Chapter 1343

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Wang Xiaohua drove the Land Rover, carrying Gu Wenqing, departing from the County Town, heading for Shanggou Village.

Along the way, the scenery saw more and more mountains, fewer and fewer houses.

Gu Wenqing looked out the car window; one hill slope after another, just like a giant turntable, slowly spiraling backward.

It was also at this time that she saw, at close range for the first time, those terraced fields leaning against the mountain foot, plot by plot.

Wang Xiaohua had once told her that there were no large, flat fields here; Gu Wenqing, seeing these scenes now, even felt Wang Xiaohua's words were not entirely accurate — to be exact, there wasn't even a single small, flat plot of land here.

The terraced fields rise tier upon tier; those are the traces left by the people using their wisdom to snatch food from under Heaven's very eyelids.

It's just a pity that these traces, by now, are no longer so distinct.

Because with the development and expansion of urbanization, large batches of migrant workers entered the cities to make a living; these mountain terraced fields that once fed generation after generation are now being left fallow, one plot after another.

In some places, even an entire large stretch has nearly reverted to a mountain forest appearance.

"Your place here, there really are a lot of mountains!"

Gu Wenqing couldn't help but exclaim.

Wang Xiaohua said:

"Why else would it be called hilly mountainous terrain?"

Gu Wenqing exclaimed again:

"Farming those terraced fields must be very hard, right?"

Wang Xiaohua said:

"It is indeed hard; before transplanting rice seedlings, clearing weeds from the terraced field ridges alone can drive a person to collapse. In the past there was no choice, so the ordinary people living deep in these great mountains, no matter how small, remote, or barren a terraced plot was, would fight for it and plant crops on it."

"What about now?" Gu Wenqing asked.

Wang Xiaohua said:

"Now there is a choice; everyone has gone out to work elsewhere, so the terraced fields have gradually been left fallow. I'm not sure about other places, but back in my hometown, compared to when I was a child, the fallow fields account for at least seven or eight out of ten."

"That many left fallow? Is it really that exaggerated?"

Wang Xiaohua said:

"When we get to Shanggou Village, I'll take you around for a look, and you'll know — what I said isn't exaggerated at all."

Gu Wenqing said at this point:

"I also brought a small drone; we can do an aerial shoot with the drone!"

Wang Xiaohua laughed:

"Then you'll be able to see the full picture of Shanggou Village and the surrounding farmland even more clearly."

The vehicle traversed the mountain road's eighteen bends, finally arriving at Shanggou Village.

Wang Xiaohua didn't drive the car directly into the village, but instead drove straight to his Second Brother's farm to check on the farm's situation first.

He parked the car at the farm entrance; from inside the farm's main gate, the sound of dogs barking immediately rang out.

Wang Xiaohua got out of the car; those three dogs Li Xiulan had bought and raised before, upon seeing Wang Xiaohua, stopped barking, and instead wagged their tails as they walked over, sticking out their tongues, with a happy, ingratiating look.

"These are the native dogs my mom bought from the Jizhen before; they're very smart. I haven't been back this long, yet they actually still recognize me!"

Wang Xiaohua made kissing sounds a few times; the three native dogs circled him, wagging their tails even more joyfully.

Gu Wenqing, behind Wang Xiaohua, nervously grabbed Wang Xiaohua's arm; she was a bit afraid of these three dogs, because just a moment ago, before she got out of the car, these three dogs had barked quite ferociously.

Wang Xiaohua patted the dogs' heads, then said to Gu Wenqing:

"Don't be afraid; they're very perceptive. Since they know me, they won't bite people I bring."

Wang Xiaohua teased the three dogs a bit more; Gu Wenqing discovered they were all quite well-intentioned, and her suspended heart finally settled down.

Wang Xiaohua then led her inside.

Yao Aina walked out from inside at this moment.

Seeing Wang Xiaohua, she immediately revealed a simple, kind smile:

"Xiaohua, you're back!"

Wang Xiaohua hurriedly greeted:

"Auntie Aina, good morning!"

Yao Aina looked at Gu Wenqing, couldn't help but praise:

"This girl, so tall and slender, so fresh and lovely; Xiaohua, you're really promising!"

Gu Wenqing hurriedly took the initiative to greet:

"Grandma, hello; I'm Xiaohua's classmate."

