Over the next several days, the villagers of Zheng Family Village became extremely busy.
Every morning at sunrise, they gathered neatly at the entrance of Gao Village Family. Once the sun had properly risen, they boarded Solar Cart Number Two and set off toward Zheng Family Village to tend their fields.
From Li Dao Xuan's perspective, this was all very straightforward.
From the villagers' perspective, however, it was an entirely different story.
In their hearts, the situation sounded far more impressive.
"Every morning, when the rooster calls the sun up, Dao Xuan Tianzun borrows an immortal cart from it and sends us home to farm."
Thinking about it this way, even walking felt more dignified.
After all, how many people in the world could say they rode an immortal cart to go farming?
Probably not even the emperor.
Of course, the current Chongzhen Emperor was actually quite young, but that detail did not concern them in the slightest. In their minds, emperors were supposed to be old, serious, and slightly grumpy.
After observing for a single day, Li Dao Xuan noticed a problem.
The farmland in Zheng Family Village was severely underutilized.
At a glance, only about one quarter of the land was being cultivated.
After looking into it more carefully, the reason became clear.
Zheng Family Village originally had a larger population than Gao Village Family, and its farmland was roughly twice as extensive. However, when Zheng Yanfu followed Wang Er into rebellion, he had taken most of the village's population with him.
Those people had either died in the chaos or were now working as reform-through-labor convicts in Gao Village Family.
The land they left behind remained untouched.
The remaining twenty or so villagers were honest and law-abiding. They refused to take over land that did not belong to them, so they only worked their own family plots.
As a result, vast stretches of farmland sat idle.
To Li Dao Xuan, this was simply unacceptable.
Wasted land was wasted potential.
He immediately called for Gao Yiye and San Shier and instructed them to resolve the issue of idle farmland.
San Shier had once worked as a Shaoxing, trained private secretary, so this kind of administrative work was well within his expertise.
He first conducted a detailed inventory of the remaining villagers and their land deeds. Then he reviewed the reform-through-labor convicts, identifying which of them had originally come from Zheng Family Village and how many land deeds they still held.
With this information, it became easy to determine which landowners were still alive and which were not.
Land belonging to the deceased naturally became ownerless land.
Under normal circumstances, such land would be discovered during official surveys and later redistributed or resold by the government.
However, Gao Village Family no longer needed to wait for the government.
San Shier promptly dispatched his subordinate, Tan Liwen, to lead a team to Zheng Family Village and conduct a full survey.
Once completed, all ownerless land was lent out to the remaining villagers free of rent.
As for the reform-through-labor convicts, they received nothing.
Rules were rules.
After this redistribution, the villagers of Zheng Family Village effectively gained more than twice their original farmland.
The result was immediate.
Everyone worked like their lives depended on it.
If enthusiasm could be measured, theirs would have been off the charts.
Meanwhile, the reform-through-labor convicts watched from the sidelines with eyes full of envy.
Many of them had already resigned themselves to spending their lives as convicts. Now, that resignation began to crack.
A single thought quietly took root.
Work harder.
Reform faster.
Become a free commoner again.
The next time something like this happened, they wanted to be included.
While all of this was unfolding, Li Dao Xuan was thinking about something else entirely.
The official road between Gao Village Family and Zheng Family Village was in terrible condition. It was uneven, full of bumps, and completely unfriendly to the solar public transport cart.
Transportation efficiency was suffering.
More importantly, as his field of view expanded and more villages came into play, these roads would become a serious bottleneck.
There was no avoiding it.
If he wanted development, he needed infrastructure.
An old saying surfaced in his mind.
To get rich, build a road first.
Li Dao Xuan stood up, went downstairs, and walked across two streets until he arrived at a small construction site.
The sidewalk there was being dug up again.
He had seen this exact spot under construction multiple times. It seemed to follow a mysterious cycle of build, demolish, rebuild, and repeat. The reason behind it remained unclear, but the workers did not appear bothered.
