When the clan head and Third Great-Uncle arrived, Madam Wang was cooking, while Li Xiaohan and Li Xiandong were handling the eucommia bark they had harvested that day—first doing a rough cleaning, then placing it somewhere cool and well-ventilated so it wouldn’t get moldy from being stacked together and affect its medicinal properties.

“Third Great-Uncle, Clan Head.”

Seeing the two elders approaching, Li Xiandong stood up nervously to greet them.

He had the common square face of the Li clan. After years of labor under the sun, his skin was tanned and sallow. His eyes were quite large, but filled with unease and confusion.

The clan head and Third Great-Uncle gave him a close look, and in the end, a hint of disappointment appeared in their eyes. As expected, if this was how he acted even in front of his elders and the clan leader, he clearly didn’t have the character or insight they were hoping for.

Could it really be that thirteen-year-old Li Xiaohan?

For the first time, the clan head and Third Great-Uncle took a serious look at this younger clan member they had never paid attention to.

She was a little short and thin, and both men frowned slightly at this.

Her face was an oval shape—not like Madam Wang’s bitter and narrow face. Instead, she looked a bit like the late Madam Luo.

But it was her eyes—deep black and bright. At first, there was a trace of surprise in them, but it quickly faded into calm, eventually replaced by a sense of ease and composure.

She didn’t seem like a thirteen-year-old at all.

The clan head and Third Great-Uncle had seen many people in their lives, but someone with such poise and presence that didn’t match her age or experience could only be described as someone blessed with a special kind of natural talent.

If Li Xiaohan had known what the two were thinking, she would’ve blushed and tried to explain herself: she had simply eaten well in modern times, and had been unknowingly tempered by the accumulated knowledge of thousands of years.

Too bad no one present could read minds.

Being scrutinized by two important clan figures made Li Xiandong so uneasy that he didn’t know where to put himself. When the clan head and Third Great-Uncle finally looked away in disappointment, rather than feeling sad, he actually let out a huge sigh of relief.

That was terrifying.

Still, he felt uneasy letting his daughter face such scrutiny in his place.

Li Xiaohan, on the other hand, didn’t think much of it. In her previous life, she had reached a high position at the medicinal research base at a young age. Plenty of people had doubted her abilities, thinking she had climbed her way up by other means. She had endured more than her fair share of stares, both open and subtle.

Compared to that, the doubts of the clan head and Third Great-Uncle—who at least bore no ill intentions—were nothing.

She even greeted them politely under their watchful gaze, told Madam Wang in the kitchen to heat water and prepare tea, and reminded her father to bring out stools for them to sit.

A young girl, yet she managed everything smoothly and perfectly.

Even if the two elders still found it hard to believe, they could only admit it now.

The clan head took a sip of tea from a coarse porcelain bowl and began, “Xiandong, I heard from Xinhe about the eucommia tree. On behalf of him and the others, I want to thank you first! But as the clan head, I’d also like to ask what your thoughts are. Why don’t you share them with us?”

Though he addressed Li Xiandong, his eyes flicked toward Li Xiaohan.

Li Xiandong had never been treated this seriously by the clan head before. Hearing such formal thanks made him so emotional that he almost wanted to pledge his life, but he struggled to get the words out.

It was only when Li Xiaohan gave him a tug that he managed to compose himself and replied earnestly, “Clan head, I was thinking, if anyone wants to learn, they can follow along with us. The bark harvested on the first day will belong to us. If they don’t want to follow, they can go gather on their own.”

Li Xiaohan was a little speechless at her father. This was clearly a good thing, yet he made it sound so stiff and awkward.

But she was already used to his personality. So she added gently, “Clan head, I should remind you that harvesting eucommia bark takes skill. If it’s done carelessly, it might not fetch a good price. Worse, it might waste good material.”

“Also, at the start of the month, I thought eucommia trees were interesting and peeled off a bit of bark from a tree on the clan’s communal land just for fun. Now it looks like new bark is growing back where it was peeled.”

