Chapter 27: Organizing Resources, Allocating Resources

Chapter 27: Chapter 27: Organizing Resources, Allocating Resources

"The people in the Immortal Realm say that sweet potatoes can be eaten as a staple food. When there’s no rice or flour, eating them keeps you from going hungry. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, we’ll find out tomorrow when the village chief cooks porridge and roasts one for everyone in the village to try." Yun Zhen calmly accepted the fact that the villagers treated her as a Goddess, and she joined them in calling that world the Immortal Realm.

Hearing this, everyone’s hearts filled with anticipation.

Zhou Dashan said excitedly, "That’s wonderful! Tomorrow, not only will we get to eat piping hot rice porridge, but we’ll also have an extra red-skinned lump to eat."

Li Cuilan smacked his head and corrected him, "You dummy, it’s called a sweet potato."

"HAHAHA!" the crowd burst into laughter. Inside the freezing, dilapidated thatched hut, their hearts were warm.

Yun Zhen untied the sack of sweet potatoes to let them get a closer look.

"They’re so big. They just might actually be filling," Hunters Wang said, weighing a sweet potato in his hand.

Grandpa Zhang’s aged voice was filled with astonishment. "The Goddess is truly amazing to find such excellent provisions. I reckon this pile weighs around a hundred pounds!"

Granny Wu said happily, "Tomorrow, everyone can eat until their bellies are completely full."

Seeing his daughter surrounded by the crowd, Yun Xiu felt both gratified and moved. He picked up the black sack nearby, opened it, and took a look. "Zhen Niang, you bought refined rice again, and even more than you did yesterday."

Hearing that she had bought refined rice, the villagers eagerly gathered around to see.

"It’s as white as snowflakes. It truly lives up to being refined grain."

"Goddess, is the refined rice in the Immortal Realm really only one copper coin per pound?"

Yun Zhen nodded. "It’s true."

The crowd fell into another wave of shock. When they first heard from the village chief that refined rice in the Immortal Realm cost only one coin per pound, they had been astonished but felt it was somewhat unreal. It wasn’t until Yun Zhen confirmed it herself that they truly believed such a wonderful thing existed in the world. They really didn’t have to starve anymore! At this moment, everyone felt completely at ease.

Yun Zhen smiled and delivered another bombshell piece of news: "Besides the sweet potatoes and rice, I also bought eggs!"

"Eggs!" Li Cuilan’s eyes instantly lit up at the word.

The others were equally shocked and delighted. In the town, a single egg cost three copper coins, while in the county city, it cost five.

To peasant families, chickens were precious assets. If a family had hens, it meant they had an additional source of income on top of their farming. Raising chickens was no easy task, either. Starting from chicks, one had to protect them from poisonous insects and thieving weasels, carefully feed them, and keep them warm—otherwise, they would fall ill and die. Successfully raising a chicken to adulthood was a remarkable achievement for any farming family.

Granny Wu’s daughter-in-law had once managed to raise three hens, but they froze to death during a snowfall. Her daughter-in-law had run outside the house, wailing as if in mourning. The villagers had thought Granny Wu had frozen to death and rushed over to help, only to find three dead hens lying stiff on the bed. Those three hens used to contribute around twenty eggs a month to Granny Wu’s family. Selling them in the county city would bring in over a hundred coins. With the three hens dead, it was no wonder Granny Wu’s daughter-in-law cried as heartbrokenly as if her own mother had passed away.

"Look here." Yun Zhen brought over a tray of eggs. Under the faint firelight, the orange-yellow eggs seemed to emit a soft, gentle glow like jade.

"Oh my god! They really are eggs!" Li Cuilan excitedly jogged over, grinning from ear to ear as she stared at them. "One, two, three... there are actually thirty eggs here!"

Granny Wu asked excitedly, "Goddess, how much does an egg cost in the Immortal Realm?"

Ever since their family’s hens died, Granny Wu had felt a stifling bitterness in her heart. She hadn’t cried publicly for everyone to know like her daughter-in-law, but whenever she woke up freezing and starving in the middle of the night, she couldn’t help but wipe away her tears. She wondered in her heart why she wasn’t the one who had died.

Running her emaciated, twig-like hands over the entire tray of eggs, Granny Wu muttered, "Such big eggs. This is wonderful, truly wonderful."

