Year after year, days pass by

The wind was getting stronger and stronger at night, and there was no starlight in the night sky. Pei Xu was still worried in the middle of the night, so he got up and took the plastic film to the field to cover the machine. The noise woke Jiang Lin up. Jiang Lin got up in his down jacket and rubbed his eyes, asking the photography teacher on duty: "Did Pei Xu go out just now?"

"Yes, I just went out for two minutes."

Jiang Lin hurriedly chased after him. Pei Xu turned around when he heard the footsteps. Jiang Lin ran towards him against the light. Pei Xu stood there motionless, staring at him. The hair on his forehead that was blown up made him look even more youthful. Jiang Lin stopped and panted slightly, saying, "It turned out that it was you, a big rat, who was rustling around in the corner tearing off the plastic film in the middle of the night."

Pei Xu said softly, "It's too dark. I'm worried it might rain in the middle of the night. I'll cover the machine first. If another machine breaks down, I won't be able to afford the compensation even if I sell it."

Jiang Lin pretended to look him up and down and joked, "You can barely be considered good-looking. I can introduce you to my friend's place to be a live broadcaster. Do you know what a group broadcast is?"

Pei Xu said with interest: "I don't know, please teach me, Master Jiang."

Jiang Lin took out his phone and searched for group broadcast on short videos, and many live group broadcasts popped up. "The media company is recruiting a group of handsome men and beautiful women to form a male group broadcast and a female group broadcast. They will dance randomly according to the number of gifts given by the audience. The dance is not difficult. If you can't do it, you can make up for it with your looks. To put it bluntly, it's a live broadcast with your looks. You should stop being a new farmer. Your looks are barely enough for this job."

Pei Xu teased himself in an exaggerated tone: "Me? Me! I'm a PhD and I want to be a dancing anchor? They dare to look at the edge, but I don't dare to touch it."

Jiang Lin smiled and said, "Why don't you just wear a suit and live broadcast your farming in the fields, and the live broadcast effect will be maximized."

The two chatted and laughed as they finished their work. The next morning, when they started working, many villagers were already in the field with their own shovels to help repair the ridges and ditches. Pei Xu asked Aunt Li, "Aunt, why are you here?"

"It's going to rain in the next two days, so we're here to help you catch up and finish it today. Your subsequent work will be much smoother."

Pei Zongli was wearing a straw hat and working quietly in the area that Xiang Chuzhe was in charge of. Pei Qi whispered, "Ali, don't be angry with Xiao Xu. Since he is determined to do it, we should support him."

Pei Zongli shoveled up a thick mass of soil and covered the ridge, and said, "Seventh Master, that's right, so I secretly mobilized everyone to help these children last night. After watching them work well for so many days, I thought that since the children are determined to do this business, I, as a parent, can no longer speak ill of them or lose face. It's not appropriate."

Pei Qi praised sincerely: "These kids work really hard, and I never saw them complain. When they are tired, they chat and laugh with each other, chasing each other and playing around. They are all kids from the city, and they are amazing."

Xiang Chuzhe was driving a machine to make ridging, looking at the villagers wearing straw hats on the other side with confusion, and said to himself: "There is no sun today, so no one is working with straw hats. The uncle is also wearing sun protection measures on a cloudy day. He has a good awareness of sun protection."

It was not until the afternoon that Xiang Chuzhe recognized him and exclaimed, "Uncle Li, it's you! Why are you here to help with the work? Does Brother Xu know you are here?"

Pei Zongli looked around in panic. Fortunately, Pei Xu was far away. He approached Xiang Chuzhe and whispered, "Xiao Xiang, uncle wants to discuss something with you. Just pretend you didn't see me in the field and don't tell Pei Xu, okay?"

Xiang Chuzhe climbed onto the machine, made an OK gesture to him, and said readily: "No problem, I will never tell Brother Xu." But after Pei Zongli turned around, he took a photo of him and sent it to the group with the caption: "My father's back."

Machines and humans worked together to turn the turned land into ridges with uniform spacing and width. Night gradually fell, and Cheng Enyue parked the car on the ground in front of Pei Qi's house. Aunts and grandmothers helped carry the ingredients from the trunk back to the yard.

Cheng Enyue carried two bags of flour into the yard, and his clothes were stained with some of it.

Liu Chunling said: "Xiao Cheng, you are stronger, come and help me knead the dough."

Cheng Enyue put all his energy into kneading the dough. Liu Chunling was adding water with a spoon. He joked, "What if we add too much water?"

Liu Chunling laughed: "If there is too much water, add noodles; if there is too much noodles, add water."

Cheng Enyue couldn't stop laughing and praised, "Oh, grandma looks so fashionable, she even knows this joke."

Liu Chunling said with a smile: "My granddaughter told me about it when she came back for the Chinese New Year and helped me make bread and dumplings. I remembered it."

"Grandma, why don't you go live in the city with your children?"

Liu Chunling added water while saying, "My grandfather and I are old. We have to take a car to buy groceries in the city. We are not familiar with the roads. The children are also very tired from work. When we are not around, they can have more space and sleep later on their days off."