Li Dao Xuan walked over and handed a bottle of drink to an old worker resting nearby.
"Uncle," he said with a friendly smile, "a wall at my house is damaged. I only need a little cement to patch it up. Buying a full bag would be too wasteful. Could I take a small amount from here?"
The old worker glanced at him, then laughed. "A small amount is fine. Just be quick before the foreman sees."
Li Dao Xuan thanked him sincerely.
He took out two small plastic bags, filled one with cement and the other with sand, then quietly slipped away.
This kind of effortless gain felt surprisingly satisfying.
After returning home, he prepared to hand the materials over to the people inside the box.
Then he paused.
Building a road was not a small task.
Gao Village Family simply did not have enough manpower. Even a road of five or six li would take them an absurd amount of time to complete.
Li Dao Xuan thought for a moment, then made a decision.
He would handle the first road himself.
He had always wanted to try something like this anyway.
It looked fun.
He took out an unused plastic container, searched online for the proper method, and began mixing cement, sand, and water according to the recommended proportions.
Soon, he had a container filled with cement mixture.
Then he reached into the box and adjusted the view slightly, moving it away from the village.
Using a small metal scraper, he cleared the ground, removing weeds, dead branches, and scattered stones. Right next to the original official road, he carved out a brand new path.
The online guide for building a concrete road was extremely detailed and filled with complicated steps.
Li Dao Xuan ignored most of them.
He sprinkled some water to keep the surface moist and made sure to leave expansion joints.
Everything else was skipped.
He poured the cement mixture and used a thin plastic sheet to smooth it out evenly.
From his perspective, he was building a road six li long and five zhang wide.
In reality, this translated to a strip of cement roughly seven point five centimeters wide and fifteen meters long.
The entire process took very little time.
He finished it quickly.
If he had left this task to the villagers, it might have taken months.
The experience was unexpectedly enjoyable.
The so-called Dao Xuan Tianzun, casually building a road, was actually having a great time.
At that moment, voices suddenly rang out nearby.
"Look over there. Dao Xuan Tianzun is using immortal magic again."
A group of villagers had gathered at a distance, staring in awe.
From their perspective, the scene was nothing short of miraculous.
A massive metal plate descended from the heavens and scraped across the ground with a thunderous sound, shattering rocks and tearing open the earth as if it were nothing.
A brand new road was carved out beside the old one.
Then a strange gray substance flowed down from the sky, thick and viscous like mud, filling the newly formed path.
The gray substance spread across several li.
The metal plate moved back and forth, smoothing the surface until it became perfectly flat, like still water.
The villagers were completely stunned.
"This… we cannot understand this."
"What kind of immortal technique is this?"
They discussed among themselves, but no one could make sense of it.
At that moment, Gao Yiye walked over.
She raised her chin slightly and spoke with authority. "Dao Xuan Tianzun has granted us a road connecting Gao Village Family and Zheng Family Village."
She paused briefly before continuing.
"For the next seven days, no one is allowed to go near this road. After seven days, it may be used."
Her tone softened slightly, but her next words carried weight.
"If anyone disobeys the order of Dao Xuan Tianzun…"
She let the sentence hang unfinished.
Then she gave a small hum.
Her expression was actually quite cute, but the lack of a clear punishment made it far more intimidating.
The villagers immediately responded, "We would not dare."
"Who would dare to disobey Dao Xuan Tianzun?"
Gao Yiye then pointed toward the reform-through-labor convicts.
"I need a team of them," she said. "Take wooden boards and smooth the road surface. After that, patrol the area."
She narrowed her eyes slightly.
"For seven days, do not allow anything onto this road. Not people, not animals."
She paused, then added calmly, "If you see a mouse or a rabbit, deal with it."
A chill ran through the group.
The villagers quickly said, "Saintess, there has been a drought for years. There are hardly any animals left. You can rest assured."