Chapter 28: The old breed that has withered
# Chapter 28: The old breed that is withered and defeated
The early summer breeze should be filled with the sweet scent of strawberries. When Lin Xiaoman opened the window, she was still clutching the strawberry jam bread she had prepared for Xiaochen. The jam was freshly made yesterday and still had a warm aroma. But what reached her nose wasn't sweetness, but a faint burnt smell, like the astringency of over-dried grass leaves.
Her heart skipped a beat, and she put the bread on the stove and hurried to the old variety base. As soon as she turned the corner, she saw several strawberry seedlings in the parent-child planting area drooping. The leaves were curled dark brown, with burnt edges. The once bright red fruits were covered in a layer of gray, and even the light lines on the skin, formed by uniform pollination, were almost invisible. A child's small plastic shovel was still stuck in the soil, the damp soil on the shovel tip had long since dried into a hard lump, obviously from playing there yesterday.
"Sister Xiaoman! Come quickly!" Xiao Zhou, who was in charge of morning patrol, came running over in a panic, holding a tomato leaf in his hand and rubbing the edge with his fingertips. "The yellow edge of the tomato leaf is gone! I told you yesterday afternoon that the 'golden edge' of this batch of old varieties is more obvious than last year. How did it disappear overnight?"
Lin Xiaoman squatted down and touched the scorched leaves of the strawberry seedlings with her fingertips. They were as dry as dead leaves that had been left for half a month. She dug up the soil at the roots. The soil particles were still a little damp - not because of lack of water, but because they were scorched by the scorching midday sun. Even the earthworms in the soil had stopped moving. At this time, Chen Wang came from the direction of the workshop carrying a bamboo frame with a swing he had made for Xiaochen tied to it. Seeing the scene in the field, he stopped in his tracks and stabbed the bamboo frame into the ground with a "dong". "What's going on? It was fine when I inspected it yesterday evening."
"I don't know," Lin Xiaoman pulled out his phone and opened the weather app. The number "38°C" on the screen glared. "The temperature has been five degrees higher than in previous years, and it hasn't rained yet. Could it be the extreme heat? Old varieties are inherently less heat-resistant than ordinary varieties."
As soon as he finished speaking, he heard Xiaochen's childish sobs coming from the tomato seedlings he'd planted. They ran over and saw Xiaochen crouched on the ground, hugging the stem, beneath a half-man-high tomato seedling. Tears smeared all over his face, and in his hands clutched a wrinkled drawing—a tomato seedling he'd drawn yesterday, with Wangfu's smiling face painted on it. He'd tied it to the seedling with a red string, now brittle from the sun. The leaves of the tomato seedling were falling one by one, the once-stretched new leaves now curled up like dried shrimp.
"Dad, Mom, Miaomiao is dying..." Xiaochen saw them and threw himself into Chen Wang's arms, his voice choked with sobs, "It was still growing new leaves yesterday, but it's wilted today."
Chen Wang picked up his son, gently patting his back, his eyes dark. Lin Xiaoman quickly dug out her grandfather's old notebook, the pages curled at the edges. Her fingertips paused on the line that read, "Old varieties are sensitive to sudden heat; they need to conserve moisture and cool the soil, and avoid dry heat and scorching temperatures." Her voice tightened, "We need to quickly put up a shade net and bring in mountain spring water to water the roots—the cool spring water can alleviate the root system's heat stress!"
The villagers quickly gathered upon hearing the commotion. Uncle Li, carrying a large roll of sunshade netting, his clothes sticking to his back with sweat, was still panting. "I took down all the netting we use to cover our corn and will make do with this for now! We can't let anything happen to our old crops!" Aunt Wang, carrying two metal buckets, the ropes on the handles polished to a shine, was a vintage bucket she'd used for years. "I just fetched some mountain spring water yesterday. It can be diverted along the canal that runs along the ridge of the field. I'll water the most wilted beds first!" Grandma Zhang had also arrived, carrying an enamel basin filled with crushed ice cubes she'd bought from the town's cold storage. "Wrap it in gauze and apply it to the roots of the seedlings to lower the soil temperature. We used to do that to save seedlings, and it works!"
Everyone worked all morning, stretching a shade net over the base, letting spring water flow through the canal into the fields, and applying ice. But the scorched leaves of the strawberry seedlings showed no improvement; instead, several plants withered completely. The tomato seedlings not only failed to regain their original "golden edges," but even their green color faded, turning gray. Most worryingly, Xiaochen's tomato seedlings had lost several more leaves, leaving only bare stems standing. The painting on the red string had faded from the sun.