Cheng Enyue mixed flour and water and gradually formed a dough. The aunts were washing vegetables in a stainless steel basin in the yard. The lights flickered from time to time due to insufficient voltage. Cheng Enyue said happily: "Today is New Year's Day. We are ready to step into the new year."

The aunties picked off the yellow garlic and green onion leaves and said with emotion: "Yes, year after year, another year has passed in the blink of an eye, and the days just pass by. I don't make any money all year round, and I don't have any career. It's just like this."

Cheng Enyue handed Liu Chunling a rolling pin and said with deep sympathy: "I was 20 when I debuted. This year I am 24. After today I will be 25. I am still a nobody in the industry and have not made any achievements. My relatives often ask me why I haven't seen any performances on TV. I always say it will be soon, but year after year I am still not seen."

Aunt Liang comforted him: "You are still young. Now it is the world of young people like you. You know everything. It was our children who taught us to use WeChat and buy things online in recent years. Otherwise, we wouldn't know how to do it."

Cheng Enyue pointed outside in surprise and asked, "How do you sell the mangoes in the village?"

"When it's mango harvest season, there will be mango buyers in the village who will come to buy the fruit. We will go up the mountain to pick the fruit in the morning, and then weigh and take it away in the afternoon."

Cheng Enyue was shocked. He originally thought that such a large-scale planting in the whole village would have formed a systematic and mature online sales model, but he did not expect that it was a traditional low-price purchase method. He asked: "What varieties of mangoes are grown in our village? What is the average price for fruit merchants to purchase from the village?"

Aunt Xu said while cutting garlic: "We grow several varieties, such as Tainong, including large Tainong and small Tainong, Jinhuang mango, Guifei mango, and our unique Guire 82 variety. Tainong is the first variety to mature and be picked. The purchase price is 1.5 to 3.5 yuan on average. The price of early fruits will be higher. Later, when the quantity is large, the fruits will be worthless."

Cheng Enyue said thoughtfully: "The money earned is from rushing to the early morning market."

Aunt Song took out a large basket for vegetables and added, "Fruits are not only determined by the time they are put on the market, but also by the quality of the fruits. Fruits with scars or spots cannot be sold at a high price."

Cheng Enyue began to help roll out the dough and continued to ask, "What are the prices of other varieties?"

Aunt Xu said: "The prices of other varieties are similar, basically fluctuating between 1.5 and 4 yuan. In addition to the specially selected first-grade fruits, which can be close to 3 yuan, the fruits of all grades are sold at a low price of more than 1 yuan in a bumper year, and fluctuate around 2 yuan in a normal production year. In a year with reduced production due to drought or flood, the price rises slightly, close to 3 yuan."

The price of just over one yuan, about two yuan, hit Cheng Enyue's head like a hammer. After a while, he still couldn't believe it. He calculated in shock: "Doesn't that mean the purchase price of 100 kilograms of fruit is less than 200 yuan, or even around 200 yuan?"

Aunt Song said: "That's the price. Fruit vendors all offer similar prices. They have to sell even if they pay less. It's a pity to cut down the fruit trees. There's nothing else to do at home. If you don't pick or sell the fruit because you don't want to make enough money, the fruit will ripen and rot on the trees. You won't make any money, and you still have to pay for fertilizers."

Aunt Xu cut a large pot of garlic. Cheng Enyue put down the rolling pin and helped carry it to the stove. Liu Chunling had already cleaned the big pot and was making a fire.

Cheng Enyue suggested: "Then we can try online sales this year. Mangoes have a very wide audience, especially in the north. The price of mangoes in supermarkets is not cheap. We can customize exclusive cartons online with simple logos or patterns. There are many ways to promote, such as live sales on short video platforms, soft-text promotion and sales on social apps. Except for the express and packaging fees, the profit of individual sales is higher than selling to fruit merchants at wholesale prices."

Liu Chunling said: "We are too old to do these things, and our children also think that growing mangoes is not worth much money. In recent years, they have begun to ask us not to take care of it. We can't sell them ourselves, so we can only let others harvest them."

Aunt Song frowned and said, "We usually watch TV and use our phones to see some young people selling fruits online. We also want to learn their advanced methods, but we can't do it. We don't even know where the tricks are. What should we do? The fruits on the trees don't wait for anyone. In hot weather, they will be ripe overnight."

Cheng Enyue nodded: "That's true. Farmers depend on the weather for their livelihood and have to chase the time. We have been working hard these past few days, fearing that it would rain and make it difficult to work."

Liu Chunling looked back at him with a kind smile and praised him, "You guys might be able to do it. Before you came, Jiang Lin lived in my house and followed us to cut sugarcane before dawn. He carried all the sugarcane by himself and didn't want me and your Seventh Master to carry it together, for fear that we would hurt our waists."

Cheng Enyue pretended to be jealous: "Grandma is biased. She praised Brother Lin in front of me."

Liu Chunling was amused by him and smiled: "You are also very capable. I saw you operate the machine in the field. You can also cook. Jiang Lin even praised your cooking skills to me."

"Now I'm not jealous anymore."

The wind was getting stronger and stronger. The production crew urgently sent more people to hold the headlights. Pei Xu asked about the progress on the intercom: "Brothers, how are you doing?"