Damn it, I'm in the garbage book I wrote

Chapter 785 That's the gist of it.
Did Xia Lin not know that this method was unscientific? Of course he did.

But he had no choice. As a father, it was too painful for him to see his own son tossing and turning in bed in the middle of the night because he was so hungry. What was even more important was that the child was still young, only in the third or fourth grade of elementary school.

If he could, he would prefer to see his children grow up happily, without any worries, and live out their lives in a daze.

But what is the reality? The reality is that these few people will definitely influence the entire country and even the entire world in the future. They can inherit their will or destroy their achievements. Everything is just a matter of their whim.

What Xia Lin wants to instill in them right now is empathy for the most vulnerable, and to do everything possible to prevent them from going down the path of "let them eat cake."

There are also people of their age in the village. Those children have lived in such an environment since they were young. If there are no accidents, they will never be able to leave this mountain in their lives. They will be trapped here forever, and their descendants will continue the lives of the previous generation, becoming numb and wild.

But this is neither right nor should it be done, but it needs to be seen. Sometimes things are like this; it's not that they are not valued, but that they are not seen. If they are not seen, they are not there. Local officials, for the sake of their political achievements, will not willingly offend their superiors for the sake of a few hundred or so people.

But what if there were dozens of such villages? What if there were hundreds? What if there were thousands? What if there were tens of thousands? We can't always view this vast land from such a superior perspective.

On their fifth day there, the children were starving. They went up the mountain together to find something to eat, and the person leading them was a boy from the village who was about their age.

The boy was thin and taciturn, with an expression that always carried a hint of wariness and cunning, like a wildcat. His movements in the mountains and forests were similar, which could be described as nimble and agile.

"here."

He pointed to a tree hole in his somewhat broken Mandarin and said, "Dig."

Several children rushed forward, ignoring the pain from their fingers touching the frozen ground, and quickly dug out a handful of messy dried fruit from the tree hole. The village boy didn't even wash his hands before squatting down and starting to eat, then picked out a handful and put them in his pocket to take home.

The remaining half was food he gave to his peers, but everyone present was stunned when they saw it. This was not something a human could eat. Much of it was moldy and emitted various indescribable odors. Putting this in one's mouth would be truly inhuman.

They looked at each other, and finally Zhang Jianzhi sat down on the ground and started crying. Although he didn't come from a wealthy family, he had never gone hungry before, but now life had really worn him out.

As soon as he started to cry, Tuoba Shang also sat under the tree roots and began to wipe away his tears. Looking back now, how delicious a meal of coarse rice was! Now, eating potatoes every day made his stomach churn and he felt like he was living a life worse than death.

Although Li Chengqian and Li Zhi were also full of disappointment, they just stood there sighing. Only the boy who had come up the mountain with them silently lowered his head and picked out the cleaner, unrotten ones from the strange and unusual foods and placed them in their hands, while he himself silently ate the less desirable dried fruits and seeds.

He didn't cry, nor did he have time to cry. The mountains don't believe in tears; to survive, one must be as tenacious as a weed. He also had to find something to burn for his family and something to feed his younger siblings. Catching a bird or a rabbit would be ideal.

Cry? Crying will only disturb his prey.

Li Chengqian slowly squatted down and began to eat the unpalatable food. When Li Zhi saw his brother doing this, he immediately followed suit.

After all, if the young man in the mountains can eat it, why can't he?

But perhaps it was a stroke of luck, for they were fortunate today. There was a rabbit in the cage they had set yesterday. The moment they saw the rabbit, Tuoba Shangfei pounced on it, grabbed it, and shook it at Li Chengqian: "We're going to have meat to eat!"

Li Chengqian didn't answer him, but only glanced at the somewhat awkward and uneasy young man standing next to him before saying, "Give it back to him."

"Why? We haven't had meat for days."

"Give it back to him." Li Chengqian's tone left no room for argument: "This belongs to someone else."

Tuoba Shang almost exploded, but in the end he held back and handed the rabbit back to the guide. However, his eyes never left the not-so-plump rabbit.

"Let's go, let's keep looking ahead and see if there's anything else we can use."

The group continued deeper into the mountains, hoping to find something useful while it was still early so they could at least have a slightly better day.

Meanwhile, what was Xia Lin doing?

Xia Lin was chatting with the village elders, and there were many supplies beside him, including food, clothing and daily necessities. The supplies that had been carried in by people were obviously very valuable. The villagers had all gathered around, but no one dared to go up and ask for them.

"I will try to build a road here after spring, but I will need your help."

Xia Lin communicated with the village chief through the two young men. He knew very well that the supplies sent could only solve the immediate problem but could never truly alleviate the predicament. The most crucial thing was to find a way out.

