As expected.
When Zhao Tiezhu began the shooting competition, it was no longer a competition—it had become his personal performance show.
As one perfect ten-ring shot after another appeared before the soldiers, the entire crowd erupted.
The regiment commander said, “This kid is incredible.”
The commander replied, “Train him well. This time our military district finally has someone who can participate in the all-military-region competition. If he achieves a good result, I’ll personally hold a celebration for him.”
While everyone was filled with admiration for Zhao Tiezhu, he was thinking about something completely different.
He was wondering what rewards came with first place in the competition.
It would be great if they rewarded him with more money and ration coupons. Then he could send more back home so his wife could buy better food.
The Zhao Tiezhu who never fought or competed with others had completely changed.
From then on, whenever there was a competition, he would sign up without hesitation. He was more enthusiastic than anyone else.
He even signed up for speech competitions.
All for the sake of winning prizes and rewards.
The other soldiers were driven crazy by him.
A man who barely liked talking was actually entering speech competitions—and even taking first place.
How was anyone else supposed to live with that?
Whenever people complained to him, he would simply say:
“I have six elders to support, fourteen younger brothers and sisters to raise, and a wife to take care of. If I don’t work hard, who will?”
It was the perfect way to make people hate him.
Those who already disliked him hated him even more.
While Zhao Tiezhu was working hard in the army, trying to earn the right to have his wife join him at the military base, Lin Qiaoyun was nearly dying back home.
After ten days of the double harvest season, she collapsed onto her bed and couldn’t get up.
She spent an entire day lying there.
Even her meals were brought into her room by her mother.
Only after waking up the next morning did she finally feel alive again.
The moment she recovered, Lin Qiaoyun rode to town.
When she came back, she brought a five-jin bag of rice seeds, a five-jin bag of corn seeds, and a five-jin bag of soybean seeds.
She told Jinhua that one of her eldest brother’s army comrades had helped obtain them.
Then she secretly gathered the three “big flowers” and whispered to them that she had discovered a valley in the mountains.
According to her estimate, there were about ten mu of land inside, and they could secretly grow grain there.
To make her brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law believe her, Lin Qiaoyun excitedly led them up the mountain.
The double harvest season was over, so these half-grown teenagers no longer had to work in the fields.
After all, they were still students and would be returning to school once summer vacation ended.
The three Zhao sisters were currently in their first year of high school and would enter their second year when school started.
The three younger brothers had just graduated from elementary school and would begin middle school.
The three younger girls would be entering second grade.
Honestly, only a family like the Zhao family could afford to send every child to school.
Most families simply couldn’t do that.
That was also one of the reasons many people were unwilling to marry their daughters to Zhao Tiezhu.
The burden of supporting that family was unbelievably heavy.
…
Back to the story.
Lin Qiaoyun led them behind the Zhao family’s secret base and took them along a very hidden path.
At the end of the path was a small valley.
In the middle were about five mu of land suitable for growing rice.
The surrounding land could be used to plant corn, soybeans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and other crops.
Yinhua exclaimed, “Sister-in-law, you’re amazing! We play around this area all the time, but we’ve never discovered this valley.”
Jiuzhuzi immediately added, “Sister-in-law is amazing.”
Even the usually quiet younger brother spoke up to praise her.
Lin Qiaoyun laughed.
“Hehe, just luck, just luck.”
Then she pointed around.
“Well, I’ve given you the land and the seeds. From now on, this field is your responsibility.”
“No problem!”
The younger brothers and sisters answered in unison.
“Good. Then you all get busy. I’ll go look around and see if I can find any wild chickens. We’ll have something extra for dinner tonight.”
Lin Qiaoyun ran off, leaving them behind to prepare the land.
Jinhua went off to search for a water source.
By the time Lin Qiaoyun returned from hunting, Jinhua had already found water and successfully diverted it into the valley.
The others were strengthening the ridges around the paddy field.
They planned to plant corn around the rice field, soybeans outside the corn, and then sweet potatoes and potatoes farther out.
