Before dawn, someone had already gone to Chengjia Village and returned with two buckets of water.

“The people of Chengjia Village are really heartless! They demand a pound of millet or cornmeal in exchange for just one bucket of water. Are they trying to force us to death?”

“At least they’re better than the people of Guihua Village. Over there, they demand three pounds of millet for a bucket of water.”

“You can go a day without eating and still move, but in this scorching heat, going a day without drinking water—now that’s truly deadly…”

“The village head is here. Let’s see what he has to say…”

The village head walked over with a serious expression. He stood on a raised platform, cleared his throat, and said, “Everyone, quiet down.”

The villagers turned their hopeful eyes toward him. He was the pillar of Dahe Village, and they believed he would come up with a solution.

“A pound of millet and a basket of wild vegetables is a day’s worth of food for a family. If we send this to Chengjia Village, they will survive, but we in Dahe Village will starve to death, just like Granny Zhao.” The village head spoke coldly. “The first to starve might at least get a proper burial, but the last ones? They’ll just be wrapped in straw mats and buried in the wild…”

His words sent a wave of fear through the crowd.

Everyone knew that famine could kill, but yesterday, seeing Granny Zhao starve to death for the first time made them truly feel the grim reality—people in their own village were dying from hunger.

And now, there was no water.

Some would die of hunger, and even more would die of thirst.

Dahe Village, the home of their ancestors for generations, would soon be filled with corpses…

An old man sobbed, “The people of Dahe Village have never done anything evil. Why is Heaven punishing us like this? What sin have we committed?”

“Silence!” The village head raised his voice. “Heaven is not so cruel—it always leaves us a path to survival.”

Last night, he had thought it through.

The trees, wild vegetables, and mushrooms on the mountain were still alive.

Wild chickens and rabbits were still surviving.

That meant there had to be a water source in the mountains.

What the old woman of the mountains had said must be true. Right now, Dahe Village had to cling to this last hope.

“Going a day without water will be uncomfortable, but it won’t kill you. Go back to your work as usual.” The village head said firmly. “Before the sun sets, I will give you an answer.”

Since the existence of a water source in the mountains was still unconfirmed, he didn’t want to reveal too much. Without waiting for more questions, he turned and left.

Having been the village head for over thirty years, his authority was unquestioned.

His words calmed the villagers, slowly pulling them out of their panic.

…

At the foot of the mountain, Cheng Wanwan met up with her four sons and the village head.

Following behind the village head were his two sons, Zhao Anjiang and Zhao Anhe, along with the most promising young man in the village—his eldest grandson, Zhao Tiezhu.

Zhao Tiezhu was slightly older than Zhao Sidan but younger than Zhao Sanniu.

The three boys often played together.

Zhao Sanniu scratched his head. “Tiezhu, can you teach me how to write my name?”

“That’s easy.” Zhao Tiezhu squatted down and wrote three characters on the ground.

His strokes were straight but not particularly neat.

Zhao Sidan looked at him in admiration. “Tiezhu, you’re amazing! Can you write my name too?”

“Of course.”

Zhao Tiezhu quickly wrote “Zhao Si.” But when he tried to write “Dan” (meaning “egg”), he got stuck.

He remembered there was a “bug” character in it, but was it on top or at the bottom?

He couldn’t recall…

He thought about just drawing a circle to represent Dan but under Zhao Sidan’s admiring gaze, he hesitated.

He didn’t want to ruin his image…

Looking up at the sky, he quickly changed the subject. “Grandpa, the clouds are so high. Does that mean it’s going to rain?”

Everyone looked up.

There were a few wispy clouds floating high in the sky, but Cheng Wanwan didn’t think this signaled rain.

The village head frowned. “With all my years of farming experience, today is going to be another scorching day. It definitely won’t rain.”

“But the book says, ‘When the clouds rise high, rain will fall.’” Zhao Tiezhu insisted. “The book can’t be wrong, so Grandpa must be wrong. But Grandpa is never wrong… So where’s the mistake…?”

Cheng Wanwan: “…”

Silly boy, neither the book nor your grandpa is wrong—you just misread the words.

Dahe Village had been a farming community for generations.

Occasionally, a few villagers would leave for town to do business, but none had ever become scholars.

Chengjia Village, on the other hand, had an old scholar who ran a small grass-roofed school. That’s why they had a few educated individuals.

Dahe Village didn’t even have a school. Even if there were talented children, they had no opportunity to learn.

If someone wanted their child to study, they had to send them to the town school.

It was said that the tuition alone cost a tael of silver per month.

No wonder the Cheng family was so ruthless in squeezing money from the villagers—raising a scholar was indeed costly.

..

After over half an hour of trekking, the group reached the valley between two mountain peaks.

As they walked in, a cool, moist breeze greeted them, refreshing their spirits.

Zhao Anjiang hurried ahead. When he saw water slowly seeping from a crack in the stone wall, he was overwhelmed with excitement. “There’s really water here! It’s always been here! How did no one ever notice? My heavens—Dahe Village is saved!”

The village head trembled with emotion. “Before, we never lacked water, so no one thought to search for it. If it weren’t for the old woman of the mountains, half the village would have died this year…”

Zhao Anhe, carrying a shovel, immediately began digging.

As soon as he opened a small hole, a fresh spring burst forth, and they all drank their fill.

Feeling ashamed, Zhao Anjiang turned to Cheng Wanwan. “Sister-in-law, I thought you were lying to my father before. I owe you an apology.”

“We’re family. No need for apologies.” Cheng Wanwan waved it off before getting to the point. “If we can channel this water down the mountain, the rice fields will be saved.”

The village head calculated on his fingers.

By this time of year, the rice should have been filling out with grain.

But due to the drought, most fields were still in the flowering stage—just when they needed water the most.

Getting water down the mountain was urgent.

However, the spring was too far from the village.

Walking back and forth took over an hour.

Even if they worked tirelessly, it would take at least ten days to water all the fields—an impossible task.

Taking a deep puff from his pipe, the village head asked, “Wanwan, do you have any ideas?”

For some reason, he felt she would have a solution.

Cheng Wanwan smiled at her second son. “Ergou, tell the village head your idea.”

Zhao Ergou perked up. “Our village has over a thousand acres of rice fields. Carrying water by hand won’t work. I was thinking—what if we dig a ditch from the mountain to the fields to guide the water down?”

Before he could finish, Zhao Anhe shook his head. “Ergou, do you know how far the village is from here? It’s at least ten or twenty miles! That’s longer than the flood-prevention dikes…”