The business of selling salt will last another two or three years at most.
Once the salt is confiscated by the court, ordinary people cannot buy and sell it privately, and then the villagers will still have to dig food from the fields!
What's more, crops are the lifeblood of the villagers, and they will not give up easily!
Lin Xiao's guess was correct. The villagers who were awakened by the thunder all wore raincoats and braved the storm to go to their fields to check the situation.
The originally dark field ridge suddenly became filled with many figures holding torches.
The oil-soaked torches flickered faintly in the stormy night.
But even so, it cannot hide the horror and despair in the eyes of the villagers!
Before their eyes, large tracts of nearly ripe rice lay lying in the muddy fields.
Some even leave the ground with their roots and leaves!
This made the villagers feel distressed.
Lin Xiao, who came wearing a raincoat and was also shocked by the scene in front of him.
She knew that storms could destroy crops, but she didn't expect that the storm would come so quickly. The weather was very good and there were no warning signs.
"Master, I'm afraid our rice fields will fail this year!"
Lan Lian's expression was ugly. She knew that Lin Xiao loved to eat rice. She planted this specially for Lin Xiao and spent a lot of effort, but...
The tragic scene in front of her made her eyes turn red involuntarily.
The storm continued, attacking the crops in the field bit by bit. Many of the seedlings were soaked and swaying in the wind, but they were unable to recover after all.
"Are our crops going to be finished?"
A village woman asked with a sad face.
Lin Xiao heard the tremor in her voice, and just when she was about to say something comforting, a thunder suddenly exploded above her head.
Then the storm became more and more violent, as if it was going to swallow up the whole world.
"Everyone, go back quickly. The weather here is too bad. We can't stay here for a long time!"
The moment thunder exploded overhead again, the whole earth seemed to tremble.
The villagers who came to the field to check the rice fields, except for the village woman who was still kneeling on the edge of the field and did not get up, all the others ran to their homes.
Lin Xiao recognized her, her name was Huaihua, and she had a good relationship with Aunt Wu. Since Aunt Wu died, she had been living alone.
The man in the family is known as a lazy man. As his name suggests, he is unmotivated. He spends three days fishing and two days drying nets, and stays at home all day long without doing his job.
Let him sell salt, he feels embarrassed.
When he was asked to work in the fields, he found it too tiring and dirty.
All the work is handled by Huaihua alone.
Now that the fields have suffered a disaster, the whole village has braved the heavy rain to check on the conditions in the fields. The lazy man is better off, sleeping soundly under his blanket. Even if the sky falls, it seems like it has nothing to do with him.
It's so hateful!
"Sister-in-law Huaihua, the rain is too heavy, let's go back first!"
Lin Xiao stepped forward and said loudly in the rain.
"What are you going back for? There's nothing left, there's nothing left..."
The tears of Sophora japonica fell like broken pearls:
"You don't understand, everything is over"
Sophora japonica was crying and her voice was hoarse.
Seeing that the days were getting more and more promising, a sudden storm completely destroyed this expectation and hope.
Lin Xiao felt a little sad when he saw this:
"You can save the green hills without fear of running out of firewood. Sister-in-law Huaihua, please go sit at my house first and change into clean clothes. When the rain stops, we will think of something else!"
"What can we do? The land has been destroyed, what else can we do?"
Huaihua smiled bitterly, shook her head and said:
"There's no need to think of any more ideas. No matter how hard we try, we can't save everything."
Seeing Huaihua being so pessimistic, Lin Xiao felt a tightness in her chest and didn't know how to dissuade her.
She knew that this incident had a great impact on Huaihua.
"Sister-in-law, just believe my head once. If he says there is a way, there will be a way. Don't forget, he is a scholar with ink in his belly!"
Lan Lian's words made Sophora flower relax a little. She raised her head, nodded with tears in her eyes, and followed Lin Xiao and the others back home.
Lan Lian took out a new set of clothes for Sophora japonica to put on, and then asked her to sit on the edge of the kang to rest.
Huaihua is a nameless orphan who wandered to Linjia Village when she was fifteen or sixteen years old and was taken in by Lazy's parents, who even gave her her name.
Later, she let nature take its course and got married to Lanzi.
After her parents-in-law passed away, Huaihua supported the family alone. She was busy all day long and had no spare time. Her life was so tight that she couldn't wear new clothes sewn from cotton cloth.
She couldn't put it down and touched her new clothes, looking at Lan Lian with envy:
"Little Aunt Lin, you've really made it through!"
Lan Lian smiled, then picked up the teacup and handed it to Huaihua, indicating that she would drink a cup of hot tea to warm her body first.
Outside the house there was a strong wind and a thunderstorm.
The room was peaceful, Lan Lian's smile looked particularly gentle, and even her voice had a warm flavor.
Sophora japonica drank warm tea, and the candlelight reflected on her slightly older face, making her look even more desolate:
"The rain came so suddenly. All the hard work of the year has been in vain. What can I do?"
Sophora japonica murmured to herself, her eyes empty and out of focus.
Lin Xiao also fell into deep thought after listening to her words.
I am afraid that it is not only Linjia Village that will lose its food harvest due to this rain, but also the surrounding villages will probably be seriously affected. After all, this rain is too weird and too sudden!
Sure enough, at noon the next day, Lin Xiao learned from Lan Lian that the rice fields in Zhoujia Village, Majia Village and other villages near Linjia Village had been damaged to varying degrees!
A rough estimate is that about five or six villages will lose their grain harvest this year!
This is just the beginning!
In the next few days, the storm sometimes stopped and sometimes rained, and the entire land was in an extremely unstable state.
The villagers no longer bothered to go to the fields to check the crops and hid in their homes one by one, fearing that their mud houses would also be affected.
Because of this storm, all the rice ears in the fields of Linjia Village and several surrounding villages withered.
At a glance, almost the entire army was wiped out!
Lin Xiao became increasingly anxious.
If the storm does not stop, not only the crops may be lost, but also the floods may be raging.
By then, the surrounding villages will become victims of floods!
Including the brothers’ workshop that Lin Xiao worked so hard to create!
The storm lasted for a full week, and the entire village was shrouded in a thick layer of dark clouds.
During this week, Lin Xiao did not dare to rest for a moment. At the call of the village chief, he led the villagers in the rain to strengthen and widen the river embankment to prevent the rising river water from washing away the river bank.
Due to the heavy rain, the villagers were running around barefoot, their feet were covered in mud, and many even sprained their feet.
But no one cared about this, they gritted their teeth and persisted one by one.
They cannot let their home be destroyed by the storm. This is the source of their struggle and their life, and no one can let it go!