The crowd’s gaze shifted from the sweet potatoes to the eggs. "Goddess, are the eggs in the Immortal Realm expensive?"

Hunters Wang asked, "Are the eggs in the Immortal Realm also one coin each?"

Carpenter Zhao retorted, "There’s no way things are that good. An egg costs five coins in the county city. No matter how cheap the eggs in the Immortal Realm are, they must be at least two or three coins. How could they be one coin each? Do you think pies are falling from the sky?"

The rest of the crowd also felt that the eggs couldn’t possibly be that cheap.

Yun Zhen smiled. "A tray of eggs costs thirteen coins."

"What?" The crowd was dumbfounded. "E-eggs... the eggs cost thirteen coins?"

But there were thirty eggs here! Didn’t that mean one coin could buy two eggs, with change to spare?

"HISS—" The crowd gasped sharply. So... cheap!

"It’s true!" Yun Zhen nodded. No wonder they said things in the Immortal Realm were cheap!

"These prices... it really is like pies falling from the sky..." The village chief was the first to recover his senses, untangling his tongue enough to speak.

"This is gold falling from the sky!" Zhou Dashan counted on his fingers, growing more shocked the more he calculated.

Yun Zhen said, "I only bought one tray of eggs today. Once I have more money in the future, I’ll buy more and try to make sure everyone in the village gets to eat eggs!"

The Goddess truly had the heart of a bodhisattva!

The village chief looked at her with deep respect. "You truly are the hope of our entire village!"

Yun Zhen blushed slightly. There was a saying that one should help the world when successful, but she didn’t have such grand ambitions to save the entire world. However, every single household in Taoyuan Village had lent a helping hand to her family, and it was only right to repay their kindness. Besides, she had grown up in Taoyuan Village; this was her home. Whenever she had something good, she should think of the hometown that had raised her!

Yun Zhen turned to her father and said, "Dad, take out all the edible things I brought from the Immortal Realm. I’ll leave them in the care of you and the village chief. From now on, you two will be responsible for distributing the precious items I bring back from the Immortal Realm to the villagers."

As for the inedible items like the glass cups, she decided not to bring them out for now.

Yun Xiu nodded. "Alright!" He turned his head and called out, "Dashan, come help me move these things."

"Okay!" Hearing Yun Xiu ask him to help move the treasures the Goddess had brought from the Immortal Realm, Zhou Dashan eagerly followed him into the house.

The others were filled with anticipation and pleasant surprise. The Goddess was so generous and selfless; they absolutely had to tell their families about her great kindness and benevolence so that they would worship her for generations to come.

The village chief, Hunters Wang, Carpenter Zhao, and the others carefully arranged the sweet potatoes, eggs, and rice. Yun Xiu and Zhou Dashan brought over a jar of lard, a large bowl filled with pork cracklings, a box of milk, and the remaining few pounds of rice. Combined with the hundred pounds of sweet potatoes, the fifty pounds of newly purchased rice, the tray of eggs, and a mesh bag of leafy greens, they took up half the floor space.

The crowd hissed in awe, "So much food!"

Yun Zhen didn’t think it was that much. If it were just for her family, this food would be more than enough to last a month. But distributed among the one hundred and thirty mouths in the entire village, it wouldn’t last many days. She had to make more money!

"Goddess, we all recognize the eggs, rice, leafy greens, and pork cracklings, and we just learned about sweet potatoes. But what is inside this square box?" the village chief asked, touching the stiff cardboard.

"It’s milk. The people in the Immortal Realm say it’s highly nourishing. There are about a dozen children under the age of eight in our village; let’s distribute all the milk to those growing kids," Yun Zhen said. She opened the box and saw that there were twenty-four small cartons of milk inside. It was enough for all the children under eight to drink.

"Can it be drunk after boiling?" The village chief was stunned. He only knew that wealthy households used milk to make pastries; he had never heard of anyone actually drinking it.

Zhou Dashan said, "Village Chief, Brother Li, you’re really showing your ignorance here. This is milk from the Immortal Realm. Since the Goddess says it can be drunk, then there absolutely won’t be any problems."

The village chief suddenly realized his mistake; he had actually dared to question the Goddess. "Right, I’ll boil it tomorrow night and distribute it to the children."