"Fang Fulang, are you here to cut rice? Let me help you!"
"Fang Fulang, there's no need for you to do this kind of work. We'll take care of it. You just go rest over there."
With so much enthusiasm, Zhao Ger had no choice but to stand on the ridge and watch them work. Fang Zichen took the four children off to catch crickets.
Everyone volunteered eagerly—they even carried over the threshing boxes from their own fields.
Uncle Tang had never cut rice before, but today he brought his sickle anyway, just to give it a try. The fields were packed with people—a sea of bent backs and hunched figures. Seeing that the plot next to him was half-cut, he went over and started working there.
Zhao Ger gave him a couple of pointers from the side.
But work like this wasn't easy for someone unused to it. The rice stalks could scratch, and the dust made the back of his hands itchy. Bent over the whole time, Uncle Tang's back ached after just a short while, and sweat covered his forehead.
"This fieldwork really isn't easy," he said.
Zhao Ger smiled, looked up, and said, "This is still the easy part."
Here they grew two crops a year. The first batch of rice ripened right around Great Heat, when the heat was brutal—just sitting at home was unbearable. But to make the second crop of late rice, they had to push through the scorching sun and get the second season's seedlings planted before the beginning of autumn. Those ten-plus days were a race against time—literally wrestling with the heavens.
[Great heat (大暑, Dà Shǔ): the 12th of the 24 traditional Chinese solar terms, marking the hottest period of the year, when the sun reaches a celestial longitude of 120°, usually falling between July 22 and 24.]
Back then, there was not even a moment to catch one's breath. The heat was so intense it left a person half-dead. That was truly exhausting.
There wasn't a single fat person in the village—partly because food was scarce, but mostly because the work wore everyone down. Nobody could afford to get plump.
The village chief and his sons were also packed in among the crowd. The plots were small, so once the cutting was done, they started threshing in the boxes—gripping bundles of rice and pounding them hard against the box to knock the grain loose. That was heavy, strenuous work.
Many hands made light work. By morning, all three plots were finished.
By the time they filled the fourth sack, the village chief and his sons were breathing hard—loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Lao Shen, what's wrong with you?"
In past autumn harvests, everyone had been focused on their own fields, so nobody really knew how much the village chief's plots yielded. But even if others didn't know, the village chief himself certainly did.
Normally, those three plots yielded at most two sacks—and that included broken stalks and leaves mixed in. They'd spread the grain in the yard to dry and sweep out the debris with a bamboo broom later. But this time, they'd already filled two sacks, there was still more than half a box left, and several piles of unthreshed rice sat beside it.
Someone urged him: "Lao Shen, hurry and sack it! We can't thresh the rest until these are sacked!"
In the end, they filled a full six sacks, standing there in the field. Everyone fell silent.
Each sack could hold over a hundred jin (about 60 kg). The grain was still wet then, and after cleaning out the chaff and drying it, the weight would drop a bit. But everyone knew from experience that one sack usually ended up yielding over sixty jin of dry grain.
Six sacks—that was over three hundred jin, nearly four hundred (about 180–240 kg).
And that was from less than one mu of land (666.67 m²).
They'd known the fields were doing well—that chemical fertilizer really worked—but seeing it proven again, they still couldn't quite believe it. If they told anyone outside, they'd say the people of Pingxiang Village were just as delusional as those in Daoxiang Village.
Eight fen of land (533.36 m²) producing nearly four hundred jin of grain? That would not even be told as a joke. If someone claimed two hundred jin, folks might believe it. But four hundred?
Damn it—if someone came up spouting that nonsense, they'd be treating everyone like fools. They'd get a slap right across the face for it.
"Lao Lu..."
Lao Lu's chest heaved violently. Before anyone could finish, he passed out again.
Everyone shouted and rushed to help him up.
After they pinched his philtrum and fed him some water, Lao Lu came around, groggy and dazed. He stared at those big sacks lying there untouched, tears streaming down his face—he was deeply moved and completely stunned at the same time.
And who wasn't stunned at that moment? They could barely breathe.
Their own several mu of land combined would barely fill that many sacks.
Ever since transplanting, they'd been out in the fields every single day, weeding, catching pests—tending to the crops more carefully than their own children. But what about Zhao Ger?
He'd applied fertilizer, done one round of weeding, and taken a stroll through the fields once—that was it. Just three visits total. He'd earned his harvest like it was a game. And yet, with the same rain and the same sun, his fields produced this much...
Fang Zichen was off playing with the children, who kept letting out bright, clear peals of laughter.
Everyone watched with complicated expressions. This was the man—this seemingly idle, carefree fellow—who had made the land yield so abundantly.
Scholar really do have sharp, clever minds!
He'd never farmed before, yet he was more capable than any of them. They could farm for decades more and never grow rice this fine.
Uncle Tang didn't know the full story, but he could read the room. He said sincerely, "Zhujun, these plots really did have a wonderful harvest!"
Zhao Ger, however, frowned. "A bit low, actually."
The villagers overheard him: "..."
This—this is still low?
Even in their wildest dreams of a bumper harvest, they'd never dared imagine this much.
Zhao Ger said, "My husband made the fertilizer a bit late. If we'd applied base fertilizer before transplanting and then followed up with a top dressing later, the yield should have been even higher—at least five shi and three dou (about 350–400 kg)."
The villagers: "..."
That's too terrifying. Please stop talking, or Lao Lu is going to pass out again.
On the way home, the village chief's eldest son was dazed and muddled. Remembering what he'd said earlier, his cheeks stung with shame.
Afterward, when the work was done and everyone had finally eased up, they huddled together in small groups to chat.
"How was your harvest this year?"
That one family was the best at farming and the most hardworking—every year they outdid the rest of the village by several dozen jin. But this time, they couldn't brag at all. No matter how much they had, it still couldn't compare to Zhao Ger's fields.
"Ah, nowhere near Fang Fulang's. Not even close."
Then they started talking about the day they cut the rice—how lively it had been, the fields packed with people. Eight fen of land, and before she'd even swung her sickle a few times, it was all done.
"I just passed by Lao Qin's place. Fang Fulang had his grain spread out in the yard to dry—each kernel plump and full."
Like chubby little babies, they were—a delight to see.
This Fang Fulang—he raised plump, happy sons, and his rice turned out just the same. Truly remarkable.
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