Great Power Reclamation

Chapter 2873 Ye Mao's New Position
Just as Ye Mao swallowed the sour yogurt that made him wince, his phone vibrated in the dry desert air.

The words "Little Aunt" flashed merrily on the screen. He made a helpless face at Grandpa Kurban, and his voice was still a little hoarse from the sourness when he answered the phone.
"Auntie, is the phone call because Mom's nagging me again about not bringing enough thermal underwear?"

Ye Lan's clear laughter came from the other end of the phone, with the faint rustling sound of documents being turned in the background.

"Your mom just mailed the windbreaker you forgot at home last year, and she also slipped in two packets of rock candy—"

"I know you think Grandpa Kurban's yogurt is too sour. Anyway, to get down to business, a colleague from the Organization Department of the Central Committee came to our office yesterday and we talked for almost two hours."

Ye Mao's heart skipped a beat, and the sand beneath his feet seemed to scorch.

He subconsciously looked at the morning light reflected from the photovoltaic array in the distance. The flowing spots of light on those blue panels looked just like the shimmering petri dishes in his father's laboratory many years ago.

"Is there something wrong with the project?"

"A problem? Are you playing dumb, or do you genuinely have no idea the enormity of what you've done?"

Ye Yuji's voice suddenly rose, then quickly subsided, filled with barely suppressed excitement:
"The 'photovoltaic desertification control + vertical planting' project you're in charge of has been included in this year's No. 1 document! Your superiors say they're going to give you more responsibilities."

Ye Mao's fingers unconsciously fiddled with the zipper on his windbreaker, the metal buckle digging painfully into his fingertips.

He recalled what the bigwig had said three months earlier when he was inspecting the area, squatting in front of the jujube seedlings under the solar panels:

"Desertification control is not simply about planting a few trees; it's about making the desert yield gold nuggets and ensuring that people's lives are sweeter than those of sand dates."

He was standing right next to him, watching the big shot run his fingertips over the downy hairs on the jujube leaves, the hairs still glistening with morning dew.

"Auntie, I'm doing fine now."

He wanted to say that he would rather stay and protect this desert that was just beginning to turn green, but Ye Lan interrupted him before he could finish speaking:
"What's so good about it? Last week, comrades from the Northern Xinjiang Military Region were telling me that you stayed in a sandstorm for three days and three nights to meet the deadline, and you almost coughed up your lungs. This appointment was made after careful consideration by the organization—"

A gust of sand suddenly swept by, forcing Ye Mao to turn his face away. The sound from his phone came out intermittently.
"A new Rural Revitalization and Ecological Strategy Department has been established at the top level, with a member of the department's committee at the vice-ministerial level. They will report for duty next month."

After hanging up the phone, Ye Mao stood still. Old Man Kurban had somehow appeared, holding a half-dried jujube in his hand, and patted Ye Mao's arm with his rough hand.

"Adasi, is this a good thing? Look at your face, it's like a tamarisk tree that's just been watered."

Ye Mao stuffed the jujube into his mouth, and the sweet and astringent juice slid down his throat.

He recalled when he first arrived in the desert a few years ago, the wind here carried sand and gravel that hit his face like countless tiny knives cutting him.

The photovoltaic panels now form a barrier against the wind and sand, and the alfalfa grass beneath them is ankle-deep. The Ningxia Tan sheep introduced last year wag their tails in the grass, and smoke rises from the distant immigrant village.

"Grandpa, I may have to go." Ye Mao's voice was a little muffled.

Grandpa Kurban paused for a moment, then stuffed the yogurt from the leather bag into his arms:

"Let's go? Where to? Do you think our yogurt is too sour?"

A flicker of panic crossed his cloudy eyes, like that of a child afraid of being abandoned.

Ye Mao suddenly remembered the first time he met the old man, who was guarding the mud-brick house that was half buried by sand and refused to leave, saying that it was built by his grandfather.

Later, the project team helped him build a brick house in the new village, the kind with solar panels. But every day, he would carry his house key, lean on his cane, and move towards the old house, saying he wanted to see if the foundation was still there.

"It's not leaving, it's going to work somewhere else."

Ye Mao squatted down and looked at the old man's cane, which was worn shiny from use. The cane was made of poplar wood and had crooked growth rings carved on it.

"Just like your son opening an agricultural supply store in the county town, he's still working for this land."

The old man nodded as if he understood, then suddenly took out a cloth bag from his pocket, opened it layer by layer, and inside was a seed wrapped in red cloth.

"These are millet seeds that my grandfather brought from within the Great Wall. They were buried in the sand for thirty years, and last year your excavator dug them up, and they actually sprouted."