“Trees in the wild definitely won’t last. But if the clan members plant eucommia trees in their own plots and harvest them carefully, they can have a steady harvest year after year. Isn’t that better than killing the chicken for its eggs or draining the lake to catch all the fish?”

Peeling bark for fun? That didn’t sound like the truth. People with true intentions don’t do things by accident.

Still, the idea that eucommia bark could grow back was incredibly exciting. It was like having a hen that could lay endless eggs. Both the clan head and Third Great-Uncle were stunned and asked in unison, “Is that true?”

“Of course it is. That tree is still growing well on the communal land. If you want to see it, you can go anytime. We passed by it a few days ago when we were gathering firewood, and it was doing fine,” Li Xiaohan confirmed.

“This is wonderful news! If that’s the case, the children of the clan have hope,” the clan head and Third Great-Uncle exchanged looks and laughed heartily together.

What did this have to do with the clan’s children?

Li Xiaohan frowned. Had she missed something?

Third Great-Uncle looked around the group, especially at Li Xinhe who was squinting thoughtfully, Li Deyou and Li Xiandong who still looked confused, and Li Xiaohan who was frowning in thought. Then he said, “Clan head, why don’t you explain it to everyone?”

“Yes, Third Great-Uncle.”

“Our Li clan moved to this place during the Jinghe era. Back then, there was war and famine. The government allocated land based on the number of adult males — 10 mu of paddy fields and 10 mu of dry land per male. At the time, our clan had 39 adult males, and we were given 390 mu of paddy fields and 390 mu of dry land.”

“Later, the country became stable. After not even two generations of rest and recovery, with children being born and the family growing, we now have 221 adult males in the clan. However, even though we’ve worked hard to open up land and keep buying more, we only have 651 mu of paddy fields and 882 mu of dry land. That’s less than 3 mu of paddy and less than 4 mu of dry land per man.”

Li Xiaohan’s pupils contracted. The population was growing too fast, but the most important production resource—land—was no longer enough. There simply wasn’t enough to support all the children.

And this was just counting the adult males. Women weren’t allocated land, but they still had to eat too.

In her previous life, the reason why family planning had become a national policy for a time was exactly because, after the country was founded and things became peaceful, the population boomed rapidly, but the resources couldn’t keep up—so birth control was the only option.

“We can’t afford to raise more, but we also can’t stop having children… unless we find another path,” Li Xiaohan murmured.

But in this era, there was no Grandpa Yuan Longping. And no one was saying they should stop having so many kids. At this time, population was still considered wealth.

Third Great-Uncle and the clan head exchanged surprised glances — such perspective!

“Xiaohan is right. That’s why we say that if eucommia trees can regrow bark after being harvested, there’s hope for the children in our clan. If we slowly harvest the bark from the eucommia trees we have, isn’t that more worthwhile than a one-time sale? Once we make money, we can buy grain. I heard that in the south, they can harvest rice twice a year, and families can fill their granaries.”

The clan head smiled slightly. “Besides, in nearby villages, our clan owns the largest ancestral forest land—nearly 700 mu. No other clan has as much as we do. About half has already been divided among the clan members to manage on their own, while the other half is managed collectively. If we slowly plant eucommia trees there, it’ll give us an extra source of income.”

Li Xiandong, Li Deyou, and Li Xinhao all breathed a sigh of relief. They had already sensed that buying land was getting harder and harder. But when they heard that there wasn’t enough land to raise the children, their hearts had clenched tight.

Fortunately, they still had forest land.

“If too much of this stuff floods the market, the price will drop,” Li Xiaohan said, not as optimistic.

“At the very least, we’ll get a head start over the next generation. Isn’t it said that only eucommia trees over ten years old can be used as medicine?”

Third Great-Uncle sighed. “No one can say for sure what the next generation will face. You’ve been selling medicine to Renhetang, haven’t you? Do you know that for over a decade, they’ve been steadily buying medicinal herbs? I heard that behind Renhetang is none other than General Zhang Zhen’s wife—she serves by Prince Ding’s side. With her backing, Renhetang definitely has the means to handle all the medicinal herbs we can sell.”

Li Xiaohan’s pupils shrank again. Prince Ding!