The harvested beans were spread out in the courtyard to dry; once they were sufficiently dry, they could be threshed. After threshing the beans, it was time to harvest the rice, which then had to be de-husked, dried, and by the time all these tasks were done, it was already past Mid-Autumn Festival and into September.
During this busy period, naturally, nobody had time to think about growing ginger or anything like that. Zhou Silang was bustling around daily, almost wearing himself to the bone. Every evening as soon as it got dark, he insisted on sleeping in his hay shed, and every morning, he was awakened by a kick from Zhou Wulang.
No matter how tired he was, he still made sure to guard the ginger field. In his words, they had come too far to give up now as this was critical to his debt repayment.