Volume 1: Farming Chapter 42 "Education for a Sense of Failure"
“Ka…boom boom boom!”
After the lightning, rapid raindrops once again poured down from the sky onto the ground, hitting the cabbage leaves, causing them to sway slightly and make rustling sounds.
In the heavy rain, all the snow werewolves and caracals stood silently in a row on the ridges of the vegetable fields. Everyone lowered their heads slightly, staring blankly at the harvested vegetables in the fields, unable to recover for a long time.
Xiao Yun bent down and pulled out the last cabbage from the soaked soil. He shook off the mud and water on the cabbage and ignored the bugs on the leaves. He threw the cabbage directly onto the small pile of cabbages in front of everyone.
"Look, this is all the harvest from this big field."
His tone was not angry, because there was no need for him to get angry, as the tribesmen and caracals had already turned pale...
What does it mean that the vegetable fields in the low-lying areas have been soaked for several days? It means the end of the world... The cabbage that is about to be harvested is completely soaked from the root to the leaf, and the pests are happily having a carnival party in the leaves and the heart of the cabbage. Last time, a large field of harvested cabbage could make the young and strong snow wolves happily deliver it to the tribe for half a day. Now, if a large field of cabbage that is barely intact can have dozens or hundreds of kilograms, it is considered a blessing from God.
"How, how could this happen? Aren't there plenty of water in the vegetable garden... That's rain water, obviously not river water?" The pale-faced clan leader covered his chest with his hands. He was so heartbroken that he could hardly breathe.
Yesterday, when the clan leader saw so much salt, he almost died of laughter on the spot... uh, he laughed so hard that he fainted on the spot, and was helped to Qingcao's house and lay down for a long time before he recovered; Xiao Yun didn't want the clan leader to be overjoyed and then oversad, so he softened his tone and tried not to be emotional: "The vegetable fields do need a lot of water, but the amount needed is limited, and it has nothing to do with river water or rainwater. Just like we can't eat ten days or half a month's worth of food in one meal, eating so much will make us die of bloating."
He raised his hand and pointed at the cabbages in the vegetable garden that were too rotten to be harvested: "These are the ones that died of bloating."
Many of the tribesmen who were standing with pale faces were staggering, as if they were about to fall down due to grief - if they hadn't had a good harvest last time, they wouldn't have felt so bad. Compare the joy they had when they harvested the cabbages last time with the remains of this crop of cabbages that were more than 99% rotten in the ground... No one could bear this kind of grievance.
Xiao Yun hardened his heart, put his hands behind his back and stared at them with a sullen face, without saying a word of comfort. These guys really had lived too much of a messy life, and their brains had become rigid from not using them for a long time. He said that when he was building the water conservancy project, he had mentioned the importance of preventing floods countless times, but in the end, they only remembered to prevent river water, not rain water. When they saw the vegetable fields flooded by rain, they were still happy thinking that the vegetables could get enough water... What a lie!
After giving everyone a few minutes to feel their heartache, Xiao Yun took them to the next vegetable field. This time, he did not let them "stand in the corner" as punishment, but let them "collect the bodies" of the soaked cabbages with their own hands. The heartbroken people stepped into the rotten vegetable field with one foot heavy and one foot light, and tremblingly pulled out the miserable-looking cabbages... and most of them cried.
How could this happen? The food was fresh before!
Oh my god~ I have worked so hard to take care of the vegetables for almost two months~ I have worked so hard to till the fields, apply fertilizers, carry water, and weed~
Wuuwuwuwuwu～～～～
The ruthless, cold-blooded, cruel and unreasonable Xiao Yun said nothing. He stood on the edge of the field with his arms folded across his chest, looking coldly at the group of adults and cubs who were either speechless or crying loudly.
He is not the kind of person who supports frustration education, because if a person's self-confidence is damaged, he will be even more restrained in doing things and his future will be even bleaker. This is the experience he has summed up after leading countless new and junior people in the company.
