Chapter 243

The men who shout the loudest and are most eager are the ones who are going out!

They know best about the goodness of having a knife, and they are eager to get it. They are also not afraid of hard work.

These men were selected from the strongest in each household in the village before. Even the old village chief favored them.

He picked out a group, except for the households of Fan Qian and Zhang Tuzi, everyone else was taken care of, thirty men per household.

The old village chief looked at this group of men with sharp eyes and said, “Fan Qian and Zhang Tuzi’s walls are not many. You guys alone might not be enough for this task;

Coincidentally, the front and back doors haven’t been made yet. Finding wood, cutting trees, and bringing them down to make them are also up to you, how about it?”

How could these men not agree?

Forget about this small task, even if they had to turn it into something bigger, they would still be willing!

Men, who doesn’t love knives, guns, and clubs!

Those big knives, if you had to buy them yourself, I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to afford them until you’re very old.

“All right! Old village chief, rest assured, we’ll make sure it’s done well and quickly!”

The old village chief was very reassured. After solving the long-standing issue of the front and back doors, his hanging heart finally fell. He continued, “The remaining twenty, whoever finishes building their walls first will get them.

Fan Qian and Zhang Tuzi’s families won’t be included because they can’t finish the job.”

With only twenty knives, it’s impossible for every household to have one.

The crowd that had been watching the excitement dispersed with a bang!

They needed to quickly build their own walls to try to get one of the remaining twenty knives.

They realized that scheming and trickery were useless, while hard work and diligence paid off!

This reward wasn’t about luck, it was about Fan Jin and the old village chief. Follow them, and you’ll be rewarded, not at a loss.

The crowd quickly dispersed, leaving only Fan Qian’s family and Zhang Chunhua.

Fan Qian’s Sun Jinhua was so dark that he was about to drip water. He was regretful that he didn’t benefit, and he resented his younger brother and his wife for not helping their own family.

Fan Erzhu’s intestines were almost regretful!

He could have had one of those big knives, but now he couldn’t, and he might never get one.

The old village chief must have done it on purpose. No wonder he was so easy to talk to!

And Grandma, she shouldn’t have listened to Grandma. If she hadn’t caused trouble, the old village chief would have given them a knife.

What’s all this about!

Fan Sanzhu and Sizhu were okay, but they felt a bit lost when they thought that they couldn’t swagger around with a big knife.

And it didn’t look good to be the only ones without one.

As for Zhang Tuzi’s family, they didn’t have one either. Could Zhang Tuzi compare with their family? Their family had already moved into brick houses early on, and their ancestors had been well-off. Zhang Tuzi was still living in a thatched house, the poorest and laziest in the whole village!

Zhang Chunhua wasn’t too concerned about the knife; she didn’t like it anyway.

But thinking that men liked knives, Dad and her brother and Hu Wenhua must all really like it.

If she got one and gave it to Hu Wenhua, would he be extremely moved?

No, wait, these dozens of big knives were originally given out by her sister; he must already have one!

Dad would be unhappy to know they didn’t have one. If Dad wasn’t happy, he would scold or hit her. If Hu Wenhua gave her one to give to Dad, he would definitely be happy…

The progress in Shanshui Village has significantly increased. The selected men first went up the mountain to find trees.

For the back door, it was easier since they didn’t need very thick trees; they were easy to find and chop, and easy to transport once cut.

The front door required thicker logs. Most trees near their village were mixed and only as thick as a bowl, suitable for firewood. They needed to go further to find logs as thick as a waist.

On Shuiqing’s side, there was no idle time; in fact, they were even busier.

Everyone had their tasks. Though the men who transported potatoes had returned, they were now busier because they had to build their own houses.

It was estimated that the Ding family’s walls would be finished in another two days, meaning Li Dani and the others wouldn’t be able to join for two more days.

Fortunately, they had utilized the half-day break to dig drainage ditches and bring back trees for beams.

For the four sets of houses, Hong Daniu and the other men decided to build them together, not separately. This was because some groups had more people than others, and tasks like laying beams required several people working together. The more spread out the workforce, the slower the progress.

The final eighteen men, including eight older ones, were tasked with digging and laying foundations, while the other ten worked in pairs to make adobe bricks.

Each pair could make seven to eight hundred adobe bricks a day, totaling nearly four thousand for five pairs.

Adobe bricks, being larger than regular bricks, could replace several or even a dozen regular bricks, making construction much faster.

With materials ready, if twenty to thirty people started simultaneously, they could finish a three-room adobe house in two to three days.

Hong Mancang and his group worked tirelessly and enthusiastically.

After Li Dani and the other five women joined in, the men found time to go out and bring back gray tiles.

In less than twenty days, they completed construction of four new adobe-tiled houses.

Moving day was chosen without much concern for an auspicious date; they simply picked a good double day, and Hong Daniu and the others got up early to begin moving in.

The other three families, with women, had already prepared their homes early. Only Hong Mancang moved in with his two sons, fully stocked.

Fortunately, the three weren’t picky eaters. They ate whatever was available, as long as it filled their stomachs.

They could also cook simple porridge and make flatbreads. They managed the vegetable garden, so their daily life was not a problem.

Shuiqing also got up early to discuss with Fan Jin about distributing food to the four households.

“If we give too much rice, it will be noticeable. But coarse grains like millet and beans are much more expensive than rice and wheat flour in the market. Spending more money on worse food is a loss no matter how you look at it.”

But giving only rice wasn’t feasible either; they had to give less.

Fan Jin’s face showed puzzlement.

He never understood why coarse grains like millet, sorghum, and even black beans were more expensive than rice and wheat flour. Especially beans, even a slight increase would make it several times more expensive.

“Weren’t a lot of people in the village using sorghum flour to exchange for our potatoes before? Let’s buy more sorghum flour and say it’s leftover from the villagers who came to exchange. We’ll have more than enough.”

Shuiqing said the sorghum flour from villagers was classified as ‘organic food’ in the market, and cost more than ten yuan per catty, while non-organic flour only cost a little more than two yuan. While sorghum flour was more expensive than white flour, the difference wasn’t that great.

Sorghum flour was also much tastier than black flour.

“We can say the rice and white flour are from previous reserves; they arrived in the first year, were good to eat, and then we added some potatoes, millet, and sorghum flour. This combination shouldn’t be too eye-catching.”

Shuiqing sighed. “It’s all we can do.”

While others worried about having too little rice and white flour, they were worried about having too much, and were just as worried.

The two of them made the necessary decisions about the amount of food for each household and went to the storeroom.