Gu Qingcheng thought for a moment and said, "How about this, starting today, the villagers will take turns manning the first and second defense lines in batches. We will also organize a group of villagers to go up the mountain to chop firewood, to prepare more fuel, and establish a rocket team to make more rockets.
Village Chief Dai, you don't need to worry too much. The measures we took yesterday were effective. As long as we stay firm, there's nothing to fear.
They are, after all, creatures without intelligence, acting purely on their savage instincts. We are rational and intelligent beings, and we will definitely be able to defeat them."
Gu Qingcheng often appeared calm, which greatly inspired Dai Fa.
On the way back to the village, Gu Qingcheng finally had the time to ask,
"Golden Finger, the main quest you issued to me last night to fight zombies, what level of completion is required?"
"Until the zombies are completely wiped out, you will be rewarded with 10 million points. From now on, for every zombie your villagers eliminate, you will receive 100 points. Last night, you eliminated a total of 2125 zombies, so last night you earned 212,500 points."
Gu Qingcheng then noticed that her points had indeed increased.
She had recently turned off the system's notification sounds because she was tired of being bothered by them, and often forgot to check. Thus, she only discovered the point gain when the system reminded her.
Gu Qingcheng's lips curved upwards. She loved this kind of attitude from the system.
She really needed a large number of points right now.
The villagers' combat effectiveness needed to be maintained through rewards. Since Gu Qingcheng was earning points, she waved her hand and exchanged all of them for 50,000 catties of pork.
The fresh meat in the Shancat supermarket was all pre-cut and precisely portioned by the pound.
Gu Qingcheng put the meat into the warehouse and asked Qin Yue to notify the villagers who had participated in the battle to come and collect pork, three catties per person to supplement their strength.
Suddenly, Phoenix Village was abuzz again.
Some villagers, with father and son fighting side-by-side, could receive six catties of pork. They happily took the pork home, making the village's bachelors secretly ponder, feeling that being single seemed to put them at a disadvantage everywhere!
"No, I need to find a woman quickly and have a child. That way, I can get two portions instead of just one. I absolutely can't settle for just one portion."
Gu Qingcheng was unaware that the villagers would develop such ideas. However, even if she knew, she would strongly support it, because she could afford to feed so many people, and she liked a large population. Population dividends existed in every era, including her Phoenix Village.
If the villagers were not mobilized and united, their family alone could not survive independently in this world.
In order to complete the system's mission and for the happiness of her family, Gu Qingcheng was resolute in her determination to fight the zombies, and generously offered a large amount of supplies as rewards to the participating villagers.
That evening, the aroma of meat wafted through Phoenix Village. Villagers who received meat cooked a large pot of braised pork and a pot of white rice, and their families ate with greasy mouths.
The villagers who earned braised pork for their families also took the opportunity to brag to their families, saying how brave they were when chopping zombies, slicing their necks like watermelons.
Hearing this, the children's eyes lit up. They looked at their fathers with the perception that they were their heroes.
Such adoring gazes also brought great comfort to the parents. It seemed that their risk-taking was not in vain; at least they had exchanged a corner of peaceful life for their wives and children, especially with braised pork to eat.
In fact, the villagers who had personally participated in the battle immediately realized that all the preparations made by Young Master Gu were not without purpose, but rather extremely correct.
Without Gu Qingcheng's capabilities and methods, last night, when the zombies attacked unprepared, the entire village would have been wiped out.
If there had been no prior preparation, who would not have been afraid when seeing the ferocious zombies, and who would have known how to subdue them?
Even with a knife in hand, they wouldn't know whether to stab the belly or chop the leg.
But Young Master Gu had already told everyone the zombies' weaknesses early on: chop the neck, use fire; these were the most direct and effective methods.
Although the zombies were ferocious, they could be destroyed by their own strength, which gave everyone confidence.
Recalling the battle of last night, even while bragging, everyone inevitably sighed in the end: "Fortunately, Phoenix Village has Young Master Gu."
Through the villagers' praise and embellishment, Gu Qingcheng's status among all the villagers soared even higher.
Due to the unexpected zombie siege, Gu Chaobei's plan to go out and search for Yin Zhiping was postponed by half a month.
During this half-month, Gu Qingcheng demanded that Phoenix Village maintain a continuous state of vigilance, with someone on duty at the two defense lines 24 hours a day, to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
Fortunately, after this wave of zombie tides, there were no further incidents of zombie hordes besieging the village.
It was likely that this incident was also a result of chance and coincidence.
For example, a group of zombies in Zhanchun Town had wandered aimlessly to the foot of Yunwu Mountain. A zombie happened to walk up the mountain, and a flock mentality ensued. All the zombies wandered up the mountain, and along the way, they smelled the scent of living creatures or humans, which made them even more excited to climb upwards, leading to the zombie siege of the village that day.
And to achieve such a zombie horde attacking a village, many conditional coincidences were required.
Gu Chaobei's research found that the zombies' brains had turned into a paste, and they were incapable of thinking. Everything they did was only because certain parts of their nerves were still functioning.
Gu Chaobei reached this research conclusion because he dissected several of the zombie heads that were chopped off that day. Almost without exception, the white matter and gray matter in their brains had turned into paste, and no abnormal neural systems had developed.
Gu Chaobei stated that these zombies lacked intelligence, or at least had not yet evolved monstrous intelligence. This brought Gu Qingcheng a sigh of relief.
If zombies possessed strength, ferocity, and human-level intelligence, then dealing with them would be a very troublesome matter.
As long as they remained in this feeble-minded state, the several defense lines of Phoenix Village would still be effective.
In the meantime, besides defending against zombies, the crops planted in Phoenix Village also yielded a bountiful harvest.
Millet, sweet potatoes, potatoes, and cassava, these crops that were not picky about soil, under the care of experienced farmers like Liu Ding, achieved a pleasing harvest.
Due to a previous shortage of seeds, all 20 mu of millet seeds from this batch had to be preserved for the next planting season and could not be consumed.
After setting aside enough seeds for planting, the rest of the sweet potatoes, potatoes, and cassava were distributed to each household based on the number of people.
The yield of one mu of potatoes and sweet potatoes was around 1500 catties. They had planted over 200 mu, and each household received three hundred catties of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava.
To prevent these tubers from being stored poorly and sprouting, becoming toxic and inedible, Gu Qingcheng sliced them and dried them for storage. A portion could also be washed to extract starch, which could be made into sweet potato starch, cassava starch, and potato starch. These starches could then be made into delicious vermicelli for consumption.