However, when a new employee makes a serious mistake, he or she must be made aware of the mistake and the damage it has caused to him or her and the company. In order to make failure truly a lesson and a success, it is absolutely necessary to correctly and deeply recognize the mistake. Otherwise, the person you bring up will be useless.
If there are correct points, you should praise them as much as possible, to the extent that the other party can rely on your praise for spiritual support. If there are wrong points, you don't need to use harsh words to scold them, as that will stimulate the other party's rebellious psychology. It is best to use appropriate means to make the other party thoroughly realize the mistakes, regret and repent, or even cry bitterly; and during this period, you cannot comfort them casually, and you must not let the other party have a self-comforting mentality such as "my mistakes can be remedied, my mistakes are actually not a big deal". In this way, the training will be profound... ahem, the lesson will be deep enough.
After everyone finished harvesting the pitiful harvest from this vegetable plot, basically no one could hold their heads up; Xiao Yun nodded and continued to the next vegetable plot...
Chinese cabbage and green vegetables cannot stand being soaked in water, and it is no exaggeration to describe the vegetable fields as a mess. Since the harvest was so bad, Xiao Yun simply didn't rush and took the girls to harvest the crops one field at a time, until everyone was exhausted and hopeless...
The radish field was better, after all, it was a tuber crop, the leaves on top rotted but the tubers below were still alive. When everyone received the radish field, their faces finally looked more human: Xiao Yun laughed in his heart, took a long breath and sighed: "Alas, it seems that the salt we brought back can only be used to pickle radishes... The other two kinds are useless."
…Everyone started crying again.
Xiao Yun had planned to plant another crop of vegetables, but looking at the current weather, there was no hope for the third crop... Planting in such continuous rainy days was like throwing seeds for fun. Fortunately, a lot of cabbage harvested in the first crop was stored in the cellar, and the radishes harvested in the second round were enough to eat until next year, so the supply of vegetables was still acceptable.
One day was given to the tribe members to reflect thoroughly and recognize their mistakes, and starting from the second day, they began to harvest alfalfa in earnest.
Xiao Yun also didn't want to harvest alfalfa in this kind of weather with continuous thunderstorms, but the alfalfa fields had already fallen over due to the heavy rains for several days. If they were not harvested, the alfalfa would rot in the fields, which would be a huge waste.
The alfalfa that was harvested in a hurry was dried in the sun when there was sunshine, and was quickly collected when there were more and thicker clouds in the sky and placed vertically under a temporary awning to shelter from the rain. The workload was much greater than that of the last harvest.
But even with such cumbersome and heavy harvesting work, no one complained from beginning to end, and the sounds of being tired or hungry completely disappeared - the "failure education" in the vegetable fields the day before was so profound, so profound that countless people were still sobbing when they lay down to sleep that night, and it is estimated that they will not be able to get over the psychological trauma in the short term... Even the person who went out to cook salt and didn't look after the house had red eyes when he woke up the next day.
When Xiao Yun saw this situation, he was not going to be polite with them. He took advantage of this opportunity when everyone was so honest to quickly arrange the work that needed to be done - in the section of the river near their tribe, he would dig a 500-meter-long artificial river channel leading to the uninhabited area in the south, and lead the water that overflowed the river to the wilderness below!
Xiao Yun made this decision after he turned into a wolf in the middle of the night and ran up and down the river twice. When he found that the extra water source in the northwest of the river actually came from the jungle, he completely gave up on releasing the flood to flood the forest - the terrain of the entire jungle mountain range is higher than the grassland as a whole! If he wanted to release the flood to flood the forest, the most likely consequence would not be that the elves would come to him, but that the damn flood would turn around and flood him ... So no matter how tempted Xiao Yun was, he had to give up this seemingly great idea.
