Chapter 191: When You’ve Tolerated All You Can, Tolerate No More
Yun Ce had countless guesses about the things in Eddy Bay, but he really never imagined that all his guesses were wrong; that place actually had an open-air radioactive material deposit.
Doggy tested the elephant pig meat sample that Yun Ce brought, and the result was that the elephant pig meat was safe, with the radiation concentrated in the elephant pig’s fur and thick skin layer, and among them, the radiation dose to the brain was the highest.
This was also the part that Yun Ce couldn’t figure out no matter how much he thought about it: radiation to the brain could actually make a brute beast like the elephant pig become intelligent?
Cao Kun eventually ordered the scout team to dig up all the glowing red soil, and he didn’t rotate personnel in the middle, but gave those soil-digging scouts very generous rewards; it was also these scouts who ultimately carried those soils and disappeared without a trace.
Ever since returning, Yun Ce had been soaking in the bathhouse every day, and Cao Kun followed his example.
“The thing that can harm me should be able to harm others too, right?”
Yun Ce, who was soaking in the bath, heard Cao Kun’s out-of-the-blue remark, and his body suddenly stiffened; he pretended not to hear, continuing to hum a little tune, and even stirred the pool water to make a splashing sound.
“This time out, I can fool them with elephant pig corpses, but others are all eagerly waiting for you to share the spoils; after all, quite a few people died, and it wouldn’t do not to give them something.”
“Five bottles of healing holy medicine produced by Panxing Tower per person.”
Hearing Cao Kun say this, Yun Ce shut his mouth; speaking of which, the one suffering was still Peng Zeng—he just didn’t know how harshly he was being squeezed now, but from the degree of Cao Kun’s generosity, Peng Zeng’s days probably weren’t going well.
1 After staying another five days at Yun Clan Villa, Cao Kun left, and upon leaving, he said another out-of-the-blue remark to Yun Ce.
1 “All dead, not a single one alive.”
1 Yun Ce understood the meaning of this out-of-the-blue remark: those scouts who dug, loaded, and transported the soil—all dead, not a single one alive.
1 Yun Ce solemnly had Doggy compile the discovery of the radioactive material mine into a complete report, which was carefully stored in Doggy’s memory bank.
1 After doing these things, Yun Ce threw all his energy into the vigorous agricultural production.
1 Any activity, as long as enough people participate, will show a majestic vibe to some extent, but Yun Ce’s agricultural reclamation here carried a somewhat tragic aura.
1 Mainly because most of the people participating in agriculture on Yun Ce’s side were women and children; there weren’t enough cattle and horses, so many women had to drag the plow to till the fields, while children either lay on tree-branch woven rollers to act as weights to level the land, or followed behind the women to pick up weeds and tree roots.
1 Originally, it was planned to meticulously plow and till 100,000 mu of land, but unexpectedly, more people joined later, adding many more mouths to feed, so Yun Ce gritted his teeth and included all 300,000 mu of land reclaimed before winter into the scope of meticulous plowing and tilling.
1 For these 300,000 mu of land, Yun Ce led the 40,000 people of Yun Clan Villa, and with the cooperation of Shehuo, finally, on the last day of early spring month, managed to sow the last mu of land.
1 Doing it this way, the efficiency and quality were naturally not high, but having everyone participate in the labor was very important; only when all people participate in the labor and it bears rich fruit later will each person, when enjoying the fruits of their own labor, identify as a member of this collective.
2 Days can’t always be spent in poverty; there needs to be visible change for people to be filled with confidence in their own future and the collective’s future.
2 Fortunately, with 300,000 jin of elephant pig meat powder, Yun Ce relaxed the rules on grain rationing; although they were still eating in the big communal kitchen, it was no problem for people to have two full meals a day.
2 The people of Yun Clan Villa had no chance to eat elephant pig meat powder; the remaining nine elephant pigs altogether contributed 300,000 jin of meat powder to Yun Ce, and all this meat powder was exchanged away by those scions of nobility that Cao Kun brought.
2 At first, Yun Ce had some concerns, after all, this stuff had radiation and wasn’t good for the body if eaten, but after the nobles took the meat powder samples home and had people test-eat them, those people felt that the meat of this beast, the elephant pig, seemed to have great tonic effects for them as martial artists.
2 Under their coercion and inducements, Yun Ce had no choice but to exchange all the meat powder for grain and materials.
2 Poor people aren’t fit to eat good things—this point, the people of Yun Clan Villa all understood, even those 8,000 convicted prisoners exiled from Chang’an understood; in poor families, if there was any good thing, it would be exchanged with their former selves for much cheaper but larger quantities of food.
2 E Ji knew her family wasn’t poor; her room held 16,000 taels of gold, which if used to buy grain, could certainly buy a lot of grain.
2 During the day, when she went out holding her rice bowl, a group of women similarly holding rice bowls would naturally come over; the porridge in E Ji’s rice bowl was just a bit thicker, perhaps with a few pieces of meat in it.
