for rain, and this wouldn’t be the only time.
When their procession reached the Water God Temple, the grounds both inside and out were already overflowing with people.
A dense sea of people knelt on the ground, their wails and prayers merging into an ocean of despair.
But no matter how fervently they prayed, the sky remained a brilliant, washed-out blue, and the blazing sun hung high overhead, refusing to yield.
