112: Chapter 112 Naturally, Heaven Will Make It Rain

The gates of the new city were pushed open with a roar, and countless citizens scrambled out in a rush.

Clutching hoes and iron pickaxes in their hands, they surged toward the boundless wilderness like a breaking dam.

An old farmer, running at the very front, had barely stepped onto the marked boundary of the wasteland when his knees slammed hard into the ground.

He scrambled to throw himself into the wasteland, his hands digging into the hard, dry soil like iron clamps. He grabbed a handful of dirt mixed with pebbles, pressed it without hesitation against his cracked lips, and kissed it frantically, his face covered in a mixture of tears and mud.

"My field... This is my field!"

Behind him, more people flooded into the wilderness.

Some swung their hoes, digging frantically as if they knew no fatigue.

A few young children, still too innocent to understand, were placed by their parents onto the freshly turned soil, rolling around happily and giggling despite being covered in mud.

The sun slowly sank below the horizon, and the sky grew dark.

According to past customs, it should have been time to stop work and return to the city long ago.

But today, on the boundless wilderness, not a single person turned back.

Countless torches were lit, scattering across the outskirts of Flower City like a sky full of stars.

Everyone had red eyes, clearly intent on working through the night—to let their own fields lie fallow for even an hour would be a crime!

Minister Wang Fugui stood on the walls of the new city, his hands braced against the grey-blue stone bricks as he watched this crazy scene outside the city, the fat on his face twitching.

He drew a sharp breath, his heart filled with a complex mix of emotions.

Back when he was the head of the Chamber of Commerce, he had employed large numbers of tenant farmers, but even when he brandished a whip and promised double wages, those people would just drag their feet and work half-heartedly.

How could it compare to this now?

The City Lord's estate hadn't spent a single penny, yet these people were acting possessed, risking their very lives to clear land and expand for the City Lord's estate.

"Brilliant, truly brilliant..." Minister Wang Fugui wiped the sweat from his forehead, his awe for Zhou Yun rising to yet another level.

Just as he was sighing in wonder, a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly sounded behind him.

Several Chamber of Commerce members who used to follow him—the famous "rich dogs" of Flower City in the past—approached him now, all of them flushed with excitement and drenched in sweat.

"Chairman! Oh no, Minister Wang!" A fat merchant squeezed to the very front, rubbing his hands together in excitement, his nouveau-riche expression extremely punchable.

"You truly have great foresight! The move you made, leading us to donate all our family assets to the City Lord, was absolutely divine!"

"Indeed, indeed!" Another tall, thin merchant jumped with excitement.

"Ten mu per person! Including all the distant cousins who came to seek refuge, my family has twenty-three people in total, and this wave got us two hundred and thirty mu of land! I even saved the money I would have spent buying land!"

"Haha, Old Li, your family only has twenty-three people?" A greasy-faced young rich man nearby lifted his chin smugly.

"My old man married five concubines in one go back in the day, and now there are sixty-five of us in the whole family—six hundred and fifty mu! I've already sent people to stake out the land overnight!"

"Wagagaga!" The last fat man, wearing a silk vest, laughed so hard his back teeth were visible, slapping his thigh in wild laughter.

"My clan is huge, one hundred and twenty-six people! That's over a thousand mu right there! We're rich! This time, we're absolutely rich!"

Minister Wang Fugui, standing at the front, listened to his former underlings bragging frantically like a machine gun, his expression completely stiffening.

Although Minister Wang Fugui was rich, his family line was thin. Counting his wife and children, there were only five people, so he only got fifty mu of land.

Watching this group of lackeys who used to rely on him for food now raking in hundreds or thousands of mu of land, and bragging about it right in front of him, Minister Wang Fugui's originally ruddy, fat face turned as black as the bottom of a pot at a visible speed.

Pure jealousy caused him to lose his composure on the spot.

"Laugh, laugh, laugh! All you know how to do is giggle like idiots! What the hell are you laughing at!" Minister Wang Fugui spun around, pointing furiously at those flushed merchants, waving his short, thick arms frantically as if shooing away flies, spittle flying everywhere.

"Get lost! All of you, get down there and farm! Stop being an eyesore here! Get out, get out, get out!"

...

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking.

Just as Zhou Yun pushed open the door to the Council Hall, Tie Shan strode in, covered in mud, with two massive dark circles under his eyes.

The soles of his thick-bottomed cloth shoes were caked with the wet, sticky yellow mud from the wilderness, and with every step, he left a clear muddy footprint on the bluestone floor.

"City Lord, we're in big trouble!" Tie Shan wiped the dried mud from his face haphazardly, his voice filled with deep worry and anxiety. "Once the decree to distribute the fields was issued, the citizens went crazy.

All night yesterday, tens of thousands of people didn't even return to the city, working through the night in the wilderness in the dark!

Clearing the wasteland is certainly a good thing, but..."

He swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, his brows knitting together in a tight knot. "But there's absolutely no water in the wasteland! Right now in Flower City, even for people to drink, we have to rely on carts to haul it back from Ganlan Mountain bucket by bucket.

When the citizens' fervor dies down and they plant the seeds, only to find there's no water to irrigate them, and they watch helplessly as the crops wither from drought, that's going to cause a huge disaster!"

Zhou Yun sat in the main seat, watching Tie Shan, who was so anxious he looked like he was about to burst into flames, and couldn't help but chuckle.

"If there's a lack of water, just divert it." Zhou Yun picked up the hot tea on the table, gently blew on the floating leaves, and said in a gentle tone,

"Ganlan Mountain is at a high elevation. Today, take some men up to Ganlan Mountain, choose a suitable spot to dig down, build a large reservoir, and then dig irrigation canals following the terrain down to the fields in the wilderness."

Tie Shan was stunned for a moment, scratching his bald head, his face full of confusion.

"City Lord, the little water on Ganlan Mountain is enough to supply our two hundred thousand people for drinking, but if it's used to irrigate millions of mu of fields...

Even if we build the reservoir huge, there won't be enough water to fill it!"

"It doesn't matter." Zhou Yun took a sip of tea and set down the cup. "Go ahead and build the reservoir. When the time comes, I will naturally make the heavens rain."

...

When the notice for building the Ganlan Mountain reservoir was posted, the citizens realized instantly—the reservoir was the foundation for growing crops!

Without any mobilization, the registration office was swamped by a frenzied crowd.

Countless hoes and pickaxes slammed heavily into the hard rocky soil of Ganlan Mountain, accompanied by teeth-gritting, dull thuds, sending out a series of blinding sparks.

The immense recoil made many people's palms ache, yet everyone's face wore an extremely fervent and satisfied smile.

Amidst this near-crazy excavation, near noon, a strange "ding" sound suddenly came from the bottom of the pit.

Half an hour later, Tie Shan, clutching a stone he had just dug out of the frozen earth, rushed into the City Lord's estate in a great hurry.

"City Lord, please take a look, what is this object?"

The stone was about the size of a fist, entirely deep, jet black.

Even though it had just been dug out of the freezing ground, its surface still held a trace of the warm, gentle residual heat from deep underground.

Most strange of all, the surface of the stone was not smooth but densely covered in fine, naturally flowing lines like human meridians. Holding it in one's hand, one could even feel an extremely faint sensation of Spiritual Qi breathing, like a heartbeat.

Zhou Yun took the stone in his hand and examined it for a moment, feeling that marvelous rhythm, and gently shook his head.

Tie Shan had come to the wrong person.

If Tie Shan, a Great Master of forging, didn't recognize this stone, how could he possibly know what it was?