He placed the seed in Ye Mao's palm. "Take it to the new place. If the soil there isn't good, bury it in a flowerpot."

Ye Mao clutched the warm seed tightly, suddenly feeling his eyes burning. He remembered his father saying that the first generation of people in the military reclamation city could leave nothing else in their luggage, but they could never lose their seed bags.

Back then, there were no laboratories or gene sequencers, so they mixed seeds with horse manure, used their body heat to promote germination, and scattered the seeds on the frozen, hard ground, waiting for them to sprout green in the spring.

That evening, in the tin shack at the project site, Ye Mao flipped through the project files.

The last page is a satellite comparison image: on the left is the desert in 2010, a glaring yellow; on the right is the oasis in 2015, where the blue of the photovoltaic panels and the green of the vegetation intertwine, like a giant palette.

A line of small print reads: "176 million mu of land were treated, 327 households were resettled, and 1200 jobs were created."

The phone vibrated on the table; it was a video from Ye Mao's son, Ye Lvzhou. The seven-year-old held up his workbook, proudly displaying the words he had just written:

"Dad, the teacher said my character for 'sand' looks like a small sand dune!"

The scene shifts to Ye Yuze squatting in the experimental field, holding a seedling in his hand, and shouting at the screen:
"Look at the oasis, this is the tamarisk your dad planted. When you have summer vacation, we'll go to the desert to see how tall it has grown."

Ye Mao smiled, but his eyes welled up with tears. He remembered when his son came to visit last year and found an injured lark under the solar panels. The lark insisted that the engineer make a nest for it and hang it on the panel frame.

The bird's nest is still there, but the bird has long since flown away. Occasionally, other birds will land there to rest.

At three in the morning, Ye Mao put on his coat and went to inspect the site. The moonlight made the photovoltaic panels look like they were covered with a layer of silver frost, and the drip irrigation belts under the panels made a soft gurgling sound, the most beautiful sound in the desert.

He walked to the project monument, which was made of local volcanic rock and engraved with the names of all the people who participated in the project, from academicians to migrant workers, not one was missing.

On the back of the monument is a sentence he wrote himself: "Let every grain of sand have a spring."

Just then, my phone rang; it was a number from a higher-level government agency in Beijing.

The other party verified his employment information and finally said, "Comrade Ye Mao, considering your professional background, the ministry will assign you to oversee the ecological industry and seed industry security. Report to the ministry on the 15th of next month."

After hanging up the phone, Ye Mao suddenly understood the deeper meaning of the appointment. All these years he had been working on photovoltaic desertification control in the desert, essentially dealing with the land itself.

My father now studies seeds, which means he's dealing with life. Combining these two things is about making ecology and seed industry like the red willow and sea buckthorn in the desert, with their roots intertwined underground, so that they can withstand even greater sandstorms.

When Ye Mao returned to the tin shack, the sky was already beginning to lighten. He turned on his computer and began writing the handover report.

While writing, I suddenly remembered the drought-resistant gene developed by Allen's team, which is said to have been successfully introduced into alfalfa and will be promoted in the project area next year.

He quickly added a sentence to the report: "Prioritize the procurement of improved varieties from Wotu Gene, and remember to have the legal department expedite the patent authorization process."

The sound of a car engine came from outside the window; it was Ye Mao's old partner, Engineer Zhao. This high-achieving graduate from Tsinghua University had spent eight years with him in the desert, and his hair was thinner than the locals'.

“Director Ye, oh no, Committee Member Ye,” Engineer Zhao rubbed his hands, a little embarrassed, “I just received the notice that I’m taking over your shift.”

Ye Mao pushed the desert soil sample on the table over:
"Don't call me a committee member, I'm just a waiter. These samples are from different depths, remember to have the lab test the organic matter content monthly. Oh, and Grandpa Kurban's blood pressure medication is almost finished, have the village doctor stock up on some."

Mr. Zhao nodded, then suddenly pulled a USB drive out of his bag:
"This is our new photovoltaic panel cleaning robot solution. It uses the biomimetic algorithm you mentioned, allowing it to climb steep slopes like a desert lizard."

Ye Mao took the USB drive and recalled that he had audited a class at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences years ago, where Professor Zhou talked about the hydrophobic structure of lizard skin. He never thought it could actually be used in engineering.

He suddenly realized that inheritance is like planting a seed in the desert, which others will then water and fertilize until it grows into a big tree.

On the day of departure, everyone from the new immigrant village came. Grandpa Kurban, along with the children, set up a long table under the poplar trees at the village entrance. On it were freshly baked naan, freshly picked jujubes, and sour yogurt that made one wince, only this time with plenty of sugar added.