Yao Aina said cheerfully:

"So it's a classmate; no wonder your temperaments match so well!"

Wang Xiaohua was made a bit embarrassed by Yao Aina's words.

He hurriedly asked:

"Auntie Aina, I heard my Second Brother say the farm is now managed by Zhou Zhihao; where is Zhou Zhihao?"

Yao Aina said:

"Zhou Zhihao went for a walk in the fields; he usually doesn't come back until noon for the meal."

Wang Xiaohua nodded, then asked again:

"This farm, it's doing pretty well now, right?"

Yao Aina spoke honestly:

"It's okay, recently there's not much work to do, just feed the chickens, feed the fish, deal with the weeds on those fruit trees, generally I can handle it all by myself, Zhou Zhihao has nothing to do, wanders around the village all day, he's practically bored out of his mind."

"Is that so, as long as the farm is managed well, then no matter where he goes wandering, it actually doesn't matter."

Xiao Hua brought Gu Wenqing to the halfway-up-the-mountain chicken area to take a look, then went to the pond side to take a look, felt everything was organized in an orderly manner, looks like Zhou Zhihao manages it pretty decently.

However, to speak the other side, actually there's no need for Zhou Zhihao to manage much, the main thing is just to have him watch, not let others come poison or cause damage.

During the process of touring the farm, Xiao Hua incidentally told Gu Wenqing about his second brother's farm pond being poisoned by someone.

"No way, who's so bad, to actually poison your second brother's pond!"

Gu Wenqing's face was full of surprise, simply couldn't believe it.

Because in her view, the majority of rural people are simple and kind.

After all, books say it like this, speak of the rural primitive, speak of the rural simplicity, speak of the rural kindness.

Xiao Hua, however, said to her:

"Speaking purely from the human aspect, rural areas and cities actually have no big difference, there are good people, but also bad people. How does that saying go, one region's water and soil raises one region's people, poor mountains and bad waters produce treacherous people. The person who poisoned my second brother's pond, my second brother previously helped him quite a lot."

Gu Wenqing was even more surprised:

"Since your second brother helped him quite a lot, why would he still do this?"

Xiao Hua sighed:

"Long story, to tell it completely, estimate could lecture you for a whole day, still might not finish."

Gu Wenqing then said:

"Then later when we have time, we'll slowly talk about this matter, I'll now take out the drone, take a look at your village's full view!"

Xiao Hua laughed and said:

"Sure!"

Then Gu Wenqing took out the drone from her backpack, assembled and debugged it, then operated the drone controller, let the drone fly up into the sky.

Very quickly, the drone flew to a hundred meters altitude, under the high-definition camera, could clearly overlook the entire village's appearance.

"Your village's self-built buildings look like quite a few, but, why so few people?"

Gu Wenqing looking at the scene on the screen, couldn't help but raise a question.

Xiao Hua then said:

"Many self-built houses, that's because many people have the fallen-leaves-return-to-roots sentiment, so after earning money outside, they all come back first to build a self-built house, and why so few people, that's because everyone went outside to make a living, the rural area inside almost only leaves some old, weak, sick, and disabled."

"Originally so, then constantly outside, hometown's built house a year can't live in a few times, spending that much money building a house, very not cost-effective ah."

Gu Wenqing spoke like this.

Xiao Hua laughed: "Indeed very not cost-effective, but rural people in their hearts generally think, no matter how it is, hometown this side, should always have a decent house."

Gu Wenqing nodded:

"This is the so-called, fallen leaves return to roots, hometown sentiment ba. I'll fly outside the village to look."

Gu Wenqing controlled the drone, flew outside the village, arrived at the terraced fields on the village's north side, she saw the cornfield.

"Didn't you say your village has no one planting corn? I saw a cornfield."

Xiao Hua then said: "I said almost no one plants, if planting it's also planting very little, just one field planting corn only, that field's area, also just a few fen of land ba, not even one mu."

Gu Wenqing at this time suddenly "yi" a sound:

"Yi, inside the cornfield, seems like there are two people, don't know what they're doing?"

Xiao Hua then said: "Guess they're weeding ba?"

Gu Wenqing instead said: "Not weeding ba, lying there... I'll be damned, taking off clothes..."