As for why they didn't divert water to irrigate the underground world, it was because Xiao Yun discovered after an on-site investigation that in order to do this, he would have to dig an artificial river channel of at least two kilometers. The workload, time consumption, and logistical support during the work were all troublesome issues. It would be better to dig the section in his own tribe. This naturally formed tributary that flowed freely along the terrain formed a non-standard diagonal line on the earth. The upper-middle part of the diagonal line was the area closest to his own tribe. Opening an artificial river channel across the river and diverting water to the uninhabited wilderness in the south was the best solution that the tribe could achieve with its current manpower and resources.
After running back and forth several times at night to survey the terrain and the route to be dug, Xiao Yun woke everyone up by knocking on hoes and sickles at dawn. After a quick breakfast, they were taken to the construction site... and work began!
Thanks to the highly successful "failure education", no one complained or procrastinated about such hard work as digging a canal in the rain with simple tools - Xiao Yun couldn't help but wonder if this would happen again next year when planting vegetables, and the water-fearing caracals would obediently wade across the river to deliver food!
While Xiao Yun was exploiting the labor of his people to his heart's content, an ugly creature with a big head, a thin body, long hands and short feet, and only four fingers on its palms with a faint metallic luster and slightly wide, sharp-tipped metal-like nails secretly popped its head out of a hole in the northwest region more than 80 kilometers upstream of the tribe in the river where he had run back and forth twice.
"How is it? Is there any smell of that snow werewolf?"
The companion hiding in the cave asked in a low voice.
The little creature lying on the cave entrance stared with its big eyebrowless eyes and sniffed all around with its flat nose. Then it quickly crawled out and turned to shout inside: "There is no smell of the snow wolf man. He is not here."
With a whoosh, a companion who was just as ugly as the one that jumped out in front of him jumped out...
After the two little creatures jumped out, they sniffed around vigilantly for a long time before they laboriously pushed the stones near the cave entrance over to block the door of their "home".
The grasslands in the north do not have distinct rainy and dry seasons like the tropical grasslands, but in summer and autumn, the melting snow and the greatly increased rainfall due to the rising temperature can still bring a rainy season experience to the residents of the northern grasslands. In such a natural environment, the weak creatures on this grassland are quite adapted to rainy days - the rain will dilute their scent and reduce the probability of being discovered by predators. Some creatures even dare to go out to forage only when it rains.
Goblins, this unwelcome and weak race from the underground world, are one of the weak creatures that tenaciously struggle to survive on the grassland. It is often difficult for them to maintain a large group, because once the grassland residents find a group of goblins nearby, they will drive them away or even kill them. If they want to continue their lives on the grassland, they can only live quietly in a small family or small group in an unknown corner of the grassland.
Areas with more rocks, dense low hills and thin soil are not considered good grasslands, and grazing grassland dwellers will not come here. This hilly area sandwiched between the forest and the grassland has become the home of this tiny group of goblins... Originally they lived in the east, closer to the grassland, but the migrating snow wolf tribe discovered them and drove them away, so they moved more than 20 kilometers to the west and settled in this hilly area closer to the forest.
Goblins cannot raise livestock, nor can they farm like Tauren. They cannot reveal any signs of their lives on the surface, as this would bring about a devastating disaster for their tribe... Therefore, even if they live in one place for a long time, the only sources of daily necessities they can rely on are collecting plant roots, snatching wild fruits from birds' beaks, and hunting smaller creatures.
Two adult goblins who were responsible for finding food for their tribe entered the outskirts of the forest cautiously and carefully, climbed up the trees with their claws and hands that were harder than metal, and after confirming that there were no large beasts wandering around, they began their hunting operations - they found long, barbed thorn branches, turned the thorn branches upside down, and poked them into the holes dug by the rabbits and dug them out slowly; once the barbs of the thorn branches hooked the fur of the rabbits hiding in the holes, they would happily drag the thorn branches out and break the rabbits' necks with their hard and powerful hands.
