Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn
Chapter 119 - 78: The Big Interlude Before Spring Plowing (Part 2)

Chapter 119: Chapter 78: The Big Interlude Before Spring Plowing (Part 2)

Xiao Xian pretended to yawn and said he was going to sleep first, but he was muttering in his heart, "They are lying."

The rice seeds she planted herself, she would surely know. When sowing, it just coincided with the Iron-grade space "eating" the iron sheet car. The rice seeds blessed with the Iron-grade space’s Spiritual Energy were top notch in pest resistance with hard husks, just like iron sheets.

As soon as Sister-in-law Gang Wangcai mentioned the rice seeds were eaten by rats, she began to doubt it. If the rats really ate those kinds of seeds, they’d probably be unable to digest them and would burst.

On the lively Lantern Festival, the deserted Zhu Family welcomed over twenty groups of visitors, with excuses ranging from rat theft to rain damage, the most absurd being that one morning they found the rice seeds in the jar had completely vanished. Even the usually naive village chief started to sense something was amiss.

"What’s going on? What exactly is happening? Twenty households, nearly eight hundred pounds of rice seeds, just gone." the village chief scratched his head frantically, Zhu Shijun remained silent. The village bought the seeds from Zhu Shijun at a discounted rate of US$ 100 per catty, practically giving them away.

But they still spent thousands on the seeds, not to mention the fertilizer subsidies from the village later. The seeds hadn’t even been sown yet, and Ge Village was going bankrupt.

"That won’t do. I need to ask about tonight’s matter," getting up, the village chief bid farewell. Without even taking an umbrella, he stepped into the night, a pitiful figure to behold.

In Ge Village, the more than twenty people previously asking for grain all sequentially entered the same household one after another.

Qian Yongfu took the last bag of rice seeds, counted out US$ 100, and sent the last group of villagers on their way.

Wang Chunhua, surrounded by heaps of rice seeds, said, "Husband, why collect so many rice seeds if you aren’t going to farm? What’s so good about farming? It’s tough, tiring, and leaves your hands covered in mud."

"What do you know? These are imported rice seeds; using them merely for planting is a waste. They sell for four US$ 100 a catty on the market once husked. Flip them, and we make double the money. Tomorrow, call Duoduo back. Just by selling these, we earn a fortune," Secretary Qian glared at his wife, Ge Village has too many simple-minded women like her, which is why it remains poor.

"Well done, village secretary. If you put half of that effort into village affairs, Uncle Jin wouldn’t have such a headache," Xiao Xian, using sleep as an excuse, went to the inner room and soon after followed Granny Zhao to Secretary Qian’s house. After all is said and done, it’s Secretary Qian playing tricks, truly a heartless scoundrel.

"Stack the rice seeds in the corner, wait for the son to come back, then sell it down the mountain for a good price," Secretary Qian and his wife fumbled around the room, and after the lights were out, Xiao Xian sneered.

The next morning, Secretary Qian was jolted awake, "Old man, something terrible has happened." It was the first time in many years Secretary Qian heard such a tone from his wife.

"What are you yelling about? It’s early morning, acting like you’ve got epilepsy," Secretary Qian turned over and felt the bed chillingly cold. That chill was serious; scrambling out of bed without even time to pull on trousers, he discovered his tile-roofed house was leaking, just having been recently completed at the end of the last year. He was determined to settle scores with Huang Mazi, the village builder.

What he woke to was even more disastrous. Secretary Qian’s very prestigious tile-roofed house in the whole village was soaked. It wasn’t due to poor construction letting in the water, but because there was a huge hole in their roof.

"Old man, what is that? So much rice," Wang Chunhua was so frightened she couldn’t even close her mouth.

"It’s rice? How could there be so much rice? And it grew overnight?" Qian Yongfu tumbled out of bed and ran to the corner where they had stored the rice seeds the previous night. The over eight hundred pounds of rice seeds had disappeared. The house was grown full of rice straw reaching shin height, and for some reason, there was a huge hole in the roof leaking rain incessantly.

"Oh my, could it be that the Bodhisattva got wind of our moving the village’s rice seeds and this is retribution?" Wang Chunhua chanted Amitabha, she had never seen rice grow overnight like this. If not for standing in ankle-deep water, she would have thought it was just a dream.

A layer of invisible green floated in the water beneath the feet of Qian Yongfu and his wife.

"What nonsense are you spouting? Did you ruin your brain eating dung last time? Why are you still standing there? Go find a sickle; before the village notices, chop all this down. This is truly baffling," Secretary Qian yelled angrily. Seeing all the furniture soaked, even the grain bin filled with water, he was frantic.

Fixing the huge hole in the roof would cost a lot, and so would repairing the water-damaged furniture; yet the worst was the inexplicable expense on buying the rice seeds, costing him nearly two thousand US$ 100.

Village chief Jin Dafu also got up early, intending to visit each household in the village to inquire about the rice seed situation. Just stepping outside, he noticed neatly packed bags of rice seeds under his house’s eaves, the topmost bag marked with a drawing of a rat.

"Could it be? The rice-stealing rat brought back the rice seeds," the village chief looked around; nobody was there. Looking back at those rice seeds, weren’t they the same ones he had distributed to the villagers earlier?

After a month and a half of rain finally stopping, the chief happily got possession of the rice seeds. Early in the morning, he took the village broadcast station’s loudspeakers, asking the villagers to come and collect them, emphasizing repeatedly: if the seeds went missing again, there would be no compensation.

On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, as spring warmth started touching the land and the sun peeked through the sky, Zhu Shijun, twirling his mustache, observed the soil becoming fertile in the fields, nodding continuously. Spring planting was about to begin. (To be continued. If you enjoy this piece, welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your monthly and recommendation tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)