In the third month of spring, all things awakened, and it was a perfect season for sowing—except that Heaven failed to provide rain.

Fortunately, though Heaven withheld the rain, the Deity bestowed it.

Gao Yiye secretly told the villagers that the Deity had grabbed the Dragon King by the neck again, dragging him over to produce rain.

The villagers of Wangjia Village began sowing kaoliang.

It was only then that Li Daoxuan understood how the farmers in nearby villages lived during normal years. Originally, they usually sowed kaoliang in the third month, harvested it in autumn, then planted autumn wheat in the ninth month, harvesting that wheat in the fifth or sixth month of the following year.

If the wheat harvest was late, the time for sowing kaoliang would be pushed back to the sixth month…

The farmers had their own rhythm, constantly adjusting their timing to plant crops most suited to the season.

This matter was as simple as it sounded, yet also complex. For village children, it was as easy as eating or drinking. But for a city kid like Li Daoxuan, staring at it might not bring understanding.

If he couldn’t understand, he could simply chuckle foolishly and follow the little people’s joy.

Xing Honglang’s injuries had also healed. Just as Li Daoxuan predicted, with bandits causing trouble in Heyang County, Xing Honglang couldn’t return east to Shanxi to do business. She had to go west instead, to Xi’an Prefecture.

Gao Chuwu saw her off to the village entrance but didn’t dare say much. He was still drowning in guilt over “taking advantage of her injury to hit her” and hadn’t managed to move past it yet.

This meant that the Deity, who loved gossip, had failed to properly cultivate any juicy tidbits recently, leaving him rather frustrated.

Oh well. Xing Honglang would use Gaojia Village as her long-term base of operations from now on. She’d go out for a turn and come back. This love story still had more to watch.

These past few days in Gaojia Village, there was a very obvious attention seeker—Ma Tianzheng.

This Taoist roamed the village every day.

He didn’t seek work. Every day, he just collected his aid and food supplies, then wandered around the village, looking left and right, paying special attention to all kinds of “divine artifacts.”

For instance, the sun chariot. This contraption occupied the Taoist every single day, but based on his knowledge, no matter how he studied it, he remained convinced it was the chariot of the Miao Ri Star Official—undoubtedly.

He also studied the millstone-sized giant rice. The result of his study was, unsurprisingly, rice from the immortal realm.

However, after studying this “rice from the immortal realm,” he suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

Li Daoxuan saw him grab an Old Villager from Gaojia Village, one of the original forty-two—Gao Laba. Gao Laba excelled at making clay pots and moonlighted as a sentinel patrolling the wall. He often spun with a bow on the ramparts. Back when Ground Rabbit first arrived in Gaojia Village, it was Gao Laba who greeted him.

Come to think of it, Gao Laba was also the one who greeted Xing Honglang when she visited Gaojia Village for the first time.

He was a genuine social butterfly!

Today wasn’t his shift, so he was sprawled at home resting. As a result, he got pestered by Ma Tianzheng. After all, Ma Tianzheng preferred talking to social butterflies too, and wasn’t fond of chatting with taciturn types.

Ma Tianzheng said, “Kind donor, how did you consume the divine rice from the immortal realm back then? Such huge grains—you couldn’t cook them whole, could you?”

Gao Laba chuckled foolishly. “Of course we used chisels to break it! We’d chisel off a piece and boil it in water to make porridge.”

Ma Tianzheng was agonized. “Such a waste! Such a sacred object, how can it be consumed so carelessly?”

Gao Laba asked curiously, “Then how would you do it?”

Ma Tianzheng said, “In my travels south, I was fortunate enough to learn a method for processing rice. Southerners soak, steam, and press rice strips to make a food called rice noodles. This method is perfectly suited for this giant immortal rice. This humble Taoist shall just teach it to you.”

Gao Laba became quite interested and went along with Ma Tianzheng’s plan.

Li Daoxuan was also amused: Rice noodles? Fun! I usually just order takeout noodles to eat, never knowing how they’re made. Perfect time to watch.

But it turned out that the first step—washing and soaking the rice—would take a long time. Li Daoxuan didn’t want to watch a static scene, so he looked elsewhere and forgot about this matter entirely.

A few days later…

The first store opened on Gaojia Village’s commercial street.

A bookstore!

With Thirty-Two personally acting as the temporary shopkeeper, he also hired two clerks to help. They decorated with red banners and streamers and prepared for a grand opening.

As soon as this bookstore opened, the villagers of Gaojia Village became happy.

What kind of place was this?

It was a gathering ground for illiterates. Though the population had already reached over a thousand, those with reading and writing skills numbered fewer than a hundred. Opening a bookstore in such a place—what exactly were they trying to do?

The villagers didn’t understand.

But not understanding didn’t stop them from coming to gaze at the spectacle.

On the day of the bookstore’s opening, outside the door was filled with onlookers, packed in layers. Nearly all of the original forty-two inhabitants of Gaojia Village arrived, the immigrants from Wangjia Village, Zhengjia Village, and Zhuangjia Village all showed up, and the workers from Short-term Workers Village gathered in a large crowd too.

Everyone was whispering to each other: “This bookstore will close in just a few days, right?”

“There are only a few educated people and a dozen-odd children with reading and writing skills, but the children’s books are provided by the Deity, so they don’t need to buy books at all.”

“What exactly is Thirty-Two playing at?”

Amid the discussion, Mr. Wang stood out. The thin and frail Mr. Wang was usually low-key, almost never leaving the study well, spending all his time reading apart from teaching children reading and writing.

So people often overlooked his presence; unexpectedly, today Mr. Wang changed his usual low-key manner, stood at the front, waved to the murmuring crowd, and said loudly: “All shut up.”

The crowd still respected scholars. At his shout, they immediately stopped talking and watched him with odd eyes.

Mr. Wang: “Because you can’t understand books, are you here to mock the bookstore? Humph! Without books, there would be no culture passed on, and the world would be ruined. Thirty-Two founding this bookstore is for inheriting the lost knowledge of the sages; I will give my complete support. In a moment when the bookstore opens, I’ll be the first to go in and buy books, to lend my feeble help, and definitely not let it close.”

Hearing him speak this way, the crowd felt deeply respectful and truly dared not predict doom for the bookstore.

The door of the bookstore opened, and Thirty-Two walked out beaming with smiles. He said loudly: “The lucky hour has come; I declare the Gaojia Village bookstore officially open. Here, I proudly unveil the first book printed by this bookstore…”

The crowd cheered!

Mr. Wang was extremely excited: “What good book is it? I’ll order one set now.”

Thirty-Two raised a book with both hands. It had a blue cover printed with a military general on horseback wielding a spear, and beside it was a vertical line of printed words—the title of the book.

The commoners couldn’t read; staring at the title, they were baffled.

Mr. Wang recognized the title at one glance: “Yang Family Generals, a good book, so good!”

As soon as he finished speaking, Thirty-Two faced everyone and turned to the first page.

No words were there, not a single character—just a picture. He turned another page, and another picture appeared. He turned yet another page, and it was still a picture…

Mr. Wang: “!!!”

The commoners: “Wow, we get it! The Yang Family Generals are killing Liao soldiers—good book, such a good book!”

Mr. Wang: “Ah ah ah, this isn’t a book at all; it’s clearly just a picture book!”