The kang (heated brick bed) for left-behind women

The lanterns for the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month have just been taken down, and the weather is getting warmer day by day.

The contract has been signed.

The contract is for a five-year term, covering 25 mu of barren slope. For the first two years, a symbolic fee of one yuan per mu will be charged, and from the third year onwards, the fee will be five yuan per mu.

As soon as the snow melted and the ground became tready for footing, Lin Dachun couldn't sit still any longer.

Before dawn, Lin Dachun and Li Ruoxue went up the mountain fully armed.

Lin Dachun carried two gleaming pickaxes and shovels, while Li Ruoxue carried a basket containing a water bottle and dry rations.

Standing on the edge of the contracted land, the scene was even more desolate than it appeared from a distance.

The slope is steep, covered with gravel and stubborn clumps of grass. The withered wormwood from last autumn is taller than a person and rustles in the cold wind.

A few clumps of wild, gnarled old sea buckthorn are scattered here and there, like guardians of this land.

"Let's start from here. You lend a hand, don't get tired, I'll do the work." Lin Dachun chose a relatively gentle slope with fewer loose rocks, spat into his palm, rubbed it, and gripped the pickaxe tightly.

Lin Dachun wanted Li Ruoxue to have a good life, not for her to suffer with him.

"Hi--!"

With a low growl, the heavy pickaxe slammed into the hardened soil, sending up a few specks of mud.

Although the surface of the frozen soil had thawed, the soil underneath remained hard, and the first dig only managed to create a small pit.

Ignoring everything else, Lin Dachun swung his pickaxe, one stroke after another, the rhythmic "thump-thump" sound breaking the silence of the mountains and startling several sparrows foraging in the nearby bushes.

Li Ruoxue was also busy.

She used a sickle to cut down the withered grass, clearing a space. Then, carrying a shovel, she followed behind Lin Dachun, further breaking up the large clods of soil he had loosened, picking out the pebbles inside, and throwing them aside.

When she encountered small, stubborn grass roots, she would squat down and carefully remove them little by little with her hands.

This is purely physical labor; there's no way to take shortcuts.

During their rest, the two sat on a rock and ate hard cornbread with cold water.

Lin Dachun looked at the land in front of him, which had been cultivated for less than half an acre and still showed the fresh color of the soil, and then looked at the blisters on his hands. He didn't say a word, but his eyes were harder than the pickaxe in his hand.

The sun rises higher and then begins to set in the west.

After a whole day of hard work, the two of them could only barely cultivate less than an acre of decent land.

My palms are chafed, my shoulders ache, and my legs feel like they're filled with lead.

But looking back at the cleared land, gleaming with a deep brown luster in the setting sun, a small but real sense of accomplishment overcame the exhaustion.

"We'll have to keep going tomorrow. You don't need to come tomorrow; I can handle it all by myself," Lin Dachun said, looking at the land reclamation work done that day.

This land reclamation is a very tough job.

"It's okay, hmm." Li Ruoxue patted the dirt off her clothes, looked up at the sunset in the west, and said, "Shouldn't we start seedlings first? Just scattering the seeds here probably won't work, will it?"

Lin Dachun nodded: "Yes, we need to start seedling cultivation. I've inquired about it. We need to find a good, sheltered, and sunny spot first, prepare a seedbed, process the seeds before sowing them, and wait until the seedlings grow to about a hand's length tall before transplanting them. This prepared land is perfect for nurturing the seedlings first, and we can plant them directly once they're healthy."

"Let's go, that's enough for today." Lin Dachun packed up his farm tools and went down the mountain with Li Ruoxue to go home.

The news of Lin Dachun and Li Ruoxue clearing land and planting sea buckthorn spread like wildfire throughout every nook and cranny of Linchangtun.

It became the most popular and most laughable topic of conversation in the village after the Lunar New Year.

Several women were gathered together by the well, carrying water.

"Have you heard? Lin Dachun has leased that rocky slope at Yefuling, saying he's going to plant sea buckthorn and make a fortune!"

"What? A sour thorny bark? My goodness, did he lose his brain and get a shock? Has his brain gone mad?" The speaker winked and made faces.

"Exactly! That stuff is everywhere, it's so sour it makes your teeth ache, even pigs wouldn't eat it if you fed it to them, let alone get rich? Dreaming of marrying a wife—you're just dreaming!"

"I think he's gone mad from messing around with Li Ruoxue behind closed doors!!"

A burst of laughter followed the creaking of the well pulley.

Some people even "kindly" went to the land Lin Dachun had reclaimed and pointed fingers at it:

"Brother Dachun, take a break! You're wasting your energy! With this effort, you could carry heavy loads in town for two days; that would be better than this!"

"Ruoxue, quickly persuade your Dachun not to waste his time! If that thing could be sold for money, our village would have become a village of ten-thousand-yuan households long ago!"

Cold words, ridicule, and doubt, like the still biting cold wind after the start of spring, rushed towards Lin Dachun and Li Ruoxue from all directions.

Li Ruoxue is young and easily embarrassed. Sometimes, when she hears this, she gets so angry that her eyes turn red, and she unconsciously pulls the weeds a little harder.

She bit her lip, remaining silent, but instead swung the pickaxe even harder, as if to smash all her grievances and resentment into the stubborn earth.

Lin Dachun's reaction was completely different.

He acted as if he hadn't heard those words at all.

People were laughing and talking loudly at the edge of the field, but he didn't even look up. He focused intently on clearing the stones, shovel by shovel, as steady as a mountain.

When someone approached to "advice" him, he would only give a perfunctory "uh-huh" or "ah" while continuing his work without slowing down.

After finishing his work on the mountain that evening, Lin Dachun returned to his cave dwelling, feeling utterly exhausted.

While rubbing her aching shoulders, Li Ruoxue couldn't help but say, "Sigh, them..."

"What they say doesn't matter," Lin Dachun interrupted her, swallowing his coarse cornbread with warm water. His tone was as calm as if he were talking about the weather. "We leased the land, we sweated the sweat, and we'll be the ones harvesting the fruit. They're laughing now because they think we're foolish. Once our sea buckthorn grows into a forest, bears fruit, and we make money, they won't be laughing anymore."

He looked at Li Ruoxue, his eyes unusually firm under the kerosene lamp: "What we need to do now is to focus on our work, prepare the land, and plant the seedlings. Don't let those words distract us or waste our energy. That would be truly foolish."

Looking at Lin Dachun's face, which was dark and rough from the mountain wind but full of unquestionable authority, Li Ruoxue's grievances and wavering suddenly dissipated.

Yes, we chose our own path, so why should we let other people's words crush us?

"Yes, I understand." Li Ruoxue nodded emphatically.

This huge wasteland was reclaimed by Lin Dachun, hoe by hoe.

"I'll start planting the seedlings tomorrow. This first step is very important." Lin Dachun was actually quite scared, afraid that he wouldn't be able to grow the sea buckthorn and would become a laughing stock.