Chapter 120: One Person’s Strength

Zhang Shuisheng’s father fell silent for a moment, scrutinizing Wu Wei before he said, “Weiwei, tell Uncle Zhang what you have in mind.”

“I want to go find the village head,” Wu Wei replied, “and ask him to send people out to the fields for soil samples. First, we need to determine if the problem is just with our family’s land or if it’s affecting everyone’s fields in the village. Uncle Zhang, you know my plots are all hillside fields—the soil’s thin there, and low fertility is nothing new. I never planned to rely on those few acres for our livelihood anyway, so an occasional poor yield isn’t a crisis. But if the trouble extends to every field in Zhang Family Village, then we can’t ignore it.”

Old Man Zhang sighed with feeling. “It’s commendable that you care so much, but have you considered how big a deal this is? The old lady just moved here from another village. I trust her claim about tasting soil, but will anyone else? Your land is up on the hills—it’s colder there, so planting starts later than in the lowlands. Most villagers sowed their seeds days ago; the hardworking families have already finished. Telling them to burn grass for fertilizer at this stage? That’d be the death of them! Those seeds were handpicked from thousands upon thousands!”

Zhang Shuisheng picked up on the gravity in his father’s tone and added his own caution. “That’s right, Weiwei. You haven’t farmed before, so you might not realize—good seeds are selected meticulously the previous year. Farmers store them year after year to ensure strong crops. Whatever’s left over wouldn’t be enough for a second planting after all this hassle. And in Qinglu County, after every harvest, people burn the stubble right in the fields, letting the ashes rot through the winter. Even if the villagers agreed now, where would we find enough wild grass to burn? My advice? Better to let sleeping dogs lie. You’d make too many enemies.”

Wu Wei knew he was telling the unvarnished truth, and only trying to protect her. After all, seeing was believing.

Until the poor harvest actually struck, who would take their word for it? If they stirred everyone up and the seeds ran short anyway, they’d only hurt people.

“Uncle Zhang, Second Brother-in-law,” she said earnestly, “I know you’re thinking of me, and I didn’t fully account for the villagers’ situation. But could you still help me get some soil samples?”

The Zhang father and son exchanged a look. “A few handfuls of dirt? Easy enough,” Old Man Zhang replied. “No need to drag the village head into it, though. I’ll send Shuisheng with some boys to fetch them for you from the fields.”

…

Wu Wei left the Zhang house with a heavy heart. All she could do now was wait—and hope the issue was confined to her own fields.

…

That evening, Embroider Maiden came home carrying over a dozen cloth sacks filled with soil samples collected from various households’ fields in Little Locust Village.

Wu Wei transferred the samples into wooden tubs, labeling and logging each one. Then she prepared clean water and a cloth for Old Lady Liu before respectfully presenting a few small scoops of soil. “Aunt Liu, would you please taste these and tell us what the autumn harvest will be like?”

Old Lady Liu had never been treated with such respect in her life. She perked up at once, popping each pinch of soil into her mouth before rinsing as instructed.

Old Lady Liu paused for a beat. “This is soil from Little Locust Village!”

Embroider Maiden and Wu Wei were too stunned to speak. They stared at each other, shock written across their faces.

Wu Wei felt a pang of regret. She should have brought Zhang Shuisheng along to see Old Madam Liu’s skill firsthand.

“Mom, how could you tell?” Embroider Maiden asked, wide-eyed.

Old Lady Liu smiled. “It’s where I spent most of my life. I know the taste of home soil like the back of my hand.”

Only then did she rinse her mouth, her expression tinged with reluctance.

“Aunt Liu, what do you think? How will the autumn harvest turn out?” Wu Wei pressed.

Old Lady Liu replied, “Little Locust Village will fare a little better, but nothing like past years.” She shook her head sadly.

Evidently, the elders were right—Little Locust Village truly was a blessed patch of earth. Even with the heavens turning against them, its yields would still outshine those in Zhang Family Village.

Wu Wei thanked Old Lady Liu profusely and retreated quietly to her room. After dinner and tidying up, she and Embroider Maiden settled into bed.

The room was utterly dark. Embroider Maiden finally had a moment to ask what was going on.

Wu Wei explained her suspicions, along with the warnings from father and son Zhang.

Embroider Maiden listened, then clutched Wu Wei’s hand tightly. “So what now?”

“Old Man Zhang and Second Brother-in-law hit the nail on the head,” Wu Wei said. “The lowland fields are already sown. Forcing folks to burn grass and compost at this point would ruin them. A poor harvest is still just a possibility—people won’t believe warnings about what hasn’t happened yet. Even if we swayed the village head and everyone followed through, we’d be the ones getting an earful for raising false alarms, claiming there never was a problem and we just wanted to make trouble. We’re all outsiders here. The Zhangs are locals, true, but they don’t carry enough sway to convince the whole village.”

