As everyone busied themselves, time passed quickly, and the sky gradually darkened.

In the forest farm's floodlit sports field, a series of electric lights came on.

The temporary lights that had been strung up on the construction site were all turned on, illuminating the site as if it were daytime.

Looking at the scene before him, Sheng Xiping suddenly felt that it looked quite familiar.

"Hey? Don't you guys think this looks a bit like when we were studying in Songjianghe, and we were digging tunnels?"

Back then, none of the forest farms had middle schools, so after Sheng Xiping and his classmates finished primary school, they all went to Songjianghe to attend junior high school.

It just so happened that during those two years, the international situation was tense, and the higher authorities required every household to dig air-raid shelters.

In October, the school organized teachers and students to dig trenches in the vegetable garden south of the school.

The location is about 400-500 meters southeast of No. 1 Middle School, in a vegetable field near the firewood transport road.

At that time, the area consisted of ditches, ponds, and isolated mounds.

Under the guidance of their teacher, Sheng Xiping and others chose a mound and began digging with picks and shovels.

The next day, when the armed forces department came to take a look, they said that the almost straight trenches were not suitable and should be changed to a zigzag pattern.

So, what had just been dug up had to be filled in again.

While they were digging trenches here, news came from the other side that they were going to dig a well in the center of the school playground.

Explosives were placed below and detonated to conduct ground stress tests.

This glorious task fell to Sheng Xiping's class, which was then called a platoon.

No one expected that this would set off a massive tunnel-digging campaign across the entire No. 1 Middle School.

At that time, the students used pickaxes to break through the frozen layer and hard soil, digging vertically down to a diameter of nearly two meters.

After digging to a depth of four or five meters, they then began horizontal excavation.

When Sheng Xiping said that, Gao Haining and the others remembered.

"That's right. Back then, we went to great lengths to dig tunnels, even using tripods and pulleys."

Later, the day students stole light bulbs from their own homes and installed them in the tunnel to continue working.

"Yes, yes, I remember that back then, in order to save time, we didn't use pulleys to send us down, we just jumped down."

Regardless of whether they were male or female students, they all jumped straight down.

There happened to be a pile of soil underneath, which cushioned our fall. At that time, we were light on our feet and didn't care.

It seems like one day I arrived late, and you had all already jumped in.

I wanted to jump down too, but a female classmate grabbed me and insisted that I go down on a roller coaster.

Luckily, I went down on a pulley. When I got down, I saw several empty baskets, shovels, and pickaxes on the pile of dirt.

If I had jumped that day, I probably would have been crippled.

Wang Jianshe also recalled a particularly perplexing incident from back then. "I wonder where that female classmate is now?"

"What? You're still thinking about her, planning to repay her life with your body?"

Chen Weiguo and Sheng Xiping, who were standing nearby, started making fun of Wang Jianshe.

"That's nothing compared to Fengying, isn't it?"

One time she jumped down and sat on the mound of earth without moving. We were so worried that we kept calling out to her from above.

We later learned that she jumped so hard that her belt snapped.

The whole school was abuzz with the news, and everyone was laughing at her.

As expected of a childhood sweetheart, Ko Hoi-ning immediately brought up Tang Fung-ying's embarrassing incident from back then.

"Ahem, Haining, don't mention this again, or Fengying will beat you up if she finds out."

Sheng Xiping coughed twice, reminding Gao Haining not to get carried away.

Those female educated youths are also around here. If Tang Fengying finds out, Gao Haining will definitely be in big trouble.

Gao Haining's expression changed immediately upon hearing this, and she quickly glanced to the side.

Only after not seeing Tang Fengying did he breathe a sigh of relief and resume chatting with the others.

They were all fourteen or fifteen years old at the time, young and mischievous, and didn't want to study.

With such a fun activity, everyone is very enthusiastic.

Aside from eating and sleeping, they spent the rest of their time digging tunnels.

In the end, the underground was a network of tunnels that connected the playground to the canteen, dormitories, and classrooms.

Some students, out of curiosity, wandered around the tunnels, sometimes emerging from one classroom and sometimes popping out from another.

Later, the tunnel was still being dug and continuously improved. Wooden planks were installed at the entrance, and the main entrance was located under the podium on the playground.

Sheng Xiping vaguely remembers that later the roof ridge of the single-story classrooms on the south side of the No. 1 Middle School sank.

When the No. 1 Middle School rebuilds its west teaching building, the construction team will be in trouble.

There were so many tunnels to be dug that construction could only begin after all of them had been thoroughly explored.

Even so, that school building didn't last long.

Before his rebirth, Sheng Xiping had heard that the ground of the teaching building on the west side had sunk and the building was tilting and cracking.

I heard that it's still the effect of digging tunnels back then.

As they worked, they reminisced about the old days, talking about the funny things that happened back then, and burst into laughter every now and then.

Time flies by, and before we knew it, it was almost ten o'clock.

Normally, the power supply to the forest farm is cut off at 9 p.m., but this time, in order to work, it was extended to 10 p.m.

The loudspeaker started announcing that everyone should finish their work and stop for the day, resuming tomorrow night.

The group had already worked all day, and then came over to do volunteer work for three or four hours in the evening.

When I got home, I lay down on the kang (a heated brick bed), and I was so tired that I couldn't get up.

He couldn't care less about anything else and just lay down to sleep.

In the morning, Sheng Xiping couldn't get up either. No matter how the rooster crowed, he just turned over and continued to sleep.

I slept until six o'clock before getting up and hurriedly fetching several buckets of water.

"You must be exhausted from last night, why don't you go back to sleep for a while?"

Zhang Shuzhen also got up to cook. This morning's meal was simple: some porridge and some steamed buns.

"The second brother and the others are still asleep. It's Sunday and they don't have school today, so I didn't wake them up. Let them sleep for a while."

"No, the family team still has work to do today. They need to turn over that plot of land quickly, let it dry for a few days, and then they can plant radishes."

Mom, bring me some lunch later.

I won't come back for lunch during my break. I'll just grab something to eat on the field, and then I'll go into the woods to dig up some gastrodia elata or something.

Summer solstice has arrived, and the Gastrodia elata seedlings have already sprouted. This is the best time to harvest Gastrodia elata.

These days, there aren't many ways to make some money. Sheng Xiping didn't want to miss out on the good opportunities, especially since he earned quite a bit from Gastrodia elata this season.

"You're working in the family team, digging for gastrodia elata, and doing volunteer work at night. It's too tiring."

The second and third kids aren't in class today, right? I'll tell them later to go dig for gastrodia elata.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Shuzhen felt sorry for her son.

"Mom, that bookworm of a second son gets lost as soon as he enters the woods. Aren't you afraid he'll get lost?"

The third child is alright, but he's still young. How can we expect him to do much work?

Sheng Xiping shook his head. Of his two younger brothers, the youngest was quite capable, but unfortunately he was a bit too young.

Well, the second child is good at studying, but he's a bit lacking in other areas.