Who would still be a social slave when they are so rich?

"Go to Minqin to plant trees? Do you know what this is like?"

Su Chen suddenly stopped, turned around and looked at the three people behind him, with a hint of confusion between his brows.

Su Yan and others followed his gaze towards the direction of the gate, looked carefully for a moment, but shook their heads in confusion.

At this time, a slightly hoarse voice came from the side: "Minqin" The tone was soaked with the vicissitudes of time.

"It's a small county town under the jurisdiction of WW City, sandwiched between the Tengger Desert and the Badain Jaran Desert. It's called a desert oasis!" The speaker looked out the window at the blood-red sky with a distant look in his eyes. "It's only a hundred kilometers away from the city, but the sun is blocked by yellow sand all year round."

He paused, his eyes fixed on the group of young people who had experienced the sandstorm but were still full of vigor and vitality. "These children are volunteers who came here spontaneously from all over the country."

"They followed the footsteps of the older generation of sand control workers to experience first-hand the hardships of fighting against sandstorms and to dedicate their own hearts to this land."

Su Chen looked in the direction of the voice and found that the person who was speaking was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties or fifties. He had dark skin and deep wrinkles on his face, like a rock polished by wind and sand.

He was wearing an old work suit that had been washed to a pale color, and the cuffs had long been worn out, but his whole body exuded a sense of tenacity.

Just like the Haloxylon ammodendron trees in the desert, even after being tortured by strong winds and sandstorms, they still stand firmly in the desert.

Su Chen couldn't help but ask, "Uncle...are you from Minqin?"

At this time, Su Chen had some guesses in his mind. The person in front of him was probably a serious desert control worker, the kind of person who dedicated his whole life to the desert, otherwise he would not have such an expression on his face.

He had read many reports about sand control workers on the Internet before. Those who had been fighting the desert for decades looked just like the uncle in front of him. They were all heroes who had been baptized by wind and sand.

The old man smiled when he heard this, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes smoothed out, as if a dry riverbed in the desert suddenly came to life. He raised his hand and touched his face, and tiny grains of sand could be seen between his fingers.

"You have a good eye, young man!" The uncle's voice sounded as if it had been polished by sandpaper, but it carried a hint of warmth.

"I have been planting trees in Minqin for 30 years. I followed my father to plant the first Haloxylon ammodendron seedling when I was in my teens. Until now..." He paused and lowered his head to look at his rough and cracked hands, "The best years of my life are buried in that sand pit."

Su Yan, who had been silent, came over and asked curiously, "Uncle, how is the desert control in Minqin going now?"

Hearing Su Yan asking about this, the uncle's eyes suddenly lit up. He unbuttoned the pocket of his work clothes and took out an old and worn-out smartphone from his pocket. The screen saver was a photo that looked a bit old - in the vast sea of ​​sand, there were several human figures carrying wheat straw taller than humans.

"Look, this is Minqin in the 1990s!" He slid his rough fingers across the screen, brought up another photo, and said with a hint of pride: "This was taken by a drone last year!"

The moment the photo switched, Su Chen's pupils shrank slightly. He saw that on the originally continuous sand dunes in the photo, there appeared a boundless grid-like grid. The green dots looked particularly dazzling against the yellow sand.

"These are...grass checkered sand barriers!"

The uncle looked at Su Chen in surprise, gave him a thumbs up, and praised: "I didn't expect that the young man also knew about the grass grid sand barrier, which is better than many people!"

As he said this, the uncle glanced calmly at the volunteers not far away.

Being praised by this noble uncle in front of him, even Su Chen, who was used to all kinds of things, couldn't help feeling a little embarrassed.

"Uncle, please stop praising me. I just know a little bit. Compared with you selfless people, I am not even a little bit behind!"

In response, the uncle just smiled and didn't explain too much.

On the contrary, Su Yan asked in a puzzled tone: "Uh... Uncle, what is the use of this grass grid sand barrier? I see many people planting trees online, just digging a hole, planting the tree, and watering it. That's it."

The uncle was also a person who was willing to share. After hearing Su Yan's question, he patiently explained: "Sand control starts with sand fixation. We use wheat straw to tie up a one-meter square grid on the sand to fix the quicksand. Then, won't the sand be easily blown away by the wind?"

Su Yan was not a fool. After the uncle's advice, he immediately understood what was going on and said excitedly, "Uncle, what you mean is that if we fix the quicksand and then plant sand-loving plants in the squares, we can have a good anti-sand effect!"

"That's right!" The uncle nodded with a smile, "I didn't expect that you look silly, but you have such a smart brain."

Hearing this, Su Chen, Lin Xiaoyu and Chen Fei all burst into laughter, only Su Yan had a bitter face and smiled dryly.