“Then we do nothing? What if the poor harvest really comes?”

“Embroider Maiden, I’ve never aspired to play the lone hero. I’m not tough enough to survive until the truth comes out. If we riled everyone up and disaster struck anyway, they’d pin all the blame on us. The villagers would beat our family senseless.”

Embroider Maiden felt as if an invisible hand had clamped around her throat. She fell silent for a long while before managing a hoarse whisper. “Then let’s stock up on more grain. We have to live.”

Wu Wei let out a deep sigh. For the first time since arriving in this world, she felt profoundly powerless—a helplessness far beyond what she’d endured locked in Zhang Kuan’s prison.

This was the despair of an ordinary soul, bereft of power, facing the unyielding might of nature.

That night, neither Wu Wei nor Embroider Maiden slept a wink.

Two days later, Zhang Shuisheng arrived with dozens of cloth sacks—soil samples he’d secretly gathered from fields all across Zhang Family Village.

Ever cautious, he’d foreseen the backlash if things went wrong. So he collected every one himself, without involving a soul, and sworn his family to secrecy.

No matter what, safety came first.

Fearing that too-frequent tasting might blunt her judgment, Wu Wei limited Old Lady Liu to a dozen samples a day, spaced well apart. It took three days to get through them all.

Wu Wei reviewed the report she’d compiled by hand. Among the fifty-seven samples, every one foretold a poor harvest, though the severity varied.

For Little Locust Village’s soils, Old Lady Liu’s verdict was: yields far below normal years, but some grain nonetheless.

For the vast majority from Zhang Family Village: poor harvest ahead—families would go hungry, and those short on stores would face real hardship.

Then there were three households whose samples drew the bleakest judgment: utter ruin.

No matter how Embroider Maiden and Wu Wei pressed her, Old Lady Liu only shook her head with a bitter grimace, lips sealed.

Following the labels, Wu Wei went straight to Zhang Shuisheng for answers. Those three families’ fields lay near the Sheep Farm in the village. Every autumn, they sold their straw and stubble there as feed, so they never burned it for fertilizer.

With the picture now clear, Wu Wei’s heart sank even lower.

She had hoped Old Lady Liu’s words rang untrue. But they didn’t.

That Soil Tasting Skill of hers bordered on the miraculous.

The weather remained mild, yet Wu Wei was drenched in sweat. She raced home in a panic, barricaded herself in her room, cut paper, ground ink, and scribbled furiously, pen clenched between her teeth.

If they couldn’t fix the soil from the source, then they’d have to intervene later—boosting the crops’ growth mid-season.

Fertilize during cultivation.

In an era with tech hovering near zero and no commercial fertilizers, she’d have to improvise.

Wu Wei brainstormed countless ways to synthesize fertilizer, but conditions thwarted them all.

At last, inspiration struck: calcine niter under oxygen to produce vapors dissolved in water for nitric acid solution, then dissolve limestone in that to yield calcium nitrate solution, and evaporate to crystallize.

It was an outdated composite fertilizer long abandoned even for flowers. Wu Wei recalled it from her childhood, when she’d gone planting on the hills with her grandmother and spotted a woven sack in the warehouse corner. It was labeled “Calcium Nitrate Fertilizer (Agricultural Use)”, followed by specs she couldn’t parse: Total N ≥ 11.0%, CaO ≥ 23%.

The young Wu Wei hadn’t understood, dragging her grandmother over to ask. Grandma had smiled fondly, stroking her head. “Study hard, child, and one day you’ll know.”

Later on, after Wu Wei had studied chemistry, she finally understood the meaning of those symbols that had baffled her as a youth. By then, however, her grandmother was long gone.

To make up for the regrets of her childhood, Wu Wei had even worked out the specific chemical equations on her own.

A flood of memories welled up in her mind, bringing back the image of that kind old woman. Wu Wei’s eyes grew misty.

The Late Emperor of the Liang Dynasty had been a fervent believer in the efficacy of medicinal pills, so pill-refining workshops could be found throughout the realm—even in a remote backwater like Qinglu County. As a result, both niter and limestone were readily available.

However… producing enough chemical fertilizer to supply not just Zhang Family Village but the entirety of Qinglu County was far beyond what Wu Wei could accomplish alone.

Two names flashed through Wu Wei’s mind: Pingjia County Princess Gao Ningxue and Clear River County Magistrate Zhang Cheng!

To establish a production line in short order, she would need substantial financial resources and official backing.

Gao Ningxue had originally seemed like the ideal choice; her grandfather’s fief lay quite close to Qinglu County. But with Prince Yan’s relocation to a new domain, that advantage had vanished.

Still, Wu Wei decided to take a chance. After all, this concerned the welfare of an entire county’s worth of people.

With that, Wu Wei took up her brush and penned a letter—to Gao Ningxue.

As for Zhang Cheng, she would go explain the matter to him in person.