A cunning rabbit has three burrows. There may not always be rabbits in a rabbit hole, but if you try more, you will always get something. After digging all the rabbit holes they could find around, they started climbing trees and knocking on rotten tree trunks. Wild fruits and berries left over by birds and fat insects hidden in the bark were their food sources. If they occasionally found bird eggs, they would carefully put them in the bag made of bark hanging around their waists.
Leaving the safety of the burrow and going to the surface to forage for food is a dangerous job, so the people in charge of foraging always get some preferential treatment. The grasshoppers, dragonflies, cicadas and other insects that are edible but not too large that they catch are their snacks. After catching them, they don’t need to take them back and can eat them directly.
The goblins have a very wide range of diets. They eat all edible wild vegetables and wild animals as long as they can get their hands on them. In the forest where birds are active, they can even find wild taro and wild ginger that Xiao Yun has never found...
Before the rain stopped, the two goblins returned to the cave dug by their tribe with a rich harvest.
The cave has a small entrance and a diameter of less than 40 centimeters, which can only accommodate adult goblins. There is a different world inside. The deepest part reaches 30 meters underground, and the widest room can accommodate wolf-shaped snow werewolves to roll around and play... But the air is not very good and the environment is relatively dirty. The hungry little goblins hiding in the cave are as small as coal balls.
They don't have clay pots to cook food, but eating raw food for a long time is not good for health. The survival situation of the goblins is difficult, and the high-pressure living environment does not allow them to be stupid and brainless, so they also have their own way of heating food - they will dig a passage in their caves specifically for making fire. This passage is far away from where they live, and they can ensure safety by collapsing the passage when they encounter danger; the end of this passage will be dug to the ground where there are larger stones or close to the mountain, leaving a breathable gap on the top, in which they will make a fire and heat specially selected stones - smooth stones with high mass density and no holes - after heating these stones, they will be picked up with wooden sticks and placed in a large stone with a concave surface dug out, and water and food will be put into the concave surface of the stone, and the food will be cooked by the heated stones.
Once their stomachs are full, the goblins will not leave their burrows... When it doesn't rain, the surface world is too dangerous for them. Not to mention the wandering monsters, even the larger beasts can chase them away, leaving them with no way to escape.
"Today I went to the snow wolf's pasture and took a look. The grass there was very abundant, just like before the snow wolf came. Do they not want to graze here anymore and don't want the pasture here anymore?"
The oldest goblin in the small group spoke up.
The adult goblin who went out to look for food immediately shook his head: "Didn't the snow werewolves come up to see us a few days ago? Maybe they just didn't graze before, maybe they will come up during this period."
"That snow wolf man didn't go to the pasture at all. They must have abandoned the pasture here." Another adult goblin sighed, "With the snow wolf man not coming to graze, there are many more wild beasts around... In the past few months, their warriors haven't patrolled here."
"It's easier to avoid wild beasts than to avoid snow werewolves. When they are grazing in the pasture nearby, we can't go out to find food even on rainy days."
"At least the Snow Wolf Man found out that we were just chasing them away. We can pretend to leave and then sneak back. If we are discovered by wild beasts, we will lose our lives."
"It goes without saying that before they came, how many people did we lose? After they came, all the monsters and wild beasts were driven away. Even though we had to starve for a while when they were grazing, we were always safer at other times." The old goblin sighed and said, "If our fellow tribesmen who came to the earth before us didn't steal other people's cattle and sheep, we wouldn't be hated by the grassland people so much... We can quietly pick up some cow dung without being discovered, but how can we not be discovered if we steal other people's cattle and sheep?"
The three remaining adult goblins of this small tribe sighed at the same time...
"If this tribe of snow wolves moves away... should we secretly follow them?" The goblin who lamented the increase in the number of wild beasts suggested, "There are only a few snow wolves in this tribe. If we are careful, we won't be discovered by them. Otherwise, if there are more wild beasts around here, it will be difficult for us to go up and find food."
