In a Drought, the Whole Village Chews Grass Roots, but I Have a Spirit Spring and a Barn Full of Grain

[Feel-good fiction + Building wealth]

The drought had cracked the earth open. Li Qiao held her daughter, too hungry to even cry, and stared at the lifeless village, her heart aching.

Just as she was losing hope, a few clear drops of water welled in her palm, brimming with life. Without thinking, she dabbed them onto her daughter’s parched lips.

To her surprise, the water was miraculous. She watered the barren plot behind her house for three days, and green shoots appeared. A little over a month later, the rice heads were so heavy they bowed, and the grain piled so high it nearly crushed the storehouse.

Outside, villagers fought over grass roots. The aroma of her steamed white-flour buns drifted through the whole village. She opened her courtyard gate and told the starving people, “If you want food, trade your labor for it.”

Some called her a witch; others tried to steal from her. She didn’t argue. She simply channeled water into the fields. The next day, the fields glowed gold beneath the sun. In front of everyone, she asked, “If this ‘witchcraft’ can keep us from starving to death, do you want it or not?”

As time passed, she went from being a widow everyone shunned to the person who controlled an entire village’s food supply. The spring water grew more powerful, too. She had a feeling it could do more than revive the fields: it could sustain this crumbling world.

One day, her daughter held up a steamed bun and pouted. “Mama, why don’t they grow their own food? Why do they always want to steal ours?”

Li Qiao wiped the crumbs from her daughter’s face and gazed at the golden waves of rice. “When people are frightened by hunger, they forget that hands were made to work the land.”