Chapter 979 Outline
After the storm subsided, Qi Tongwei erected a special device at the entrance of the village - a "ground resonator" made from abandoned mining equipment. Every night, this huge steel structure vibrates with the mountain wind, emitting a low hum that blends in with the temple bells and the sound of machines. Tourists say that the sound is like the earth chanting scriptures.
On a full-moon night, Qi Tongwei climbed up the back mountain alone. The pit left by the mining had been transformed into an artificial lake, and the shadow of the old locust tree was reflected on the lake. Data from the monitoring station showed that the microbial activity in this once-destroyed land exceeded that of the surrounding mountains and forests. He closed his eyes and heard the hum of the machines, the distant sound of the bells, and the chirping of insects, which woven into a grand symphony under the moonlight.
The little fox jumped onto his shoulder: "Look," it pointed to the lake. Under the moonlight, countless light spots rose from the bottom of the water and gathered into a flowing light band. "This is the music of the earth veins." Qi Tongwei suddenly remembered a sentence from the Book of Songs: "The sky is vast, the wilderness is boundless." At this moment, the mountains and forests are not another kind of vastness. It's just that in this vastness, there is no longer fear and confrontation, but it is full of the wisdom of dialogue and symbiosis.
Years later, when ecologists studied the miracle of this mountain village, they were always amazed at the perfect fusion of technology and tradition.
There was still morning dew hanging on the bright red flesh. The moment he bit into it, the sweet and sour juice exploded on the tip of his tongue, reminding him of that musty night twenty years ago.
"Old Qi! The professor from the Agricultural University is here!" Zhang Dazhu's voice came from outside the greenhouse. Qi Tongwei straightened up, and the old injury in his lower back ached again - it was caused when he was repairing the greenhouse. Today, Zhang Dazhu is no longer the rough man who held a hoe and opposed ecological planting. The organic watermelon garden he manages uses mountain spring water to irrigate the watermelon vines, and the sweetness can reach 18 degrees.
The conference room was packed with people. The white-haired professor of agronomy pushed up his reading glasses and shook his head as he looked at the test report: "The organic matter content of your soil has reached 4.2%, which is a miracle in the northern mountainous areas!" He pointed to the image under the microscope and said, "These earthworms and microbial communities are more active than those cultivated in our laboratory."
Qi Tongwei smiled and didn't mention his persistence over the years. Since the "fungal disaster", the village has set a rule: every winter, all greenhouses must be left fallow, covered with thick straw and cow dung to give the land a break. When turning the soil in spring, you can always see dense earthworms burrowing in the newly turned soil. Children chase the earthworms, and their giggles can be heard from far away.
The strawberry garden is Aunt Wang's "territory". The old lady, wearing a sun hat, was explaining to tourists: "Our strawberries are not grown with growth enhancers, so they are not big. But smell it, how nice it smells!" A tourist picked up his mobile phone to live broadcast. In the camera, Aunt Wang's wrinkled hands gently picked strawberries, with green vines and distant mountains in the background.
The story of the watermelon garden is even more interesting. Zhang Dazhu has figured out a set of folk methods of "growing watermelons by listening to music": every morning, he would play Buddhist scriptures and guzheng music in the watermelon field. "Don't tell me," he scratched the back of his head, "the watermelons grown by listening to music are crisper and sweeter than those grown elsewhere." Experts from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences came to study for a long time and finally concluded that sound wave vibrations may promote photosynthesis in plants.
Several young people were busy under the cucumber racks. They were the first batch of college students in the village, and after returning, they started to do vertical planting. The vines climbed up along the bamboo poles, and lettuce was planted underneath. "We use mushroom waste as fertilizer," said Xiao Li, who was wearing glasses and wiped his sweat, "This is called circular agriculture."
But the planting process is not that smooth. Last summer, a sudden hailstorm destroyed half of the watermelon garden. Zhang Dazhu squatted in the mud, looking at the cracked watermelons on the ground, crying. Unexpectedly, the next day, the whole village came to help with plastic sheets and bamboo poles. Aunt Wang brought mung bean soup and wiped her tears while saying, "We survived the greenhouse collapse that year, so why are we afraid of this little disaster?"
What makes Qi Tongwei most proud is the "small classroom" in the village. Every weekend, the children follow the technicians to the laboratory to observe soil samples and water the mushrooms. A girl named Xiaoyu also wrote an essay "The Singing Land" and won the first prize in the provincial essay competition.
The village today is no longer the poor mountain valley that depended on the weather for food. But some traditions have been preserved. On the first day of every month, villagers still go to the old locust tree to chant scriptures. The difference is that now the chanting is accompanied by the hum of drones spraying biological pesticides and the sound of water flowing from the smart drip irrigation system.
Once, a provincial leader came to inspect and looked at the green mountains. He said with emotion: "You have taken a new path for rural revitalization." Qi Tongwei remembered what the little fox said, that this is the tolerance of the land. Just like those strawberries, watermelons, and cucumbers, only by treating the land with sincerity, the land will give back the sweetest fruits.
After work in the evening, Qi Tongwei likes to take a walk along the ridges of the fields. The setting sun makes the soil golden, and the air is filled with the sweet fragrance of strawberries, the freshness of watermelons, and the fragrance of cucumbers. He often encounters children carrying schoolbags home from school, holding freshly picked cucumbers in their hands and chewing them while running.
Under the old locust tree in the distance, several tourists were surrounding Aunt Wang to buy strawberries. The old lady's white hair fluttered in the evening breeze, and the smile on her face was sweeter than the strawberries. Qi Tongwei looked at this scene and suddenly felt that the so-called truth of life might be hidden in the day-to-day farming, in every plump fruit, and in the tolerance and gifts given by the land.
As night fell, the lights at the monitoring station came on again.
"Here to make trouble again." He grabbed the flashlight and rushed out the door, his rubber soles rustling as they rolled over the gravel road. The shadow of the old locust tree stretched across the strawberry field. The moonlight dyed Aunt Wang's silver hair into a frosty color. She was still weighing strawberries for tourists. The fruits in the bamboo basket were red and almost eerie. When Qi Tongwei passed by, he heard a tourist lower his voice: "I heard that this village had a commotion before..."
The equipment room of the monitoring station was filled with the smell of burnt circuit boards. On the main control screen, a satellite map representing the "Belt and Road" agricultural cooperation project was flashing, and the area that was supposed to show the Southeast Asian cooperation base was now covered with spider-web-like garbled characters. The old phonograph in the corner suddenly started to play the hoarse "Colorful Clouds Chasing the Moon", and the dust shaken off by the copper horn danced wildly in the beam of light.
"Don't hide!" Qi Tongwei shouted at the shadow. Black fur oozed out from the corner of the wall and condensed into the shape of a little fox, holding a half-broken sensor cable in its mouth. "Did you do this on purpose?" Qi Tongwei frowned, but the little fox threw the cable to the ground, turning it into tangled mycelium, with a vague human face outline emerging at the end.