The man looked dejected. He gave a bitter smile and said, "Everyone in the village calls me a fool for following along and planting lotus roots. I feel like a fool myself. What good is it that the government thinks this is important? When the time comes, my whole family will still go hungry."
Although Zhao Yan knew that changing things always came at a price, seeing the sorrow on the man's face left a bitter taste in his mouth. It was always the people at the bottom who suffered. His intention in introducing lotus cultivation was good, but unfortunately, time had been too tight to conduct proper outreach. Everyone viewed planting lotus roots as a betrayal of their ancestral legacy, and even those who did plant them were buried under a mountain of rumors and gossip.
Words were soft knives, yet they could still kill.
Chapter 438