Ye Mao was placed in the main seat, and the old man insisted on hanging a red ribbon on him, saying it was a local custom to tie a red ribbon when seeing off an important person.

“Adasi, when you get to your new place, don’t forget us farmers.”

The old man patted him on the back with a loud thud, "If the land over there isn't good for farming, come back. We'll reserve the best plot of land under the solar panels for you."

Ye Mao looked at the table full of people, including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Han immigrants from Gansu.

Their faces were still etched with the dust of the wind, but the light in their eyes shone brighter than the sun reflected off the solar panels.

He suddenly remembered his father saying that people in Junken City, no matter where they came from, were all one family as long as they had farmed together.

Even after the car had driven quite a distance, Ye Mao looked back and could still see the figure under the old poplar tree. Engineer Zhao stood at the very front, waving the sun hat he had left behind; the two characters "Military Reclamation" on the hat were bleached white by the sun.

When passing the experimental field on the edge of the desert, Ye Mao asked the driver to stop the car.

The winter wheat in the field has just sprouted, a lush green expanse like a carpet. This is a new variety grown with fertile soil genes, resistant to cold and drought, and reportedly even possessing some of the resilience of desert plants.

He crouched down, his fingertips touching the dew-kissed wheat seedlings. The cool sensation spread along his fingertips, reminding him of the first morning he planted tamarisk in the desert—

At that time, Engineer Zhao used a shovel to dig through the frozen, hard sand layer and put the sapling in, its roots still covered with soil from the military reclamation city.

"Once the seedlings have taken root, they won't be afraid of wind and sand."

The words my father had said years ago suddenly echoed in my ears.

Ye Mao stood up and brushed the sand off his pants. In the distance, the photovoltaic array gleamed in the sunlight, merging with the clouds on the horizon like a blue ocean.

He knew that this land, which he had struggled for eight years, would grow stronger and stronger against the wind and sand, just like those wheat seedlings that had taken root.

When the car started up again, Ye Mao took out the millet seed from his pocket and put it into the pocket closest to his body.

He thought that once he got to the capital, he would find a flowerpot to plant it and place it on the windowsill of his office. Perhaps next spring, he would see it sprout green shoots, stubbornly reaching towards the sunlight, like all life that grows in adversity.

My phone vibrated in my pocket; it was a message from my father, just one sentence:

"Don't be arrogant when you get to the ministry. Seed safety is a complex area, so learn from the senior colleagues. Our seed bank has received a new batch of seeds; I'll show them to you when you get back."

Ye Mao smiled and replied "Okay," then looked up at the window.

The poplar trees along the highway lined up and retreated, like countless sentinels standing tall.

He suddenly realized that whether it was solar panels in the desert, seeds in a laboratory, or documents in a ministry office, they were all essentially the same thing—

All of this is so that the people on this land can take root like the red willow and live like the poplar, generation after generation, without interruption.

As the car crossed the Guozigou Bridge, Ye Mao opened the window, and the wind, carrying moisture, rushed in—completely different from the wind in the desert.

He took a deep breath, as if he could smell the seeds sprouting.

The smell was a mix of disinfectant from my father's lab, the metallic scent of desert solar panels, and the sweetness of Grandpa Kurban's yogurt. All mixed together, it was the taste of home.

Before returning to Beijing, Ye Mao went back to the military reclamation city to see his mother, father, and grandparents, who were the people who loved him most in the world.

Thinking about my choice, if I had taken over the Warrior Group, life would definitely be more comfortable than it is now. Although there would be pressure, at least I wouldn't be spending all my time in the desert.

But he doesn't regret it, because he understands that what he's doing now is much more meaningful than making money.

Moreover, when it comes to business, he is really not as good as his older brother Ye Feng. Now, under his leadership, the Warrior Group has also taken off.

When the children saw him, they all ran over quickly, looking at him expectantly. Ye Mao was a little embarrassed, having forgotten about these little guys. But then he suddenly remembered the jujubes he had picked himself, so he took them out.

Ye Guigen said with some disdain, "Second Uncle, you're so stingy!"

Ye Yini glared at him: "Brother, Uncle picked these himself, they must be delicious!"

Ye Mao hadn't seen this niece many times. He had always heard his mother say that she was sensible, and seeing her in person, he found that to be true.

Marshal Ye is now studying at the Military Reclamation University, but he will be returning to Jeep after graduation. At this moment, he shyly called out "Second Brother".

Ye Mao patted him on the shoulder: "If you don't want to stay after you go back, come back."

Marshal Ye nodded: He knew his mother's plan; she would definitely go into politics after returning. To be honest, he was not happy about it, but he did not resist it either.

Everyone has their own mission in life that they need to fulfill.