That afternoon, news arrived on the fruit samples sent for inspection. Chen Wang's knuckles turned white as he gripped the phone. After hanging up, he was silent for a long moment before speaking. "Experts say we're in an abnormally high-temperature zone here, and soil moisture is dropping too quickly. Older varieties have shallow roots, so absorption can't keep up with transpiration, and they've already begun to deteriorate physiologically. The sweetness of the fruit has dropped by half, coloring is uneven, and there are more deformed fruit. Even the kernels of our previously stable double-kernel walnuts have shrunk."
"What about my strawberry jam orders?" Aunt Wang sat on the edge of a field, clutching an order sheet densely covered with customer names. "It's already 300 orders this month. If the fruit isn't sweet enough and the jam turns out bland, how am I going to explain it to them?"
Chen Wang said nothing. He pulled out his phone and opened his album, "Old Variety Planting Diary," filled with photos from previous years: last summer's tomato seedlings, their leaves edged in pale yellow, their edges sharp, like a shimmering circle; double-kernel walnuts hanging from the branches, their shells smooth; Xiaochen's first strawberries, plump and bright red. He looked up at the fields before him, a gray haze all over. His heart felt heavy, like a lump of wet mud.
Over the next three days, the heat didn't subside, but intensified. The wilted area at the base expanded from a few plots to half the park. The new seedlings in the nursery shed wilted overnight, their leaves wrinkled and falling at the slightest touch. The cultural and creative workshops halted operations, and uncanned strawberry jam piled on the countertops. Because the freshly picked strawberries weren't sweet enough, the resulting jam lacked the richness of previous years. Refund requests piled up in the e-commerce backend. Xiao Zhou, the e-commerce manager, came running over with a wrinkled order form, his voice trembling: "Mr. Chen, the foreign buyer wants to cancel their order, citing concerns about quality. Eight parents have canceled their study tours for next week, saying they're worried the older varieties won't grow well and their children will be disappointed."
Lin Xiaoman was watering Xiaochen's tomato seedlings with mountain spring water when she heard this. Her kettle dropped with a clang, spilling water everywhere. She squatted down to pick it up and saw Xiaochen squatting beside her, holding a bottle of strawberry jam he'd given her yesterday. There was a little heart he'd drawn on the bottle, but he hadn't opened the lid. He was just staring at the seedlings in a daze. "Xiaochen, why aren't you eating?" Lin Xiaoman patted his head.
Xiaochen shook his head and pushed the sauce aside: "Miaomiao is not sweet anymore, and the sauce is not tasty anymore."
On the morning of the fourth day, a brief thunderstorm struck. Everyone thought the situation would improve, but as soon as the rain stopped, Lin Xiaoman noticed something was wrong: the raindrops were warm on the tips of the leaves, not cooling them at all. Before long, the leaves of the tomato seedlings began to rot, a thin layer of white mold forming on them. The wind carried the stench of decay throughout the field.
"It's downy mildew caused by high temperature and high humidity!" Lin Xiaoman flipped through his grandfather's notes, his hands shaking. "Grandpa wrote that old varieties have weak disease resistance. They're most susceptible to the disease when exposed to sudden heat and rain, and it spreads quickly! We need to spray them with fungicides right away!"
The villagers' anxiety was unbearable. Some suggested pulling out all the diseased plants to prevent contagion; others sighed, "I'm afraid they can't be saved." Uncle Li squatted under the old pear tree, smoking his pipe, turning it back and forth in his hands. He was silent for a long time before finally mumbling, "Let's go to town tomorrow to get some ice and buy some fungicide. We can't just give up like this—the old varieties are the roots of our village."
Chen Wang stood in the middle of the field, watching the withered seedlings. He glanced at Xiaochen, crouched beside the tomato seedlings, and Lin Xiaoman, struggling to sort the watering can. His heart felt like it was being scorched. He picked up a misshapen strawberry and placed it in his palm. The skin was rough, no longer plump. Then, an old pear tree leaf fell, landing squarely on the back of his hand. The edge was a little scorched—the old pear tree couldn't stand the heat.
"Xiaoman," Chen Wang walked over to Lin Xiaoman and gently held her hand. Her hand was a little cold and covered in dirt. "Let's think of something else. The experts said 'physiological degeneration,' not 'absolute crop failure.' We can always find a way to remedy the situation."
Lin Xiaoman looked up at him, bloodshot eyes, but nodded, clutching Grandpa's notebook in her arms as if clinging to a last shred of hope. As the night deepened, the stench of decay from the base grew stronger. Wangfu lay sprawled on the edge of the field, tail drooping, occasionally letting out a low whimper.
But he didn't expect that even more difficult things were yet to come - the town's cold storage said that the ice stock was insufficient, and the mountain spring water level was also dropping. They didn't have much time left.
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