After all, this is also the uncle's compliment to him...right!
"We have been working hard in this way for decades, and finally we have snatched back a piece of land from the desert!" The uncle said with some emotion while looking at the photos on his mobile phone.

A melancholy smile also appeared on that wrinkled face.

Suddenly, a strong wind blew up outside the hall, and sand hit the glass with a crackling sound. Many passers-by who were standing in front of the glass and watching were frightened and took several steps back.

Almost everyone in the hall looked outside, and many who had seen such a scene for the first time were frightened to the point of crying.

Only Su Chen noticed that at the moment the sound was heard, the uncle standing next to him straightened his spine reflexively and looked out the window vigilantly. This action seemed to have been engraved in his bones.

"Ah!" The uncle sighed softly, "The sandstorms now are more severe than in previous years. I don't know if there will be any problems with the saplings I planted two days ago!"

The two dark hands were clenched tightly, but soon loosened, as if expressing the uncle's helplessness.

In the face of natural disasters, human power does seem insignificant.

"Uncle, I still don't know your last name?" Su Chen then remembered that they had been chatting for such a long time but still didn't know what this uncle's name was.

"My last name is Wang Yinji!" the uncle said frankly.

Su Chen and the other three briefly introduced themselves and took Uncle Wang to the restaurant. While preparing to eat, they also listened to the story of this man who had dedicated half his life to the desert.

……

The lights in the restaurant were bright and warm, in stark contrast to the sandstorm raging outside.

Su Chen poured a cup of hot tea for Uncle Wang. The steam was thick and the wrinkles on the uncle's face seemed to become even deeper.

"Xiao Su, I'm sorry to have cost you money." Uncle Wang thought they would just have a simple meal of noodles or something, but he didn't expect Su Chen and the others to order seven or eight dishes in a row, and they were all meat dishes, which made him feel a little embarrassed.

"What's the big deal? Compared with your efforts, it's nothing." Su Chen patted Uncle Wang's arm, signaling him not to be so polite.

"Uncle Wang, you have been planting trees in Minqin for decades. Can you tell us the story of that place?"

As Lin Xiaoyu spoke, he took out his cell phone from his pocket, fixed it with a phone stand, and turned on the video recording.

Seeing the puzzled looks from Uncle Wang and Su Chen, he quickly explained, "I want to record the history of Uncle Wang's family's desert control and make a short video to let more people know about Uncle Wang and his family's efforts." "It can also let more people know that desert control is not easy, and it can also let more people join the ranks of desert control."

As expected of a former volunteer teacher, his brain works so quickly!
"Oh, this is not good. How can I be in front of the camera like this!" Uncle Wang said embarrassedly as he looked at his clothes that had turned white from washing.

"It's okay. Doesn't this just show how difficult it is for you, Uncle Wang, to control desertification?" Lin Xiaoyu comforted Wang Yinji with a smile, telling him not to have too many burdens.

Uncle Wang hesitated for a moment and nodded in agreement. He also wanted more people to understand the importance of sand control.

He took a sip from the teacup, stroking the rim with his rough fingers, his eyes became profound, "To talk about the story of sand control in Minqin, we have to start from my father's generation..."

His voice was low and hoarse, adding a sense of vicissitudes to the story he told.

"That was in the 1970s. Minqin County was sandwiched between the Tengger Desert and the Badain Jaran Desert. There were 300 days of wind a year and at least 100 days of sandstorms. This made Minqin increasingly worse at the time."

"Many locals in Minqin have moved away to other counties and cities, but in the end, only a small number of them have abandoned their hometown and left. The majority of them are reluctant to leave their hometown."

"My father Wang Dachang was one of the first people in Minqin to speak out about sand control!" Uncle Wang said as he took out an old black-and-white photo from his mobile phone album. In the photo, a thin man stood on top of a sand dune, with six people standing on each side, and behind him was endless yellow sand.

"Everyone laughed at him and said how could people survive the desert. But my father didn't believe it, so he led a dozen men from the village, carried dry food and water bottles, and went into the desert!"

Uncle Wang stroked the thin man in the photo with his rough fingers and said softly, "I still remember what my father said to the villagers. If no one stands up, Minqin will be swallowed by the desert sooner or later."

Su Yan couldn't help but interrupt and asked, "How did they control the sand at that time when there was no equipment and technology like today? Could it be that they used the grass grid sand barrier that we have now?"

Uncle Wang raised his lips slightly and nodded, saying, "It is indeed a grass grid sand barrier, but it should not be called a modern one. After all, this technology is what my father and his team learned from the experts at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and it has been used ever since."