Xia Lin had observed the place carefully when he came over. Although it was surrounded by mountains, the slopes were not steep, making it perfectly suitable for building a road in, although the cost would be much higher.

After hearing Xia Lin's words, the village chief initially found it unbelievable, but after two young men studying nearby explained, he understood that this man's words carried weight like an emperor's. Tears immediately welled up in the old man's cloudy eyes. "Alright, let's get this done first, then we can be moved. Take people and distribute the goods, one per household per person."

The village became lively. With these things, they could have a very comfortable winter. In fact, it could be said that even the oldest village chief had never lived such a comfortable life in his life.

That afternoon, when the children returned to the village covered in dust and looking disheveled, carrying bundles of wild grass and branches, they were surprised to find that smoke, which had not been seen in the village for a long time, was rising from the chimneys, and the cold wind carried the aromas of rice and meat.

"Meat! There's meat!" Tuoba Shang excitedly rushed towards the village.

At this moment, Li Chengqian grabbed his hand with a solemn expression and said with a hint of sorrow, "A Shang, I'm afraid this is not a good thing."

"Why? Because there's meat in it!"

Li Chengqian moved his mouth but didn't speak. Instead, Tuoba Shang became anxious: "Boss, say something! I don't understand what you mean."

"Have you ever heard of the term 'exchanging children to eat'?" Li Chengqian frowned. "When there is no food, people will... I haven't experienced it myself, but I've heard my father talk about it."

"That can't be right, there are still potatoes, right? No one will starve to death."

“Instead of discussing this here, why don’t we go in and take a look?” Zhang Jianzhi pointed to the small village not far away: “It’s right there. Uncle said that you have no right to speak without investigation. We haven’t investigated yet, so there’s no point in guessing here.”

Hearing his words, the group cautiously entered the village. As soon as they entered, Li Zhi noticed the changes. There were many damaged bamboo weavings by the roadside, and large patches of dark gray marks on the open ground. He looked down and observed for a few moments, then squatted down and wiped them with his hand.

"It's coal ash."

"Coal ash?" Li Chengqian's brows immediately relaxed. "The headmaster has brought supplies! Come on, let's go back inside and eat some meat!"

"Wow..." Tuoba Shang stood there watching their backs for a while before looking down at Zhang Jianzhi and saying, "Are they that smart?"

“They’ve always been this smart.” Zhang Jianzhi shrugged. “We’re used to it. There’s no way around it. Comparisons are odious. There are advantages to being stupid.”

Back in the small ancestral hall where they were temporarily staying, they saw a pot on the makeshift stove used for heating, with meat soup bubbling inside. Xia Lin was sitting next to it, sprinkling salt into the pot.

Hearing the commotion outside, he turned around and glanced back: "You're back?"

"Meat!"

Tuoba Shang, arriving late but arriving early, charged forward headfirst, reaching for his chopsticks to scoop out the food, but Xia Lin slapped his hand away: "Wash your hands!"

"We've practically been eating rabbit droppings up here on the mountain, so this is nothing."

But before he could finish speaking, he saw Xia Lin staring intently at him, and after a long while without making any move, Tuoba Shang immediately dared not speak and hurriedly got up and ran outside to the water vat to scoop water to wash his hands.

After a long period of hunger, even the elegant Li Chengqian couldn't maintain his composure for the first full meal. In the end, everyone ate until they were too tired to walk and leaned against the wall.

"Father, you planned this all along, didn't you?" Li Zhi took a deep breath and leaned against Xia Lin, asking, "Then what about us enduring hunger these past few days?"

"Consider yourselves lucky. You would have starved to death if you hadn't eaten the past few days." Xia Lin, who was munching on a roasted corn cob, laughed after hearing Li Zhi's words, "How have you been feeling these past few days?"

"not good."

Li Zhi shook his head and said, "This is terrible, it's like torture."

Xia Lin glanced at the others. Li Chengqian was deep in thought, while Tuoba Shang picked his teeth and said, "Wait, when I get back I'll bring the money to build a chicken farm and raise 100,000 chickens here, so they can eat chicken legs and eggs every day. This is no human life."

“You’re rich,” Zhang Jianzhi laughed. “You can give away 100,000 chickens like that. But I have a question. If there’s a place like this, how many places in the world are there? Second Brother, you have hundreds of thousands of chickens, and you just give them away like that?”

Tuoba Shang was speechless for a moment, then glared fiercely at Zhang Jianzhi: "You're everywhere, aren't you? I'll give you as much as you can find! It's just chickens."

“Giving chickens and ducks won’t solve the problem.” Li Chengqian suddenly spoke up at this moment: “I’m thinking about why this place is so poor, and we need to cut it off at its root.”

(End of this chapter)