That way every piece of land would be fully utilized.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, they decided not to tell the adults.
Only the few of them would know.
Lin Qiaoyun had no objections.
As long as she wasn’t the one doing all the farming herself.
Originally, she had planned to cultivate everything alone.
But after being thoroughly beaten down by the double harvest season, she decisively dragged all her younger brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law into it with her.
Anyway, when harvest time came, she would simply store everything inside her space.
No one would ever find any fault with them.
As long as they were careful while growing it.
Besides, she only planned to farm there for three years.
After three years, if harvests became poor, more people would head into the mountains.
The valley would eventually be discovered.
Once that happened, she would stop planting there.
The group worked until nearly dark before finally heading down the mountain.
After returning home, Lin Qiaoyun handed over the wild chickens she had caught so they could have an extra dish.
Meanwhile, Jinhua and Yinhua began preparing the rice seeds.
The three older sisters-in-law were all skilled farmers, so Lin Qiaoyun left the seeds in their hands.
After dinner and a bath, Lin Qiaoyun returned to her room.
She planned to organize her space and see if there were any farming tools or fertilizer they could use.
The agricultural tools of this era were simply too primitive.
They needed to prepare the land quickly and plant the corn and soybeans as soon as possible.
Guyun Village was located fairly far south, where temperatures stayed warm throughout the year.
There was still enough time to plant.
After searching through her space for a long time, she finally found dozens of bags of fertilizer and a manual weeding machine.
She also found several bottles of pesticide and a few pesticide sprayers.
Anything that didn’t look too advanced, she planned to find an excuse to bring out later.
In fact, her space contained seeders, plows, tractors, and harvesters.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t use any of them.
It was incredibly frustrating.
At that moment, Lin Qiaoyun found herself envying people with wood-type abilities and psychic abilities.
If she had those powers, farming would be so much easier.
She didn’t even dare think about it.
After all, she didn’t possess any special abilities.
She was only stronger than average and better at fighting.
Otherwise, she would be embarrassed to admit she had survived the apocalypse.
Thinking about all these random things, Lin Qiaoyun didn’t even realize when she fell asleep.
When she woke up, daylight had already filled the room.
Outside, there was a loud commotion.
She thought she heard her grandmother’s voice.
Had that old woman started causing trouble again after only a few peaceful days?
After getting dressed, Lin Qiaoyun hurried outside.
She immediately saw Wang Chunhua grabbing her father’s clothes and trying to hit him.
Her mother could only stand nearby crying, completely helpless.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?”
“Grandma, why did you come to my house just to hit my father?”
At this time, her father-in-law and mother-in-law had already gone to work.
Her younger brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law were up in the mountains.
The grandparents of the Zhao family rarely interfered in anything.
Since no one else was around, Lin Qiaoyun didn’t hold back and directly pushed Wang Chunhua away.
“You little bitch! You dare hit your grandmother? That’s unfilial!”
“Grandma, you can’t just say things like that. I only saw you hitting my father. I was just trying to break up the fight.”
Lin Qiaoyun helped Lin Youshui straighten himself up.
“Dad, why haven’t you gone to work yet?”
Lin Youshui looked pitiful.
“Ugh, my luck is terrible. I was just using the toilet and got delayed for a moment, and your grandma caught me.”
“I don’t even know what she wants. She’s always yelling that she’s going to beat me to death.”
“I haven’t done anything. Why does she dislike me so much?”
“Alright, Dad. You and Mom should go to work now.”
Then she looked at Wang Chunhua.
“Grandma, you should go home too.”
“If you keep making trouble like this, I’ll call the village secretary and the village chief over to judge who’s right.”
“Hmph…”
Wang Chunhua snorted coldly.
“I’m disciplining my own son. Who dares say anything about it?”
She still wanted to scold Lin Qiaoyun, but then she saw Grandpa Zhao, Zhao Dahu, coming out of the house.
Wang Chunhua was the kind of person who bullied the weak and feared the strong.
Seeing that she had no chance of winning, she immediately turned around and left.