"That's too dangerous." Another person immediately retorted, "Before, they were just chasing us away. If they found out that we were following them, would they kill us directly?"
...The three of them shuddered at the same time. The Snow Wolf Man was really scary! When they were secretly observing, they saw with their own eyes a lone Snow Wolf Warrior tearing a terrifying wild boar apart with his bare hands. It was so scary!
"How about we go to the south to see if the Snow Wolf tribe is still there? Whether they are going to migrate or not want the pasture here, we will know after taking a look." The old goblin thought for a while and said, "Although it is a bit risky, it is still safer to live near the Snow Wolf. We can hide underground and not go to the ground when the Snow Wolf is active."
The two adult goblins thought about it and nodded in agreement. After the snow wolf came a few nights ago, they could not even smell the scent of wild animals when they went foraging. Although they were a little nervous, it was indeed much safer to live around the snow wolf tribe than to be surrounded by wild animals.
On that day, it rained again on the grassland, and the two adult goblins came out of the cave again and worked hard to collect and hunt for a lot of food. When the next day dawned and it began to rain, the two adult goblins took a small amount of food, said goodbye to their tribesmen, and quietly followed the path of the snow wolf who ran up at midnight.
The rain would dilute their scent, and when the rain stopped, they would hide in tree holes. With the cover of the rain, they ran over 80 kilometers in three days and arrived at the area where the snow werewolves were active.
The goblins have a keen sense of smell and top perception ability which are essential survival instincts for weak creatures. As soon as they entered the area where the snow wolves were active, they felt something different... There were almost no signs of wild beasts around, and apart from the chirping of insects and birds, no roars of beasts could be heard at night - this is very rare on the grassland, especially at night when predators are most active.
Of course... the faint, almost imperceptible breath of the snow werewolf was also very frightening . Before they even saw the snow werewolf tribe, the two goblins were almost scared and went back home.
"Huh?"
Hongye, who was sweating profusely at the artificial river construction site, suddenly straightened up and looked towards the northwest with a suspicious look on his face.
"Did you smell it too? Is there a stench that sounds like that of a wild beast but not quite?" Ashan wiped the sweat off his face while holding the hoe.
"I feel like I've smelled this disgusting smell somewhere before." Hongye sniffed, uncertainly.
Xiao Yun, who was sweating all over, put down the rattan basket he was carrying soil and rocks in and looked over in surprise: "No, there is something else that even you find smelly?"
Ashan didn't react, so Hongye was very unhappy: "I'm very clean now, very clean!" She thought she didn't understand that Ayun disliked their unhygienic behavior!
"I didn't say anything." Xiao Yun pretended to be innocent and immediately changed the subject, "Is the source of the stench dangerous? Or should we go get someone to drive it away?"
"I think I have smelled this smell somewhere before... Strange, I can't remember where." Hongye shook off the mud on her hands. "Ashan and I will go take a look. We don't need to bring bows back. It's not a dangerous creature."
"Go quickly and come back soon." Xiao Yun waved his hand. He was not worried about the fighting ability of these two people at all. He was only worried that they would waste too much time and delay the construction period.
Ah Shan just nodded stupidly. Hongye turned around again with an unhappy look on his face: "I won't take this opportunity to be lazy!"
Xiao Yun: “…” Is it because of too much pressure or what? Hongye’s IQ, EQ, and comprehension ability are growing too fast!
Looking at Uncle Ashan who still had no reaction, Xiao Yun felt that the pressure was still not enough...
Author's words: I think that since goblins rely on burrows to survive, they should be good at digging holes without the help of tools. So they should have claws similar to those of pangolins so that they can dig through the rock layers. They cannot have the fleshy hands like those in Japanese RPGs or American games.
As an extremely weak species, it can still maintain the continuation of its race. In addition to its reproductive ability, it should also have the survival instinct to avoid danger and intelligence within the standard range. Otherwise, such a species that is hated wherever it goes would have been wiped out long ago.
