My abstract plant was exposed by my sister.

Da Liu looked up, snot still clinging to his lips, his eyes swollen like peaches: "Really?"

"Really, the subject is called the 'Fructus Aurantii Immaturus' Emotional Tolerance Test. The faster you recover, the stronger your willpower is."

Da Liu wiped his nose, sniffed, and asked with a hint of hope in his voice, "So, do I consider myself to have completed my mission?"

"No, you haven't exceeded twenty minutes yet; everyone else has been up to half an hour."

Liu's tears flowed again, but this time the corners of his mouth turned up slightly—an expression that was both crying and laughing at the same time, distorted like an abstract painting: "Thank you, Captain, you're so good to me, I'll try my best."

Wu Tao patted him on the shoulder: "It's my duty."

Bullet comments:

"Is Wu Tao a PhD in psychology?"

"They managed to make this all believable." "Da Liu was fooled and even moved." "The camaraderie among soldiers brought tears to my eyes—no, I laughed until I cried."

About twenty minutes later, Da Liu's crying gradually subsided.

He looked up, his eyes red and swollen like two lychees, his nose glistening, and his face covered in a mixture of tears and snot.

He looked at the thorn in his hand, which he was still clutching tightly, his nails digging into his palm. He then looked at his comrades who were watching, and at Lin Muyang, who was expressionless.

"What...did I just say?"

No one answered; all five comrades simultaneously hid their phones behind their backs.

"What did I say?!" His voice rose eight octaves, trembling with a sense of impending collapse.

Wu Tao coughed and said, "You said you have a third-class merit award."

"That's true!"

"You still say you got it by rubbing it in."

Da Liu's face went from red to white, then from white to purple, like an eggplant that was about to expire.

He suddenly stood up, threw the thorn in his hand on the ground, and turned to leave.

He took three steps, then turned back, picked up the thorn, and stuffed it into his pocket. "I'll keep this. To remind myself."

He left, his back stiff, like a telephone pole bent by the wind, his ears so red they could fry an egg.

The comments section was still incredibly fun:

"Da Liu She is dead."

"He actually kept that thorn; he's ruthless."

"No, he keeps it to remind himself not to touch it again."

Wu Tao watched Da Liu's retreating figure, sighed, and turned to Lin Muyang, saying, "Teacher Lin, we'll be more careful during patrols from now on."

Wu Tao glanced at the wall made of bitter orange peel, then at his eager soldiers, whose eyes lit up as if they had seen a new toy.

"Who else wants to try?" No one spoke, but three people raised their hands, looking eager to try.

Wu Tao took a deep breath: "Haven't you embarrassed yourself enough? Go back! Run five kilometers!"

The three men put their hands down and ran away.

That evening, Da Liu didn't come out for dinner. Wu Tao brought the food to his bedside, but he covered himself with the blanket and said, "I'm not hungry."

Wu Tao said earnestly, "Da Liu, no one is laughing at you."

A muffled voice came from under the covers: "I'm laughing at myself."

Wu Tao placed the food on the bedside table, turned, and left. As he reached the door, he heard Da Liu say:

"Captain, could we give that plant to the new recruits? Let them experience what despair is like beforehand."

Wu Tao patted him on the shoulder: "Da Liu, you should be kinder."

After Liu Xudong's death, the remaining five veterans maintained a high degree of reverence for the Zhi Ke Wall.

When patrolling, they would rather take a detour and walk an extra 200 meters than pass by that green wall.

Team leader Wu Tao drew a red line on the duty roster and wrote "Citrus aurantium restricted area," followed by three exclamation marks in red pen.

Wu Tao's hometown is in rural Shandong. He grew up working in the fields with his parents, and he was good at everything from wheat and corn to peanuts and sweet potatoes.

Before retiring from the army, he had been in charge of agricultural and sideline production in the army for two years, leading a squad to cultivate 30 mu of greenhouses.

Of the remaining few people, two were from rural backgrounds, had farmed before, and knew the basic operations.

After spending more than an hour figuring out the specific situation of the wasteland, they immediately began preparations.

Wu Tao dialed the number Lin Muyang had given him and spoke to him in Mandarin with a Sichuan accent: "The agricultural machine will arrive in twenty minutes."

"How much per mu?" Liu Xudong asked curiously.

"eighty."

"Twenty mu costs 1,600 yuan, which is much more expensive than our labor."

"But it's faster than doing it by hand; it can be finished in a day." Wu Tao put his phone away: "Even if we six people turned them over by hand, it would take us a week to finish. We still need to save our strength for building sheds and transplanting afterwards."

Liu Xudong nodded and said nothing more.

Twenty minutes later, a red rotary tiller chugped to the edge of the field. The driver was a middle-aged man in his forties, with dark skin, wearing a straw hat, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

He jumped off the tractor, looked at Wu Tao, then at Lin Muyang: "Which one is the boss?"

Lin Muyang pointed to himself: "The ground has been completely turned over, to a depth of about twenty centimeters."

The driver threw the cigarette butt on the ground, stomped it out, climbed back into the car, and lit it.

The blade shaft at the back of the rotary tiller begins to rotate, cutting into the soil, breaking up clods, and turning over loose, fine soil.

Wu Tao squatted on the edge of the field, grabbed a handful of turned soil, squeezed it, and smelled it.

"Good. The depth is sufficient, and the soil is broken up evenly." He turned to the soldiers and said, "You all need to learn this. Turning the soil isn't about brute force; it's about adjusting the soil to a state suitable for root growth."

Xiao Zhao squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and looked at it: "Captain, what's the difference between this soil and the soil we turn by hand?"

Wu Tao scattered the soil in his hands and stood up. "Turning soil by hand easily results in large clumps that need to be broken up. This rotary tiller does it in one go, saving time."

Liu Xudong chimed in from the side, "Then why do we still have to mow the lawn by hand?"

Wu Tao glanced at him: "This is to teach you a lesson. Don't be so impulsive as to pull out the thorns of the trifoliate orange tree in the future."

Liu Xudong shut up.

The rotary tiller made more than a dozen rounds in the field, and in less than two hours, all twenty acres of land were plowed.

The driver turned off the engine, jumped out, took the 1,600 yuan that Lin Muyang handed him, counted it, stuffed it into his pocket, and drove off with the rotary tiller.

Next comes ridging. Wu Tao said to Lin Muyang, "We don't need machines for ridging anymore; we'll do it ourselves. Ridges made by hand are smoother."

Lin Muyang nodded, and Wu Tao picked up a shovel, squatted down, and started piling soil with the shovel. In no time, a straight ridge appeared.

He stood up, stepped on the top of the ridge with his foot, and patted the side with his hand. The ridge was firm and flat, and the width and height were just right.

Lin Muyang measured it with a tape measure: the ridge width was 79 centimeters, the ridge height was 19 centimeters, and the spacing between the ridges was 40 centimeters. "A little off. But it's usable."

Wu Tao nodded: "I'll be more careful next time."

The others followed Wu Tao and began to build the ridges.

Lin Muyang himself went into the greenhouse. He had important things to do: prepare the appropriate concentration of induction solution and treat the tomato seeds.