Hearing this, Su Yan remembered what Uncle Wang and his elder brother had talked about before. It seemed that they had mentioned that the grass grid sand fixation technology has been used for decades.

"Uncle Wang, have you been following your father in sand control since you were a child?" Su Chen noticed the light flashing in Uncle Wang's eyes when he talked about his father.

"Yes!" Uncle Wang nodded with some reminiscence, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were relaxed a lot. "I remember that when I was just ten years old, my father made a small backpack for me with willow branches and asked me to carry wheat straw, branches and other things."

"I was still young at that time and didn't understand the significance of what my father and his friends were doing. I just thought playing in the sand was very interesting."

Speaking of this, Su Chen, Su Yan and Chen Fei nodded in tacit understanding. They were similar when they were young. Sometimes they could play with a stick or a stone for half a day.

"It was not until the severe sandstorm in 83... that I truly understood the significance of sand control." Uncle Wang's voice suddenly choked. He picked up the teacup and took two or three sips, his Adam's apple rolling violently.

Su Chen and the others also understood the meaning of these words. Something must have happened to make Uncle Wang lose his composure like this.

The atmosphere suddenly became solemn, the wind outside seemed to blow a little harder, and the sound of sand hitting the window was like raindrops.

"I still remember it. It was a very windy day. My father took us to the newly managed sand area to reinforce the grass grid. The sky suddenly darkened and the sand wall in the distance came over like a tsunami."

"My father told us kids to run to the nearest dugout, but he led the others to run in the opposite direction - they wanted to save the wheat straw, willow and saxaul seedlings that had just been brought in!"

Uncle Wang's voice became increasingly low, "Father and those uncles worked hard to rescue supplies in the sandstorm. Later... later when we found them in a sand pit three kilometers away, thirteen of them were holding hands and protecting the supplies under their bodies."

The atmosphere froze instantly!

Lin Xiaoyu covered her mouth with tears in her eyes. Even Su Chen and the other two clenched their fists.

"Uncle Wang, I'm sorry to remind you of this sad past." Su Chen's voice also became a little low.

Uncle Wang was stunned when he heard this, but when he saw the reactions of Lin Xiaoyu and others, he immediately realized that Su Chen and the others had misunderstood his words.

"Ahem~ Um... my father and those dozen uncles are not dead."

Ok?
Su Chen and the other three all looked at Uncle Wang with astonishment in their eyes, especially Lin Xiaoyu, whose tears were streaming down her cheeks without her noticing at all.

"Ah? Not... not dead?" Su Yan stuttered, but he immediately realized that he had said the wrong thing and quickly waved his hands to explain, "No, no, I mean, uncle, are your father and the others still alive?"

Uncle Wang was also amused by Su Yan's reaction. "Yes, they are all still alive! They were indeed seriously injured at the time, especially my father and several uncles who were almost suffocated by the sand. Fortunately, we found them in time, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous."

"Later, my father and his colleagues stayed in the hospital for nearly a month before returning to the front line of sand control. With the materials they rescued at that time, they saved the newly controlled sand area. The next year, many Haloxylon ammodendron and Salix psammophila trees grew in that area."

There was pride in his tone. That shade of green was something his father's generation fought for with their lives!

Su Chen exhaled, his heart was relieved, and he couldn't help laughing: "Uncle Wang, your tone just now, I thought..."

"Do you think they died?" Uncle Wang shook his head, his eyes firm. "Sand control workers will not fall down so easily! My father always said that as long as there is breath left, we must fight the desert to the end."

"My father and the first batch of uncles are still working on the front line of sand control. Even my son returned to his hometown after graduating from university to shoulder the heavy responsibility of sand control."

"It's amazing..." Chen Fei couldn't help but sigh, "This is the struggle history of several generations!"

Uncle Wang nodded, his eyes sparkling, "Yes, my father's generation risked their lives, our generation watered it with sweat, but the reality..."

“If there are more young people like you who are willing to learn about and participate in sand control, that is hope!”

"I believe that one day, we can make the Tengger and Badain Jaran deserts green again!"

Su Chen and the other three looked at each other, nodded heavily, and said in unison: "There will be such a day!"

At this time... the waiter from the service area restaurant brought up the dishes ordered by Su Chen and his friends. The tempting aroma made the five already hungry people even more greedy.

They immediately forgot about the heavy atmosphere just now, and the most important thing now was to fill their stomachs.

Su Chen greeted Uncle Wang and picked up his chopsticks to start eating.

Uncle Wang was a little shy at first, but after Su Chen's words, he calmed down.

The people at the table were eating and chatting, and from time to time there were a few laughs, which were some interesting things Uncle Wang shared with them when he was working on sand control. (End of this chapter)