CHAPTER 195: CHAPTER 188: CAN’T BE DUG OUT (PART 2)

The village chief noticed that when Xiaomi smelled the smoke, she pinched her nose and paused, tapping the tobacco out onto a stone beside him, stopping smoking.

"Indeed, there aren’t many people left; the main issue is that the water is not easy to manage."

Jiang Hu quickly asked what had happened.

It turned out that there indeed was water, but it was very deep, deeper than they had imagined!

The day they returned from the mountain, someone went to fetch water from there, but unfortunately, it was not as easy as they thought.

Tying a wooden bucket to a rope, it was lowered nearly ten meters but wouldn’t move, and not a drop of water came up.

Everyone surmised that the opening below must be very small, so they switched to something smaller than the bucket to test how big the opening was.

"Only a bowl-sized opening, and they quickly made a small bucket this size, using nearly forty meters of rope to finally get water up."

"And the opening is very small, so when pulling it up, it always hits against the stone walls, spilling half the water. By the time they pull it up, it’s about a bowl’s worth, and barely a few buckets of water can be fetched in a day."

No wonder fewer and fewer people are fetching water, as efficiency is indeed slow. Unless the household has no water at all, they’d mostly procrastinate if possible.

Jiang Hu nodded: "No matter what, it’s better than having no water at all. Even if it’s a little, it can save lives."

However, not a trace of worry disappeared from the village chief’s face.

"That’s true, but just this bit of water isn’t enough. If the heavens don’t bless us with rain, there’ll be no harvest, we can’t plant crops, what will we eat then?"

Jiang Hu sighed softly: "We can only leave it to fate. If the heavens don’t grant rain, what can we do?"

No rain, no planting of crops. Even if we have food and drink now, if it stays dry for a while longer, when we run out at home and rain starts, allowing us to plant, the harvest would still take more than half a year.

How would we survive this more-than-half-year?

"One issue after another, just when everyone’s lives started getting better, this happens."

Jiang Hu couldn’t think of what to say, for although his family was better off, without rain, they too would face the same predicament sooner or later.

"So deep, huh?" Nearby, Xiaomi, who was resting her chin on her palm and listening to her father and the village chief talk, suddenly spoke.

Jiang Hu tousled Xiaomi’s hair. This child was too small to understand the severity of the situation.

Xiaomi looked at her father and the village chief curiously: "Father, can we dig a very deep, very big pit, would that have water too?"

She stretched out her arms, indicating something very big.

"Just like a well, but very big, very deep!"

Because there was a river in the village, there were no ponds. If there were ponds, she’d find a chance, maybe in the dead of night, to secretly fill them with water.

There were dozens of tons in the space, perhaps even more, going unused would be such a waste.

"Dig a well?"

The village chief and Jiang Hu exchanged a glance, each seeing surprise in the other’s eyes.

But Xiaomi pouted: "Not a well, Dad and Grandpa Chief are so silly, a well is too small, no one can walk down it."

The village chief suddenly laughed: "Xiaomi is really smart. Ah, Jiang, since we have nothing to do day by day, I’ll talk to the villagers, maybe we can find a place to dig and see. Who knows, we might really find water."

Jiang Hu also nodded repeatedly: "Okay, if we can fetch water from the mountain, that means there’s some underground, though it might be a very deep dig."

The village chief waved his hand: "Deep or not doesn’t matter. If we can indeed get water, we’ll dig as deep as needed, besides, there’re hundreds of people in the village, what to fear."

Then he laughed again, praising Xiaomi: "Xiaomi is really too clever. Our village didn’t always have a river, we had several ponds. Over the years, we forgot about them."

Indeed, not every village is built near water. In many places without rivers, they dug a couple of ponds in the village, made them deep, and dug a few ditches around. A single rain could collect lots of rainwater.

Whether washing sweet potatoes or peanuts, you could do it in the pond.

When there was little rainfall, we’d take water from the pond to water the fields, not a problem at all!

But in Fu’an Village, we got used to having a river nearby, with river water flowing through the channels to the fields, we forgot about ponds.

The village chief laughed heartily, as if they’d soon dig up water, he seemed very happy.

Only Xiaomi looked confused, as if not knowing what had transpired.