2 Whenever this happened, E Ji would pour the porridge from her bowl into a pregnant woman’s, or pick out the meat from her bowl and put it into the bowls of a few little ones who still couldn’t leave their mothers.
2 A full big bowl of rice, she could only eat a few bites of it, and it all went into those pregnant women’s and little ones’ bowls.
3 Back home, she would generally eat another round; the first round was for socializing, for winning hearts, and the second was the real meal.
3 This kind of thing could only be done by E Ji, a woman from the countryside; Zhang Min, An Ji, and the others couldn’t do it—either they couldn’t stand the women’s ugly eating manners, or they couldn’t stand the sight of children eating and shitting at the same time.
3 E Ji could; when encountering such things, she would scold the women and beat the children, and after scolding and beating, she would still share the porridge where it should go and pick out the meat where it should.
3 This led to everyone in Yun Clan Villa, regardless of gender, age, or youth, respectfully calling out “Wife” when seeing E Ji, and habitually going to the Wife to resolve issues when problems arose.
3 After the busy spring plowing and sowing ended, E Ji’s weight in Yun Clan Villa was even a bit heavier than Yun Ce’s.
3 After the last Shehuo Festival, Shehuo seemed to have accepted people’s worship, and basically responded to every request for good wind or good rain when needed.
3 Whenever Shehuo brought down sweet rain, the wild beasts in the wasteland would respond with long howls; with Shehuo around, it was also very beneficial for the beasts’ reproduction, and even the green grass here grew better than elsewhere.
3 With the wasteland turned into fields, the appearance changed a lot—neat, flat, orderly; this was another kind of beauty, and even more beautiful than the original wasteland scenery.
3 Spring is a mating season, whether for people or animals; they are all willing to follow this heavenly dao law, especially after the hard spring plowing; both men and women are willing to reward themselves on this abundant day.
3 Yun Ce was still going against heaven.
4 Zhang Min claimed to be a mature woman about to explode, and even told Yun Ce that as long as he touched her, she would definitely be able to bear children.
4 Yun Ce had personally measured this with his hands and knew she wasn’t exaggerating.
4 E Ji also said she was already very mature, especially the scale of her breasts sufficient for future children’s needs.
4 But when Yun Ce revealed his Dragon Arm at night, the two women quieted down, no longer seeking pleasure; they seemed like the type who liked dragons in name only.
4 They were naturally willing to bear sons with Yun Ce, but with a dragon… better not.
4 They eventually had marital relations with Yun Ce; unlike the fool E Ji, Zhang Min, from a great family background and well-informed, brought a mysterious item the next day and stuffed it to E Ji.
4 When E Ji that night again hummed and hawed while holding something and burrowed into Yun Ce’s arms, Yun Ce was stunned by the thing in front of him.
4 “Fish bladder?”
4 E Ji buried her head in Yun Ce’s arms but held the fish bladder in her hand high, afraid he wouldn’t see it.
4 That night, E Ji cried out all night, and as for the fish bladder, it was clumsily torn by Yun Ce before it even started; but the arrow was on the string and had to be released, or it would be deadly if held back.
5 The next night, E Ji took out another fish bladder; this time it went well, quite with the sense of perfect union.
5 On the third day, it was Zhang Min who brought the fish bladder; this woman was a madman, and when dawn broke the next day, the two searched for a long time but couldn’t find the fish bladder.
5 After that, the maids in Yun Clan Manor could eat fish every day, and every fish was very large.
5 Physical isolation is a very unreliable thing, especially with fish bladders; although E Ji and Zhang Min always said the process doesn’t matter as long as the result is good, unfortunately, these two women were clearly after the process.
5 Roasting the Dragon Arm with Shehuo was actually very effective, because Shehuo could soften the hard Dragon Arm.
5 It was just that during the roasting, it hurt too much.
5 Yun Ce once persisted until the Dragon Arm claws retracted and then fainted.
5 According to Doggy’s prediction, if Yun Ce could continue persisting, Shehuo could force the dragon factors out of the body, which would also be the best outcome.
5 Because Shehuo had the power to restrain all evil things; to Shehuo, any part not belonging to a human was an invading evil, even a dragon was a type of evil.
5 The rain in Chang’an was thick and inseparable; Yun Ce didn’t like it, but the rainwater at Yun Clan Villa was different—clear and bright, falling from the sky onto the just-sprouting seedlings, like stroking a child’s head.
6 After spring began, Yun Clan Villa had evolved into a town with a population of up to 40,000 people; this was the gratifying scene after Yun Ce gradually opened up grain distribution methods.
6 Just as previously anticipated, when a place has more women and children, strong young men will come uninvited.
6 This had nothing to do with romance, only with survival.
6 North of the Great Wall wasn’t actually as desolate as Yun Ce had previously imagined; in some remote places, many abandoned people still lived.
6 Yun Ce didn’t ask the reasons these people ended up in the wilderness; it was nothing more than things like “harsh government is fiercer than tigers” or “harsh government is more poisonous than snakes.”
6 They were all Han people; Yun Ce felt there was no need to be too particular.
6 Blocked, requires modification, don’t know what to change.
