Reincarnation in the 60s: My Spatial Supermarket Brings Forth Wealth-Chapter 226: Saving Grain

She also saw that even the grandchildren of the team leader Wang Jianjun, whose family had the best living conditions in the village, were picking wild vegetables, along with his two daughters-in-law.

It seems the villagers have prepared for the worst, which is a total crop failure.

There’s a river at the foot of the back mountain, and it’s not a narrow one. Even though it hasn’t rained since the beginning of summer, it couldn’t have dried up. Lin Xue knew that the reason the crops couldn’t be watered was because of limited manpower.

How can human strength compare to machines? How much land can one person irrigate in a day, working themselves to death?

Moreover, even if the fields are watered, after a couple of days it’s dry again. With so much land, there’s not enough people to keep up.

But if they made a few water carts to irrigate the fields... no, no, for such a large-scale drought, she simply couldn’t save all the crops. They were almost dried up, the leaves had already curled up and turned yellow, how could she save them?

At this time, Lin Xue was at a loss. Although she was down-to-earth, she wasn’t from a farming background! She was stumped when it came to this part.

Watching the lifeless fields along the way, Lin Xue returned home to find only her grandmother Bai Xianglan watching over the two children; the others were nowhere to be seen.

"Grandma! I’m back!" Lin Xue called out as she entered the house from outside.

"Oh my, Xiao Xue is back? Come in quickly and take a rest, Grandma will wash some melon for you to eat!" The two children were napping, and Bai Xianglan was overjoyed to see her eldest granddaughter return safely. She quickly took a look around downstairs, then happily ran out to the vegetable garden to pick some muskmelons.

The watermelons weren’t ripe yet, so what she referred to by washing melon meant muskmelons.

Lin Xue glanced at the two little cute ones sleeping on the kang, they truly changed from day to day, these two had grown a lot.

It was indeed comfortable living in this large tiled house, with bright sunlight flooding in, and a spacious, clean space that made one feel very at ease.

She came out from her parents’ room and, upon closer look, found that quite a few racks had been set up in the living room with long beans hanging on them.

She knew that dried long beans kept their green color when dried indoors, unlike those dried under the sun, which turned yellow and didn’t taste as good as the latter.

On the large bamboo dustpan, there were also eggplants, cucumbers, and red peppers being dried.

It seemed they had dried all the vegetables from the garden that could be dried; she knew for sure that this wasn’t all, her mom must have stored away quite a bit more.

While she was watching, Grandma picked two muskmelons and came in to wash them for her.

"Xiao Xue, girl! Your grandma was worried about you every day since you left, how was it? Did you gain some experience this time in the Capital City?" She handed her the melon with a smile.

"Yes, I learned a lot! Our place here is thirty years behind the Capital City! Over there, every household has electricity! Grandma, did you know? It’s like electric lamps! Much brighter than candles! And the street snacks there are so good! I even brought back quite a lot!" Lin Xue said as she pointed to the bag she had carried inside.

"This child, why did you carry so many things from so far away? Did Xiao Yuan see you back? Where is he?" Grandma noticed the bag and voiced a bit of disapproval.

"I came back by myself, he was in a hurry over there. He even got tickets to see me off home, but I snuck back on my own!" Lin Xue stuck out her tongue as she confessed.

She knew that if she said she sneaked back by herself, her family definitely wouldn’t approve. Her mom would certainly start nagging and crying, but if she didn’t mention it, and the family blamed Zhang Yuan, that would never do.

"You child..." Then Grandma began her nagging. Though she didn’t burst into tears like her mom, she was still quite startled by her boldness.

"Grandma, didn’t I come back safely? Don’t worry! By the way, where’s mom and Xiao Yun and the others?" Lin Xue hurriedly changed the subject.

"Your mom took them out to pick wild vegetables! By the looks of it, they should be back soon!" Only then did Bai Xianglan stop her nagging, being led into the conversation by Lin Xue.

"Picking wild vegetables? Why? Wild vegetables don’t taste good!" Lin Xue knew that the food she left them would last for two months, and with her around, there was no need to pick wild vegetables!

"Child, it’s not about taste! Wild vegetables are chopped and mixed into the grains to make porridge, isn’t that saving grains?" Grandma thought the granddaughter didn’t understand and explained to her, "In the summer, you need to mix wild vegetables with grains, that way you save grains and still fill your stomach!"

"Grandma! Our family isn’t short of grains, why pick wild vegetables? Isn’t there something better to do with that time? Let the little ones read more books, that’s more important!" Lin Xue disagreed and said.

Hearing this, Bai Xianglan’s face turned gloomy, visibly worried.

"The heavens aren’t sending rain, it’s driving the people to despair! The crops are on the verge of failing utterly! Our family has an urban household registration, and if the drought hits, it will be hard to buy grains even with money at the grain station! We must hurry to dry more vegetables while it’s summer, to avoid you all going hungry in winter! Alas..."

Bai Xianglan never spoke like this to Lin Xue, but now she must be worried. With a family of eight children, it was previously the oldest granddaughter who bought grains back, but if she couldn’t get them, there would only be Daliang working. How could they support such a large family? She only had ten yuan a month in retirement funds; how could she possibly sustain them?

"Don’t worry, Grandma, I’m here! My grain purchasing channels are quite special, as long as we have money, we can buy them. It’s someone Zhang Yuan introduced, very reliable! Don’t worry too much!" Lin Xue could only comfort her this way.

She couldn’t reveal her secret, she couldn’t say that even if the drought lasted ten or eight years, even if the wells ran dry, their family would still have ample food and drink and wouldn’t starve or die of thirst.

But she couldn’t tell her grandma this, so she mentioned Zhang Yuan as a shield to comfort her grandmother.

She didn’t know how much her grandma would actually listen, but with her return, she wouldn’t let her family live on wild veggie gruel anymore.

Originally, the whole family had been eating fine grains, poultry, and fish for so long, nourishing themselves back to health, but with this situation, wasn’t it reverting back to the old days? That wouldn’t do; she had worked hard to restore the health of these little ones, and they had gotten used to eating fine grains and meat; suddenly lowering their food quality, they couldn’t handle that.

"Xiao Xue! Grandma knows Xiao Yuan is capable, but our family can’t trouble him too much. Otherwise, you’ll always feel inferior to him! Child, listen! Don’t rely on Xiao Yuan for everything! Grandma still has some money here, take it! Buy more grains back if you can! Winter is much harder than summer!" Bai Xianglan hurried off to her room to get the money.

"Grandma, keep your money yourself! It would be shameful for us if people heard that an old lady with sons, grandsons, and granddaughters still needs to use her savings to support the family! Your granddaughter has money! Remember, I’m still the manager of the chicken farm! Earning sixty yuan a month is more than enough to support our family! Don’t worry anymore! You’re old now, with a bunch of grandchildren, just enjoy your old age peacefully! Be good!" Lin Xue said, adding a coaxing tone by the end.